Preparedness for when

maryb

Karen, I appreciate you may be a long time lurker and reader notwithstanding the fact that you only registered this month. However, if not, you may not realise that threads on OS do sometimes get a bit skittish before getting back on track. Think of it as a group of women (mainly) having a laugh and then getting back to chatting about how they cope and giving each other helps support and advice. Can't get much more OS than that

WantToBeSE

I am panicing a little more today, as i have just found out about the council tax reforms that are happening in April 2013.
Hopefully i'll be in a different place financially by then, but if not (ie if i dont have a job), then things will go from 'tight' to 'almost impossible'.
Looking on my councils website, people of working age in my area will have to pay 30% of their council tax.

2tonsils

Well I started reading to catch up and then had to dash away for a real emergency situation....we had the most horrendous storm ever over the house and the filter on the water tank could not take the amount of rain and neither could the drains which had filled with bits from the roof.... hence it came in the house and ran down the marble steps inside....gallons of the wet stuff...

My OH had his shirt off in not time (ooh and its not my birthday till tomorrow)and had the filter ripped off in no time at all to let the water into the tank before more poured into the house. I ran upstairs to clear the drain of the bits and let the two inches of rain on the patio drain away then he came up to help me and ran outside again with no shirt on (luckily its still 26 degrees....just very stormy)

So the buckets and mop and microfibre cloths came into use and its now cleared up..literally as the sun is back out again...but its looking very stormy again.

Helped out at the gym this morning , which I do in exchange for our memberships. Took a prawn and smoked salmon salad with us to save spending on a take away lunch which would not have been as nice. Tea and coffee are provided for me, as is water by the bottle full.
Called at the blacksmith's on the way home to pick up the ash can for the fireplace, but spotted the old one with no handle on it. Since he phoned to say it was ready he must have constructed a new one for us. Picking it up tomorrow.

I was reading you rules (and laughing) but we have no Aldi here and no poundshops either. We do have a euro shop but they are full of rubbish like silk flowers and cheap shampoo and most of it is much more than one euro (I don't understand how that works either...).

I have butter in the freezer for storage and also if you freeze olive oil in a dish it goes like a spread..just return it to the freezer when you have finished or it will go back to being an oil. Going to do gluten free sausage (LIdl's) with onion gravy, mash and green beans for dinner. Even if the electric goes off with the storms we have calor gas bottles for cooking with. No natural gas here on the islands.

Meanwhile some arguments seem to be developing between the government and the Troika and the three political parties here...can't see them signing on Sunday like they planned to do...and 32 corrupt politicians have been reported to the financial crime squads....a lot going on at once now....

The villages are busy picking the grapes for the wine harvest and the ones that got them in early are now fermenting them...the whole village smells like fermenting wine. I thought the rain might ruin them but apparently it saves on the water used to wash them..nice bit of logic there folks. They are currently 45 cents a kg as there is such a glut of grapes this year! Will get some tomorrow as they can be frozen for fruit salad or used as ice cubes that do not dilute the glass of wine or booze....crafty eh?

Butterfly_Brain

Thanks for the tip about olive oil 2tonsils, I will try that when my freezer is not so full, not that I am complaining about that, I think things will go from bad to worse here next year and as usual the poorest will pay the price :mad:

:Quote:Meanwhile some arguments seem to be developing between the government and the Troika and the three political parties here...can't see them signing on Sunday like they planned to do...and 32 corrupt politicians have been reported to the financial crime squads....a lot going on at once now....:Quote:
We have 650 of those bar stewards in the house of conmen :mad:

born_blonde

We have decided to plan escalating scenarios.

First of all what would we do if we got snowed in for a week ( small village rural location so possible. We are going to make a list that covers that.

Then snowed in without power ( electric only village).

Then financial crisis, no access to money, rapid inflation civil unrest.
No petrol stations open.

We think if we cover the simpler problems first we will be well on the way to being equipped for any more serious problems that may or may not occur.

Keep it simple. cheap and effective.

rosieben

I posted before about the 7-day challenge on foodstoragemadeeasy using various shtf scenarios; they are worth a look, some of them would be useful for testing winter/emergency preps (a day with no power/no running water/no comms etc)

born_blonde

Thanks Rosieben, I'll take a look.
I think the key thing is to find out all you can and then take out the elements that are relevant to your family.

2tonsils

if you wizz up jarred/bottled olives with a little oil it makes a lovely spread..its even nice on baked potato, in pasta and on pizzas! I put it on slices of mozzarella and sliced tomato for a quick lunch.

amazing how people are getting upset at this little thread...I would have thought the title would give the game away and pre warn them....but you never know if they didn't actually read the title.

Mind you, I have had the same reaction here to posts warning people that they should plan what to do in case the worst happens....whatever their worst scenario is. In the nineteen years we have lived here we have survived the following....

four serious fires that threatened to burn our village to the ground, countless floods and thunderstorms, a woman hitting us in our car (she was on the wrong side of the road)...an old man who was drunk from celebrating the elections running into us with his truck..falling off my scooter twice when it hit a patch of diesel on the road and escaping unscathed...the lightning frying our electrics and leaving us with no electric for eleven days..the temperature hitting minus thirteen four nights running and freezing the well,which meant the whole village had to use cold bottled water to get washed in ..getting stung between the fingers by a scorpion and having to get the sting out before the poison went in........stopping for a drink of water when power walking on the mountain only to spot a very live poisonous snake at my feet...getting stuck on a boat in a storm with the captain and his drunken wife struggling to get the sails down before we hit the rocks.. having the substation next to the bar where we were singing on a karaoke burst into flames and go up like a burning cross ....getting food poisoning from a buffet and almost dying (both of us) and taking over a year to recover from it..... and falling down the wet marble steps outside, hitting the base of my spine on the bottom step and sliding under a moving car...which was being driven by my OH who luckily saw me in time!

I won't have anyone on here or anywhere else telling me that the S**t is not likely to hit the fan anytime soon, it happens regularly here in Greece.....and I have survived it every time thanks to my know how or being prepared for it.....and yes, I have written a book about it LOL

ginnyknit

Excellent point Blonde one, as 2tonsils has so well shown plans are different for all. In a city location like me I was still snowed in for 3 weeks a couple of years ago as wheelchairs don't work in snow and OH and I did ok but were stir crazy and short of a couple of necessities. Dd lives close but has to come across pathways next to reservoirs and parkland so with a little boy in a buggy that doesnt work. We would have to rely on her OH to help out and he is ex army brought up trekking and camping all over the world, so he is a great asset.

I intend to be able to sustain us and our sanity for upto 3 weeks due to bad weather and longer in case of civil unrest or financial collapse. Cannot see the problem with a store cupboard myself, long use by dates and rotation work fine. It also means if I am short of ready cash I can live off the pantry or have a no spend week to pay something scary like the Bedroom tax. None of us know if or when we will suddenly have to manage with no income for some reason as many on these boards have had to do in recent months.

GreyQueen

the_cake wrote: »

Hmm.....bit concerned about this sheep spinning, it's quite cruel, you know? They get very dizzy, are easily confuzzled and if overspun could well flock off and bolt, trampling all in their path. They may indeed have already done this and ended up in the Kingsmill bakery, wreaking sheepish havoc and destroying crucial food supplies ("Ewe will be sorry ...")

:rotfl:LMAO, that is so funny!

Weeeellllll, I went into Tosco on legitimate prepping business an hour ago (am buying chocolate to eat immediately, so that I can build up a nice subcuteanous fat reserve to see me through the winter;)) and I saw a Managerial Type in the Bread Aisle.

At least, he had a suit and a badge and a mobile and was doing bread-related tasks, so I asked about the Great Disappearing Kingsmill Mystery. Their bread aisles were still more shelf than product and they have big notices up about problems with Kingsmill.

He said he though it started Sunday-Monday, doesn't know what is happening but they are trying to get bread from other sources. So that casts not a lot of light, apologies for not being a better sleuth.

My food storage is very much an active area, stuff in, stuff out, dates written in pen on the top of tins, or stuck on with bits of tape. Constantly moving and changing, FIFO (first in first out) so not wasting anything that I can see. Have never knowingly wasted packaged food stuffs, with the exception of a couple of kilo bags of flour (my only bags of flour) which were minding their business in a wall cabinet on the party wall between my kitchen and next door's bathroom and got spoiled by damp coming thru as a result of an uncontolled water leak in the flat above next door.

I was cross and even tried a test loaf to see if it was salvagable (no ) but can't think of anything else which has escaped my stock control other than the occasional missed bit of veg, and yes, I am suitably ashamed of the wastefulness.

2tonsils, you post reminded me slightly of the fun and games attendant on a cloudburst at my previous flatted dwellinghouse; drainage was boogered outside and I had to be outside in a below-ground level area baling water into a bucket with a dustpan then rushing up to street level to pour it into the road drain. Such fun.