Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

Love the story about P*ssy GQ.

It made me remember my wondering if all cats know they are all generically called 'Puss/P*ssy'.

When I meet a cat on the street I don't know, I automatically call him 'Puss', and they seem to know who I am talking to.

Am I mad?

Being slightly cracked myself, I am in no position to comment on anyone's sanity, jk0, nor would I dream of trying.

Cats seem to like little squeaky sounds, probably because they imitate prey-noises, and you can almost always get a cat to come towards you by chirruping at them.

Cats also have Cat-Dar which enables them to identify a cat-lovin' fool at many paces. Then, superb opportunists that they are, they turn on the charm and move in to your personal space to see if they can cadge some strokes and possibly access to your dwelling/ fridge/ bank account/ best chair in the house.

Just think of them as the world's most charming hustlers in fur and you won't go far wrong.

One of the neighbourhood cats has decided it likes my home and lies in wait on the doorstep sometimes to barrell indoors when the door is opened. Most disconcerting when it shoots past your feet. It also stormed into SuperGran's flat once and it took her 10 mins to get it outta there. Little beggars, aren't they?!

Butterfly_Brain

Talking about extortionate vet bills, my outlaws have had a huge increase in insurance premiums, over a third in fact :eek: They are pensioners and love their two little dogs, but the dogs are getting on in years, so the insurance company have started to increase the price, this is precisely what happens in America for people's medical bills, the Hospitals and Doctors make mega money from insurance companies and many refuse to pay, take Unum and their thousands of lost court cases with disability denial, the same model that this government is using with the WCA, it is just a vicious corporate rip off throughout. And the older or sicker you are the more the premiums go up until you cannot afford to pay, so you are left without treatment and die early or go bankrupt trying to pay the bills.

GreyQueen

BB, I consider insurance to be a scant whisker better than organised crime. Sort of about a molecule's width, usually.

As an exercise, try going to a city or mature town centre and look at the old bank buildings. They may no longer be banks. Check out the carved pillars, the marble, the luxury of these outfits. And remember that when it comes to where and how you keep your money, no matter how smiley and charming the bank staff are.

Butterfly_Brain

Totally agree with you GQ especially about the banksters. Did you watch Dave:Loan Ranger on channel four about the pay day lenders and their dodgy dealings and how most are owned by US parasite banksters? It was a real eye opener.

It is here if anyone missed it:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dave-loan-ranger/4od

Cake4brains

Thanks for your replies regarding storing cans in the garage. Im not entirely sure I should risk storing them in there now. Although I probably wont have too much and will be rotating them so maybe it wont matter so much.

Nuatha, what type of metal storage boxes do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Do you use oxygen absorbers as well or is that on the extreme side? (Sorry, don't know much about them, just saw them mentioned on a preppers blog!)

Frugalsod

Cake4brains wrote: »

Thanks for your replies regarding storing cans in the garage. Im not entirely sure I should risk storing them in there now. Although I probably wont have too much and will be rotating them so maybe it wont matter so much.

Nuatha, what type of metal storage boxes do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Do you use oxygen absorbers as well or is that on the extreme side? (Sorry, don't know much about them, just saw them mentioned on a preppers blog!)

You can still go ahead. If you can get an old wooden pallet you could put them on there and that will raise them out of any low water risks. It would also give them some additional protection from objects low down.

If you rotate them then it really will be quite effective, especially if you can bulk buy.

nuatha

Cake4brains wrote: »

Thanks for your replies regarding storing cans in the garage. Im not entirely sure I should risk storing them in there now. Although I probably wont have too much and will be rotating them so maybe it wont matter so much.

Nuatha, what type of metal storage boxes do you have, if you don't mind me asking? Do you use oxygen absorbers as well or is that on the extreme side? (Sorry, don't know much about them, just saw them mentioned on a preppers blog!)

I have a mixture of metal tins in use, several old biscuit tins, a couple of old munitions boxes and a card index filing box. I'm not aware of any rodents using the garage, but I don't intend encouraging them either hence the metal boxes. I also have a galvanised metal bin for bird seed (same reason). The only thing I've had problems storing in the garage is paint. (The car won't fit in there)
I don't currently use oxygen absorbers, largely because I haven't been prepping bulk for serious long term storage. I do take advantage of good offers and deals and have generally being aiming for 12 months + of staples. The last 18 months have hammered that a bit, we're down to around 6 months on most items but that's kept us afloat during some fairly rough times and I'm slowly starting to rebuild some of the stocks (and rethinking others).

Ideally I'd look to rebuild the stocks to 24 months of staples before I looked at serious long term supplies and that sort of storage would need a rethink on what and how I store and what kit I would need to achieve this. For example, I've stored flour for just over two years with no obvious loss of quality, I haven't managed to store flour for three years, so above 2 years I'd look at wheat berries, but that needs a viable method of converting the berries to flour. Regular use of a quern is no longer viable for me due to some health problems that won't improve as I age. A wheat mill for my Chef would work but requires electricity, there should be an intermediate solution but I'm not sure what it would be.

Sorry, that's a fairly long winded answer, but hopefully useful.

THIRZAH

It is six years since our cat died at the age of 19. He started hobbling and was prescribed glucosamine by the vet which was expensive-about £1 a day if I remember rightly. I managed to get something from the pet shop which seemed to work as well and was a lot cheaper.It might be worth checking if anything like that is still avaliable.

ALIBOBSY

My OH calls me the cat lady as whenever we go for a walk cats just seem to appear and come to me .

Maybe I am a witch lol.

After our Tom fighting and getting another infected bite and the ensuring vet bills I decided to treat the cats how I treat the chickens and the kids. As soon as a cut/scrap happens I clean it in iodine.
So far we have had no issues and never had to resort to the vets.

Sadly the local vets that sound like the one described above was bought out by a big chain last year. They were so good and cheap they didn't used to have appointments, you just went up and queued for a "session", people loved them, but the main vet was getting older and I think he wanted to retire.

The vets we use now are pretty good but not as cheap, however not as much a rip off as the big boys and other fancy vets.

Ali x

[Deleted User]

katep23 wrote: »

Very amusing moment when he asked what her name was for the system and OH and I looked at each in bemusement and said "duck?"

Surely its name is either Donald or Daffy?