Preparedness for when

craigywv

Regarding the airer on another thread called thrifty christmas wishlist someone has a link up for an absolutley great affordable line i actually commented on it 20 mins ago i getting 1. Hth

COOLTRIKERCHICK

GQ, funny enough I was thinking about good old fashioned hand tools for up the ranch, as stand by tools.... not only that, they are like shabby chic items for blokes:D:rotfl:

I try and look back at how the farm workers etc lived and items they had, before electric came about.. ( pre 1900's etc) and also no supermarkets, no cars, or spare money to waste etc.. and no plastic items:beer:.

Its a good idea to buy better quality items, like gav buckets, metal/glass storage containers etc, as I do find plastic does go grubby looking and in the big scale of things don't last that long...

GreyQueen

CTC, the generation which my parents belong to (early seventies) will recall that plastics used to be very poor and brittle even in their childhood. We often don't understand how life was lived without many of our modern conveniences. Talk to the oldies whilst you still can!

Oh, and I thin that surgical spirit in glass bottles would be useful thing to have, too.

thriftwizard

Oh, and I thin that surgical spirit in glass bottles would be useful thing to have, too.

Not to mention witch hazel too, which is gentler but still effective. Don't forget a hand-operated whisk for the kitchen, which you can still buy new; oooh, and a mouli and a mincer. Also, an old-fashioned typewriter is a useful beastie, and yes, you can still get the ribbons for most of them, on Amazon.

Many of the items GQ has mentioned can be found for pence at car boot sales. You'll be competing with the likes of me, who buy them to sell on at vintage fairs & markets! But before I sell them on, I will have cleaned them up, possibly mended them or supplied missing parts, & tested them, which is where I earn my money, and why they are pennies at car boots & pounds in a reputable "vintage" environment. If you are happy to clean up & mend things, you can get a lot of very useful kit for very little money.

[Deleted User]

GQ we aquired a very expensive (well, by our standards anyway!) galvanised watering can with a large hole rose, just the job we thought and so it was for 2 years then came the morning when I filled it from the tap on the water butt and it took a very long time to fill??? Hmmmmm thinks I, and when I picked it up I left most of the bottom on the ground as it had rusted through the joins!!! We've gone back to a sturdy plastic one!!! Galvanised buckets though, you can't beat a good galvanised bucket can you? go on for years. Moral of this little story, galvanised and constant contact with water, not a good combination!!! In all our prep chat yesterday I should have thrown in the wisdom of perhaps aquiring a new galvanised bath, both for bathing people, washing big items of laundry and maybe dying wool/cloth in the long run and also if one ever comes your way an old fashioned wash tub with a wash dolly would be very useful to have if we had no power,Lyn xxx.

ginnyknit

Lyn thank you, you have given me a reason to stop being annoyed by the head of the washing dolly that is floating round the house. I keep moving the damn thing and it reappears :mad: Oh unearthed it from a box of relics in the loft and we took it to Mums to show her. My Mum is a bit of a comedian, I ring her everyday and she fibs and says she has been scrubbing floors or ' has had the posser out doing the washing' I think they called dollys,possers up here - will have to check now So I just need a handle putting in it and I have a new washing machine ! I love galvanised mop buckets and have promised myself one, I think our only DIY corner shop has them for a tenner. I also love enamel ware and have quite a collection, mostly in the garden with plants in but they live forever so are fine out there. I did have a breadbin which I used for itss purpose but had a problem with the bread going moudly despite everything I did. So its now a container for a plant and damn fine it looks too.

Perplexed_Pineapple

As usual the thread moves fast...
I've been looking at the coverage of the Phillipines - now that is a SHTF situation. There are a few Filipinos at work who are very worried about their families and friends. There willl be lots of money raised for disaster relief by the Filipino diaspora and I'll put something in if the Filipinos at work start a collection.

dragonette wrote: »

Hi CTC,

Had a discussion recently with a friend working with an environmental protection agency, radiation (even gamma) travels a max of 6m in water, alpha and beta much less than that.

Clearly locally contamination of the food chain is significant, but further afield should be safe. I know fish can migrate, but the levels will be too low to be a danger

dragonette, your friend has missed the point. That's how far the radiation travels - but the particles that emit the radation can travel as far as the wind and the waves.Of course the further away you are the greater the dilutional effect, but within the immediate area there will be real problems and if there were to be a large atmospheric release of radioactive dust it could end up anywhere depending which way the wind is blowing (think of the disruption to UK and continental European air services when that Icelandic volcano erupted a few years ago).

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

One word of warning.

Don't drink alcohol, if the emergency is a shortage of water.

In the immediate crisis, definitely good advice. If things drag on, remember that one of the reasons medieval monks drank a lot of ale was that it was safer to store and drink than the water supply, I presume the brewing process helps to inhibit the dangerous bugs, maybe the yeast eats them or something? A good reason, aside from saving a bit of cash, to learn to brew your own

jk0

ginnyknit wrote: »

Lyn thank you, you have given me a reason to stop being annoyed by the head of the washing dolly that is floating round the house. I keep moving the damn thing and it reappears :mad: Oh unearthed it from a box of relics in the loft and we took it to Mums to show her. My Mum is a bit of a comedian, I ring her everyday and she fibs and says she has been scrubbing floors or ' has had the posser out doing the washing' I think they called dollys,possers up here - will have to check now So I just need a handle putting in it and I have a new washing machine ! I love galvanised mop buckets and have promised myself one, I think our only DIY corner shop has them for a tenner. I also love enamel ware and have quite a collection, mostly in the garden with plants in but they live forever so are fine out there. I did have a breadbin which I used for itss purpose but had a problem with the bread going moudly despite everything I did. So its now a container for a plant and damn fine it looks too.

Ginny, I bought a galvanised mop bucket from the local hardware shop about a month ago for £12. I did not leave it full of water, but can you believe the galvanising has started to come off in places in the bottom?

I can now see rust spots, and it looks like the galvanising was only a 'paint effect'. A flaming waste of money, that was.

[Deleted User]

GINNY I've heard them called possers too, would be a good move to restore it as well, and if you can't find the wash tub I reckon a galvanised dustbin would work just as well or even a plastic one as long as it was wide and deep enough to get the depth of water to cover the clothes and take the dolly, Lyn xxx.

GreyQueen

Car boots are my hunting grounds for preptastic stuff, thriftwizard, and it's a great sorrow to me that I can't get to very many of them without my own transport. I admit to having a real liking for heavy duty items which look like they'd last several generations.

Must keep a close eye out for this inferior galv stuff, tho, as wouldn't want to be caught out. For those in the market for mop buckets, would those made for commercial use be a better bet, d'you think?

I can't look at those pictured from the Phillippines there without wanting to cry. There was a bloke on the radio this morning, with his old Dad, who was two days overdue for his dialysis and getting very ill. And when you look at homes, even very modest homes, reduced to matchwood and sodden debris, you feel it to your core. One of the interviewees said it was as bad as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.

Re Fukushima radiation, I honestly think that the scientists don't know what will be the long-term outcomes for the rest of the world as it disperses around the planet. It may mean a sharp uptick in cancers in 30-50 years times, but who will be able to know at this stage what we can expect? I think we're unwitting guinea pigs, tbh, and that TPTB won't be straight with us regardless of what they know (or suspect) is going on at this point.

Seems strange to think that people who are of the tin hat fraternity (I count myself amongst them) are being revealed as bang on the money and the happytalk coming from the gubbermint and their presstitutes (stole this from ZH, good innit?) are ringing ever more hollow.

It's like in Candide when Dr Pangloss kept burbling that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.