I scored myself a cheap food dehydrator this morning ($3 at the thrift store).

I had one a few years ago, but it broke and I never replaced it.  I used to buy all kinds of fruit when it was on sale and dry it, and my husband had a recipe for killer beef jerky...really tasty and much better than store bought stuff.

I'm drying some strawberries this afternoon, and I'm going to try my hand at some fruit 'leathers' this weekend.  Those are basically pureed fruit (any kind) spread out onto plastic sheeting and dried...then you roll them up (kinda like the fruit roll ups you can buy in the store, but without the artifical preservatives and colorings).

I think I'm going to try some turkey jerky as well as beef, and I think that my mother in law has some venison so perhaps I'll try that too.

All I have to do now is learn how to can, and we'll have pretty much all the skills we said we'd need to start homesteading!