storage Archives | Heavenly Homemakers

I know, I know…I haven’t posted the storage room pictures (aka freaky-mess-scary pictures) yet. You talked me into at least taking the pictures and they’ve been uploaded and everything. But I just didn’t see how posting my scary storage room pictures would be a good thing to share for Gratituesday.

I am thankful to have a storage room and enough stuff to make it messy, but still, I like keeping Gratituesday a place of refreshment…not a place to make you run screaming away from my site.

And so, I’ll wait a little while longer to post those pictures (but really, they are coming soon). In the meantime, think grateful thoughts and don’t try to imagine how messy my storage room is. It’s Gratituesday, after all.

I will share that while I was getting myself very dirty and having some very productive storage-room-cleaning-out time today, I found a nice stash of big plastic storage containers. I love glass jars best, but for bulk dry ingredients, it’s great to have big ol’ plastic buckets and jugs for storage. I forgot I had these containers, so I was very happy to dump out the dust and dead crickets (told you that room was scary) so that I can use them again!

I got them all washed up, so soon they’ll be ready to be put to good use in my new organizational system for food storage. I’m very excited and feel good about the headway I’ve made so far!!

I also feel very filthy. Yuck, this is a dirty job. :)

In case you were curious, I made this simple Stir Fried Chicken and Veggies for dinner
tonight using the food we have on hand. All the kids love this meal and it is so easy to make!
(And yes, that was really on the menu for tomorrow, but I switched the two night’s dinners.
This is what happens when you’re busy cleaning and forget to put the roast in the crock pot.)

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!
Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Remember that 500 pound order of hard white wheat I ordered and brought home a few weeks ago? (Yeah, like you could forget.)

bagsofwheatsm

You may be happy to know that I’m down to only 447 (give or take) pounds of wheat now. And you were worried that I wouldn’t use it all up quickly…

Anyway, many of you asked how I would store all my bags of grain…and several of you suggested that I “critter proof” it. Yes. Very, very good advice. If it’s one thing I can count on having at my house…it’s critters. {shudder} Although I don’t think snakes or birds should care too much about my wheat…we do see our fair share of bugs and the occasional mouse. Eeeww. I do NOT want mice getting into my big stash of wheat. That would just be maddening.

And so, ever since I brought home all the wheat in February…I’ve been on a quest for big huge buckets for my grain storage. I needed some with lids that seal very well (obviously). The fabulous buckets with gamma seal lids I found online are pricey! Great quality, no doubt…but I needed around 20 buckets. I could have spent at least $80 for what I needed, and that was JUST the lid…not the bucket! Ouch.

Instead, I began asking around at my local grocery stores. Did you know that the frosting used in a bakery often comes in big five gallon buckets?! Yes indeed. That’s a lot of frosting! Did you know that most bakeries go through several of these big five gallon buckets in a month? Yes indeed. That’s a lot of frosting! And did you know that bakeries generally don’t want to keep their empty buckets after they’ve used the frosting out of them? Yes indeed. That’s a lot of empty, unwanted buckets.

One store asked me to “fork over” an entire dollar per bucket with lid that I took from them. Big buckets with lids for a dollar each? Okeedokee!

The other store practically threw their buckets with lids into my cart and wouldn’t let me pay one penny for them. They were almost giddy about the fact that I was so happy to take the buckets off of their hands. For free. Yes indeed.

And so…long story longer…I came away from my grocery store bakery departments with 20 buckets with lids for a total of $6.00. Yes, that was SIX dollars. Total.

wheat_bucket_sm

I washed and dried the buckets thoroughly, then got busy scooping all of the wheat into them. I found that it took two – five gallon buckets for each 50 pound bag of wheat.

I now have a big stash of white frosting buckets full of hard white wheat just waiting to be turned into bread, tortillas, muffins, pancakes, cakes, pies, cookies, pretzels, donuts, buns, bagels…the possibilities are endless!

And the critters? They can go pick on someone their own size.

Huh. I’m suddenly remembering another time I bravely and fearlessly used big buckets to defend myself from attack. Wow. Who knew buckets such as these would be such a helpful aid for a wimpy woman such as I. Between big buckets and cottage cheese containers…I’d say I am well protected. What do you think?

Gratituesday: Making Headway

How to Store Bulk Grain