Olive Oil Lamp for Emergencies

If you live in an area that frequently experiences power outages due to hurricanes, high winds and other storms, one of the things you want to have on hand during storm season is backup lighting. Candles are a sure bet, but they don’t put out much light and — if you want to choose options made from renewable, organic materials — beeswax and soy candles can get mighty expensive.

There are hand-crank and battery-powered lanterns, but what if you don’t already have one on hand when a power outage strikes? The same problem exists if you’re looking for a kerosene or other oil-style lamp. So, what do you do during an emergency for light? How about something that is easy to acquire, inexpensive and gentle on the environment?

The answer is you can make your own olive oil lamp. You don’t need much in the way of equipment and if you don’t have olive oil, you can replace it with other types of cooking oil — or any kind of liquid fat or grease in a pinch. However, I must warn you that while olive is a 99 percent pure renewable fuel that won’t produce smoke or odor, I can’t vouch for canola or corn oil as being smoke-free or that it won’t make the house smell like burnt popcorn.

Making your lamp is relatively easy, and most likely you will have many of the materials on hand already. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A wide-mouthed glass jar (a quart-size wide-mouthed canning jar works really well)
• A short length of flexible steel wire (1 1/2 or 2 times the height of the jar)
• A wick
• Olive oil

Putting Together the Lamp
1. Form one end of the steel wire into a long hook, about the same height as the jar. This hook holds the wire on the jar and doubles as a handle to pull the wick up for lighting.

2. Take the other end of the wire and wrap it into a coil, creating a wick stand about an inch or two tall that sits on the bottom of the jar.

3. Pinch the top of the metal coil onto about 2 inches in length of wick so that about a quarter inch or less of the wick is sticking up above the wire coil. Any longer and the wick will smoke. The other end of the wick will be soaking in the olive oil.

4. Add enough olive oil to your jar so that the level is just under where the wick is pinched by the wire. Any higher and you risk putting out the lamp with the oil.

How the Lamp Works
The olive oil is drawn up the wick where it vaporizes and gets burned by the flame. A few ounces of oil will burn for several hours, so if you are concerned about the cost, it is much cheaper than most candles. If you can find lampante oil (olive oil not suitable for eating, but for burning), you can save money by buying that instead of culinary olive oil.

Want to get fancy with your olive oil lamp? You can infuse your olive oil with herbs, spices or essential oils for a more scented experience.

Olive oil lamps have been used for thousands of years and people have relied on oil lamps in general up until the last few generations. They are reliable, plus they burn bright and long. The benefit of olive oil is that if the lamp gets knocked over, it stops burning because it has a high flash point, meaning that it’s not a very flammable material. As a result, an olive oil lamp is far safer than a candle or kerosene lantern. If you are having problems with it smoking when you blow it out, use wet fingers to put out the flame, or just douse it with the oil in the jar.

Notes on Materials
One of the benefits of using a canning jar is that, when the oil lamp is not in use, you can put a canning lid on top for storage. A wide-mouthed pint jar will also work well, you just need to adjust the size of the wick holder.

For your wick, you can use 100 percent cotton string or twine and salt it to ensure that it burns long. To salt your wick, take your cotton twine, put it in a bowl with a little water and then cover with table salt. Squeeze it dry and let it dry overnight, or until it is no longer damp.

If you need or want your lamp to emit more light, try using a braided, flat wick (a half inch or narrower), adjusting the way the wire supports this kind of wick by crimping it to accommodate the extra girth. You can buy flat wicks from stores that carry supplies for oil lamps (such as Lehman’s). Or, you can cut up an old 100 percent cotton tea towel into strips and use that instead.

Commercial Products
If this all seems a bit too complicated to manufacture on your own and you would rather buy an olive oil lamp, you’ll find old fashioned oil lamps online from Lehman’s. Be sure to check out the book I Didn’t Know That Olive Oil Would Burn! while you are at it.

Ladies totin' guns

This isn't exactly one of those homesteading or survivalist blogs that focuses on stockpiling months worth of food (cough *Sharon*) or equipping the urban homestead with stacks of ammunition to ward off the zombies (cough *Survivor Man*). But, I did run across a blog the other day that brought up the whole concept of girls n' guns, which is a relatively foreign concept for me.

Unlike my redneck husband who grew up shooting shit in the backyard for sport, knows a Luger from a .44 Auto Mag and still laughs at me for thinking you shoot a gun with both index fingers, I know nothing about weaponry and, frankly, find them too frightening to have in the home. On one hand, I think it would be a fun skill to have - at a shooting range, where they are kept under lock and key.

So, I thought I'd ask you, my readers, if you think that having guns in the house for protection is important. Do you have any or do you have any plans for one? Are you concerned about societal collapse such that you would want to have some around? I'm just curious how much this is on your radar...

Critter cuisine

Yesterday I was reading, in between projects, one of my self-sufficiency mags and was skimming through an article on hunting squirrels, when I was struck by the fact that the recipes in there sounded horribly disgusting. Now, since the author claimed that squirrel tastes just like chicken, couldn't they have come up with something better than Creamed Squirrel served over biscuits or some other bowel-plugging temptation?

Sure, I get that it takes about 3 squirrels to make up one cup of squirrel meat, so can't we simmer that in a white wine, garlic and tarragon cream sauce? Served over tagliatelle with shaved Parmesan and cracked pepper? Or, to get away from that whole creamed thing, what about braising it with a rosemary, plum and port sauce? Why does critter cuisine have to be so nasty?

I'm not averse to eating random critters if prepared well. Not that I do, but it certainly doesn't make my stomach churn like these recipes. Then again, those same recipes would be just as unappealing if they had chicken or beef in them. It's the idea that, if you're going to subsist on these types of foodstuffs, you better prepare them to 1950s standards. Or, maybe the people writing these articles all peaked out in the 50s.

Anyway, that's not entirely the point of my post today. My point is, how willing are you to catch, capture, or kill critters for consumption? (Sorry for the alliteration, I couldn't help myself.) I'm even going to take it easy on you. What would you be willing to eat, even if someone else did the hunting and preparing?

Since I've turned into a poll whore, here's another one for you. I've grouped them by critter type, but don't be too put off if one of the things in the list doesn't appeal to you, it's just to get an idea. And, it's multiple choice, bien sûr!

I'd be willing to eat:



Bon appetit!

Survival series: making soap without lye

While I may not be as fervent in the belief that the world as we know it is coming to an end, I am interested in topics along the self-sufficiency and survival route. As such, I often think about how much we rely on outside sources for everyday goods.

One of the things I like making myself is cold-process soap. The whole process fascinates me since it's a mixture of chemistry and craft. But the way I know how to make it relies not only on hard to find oils (coconut oils, olive oils, etc.) but also on equally hard to find lye. It's not too hard to imagine using animal fats if access to other types of oils becomes scarce, but what about the lye? There are two options to overcome this: using soapy plants or making lye from ashes.

First off, let me state that lye is not something to work with lightly and can be quite dangerous as well as corrosive. So, if you have access to soapy plants, that's probably your easiest bet to getting around to staying clean without bars of commercial or even handmade soap. So, what plants can you use that are naturally "soapy"?

There are a number of plants that are high in saponin, or the component that makes them good cleansers. Many grow in California or in arid areas, but there is one that grows throughout the U.S. and can be grown in most climates.

The plant I'm referring to is Bouncing Bet, otherwise known as soapwort or Saponaria officinalis. It's a very pretty, perennial plant and is worth planting for it's beauty as well as to have on hand, just in case. Plus, the flowers smell like cloves, if that's something that appeals to you.

Once established, the plant can be invasive, so you'll want to keep an eye on it. Basically, you harvest soapwort in the late summer to fall to be used fresh or dried for later "soapmaking".

You can make a liquid soap out of the whole plant, particularly the root, which is high in saponins. You just add 1/2 cup of fresh leaves and/or root (or 1/4 cup dried) to 4 cups of water (preferably distilled or rain water) and simmer until it becomes sudsy, about 20 minutes.

Add some essential oils to the cooled, strained liquid soap and store in one of those foaming pump dispensers for a very gentle home-grown soap. The shelf life for this mixture is about 1 week. You can also use this as a mild shampoo, but be careful about getting it in your eyes as it can be irritating.

Soapwort has been used historically as a mild skin cleanser as well as a gentle cleanser for cleaning wool, tapestries and paintings. It is poisonous, so do not ingest.