Store Unused Mason Jars With Water

This is our family's easy way to have water on hand when the power goes out. 

Store your unused mason jars with water!

 As you eat your canned cherries, peaches, beans or such from a quart or pint mason jar, wash it, then fill it back up with tap water, put the rubber side of the lid on upside down and put it back into your storage for emergency use. 

My Mother always said that we needed to have water on hand for when the power goes out and you need to wash your  hands, or need water to help the toilet flush, or even take a bath!  I can personally attest to the fact that having that water on hand comes in handy!

After, dutifully filling empty mason jars for years, and carrying them to our basement storage to the "fruit room" as we called it, the power went out!  Do you ever stop to realize how many times you want to wash your hands, when you can't run the water from the faucet? 

I remember one time when the power was out and my Dad, our ward's Bishop at the time, needed to go into town for a church meeting.  He was a farmer and needed to bathe before he could go.  So, I dutifully carried those mason jars filled with water back upstairs to the bath tub.  It took several quarts, but we had enough for him to bathe in!

 

So, as we began putting away the unused extra mason jars from the canning my husband and our sons did while my daughter and I were on vacation, my husband commented, 

"We should refill them with water like you grew up doing."  So, we did!  I have done this over our married years and also used it for hand washing, etc. but we were out.  

So, as I thought about his reminder, all the 650,000 who were out of power because of Hurricane Isaac,  and the current plethora of uses for mason jars--we filled our empty mason jars a.k.a. Kerr or Ball with water, turned the rubber side of the lid upside down and carried them downstairs to our "fruit room".  It's what I grew up doing, what I've done with my own family and it's something simple you can do too.  You'll thank me when when the power goes out and you can wash your hands.  And your power will go out sometime!

Note: This isn't drinking water although it could be used if treated correctly.