Preparedness for when

JayneC

Evening everyone,

Welcome all newbies.

I am feeling a bit left out now, so can I have a membership number too please vanoonoo??

GQ I so know what you mean about people not walking anywhere. I often walk to work which is only a mile and half. In fact if I wasn't required to have a car for my job I probably wouldn't have one now. A couple of weeks ago DS archery club had a BBQ and family were invited. The BBQ took place after the shooting session and so was set up about 30yards away from the shooting range. One of the mum's had parked near to the shooting range and when we moved for the BBQ she drove the 30 yards!! I kid you not.

Lovefullshelves I'm the same age as you and I feel kinda the same, with a bit of a bring it on attitude. In fact given the state of play today with all the corruption, manipulation, frankenstien foods, and the like, I worry more about what the future might be like if we don't have something drastic happen (ie oil decline/economic disruption or even collapse) to disrupt all that. And whilst I think it will be one hell of a bumpy ride I do believe that those who can hold on to their seats stand a chance of a better future in the long run.

Have been a busy bee this week. Mum and Dad came to visit and helped me to do some rearranging in the yard. I now have a brand new hen house for the chicks and have fenced off the end of the yard to make more room for them and hopefully some new additions and my aquaponics experiment...Made room for a bit of a log store and coal bunker and Dad also repainted my hallway for me too. Took a little longer than expected and so they stayed an extra day. They hadn't brought enough of their meds with them, luckily it was nothing that they desperately needed, but I gave them a bit of a lecture;) Didn't quite go into an end of the world scenario but there could easily have been some more modest scenario that meant they needed to stay for longer than anticipated.

Forecast is good for tomorrow so will get up to the lottie and do some weeding before my onions disappear into a bed of thistles:D

daz378

Yes GQ the americans are dependant on their cars , went to see big sis in LA 3 years ago , 40 minute commute to work and the nearest shop 40 min walk away, enjoyed the holiday but was happy to come home , precinct on
doorstep , bus stop to work on doorstep...... finished a late ... on early tomorrow ... steak slice and chips and beetroot for supper , dad gave me 3 jars got 4 wks to eat it label said.... dont want to disturb you all ...while your watching eurovision:)

wondercollie

Daz, it's a North American thing. Public transit doesn't work for me. I need to be at work for 0645 to take the bus, I would have to leave no later than 0515, First bus into my neighbourhood is 0535. It take me 13 minutes (if there are no red lights) to do the drive.

I've had frostbite waiting for a bus when it was -25C.

I would have loved to buy a house within walking distance of my shops but there was nothing for sale in that area when we were looking.

My sons ride their bike when socializing and one can ride to work but this only works roughly 5 months of the year weatherwise.

Four weeks for 3 jars of beetroot? No problem. Unless they are catering size.

thriftwizard

When we stayed with friends in Oklahoma a few years back, I was utterly amazed by how little people walk. I walk a lot, for fun as well as everyday stuff. At one point we walked from the country church (venue for the wedding we were there for) to the corner shop, a vast distance of maybe 50 yards. At least 4 vehicles stopped to offer us a lift, thinking our car must have broken down! Bless them, wonderfully openhearted & kind people, but staying there really was an eye-opener. I well remember our host struggling with his tumble-dryer, which was very clearly not working properly. He just kept on setting it off again; it took nearly 8 hours to dry one small load of washing, which would have dried in half an hour in the blazing sunshine & pleasant breeze outside. But hanging your washing out, even where no-one else could possibly see it, is completely taboo. And he wouldn't use his garden to grow anything or sit out in, as there are biting insects out there, some of which do carry nasty germs; it would have been churlish to point out that there'd have been a darn sight less of them if he hadn't shot every hapless bird that fluttered over his fence.

I do wonder sometimes what blind spots we have, that we think are only right & proper, but that other people might find amazingly silly?

GreyQueen

Morning everyone.

I've heard some hysterical tales of suburban American life from a pal who lived out there for years as a wife and mum. As in neighbours getting into a car to drive 20 yards down the road to mail a letter. She is also very acute on the extreme conformity of that lifestyle, about how having different furniture in different places to her neighbours' layouts in their cookie-cutter houses made her seem suspect............. Everyone I know who has visited comments on the kindness of so many people there, but they have travelled an awful long way from the robustness of frontier life and you imagine that many modern Americans will have a horrific time of it when the future is cancelled due to lack of oil.

I compare and contrast them to the villagers on Crete with their smallholdings and the family fishing boat. Yes, they sometimes own a small apartment building (6 units) which is rented out to holidaymakers, but people there still refer to the last 30-40 years as "touristic times" as if it's just a passing phase. I know folks who work the season down on the coastal strip in the bars and shops and hotels, then go back to the family farm and harvest the olives. I suspect they'll be tolerably well adapted to reverting to non-touristic times, too. Crete is one of the few places in Greece which can feed its population.

morganarla, congratulations on your move. I have heard that stuffing an old feather pillow up a chimney is an effective draft-blocking measure. It was suggested that you tie a piece of string to it, to dangle into view, as a reminder not to do anything inflamatory before removing it...........:rotfl:

When I was reading your post, I was thinking that your cottage may well take some days or weeks to warm up if it has been uninhabited for a while. What is the building material, if you don't mind my asking; stone, cob, timber and wattle? My parents' first home was a cottage built in the earliest years of the 1600s which will see us all out. It's clay lump with wooden framing, steep roof which would have once been thatched but is tiled nowadays.

Re my trollies, they're home-made (thanks Mum ). I'm too tight to buy something when I can make it from scrap and some of us want to do things with our tiny homes which aren't accomodated by retailers.

I have them made from offcuts of MDF, chipboard, blockboard, ply, in squares or oblongs. The wheels are casters from the £shop. In size, they vary according to the size of the original scrap board, most are oblong, about 2 feet x 3 feet, a couple are 20 inches square. I have 6 trollies, one small suitcase and a large trolley bag under a standard double bedstead.

You'll need to screw or glue summat onto the board just shy of the edge, to stop cans sliding off when the trolley is moved. And I have a large screw-eye in the end of each to allow the ones on the far side to be dragged into range from the nearside. I have a short pole with a cupbook screwed in the end to hook onto the screw-eyes and drag then forward. My bedroom is only just a bit bigger than my bed, and bed can only be accessed from the one side, you see. And I have the tops of the boards covered with sticky-back plastic which isn't necessary but it amuses me; I had some anyway but you can also get it in the £store. One repurposed board in particular was badly stained and even had a couple of small holes and looks so much nicer under blue cloud-effect sticky vinyl.

This works well for me as the bed has only 10 inches clearance between the side-rail and the floor, so I'm limited in underbed options and a lot of the stuff marketed for underbed storage is too tall.

The bedroom floor is vinyl tile over concrete, the room is unheated, and everything keeps very nicely. I keep tins under there, the dried goods are elsewhere. I use a valance as a disguise because the layout of this flat means you can see right into the bedroom when the front door is open and one must preserve the old OPSEC, don'tcha know.

A coupla tips from the experience of making them; if using thinner boards, like ply, you probably won't have enough thickness to screw the casters onto. In which case, get a small block of wood, glue that to the underside, and screw to that. For the edging strips, something thin which you happen to have lying around will do. We've used up materials from Mum's woodshed (some of which are leftovers from previous projects, some of which were skipped by moi) and that includes remnants of beading and lengths of 1 x 1.

I'd suggest lining up the amount of tins you want to have on the trolley, both lengthwise and width wise, making an allowance for the edging strip and cutting/ scrounging the board to fit that. Bit frustrating to have a bit of wasted space just too small for a standard can.

Just measured my biggest trollies and they are 18 x 30 inches. One of those and a 20 x 20 behind it accounts for most of the width under the double bed. A fully-tinned big trolley is pretty heavy btw.

I have a dab of masking tape on the end of each trolley with letters A- F on it, and a notebook with my inventory in it, which has a scribbled diagram in the front to prompt me which trolley is in which position (they were made in batches over a couple of years so it isn't a completely planned system).

My notebook is filled in in pencil, with tabs for each category of food, so I flick to the tab, look up where stuff is, then go fetch it, then change the inventory. I restock the small kitchen cupboard from the trollies, and the trollies get stocked from bargains.

It's a simple system which requires minimal effort once it's up and running. I'd rather have a walk-in larder but I live in a tiny flat and have to work around what I have, not what I wish I had. It's all good.

ETA thriftwizard, I can recall reading an American novel, cannot recall which, where two of the female characters are alone in their farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. As an physical background to the conversation, the author (who has already commented on the 100 heat outside) has them going from the kitchen into the basement laundry room, removing the wash from the washer and putting it in the dryer!!!!! I was (and remain) utterly gobsmacked by this normalisation of an apparent act of utter insanity,

bornintoit

Hi everyone.

I have been lurking on this thread for quite awhile now. I found myself on this thread after reading what seemed to be everyday, news stories about the various struggling economies worldwide and the serious debt situation. I have been very concerned about the economic status of Europe with the struggling euro and our recession etc.

With this in mind I have started trying to prepare for when SHTF, an economic collapse etc which I consider plausible. I have only just started out so I am currently trying to grow more of my own produce in bags and pots etc as we are do not have a garden here, so we are not so heavily reliant on the system. I do have tins, dried food etc in my bedroom as we have very little space to put it anywhere else.

Today I went to Wilkinsons and bought a wind up torch for £4 as I know many people find them a useful tool to have around.

I am on a low income so I know my progress on this journey will be slower than I would like but hopefully I can utilize all the tips I have read about on here to improve my prep

I hope you don't mind another rather unexperienced newbie on here.

ginnyknit

Lovely to have you on board bornintoit. Sounds like you are prepping very sensibly. We are all newbies at some point.

Just been to Mr A for a few basics, hate shopping on Sunday but have been too ill to venture out, damned flu. We all have it in the family - so good to share :mad: Have all the windows open now to clear the place out. There was hardly any bread, has there been a sudden bank holiday added tomorrow? Supplies have lasted well just needed bread, milk and sugar - need to get stocking up again as soon as Im well. Going to do some baking tomorrow as the freezers are a bit empty and can't afford meat much at the mo so cake is the next best thing.

pineapple

bornintoit wrote: »

Hi everyone.

I have been lurking on this thread for quite awhile now. I found myself on this thread after reading what seemed to be everyday, news stories about the various struggling economies worldwide and the serious debt situation. I have been very concerned about the economic status of Europe with the struggling euro and our recession etc.

With this in mind I have started trying to prepare for when SHTF, an economic collapse etc which I consider plausible. I have only just started out so I am currently trying to grow more of my own produce in bags and pots etc as we are do not have a garden here, so we are not so heavily reliant on the system. I do have tins, dried food etc in my bedroom as we have very little space to put it anywhere else.

Welcome lurker. Thanks to this forum I am a little more creative about what I grow things in. It would have cost me £20 to replace my willow planter which rotted under the snow last winter, So I've got nasturtiums and carrots in those colourful Asda bags (30 something pence ) and will be putting the runner beans in the big blue Ikea ones. For the price it doesn't matter if they only do one season and you can roll them down for shallower planting.. And unlike my fancy 'frost proof' (coughs) terracotta ones they won't crack in the cold!
I did have to alert the neighbour though - in case she thought I was going a little potty in my old age!

daz378

Wondercollie only opened one jar of normal beetroot ... so should finish it fine.......must admit got some funny looks , while walking to the local shops approx 40 min walk place she lives in is acton about 60 miles from LA......survived an early stocked up on tins of curry and diet coke on way home

lovefullshelves

GreyQueen wrote: »

As an physical background to the conversation, the author (who has already commented on the 100 heat outside) has them going from the kitchen into the basement laundry room, removing the wash from the washer and putting it in the dryer!!!!! I was (and remain) utterly gobsmacked by this normalisation of an apparent act of utter insanity,

My mom's area is like this in Utah.
Their zoning laws prohibit: drying laundry outside, growing vegetables in the front garden, washing lines of any kind.
http://www.infowars.com/government-threatens-jail-time-for-growing-produce-in-front-yard-garden/
Its a dryish state and they all have sprinklers for their lawns but on a plus point they have ALOT of SHTF stores as mormons are required by their church to keep a years worth of food in the house:D So lovely mommy (she's not mormon) sends me interesting dried stuff - honey, cheese (makes great scones and good in sourdough for interesting rolls), long life baking mixes and oh joy, dried butter on its way!
Mummy is fairly sharp with economics and the state of the world but she didn't know this: http://www.infowars.com/usda-agricultural-census-program-is-a-covert-surveillance-operation-to-compile-government-database-of-food-and-farm-assets/ I did look to see if the UK had the same kind of policy but couldn't find out take a look at the whitehose link on that page OMG!:mad: