Preparedness for when

COOLTRIKERCHICK

thank you for the link to the energy saving challenge:beer:

Just finished watching it, I liked the idea of using a bedside cabinet cupboard to use as a hay box....

We are also going to have a go at the drink can heat thing:D

might be useful in a building where we will be rearing our chicks etc..

Also would this help for extra heat in the greenhouse in the spring?? would there be anyway of retaining the warm air/keep the heat for the evenings??? heat bricks??

pumpkinlife

Regarding haybox cookers, I finally, after 3 years of mulling it over, made one this week!

We have used it twice and apart from adding too much liquid, the chickpea curry and a stew were really good. They were both around 70 degrees C after 4 hours, so safe to eat. I want to tweak the design a little and integrate it into a piece of furniture, the crate I am using isn't ideal. I used hay, but will experiment with other stuff to see if I can keep it hotter for longer.

Very handy in a SHTF sitch, also very handy day to day in lieu of a slow cooker.

jk0

lillibet_dripping wrote: »

GQ - thanks for posting the Will Aid link. I have, myself, taken advantage of this offer and have an appt for next Friday. My Will was hurriedly drawn up soon after my divorce ten years ago when the children were still very little. I wanted to make sure that they would both still have contact with my side of the family coz I knew that the ex would try to cut them out.

Anyhoo, Will Aid month prompted me to update it - much easier now as everything will be left equally to the children now that they are adults.

However, I had to approach my sister to ask her to be an Executor. I'm a very organised person so there shouldn't be too much mess to sort out! I have also set out my funeral wishes to her i.e. as Pagan, green, eco-friendly as poss. I DO NOT WANT BLACK OR HEARSES OR CHURCHES I shouted at her:rotfl: She understands fully now:D

Please, peeps, think of it as another way of prepping - it won't be your SHTF moment but your relatives - make it as easy as possible for them.

This has given me another thought regarding funerals:

Although my family will get a few bob when I go, they probably won't have much ready cash to give me a decent send off. (I certainly didn't when my father died.)

Has anyone considered paying up front for their funeral?

[Deleted User]

Just had an impressive thunderstorm pass overhead.

Just a pity it wasn't a few hours later in the evening.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

the wind has been bad all ay, the electric went off for about 3 mins earlier, and when hubby went to the shop to get bread, people were buying candles:rotfl:

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

This has given me another thought regarding funerals:

Although my family will get a few bob when I go, they probably won't have much ready cash to give me a decent send off. (I certainly didn't when my father died.)

Has anyone considered paying up front for their funeral?

I'm not quite 50 so hoping not to need a funeral for a while. My wishes are to be planted under a tree in the eco-graveyard, in a cardboard coffin if they insist, no religion required. I imagine it won't be too expensive. Once shocked the heck out of a more sensitive friend by saying they can cut me up for spares and compost the rest.......

Have a recollection that the funeral costs are the first order of debt off the estate? So, if you family will inherit from you, wouldn't they be able to settle for the funeral once that had gone thru?

Not sure what kind of send off you'd want. A pal of mine returns back to the old country (Eire) for family funerals and jokingly refers to them as The Full Irish. Very big and very expensive........

lillibet, very pleased the link was useful to you. I was a CAB advisor a few years ago and got to talk to a lot of stressed people and intestacy was one of the stressors. It's such an easy thing to set up but a Will, and a direction on the preferred kind of send-off, is such a boon to those left behind.

Have been gently pootling about today as still a bit poorly with the cold and tiring easily.

I, too, was playing about with a wind-up radio last night. I have two, the J Lewis solar/ wind/ battery/ torch one, and a pocket sized Unic0m one which I bought on a whim because it was very cheap. I hadn't really played with the Uni one and found out that its sound quality is surprisingly good thru earphones (and the same earphones work on the other radio, too) but that the winder shrieks like a banshee so felt I couldn't really be cranking that late at night. I shall experimundo in a while to see how much winding = how much listening time.

One thing I've noticed myself about prepping is that it can all too easily devolve into a shopping-and-stashing experience. We need to be familiar with our preps, need to be able to drop our hands on them in seconds even in a flat spin panic, need to know that they're in working order and how to work them.

Can anyone think of a reason that the little windup radio would be harmed if I tried to lubricate the crank to make it less screamy? I have WD and spray 3-in1 oils, regular 3-in-1, vaseline and talc; what do you reckon would be OK to use? Or none of them?

[Deleted User]

It's not the crank that makes the noise GQ.

It's the dynamo mechanism.

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

It's not the crank that makes the noise GQ.

It's the dynamo mechanism.

Ooops.

I assumed it was the crank as the other wind-up radio doesn't do this. Any way to make it quieter, do you think? It'd wake the dead at the moment and I don't want the neighbours to think I'm torturing small animals to death or something equally unpleasant...........:rotfl:

[Deleted User]

Not that I know of GQ.

The noise is down to the material used for the spindles, gears and bearings.

Ideally, such surfaces should be of a self lubricating (eg. oilite) or low friction (eg. PTFE) material but, to keep costs down, manufacturers of low price items (eg. your sub-£5 wind up radio) will use something else, hence the cat castration sound.

[Deleted User]

and my LED Lantern is still putting out light.

Not enough to read by, but sufficient for me to get around the room, without tripping over or banging into things.