Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Cooltrikerchic, we are the same.(De-luring again :j) We bought our place (one acre of land with it) two years ago and are overpaying the mortgage. We are working hard to do this as soon as possible and doing our best to grow vegetables in the mean time. The plot isn't as tidy as we would like, and much of it is work in progress, but everything we manage to grow is a big help against the grocery bill. As time goes on we aim to cut down our hours and gradually spend more and more time on the plot.

This morning I'll be picking peas and beans for the freezer, but I'm looking at what is ready to pick that could go in the dehydrator (bunching onions, carrots etc.). We have had a very good potato growing season and are hoping that we can store most of these until about March. We are very much living on a potato-based diet at the moment :rotfl:

The idea is to become more and more self-reliant in terms of our food (though we will still need to buy flour, lentils etc.) but we've already noticed a huge difference in our shopping bills through a) eating seasonally and b) growing as much as we can in the summer months. I'm now working on our winter crop strategy, but I think I was a little late in getting the seeds in for our winter veggies (due to summer veg still producing in the garden).

COOLTRIKERCHICK

thanks butterfly brain for the links..

I notice no prices on the freezers on the uk site..

If SHTF then there will be a big huge food party going on:rotfl:

Also Just out of interest... how much of things have you got

Candles

AA batteries for torches etc etc

ALIBOBSY

pineapple wrote: »

Some smart thinking there! You should have got some sort of citizens award. :T
Mrs L steristrips are on the list! Have been looking at first aid kits on the net but have come to the conclusion that a lot contain naff all for the price. Plus I have some things already.
Was rehearsing a speech for casualty. But I expect they have seen it all....:rotfl:

Was a few years ago now, but I was glad I saved the people around me from losing some cash. I wonder sometimes if its a prepperish kind of mindset that makes you more aware and alert.

When walking down Southport pier about 10 years ago I spotted a lady sat on the benches at the side of the pier with her handbag at her side. There was a rough looking lad sat right next to the bag and I spotted him slowly unzipping the bag. I shouted across to her and she grabbed her bag and he ran off. She was a bit shaken up so OH and I calmed he down and got her to double check nothing had been taken from her bag, we reported the incident to the management and we wet on with our walk. Later as we walked off the pier the lady came up with her daughter who she had been waiting for and they were so happy and grateful, but to me surely that's being a good person not to just walk on by. The daughter wanted to give us some money, but we refused. in the end I think we let her buy an icecream for the kids.

Ali x

ALIBOBSY

elaine241 wrote: »

On a totally different topic it occured to me that most of us on here are like minded. It got me thinking about why we are prepping be it power cut/snow or zombie apocalypse TEOTWAWKI.
I dont want to be nosey or pry into peoples private lives but I for one have suffered from anxiety/stress/depression in the past and currently have anxiety/ stress health issues. I still manage to work, run a house, look after my kids etc but it does get very difficult sometimes. What I am getting at is prepping/being organised/feeling secure with food & preps helps me cope as I react badly to unexpected events/anything out the ordinary often getting worked up before and getting stress headaches after.
Not sure if the above is making much sense! what I am trying to say is I wonder if having a limiting condition , budget, lifestyle helps when being a prepper. If I had a "perfect" normal life with enough of everything perhaps I wouldnt even think about SHTF scenarios as I would be in a "lovely bubble" of a life where very little could go wrong. By having to think about scenarios that may make me unwell (e.g my kids birthday party) it means I have the ability to imagine SHTF situations and methods that I can use to prevent or limit the effect it has on me or my family.

Anyway not sure if any of the above is relevant or makes sense but it would be interesting to get you opinions!:o ELaine x

Hmm interesting thought. I was an assertive, confident and loud (lol) girl but underneath a bit shy. My first boyfriend came from an abusive background and I did manage to leave not long after he hit me for the first time. BUT jumped into a relationship with a much older guy who I think I saw as "safe", but within weeks of marriage the mental abuse started, followed by physical. TBH its nearly 20 years since I left him, but it still makes me sick to think about it. My whole personality changed, he made me feel worthless and he was so controlling I think I felt out of control.

So maybe that background gives me a slight edge of distrust and a need to control things and plan?
My husband was a painfully shy boy, living at home who had barely had a relationship till we met and I think between us we worked out a lot of our issues together. He was a great friend as I split from my ex then we fell in love.

So perhaps we both have a need to be more self sufficient and control things and plan for things before they happen.
Thinking about it when we first got married we weren't too badly off and then OH got a better paid job and we were able to do the "walk around the supermarket and just stick what you like in" each week.

Now with being self employed so having peaks and troughs in income, as well as having 4 kids the prepping lifestyle seems to fit us both.

Ali x

mardatha

Excellent post WCS and I know we here could live like that if we had to. Plain old fashioned food is the way to go. I bought a big american stuylle f/f one week and the next week found that site selling solar freezers, but as you say they don't seem to sell them here yet. I do get powercuts every winter and its a chance I have to take really. I don't ever have the money to fill it anyway so loss would be limited. But I keep emergency bags of flour and yeast in the bottom of the freezer, and bags of lentils, barley and dried veg in the bottom of the fridge - less chance of mites.
Re solar panels lots and lots of council and HA tenants would like them, inc us, but they won't let us have them.

westcoastscot

CTC it's a really hard life to get into - we were very fortunate in that the croft came rent-free for a little work (as is often the case) and my ex-husband was a fisherman. We never owned the land - didn't really want to - but had it in our care for many years.

Mar I'm the same here - have a house-size (smallish side) sized freezer and don't worry too much about losing stuff. Since I purchased it with money, and it's insured, it's no big loss if I lose it. I generally am a month in hand with storable food, so not big amounts. Like you and others on here though it's peace of mind to have the skills and practice to live that way if we have/want/need to.

I don't prep for teotwawki, more for SHTF type scenarios, so even in harsh winters I expect the power to come back on eventually, and never trust tptb anyway. I guess in a real teotwawki it we survived it would entail a totally different way of life, for lots of reasons.

WCS

ALIBOBSY

I am so jellous of all you peeps on here with smallholdings. It is OH's and my dream to have a smallholding and become virtually self sufficient.

OH is now officially a volunteer woodland ranger one day a week at a nearby wildlife/country park. He came home last week after his first day rebuilding a little wooden bridge over a brook looking tired but extremely happy. He also did some work with gardening for the couple I mentioned before, they had got a company in to take down an enormous tree and OH and Bill were cutting it down into firewood. Bill as I said was a woodland ranger and is a licenced chainsaw instructor so OH had another enjoyable day talking woodgrain and woodpiles lol.

I think if we ever could afford a smallholding we would never be inside, I would be in the veggie plot or with the animals and OH would be coppicing and tending his woodpile and/or log burner lol.

Well for now making do with the garden for our chickens and veggies/fruit and keep dreaming .

Ali x

westlothianlass

HI all
Thoroughly enjoying everyone's posts.
Ouch Pineapple hope your feeling better x
(sad mad bat alert) Its been a lovely weekend here, perfect laundry weather, ive gone all domesticated with a pinny and everything:rotfl:.
Made some jam yesterday with the last of our garden berries and the remainder of the rhubarb and have some chutney on the go just now so that I don't have to panic and wonder what to make everytime i open the fridge and see the giant marrows.

I got very excited during the week on a visit to the oriental supermarket which is near my work. I bought a 5 litre container of vinegar for £3.80 and 3kg of bicarb for £3.50 so been merrily playing on the interweb looking up ways of using it up.
Hope everyone is having a good weekend
Hugs WLL x

GreyQueen

Afternoon all.

Well, went to the taster sesh at the archery club and am enthused. Going to do a beginner's course next month and see how it goes from there. Impressed that the instructor picked up on my hyper-flexible elbow joints as they were helping me on with the bracer (arm protector thingy) even though I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt today.

My aikido instuctor reckoned I have about 6% more elbow bendiness than most. For the purposes of sparring partners, it's harder to immobilise me with an armlock that some, because my elbows bend further back against the joint than expected. There is a vanishingly-small possibility that might come in handy one day, I suppose.:rotfl:

Think the woodpigeons will be safe at the mo, given my present skill-level. I got 9/10 arrows on the target, although only one inside the rings. I know bow-hunting is illegal in the UK and won't be trying it unless it's post-SHTF and I'm really hungry. Then, it's a whole different ball game.

Felt a bit pooped after my cycling adventure to the archery club so decided not to go on another cycle ride to the lottie and spend the afternoon pottering about the flat, attending to various part-complete and slightly prepperish projects.

Today I will work on melting some more candles to complete the latest Pr*ngle tube reconstituted wax candle, and I will also be changing out the water from one of my two 25 litre water carriers. Will put the stored water into the bath tub, add hot and some bubbles and have a preptastic soak. I'm looking at changing the big carriers every 3 months.

craigyw, you flatter me; the world is full of stuff that I know nothing at all about. The lack is one of the things which makes it worth getting up in the morning. The other being breakfast and the first pot of tea - bliss! I figure that the collective brainpower and experience on MSE forums is a super-organism and we become greater than our parts.

Reading the third of my books about Hurricane Katrina and am oscillating between fury at the unutterable incompetance, carelessness, menadacity and sheer stupidity of TPTB, and a great rush of awe and respect for the everyday valour and compassion of so many people who squared up and helped complete strangers at the risk of their own lives.

We're not likely to have a tropical phenomenon like a hurricane making landfall in the UK, for which we should give daily thanks, but we have our own risks to consider. A little pre-prep against the most-probable risks is commonsensical to me, yet some people think it's lunacy.

Anyroad, you wouldn't pick me out of a crowd in the supermarket, on the street, or in the library. I'm perfectly normal on the outside, mwah ha ha!

Keep your OPSEC. Middle-age is a great place to hide because the youngsters think you're boring and ignore you, the Police think you're respectable and ignore you, and you can be busy going about your affairs with no one being any the wiser about your unusual hobbies.

Twang! Later on, we get to use bows with telescopic sights! How exciting is that?!

Hokay, listening to reggae and melting candlewax........should be a law agin it.

westcoastscot

GQ sounds like a fantastic day - wonder why I have the urge to knit you a green ensemble? :rotfl: