Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

taurusgb wrote: »

Greyqueen as usual you speak a lot of sense! BTW (and slightly off topic) I joined a stitching group a few weeks ago - we meet fortnightly and there is a lovely lady who attends who is the spitting image of my mental picture of you. I have to work VERY hard at calling her Sue, not Greyqueen!

Anyway - water storage. I have not a lot of room for this and not a lot of money to keep replacing bottled water, so have come up with a method of making sure we have at least a few litres of water about us at all times.

We use at least one six pint (3 litre) plastic bottle of milk every two days, sometimes more. So what I do is every time I have an empty milk bottle, I wash it well, fill it with water, write the date on the bottle with marker pen and store in a dark cupboard. I have room for 6 bottles. Whenever I get a new bottle (so every other day really) I remove the oldest, use the contents to water the houseplants or garden pots then put in the recycling bin. This way none of the water is very old, none gets wasted and I'm using containers that I already have.

:rotfl:I'm intrigued about my stitching alter-ego. I can sew but I don't have enough hours in the day or juice in the engine to join a group.

I have heard that containers which have held milk, however carefully washed, add a taint to water if kept in them.Something about the proteins in the milk. Have you experimented with tasting the stored water to see if it's palatable? It would be a beggar to find out the hard way in a crisis. You're spot on about keeping them in the dark, which is also true for cooking oils.

It's annoying as milk bottles are pretty much ubiquitous. I use cut-down ones in one kitchen cupboard to corral fiddly little things like stock cubes, and whole ones under the sink to contain dried powdery goods like soda crystals, bicarb of soda and handwashing powders. The automatic washingpowder has it's own dedicated plastic tub. They're great as they protect the contents from moisture which can cause clumping (you'd die laughing to see the fun and games I've had trying to cope with solidified packs of soda crystals), accidental leaks from undersink plumbing and give a handy handle to haul them out with.

I've had quite a bit of thought about how a crisis will cause us to do some things for the first time at all, or the first time in years, and that will make everything a lot more difficult than it has to be. So, for me, prepping is about practising certain things, as well as shopping and storing.

lovesfullshelves I've tried to eschew scented candles for my emergency stock, most of which were purchased for pence from bootsales and charity shops. Can easily see the situation you describe, and the splitting headache which would result from excess candle-perfume.............:rotfl:

It's interesting when you start to look at the world with an awareness of the fragility of the systems which serve us, and of the spectre at the feast which is Peak Oil.

It changes what you do in many subtle ways. You start to think about the old style ways of doing things. Of appropriate tech, whether that's a handcranked or treadle sewing machine, a spinning wheel or drop-spindle, driving a cob in a cart, getting out and about without recourse to a car.

It also makes me aware of the levels of perfidity in the wider economy and how frequently we have been done down by price-fixing in oil and other commodities. We won't mention banking, because once you start, where would you stop, and some people reading may earn their modest livings in that field and don't deserve to catch the flack for the big boys.

I think a lot of modern people are very ill-equipped to cope with disruptions to business-as-usual, never mind a real crisis. We like to think that we'd exhibit the famous British stoicism, the wartime bulldog spirit, but that generation are in their 90s or passed over and a lot of people I encounter are clueless. If you have a panic because your TV ariel goes down (and I encounter people who act as if that is TEOTWAWKI) how will you cope when the power is off for 24 hours? 48 hours? Indefinately?

taurusgb

Greyqueen - your alter ego at my stitching group can quilt, cross stitch, crochet and knit! I am in awe of her talents.

Milk bottles for water storage. I have never had a problem with them tainting the water, and have used them when camping for years (never had any success with proper camping water containers as they take up too much room when full and are heavy to carry). I always wash them very well using washing up liquid and hot water then rinse well. It was using them for so long whilst camping that made me think about using them for water storage at home.

Raining again here for a change :cool: so am thinking I might do a spot of baking since no chance of going in the garden - will only be a spot though as oven door fell off last week and I only have the remoska to bake in, so am now thinking about replacement oven. This happened after the sofa cover shrunk and tore (BTW thank you for offers of help with this, was poorly so don't think I came back on to say thanks to people who offered good advice and help).

Also had the bathroom cold tap seize up. Am not liking May much :mad: Trouble is we are at an awkward time for dealing with these irritations, as we had planned a couple of years making do so we could save up to refurbish Kitchen, bathroom and living room.

Think we are going to live with the sofa draped with a throw. DH has done a bodge job on tap so it works for now, and we are just keeping everything crossed it will last until we can afford to replace the basin at the same time as taps.

Can't get round the oven problem though. I do have the remoska but can't carry on with just that for 2 years. So am currently looking at ovens. At least the built in type come with a plug and there won't be any connection costs to worry about.

D&DD

Taurus I had a similar problem with one of my old ovens and was able to buy a new part for it (it was the hinge completely sheared off) I'm not sure wether I ended up getting the part from Ebay or partmaster but it's surprising what 'bits' you can get.Might fend off having to buy a new one for a bit if the part isn't too expensive??

Pink thrift I love experiments! I try to do some different things every year.sometimes we get great results other years are total disasters lol...

Morganarla glad to hear the move went well and the furbabies are settling in

I'm loving the tales of our colonial cousins I always seem to have this picture of them being so organised and hands on! I suppose it has something to do with the sort of forums I read from there.

Regarding med kits I suppose I have a few 'funny' bits that maybe others wouldn't have.I have tooth wipes these are for cleaning teeth when you are laid out on your back.Stick them on your finger and clean,they are brilliant things.I also have mini packs of toothpaste in our cleaning kits along with foldup toothbrushes.I have a dental first aid kit.I also have lots of surgical dressings and some stuff (will look out the name) that removes sticky surgical tape residue,which can be a right pest.

I have steristrips in various sizes and a good supply of liquid meds as my lot can't take tablets.
I also have plastic dispensing syringes for meds.
I have disposable trays for washing,and um toilets ladies and gents and bed mats.

Most of this is stuff we use regularly when DS2 has his ops so we need to stock it anyway and lucozade bottles are a godsend when trying to give someone a drink when they are laid flat.

[Deleted User]

Really useful information D&DD :T

I've added the Steri Strips to my list of 'must -haves'. We added sterile eye wash pods our first-aid boxes.

mardatha

Am reading a really good library book. The Cook's Tale by Nancy Jackman.
She was born in 1907 in rural Norfolkshire. She was brought up in a tiny cottage with an attic bedroom reached only by a ladder. Her dad was a ploughman who had a small garden jam-packed with lovely veg, fertilised by human manure which she says was common then and she doesn't understand why its not allowed now. There were no cars and lots of horses.
If it was wet then the workers in the fields had only old sacks to cover themselves with, and the constant fear was the workhouse.
She is very bitter about the way working class people were treated by the folk in the big houses,, and often refers to domestic service as "slavery". I'm halfway through it and ready to join the Communist Party LOL

pineapple

Don't park near a bottle bank if you can avoid it!
Car started behaving oddly just as I reached home. One flat tyre and another looking dubious! I'm guessing I rolled over some glass :mad:.
I only have one silly 'spacesaver' spare. Parked up but stuck. Hopefully the little man from the local garage will come out and fit new tyres. Then we will see if the punctured ones are savagable for use as spares.
Of course in an ideal world we would have a whole garageful of spares in our preps. Not so easy if you don't have a garage or have limited space though

D&DD

Oh no I'm sorry to hear that Pineapple they aren't cheap either are they Do places still sell reconditioned ones (showing my age now they probably banned them years ago!) We used to get them when we had our old Cortina...Really showing my age now :rotfl:

BitterAndTwisted

The author refers to domestic service as "slavery" because that is precisely what it was. If domestic service was so favourable all of those workers who left during WW1 to work in factories as part of the war-effort would have gone back to it after the war ended. But they didn't. Working in dreadfully unsafe factories and the terrible squalor of overcrowding in the cities was obviously preferable.

katieclampet

D&DD wrote: »

I have a dental first aid kit.I also have lots of surgical dressings and some stuff (will look out the name) that removes sticky surgical tape residue,which can be a right pest.



QUOTE]
A dental first aid kit sounds like a great addition to a prepper store. Where did you get it from, and how much did it cost?

Thanks katie

mardatha

Very true B&T. Wonder if they upped the wages to try and get them back?
This lot in the book wouldn't have coped with the brown stuff very well - she had one lady mistress who couldn't even make tea!