Preparedness for when

mardatha

Charis my mum& dad lived their whole lives without a car, a fridge, a freezer, or a phone.
MrsL, I'm with you on the twitching. I went to Costco yesterday and bought enough lentils to feed half of Scotland. Today although its raining, I'm planting various veg seeds.

nuatha

D&#8517 wrote: »

One of the blogs I have read they had a rack by the door all neatly stacked with their BOB's and supplies in boxes,I thought it was a great idea..then I thought about the amount of people who knock here to borrow stuff and decided against it,they're bad enough when it's hidden if I had it all out on display I'd be stripped!!

We have a wardrobe behind the front door, in theory its the coat cupboard, in practise it's got coats, car maintenance stuff, BOBs and camping kit, non of it on general show, but very easy to lay hands on. We don't do the rack thing, because that means delays thinking about what to take. Our breakdown is BOB - evacuation emergency, camping kit - not safe to stay, otherwise bug in.

Charis wrote: »

Indeed, there's a recent book on the subject. I posted the link a couple of weeks ago but in case anyone missed it here it is again. There is mention of what they did during the Bosnian war to produce electricity off grid. Just don't try his rehydration therapy in an emergency, those tablespoons of salt and sugar should be teaspoons.

Without having read the book, my concern is that such a fundamental error slips through once, how many less obvious ones are there?
Though I'm a lover of books, the time to learn from them is not when the brown stuff is being flung.

BTW the author thinks we will have a much better chance of continuing the human race if the cause of the SHTF is a virus that wipes out a goodly percentage of the population.

The planet being over populated and some method of reducing the population is not an uncommon theme. Resources are scarce and becoming scarcer, therefore less people to consume those resources delays the brown stuff flying.
However it will only delay things, since those survivors will continue to breed and consume resources.

I'm hoping that the end times will be gradual, that we will start thinking 'remember when we used to be able to get..?' Back in the fifties the only kind of spaghetti I ever saw was in a tin and came in tomato sauce. The first 'supermarket' in our town was the size of a T*sco Metro but had everything we needed to fill the pantry. We had no fridge until I was nine and the one we had then was tiny. We can live without a lot of things, but not long without some kind of social structure. It's plain from last year's flooding on the Somerset Levels and the east coast of England that there is no longer a Civil Defence system in place.

Unfortunately the Civil Defence Corps were stood down in 1968.
I suspect we'll see a relatively gradual decline in living standards, but that it will have some major bumps along the way. Price rationing is already common place, it will increase but there will come a point were any commodity will be seen as about to become very scarce/extinct and an amount of hoarding and physical clashes around it will happen.
People will become hungry, the UK can't feed its current population - certainly nowhere near the variety and levels that people are used to - we may be able to adjust to get basic nutrition.

pineapple

Someone posted this on a rather dubious forum.
Either it was someone's WW3 fantasy or the timeline is just 'off'. But it does paint an interesting picture of how things could escalate.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8E9JPDxtoJ5dnA3ZVQtTW52OGc/edit

D&DD

*stomps in and utters lots of norty words* harrumph..now I have sawfly on me gooseberries..


This is why you still can't rely on a garden to feed you if the SHTF there are so many variables to contend with,best to have plan A thru to Z !!


Off out to walk doglet and see what the damage is on the fields,the plums and damsons were looking really good so hopefully they'll have survived (kiss of death me saying that really the day I'm having)

[Deleted User]

I posted a little while ago about checking dry stores to detect and eliminate any beasties that might just have hatched and today my suggestion is to check all your stored water supplies. I don't keep bottled water as such but have camping water carriers and gallon containers that held pickling vinegar. Today it was time to change the water and one of the camping containers that holds 10litres had developed a wonderful bright green layer of algae on the bottom. It's currently soaking in bleach before being pressure washed, sterilized and filled again. I suspect even bottled water has the potential to do this and if we need the water in a SHTF situation, I don't think bright green would be any use, check, refill if necessary and have peace of mind!!!

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

Lyn, I feels it in me watter, I does.

I think that a financial collapse is imminent and a war in the former Soviet states would be too very convenient to blame that upon, plus all the nefariousness going on with international gas pipelines.

I think September is the peak risk. An awful lot of bad things happen in September, historically speaking.

While I agree that financial collapse is likely I think that TPTB will keep things ticking along for a while longer. Any collapse now would put paid to the governments claim for financial prowess. They cannot have a financial crisis before an election. So things will continue for a while yet. I think it could be a few years, but all the same problems will erupt and house prices will collapse far more than most people expect. I think most houses prices every where are still substantially overvalued and if they were to fall to 3 times average incomes that would mean that average prices would fall to closer to £75 000 not the £300 000 they are now. Though never underestimate the power of governments and everyone with a vested interest in rising prices to throw everything at the problem. Our banks would be insolvent if that happened. Though our government will be if we bail out the banks.

The only thing that we can do is to get our financial houses in order before the SHTF. Never underestimate for bubbles to continue to continue for far longer than most people suspect. Very few people manage to get the timing spot on ahead of the event.

Though likelihood of war is increasing I think that civil wars or coups are far more likely. Russia has serious problems and they are clearly intending to recover all the lost territory with substantial ethnic Russian populations all the way across as a way of distracting their population. Look for problems in Moldova for proof of that.

Runcorn_Bridge

Many thanks to BB, D&DD,GQ and PP for your replies, the consensus is 3:1 for disinfecting the tins which is what I had a mind to do anyway, just wanted to pick the collective brain.

None of the stock was at anytime in the water but may have been, for a few moments, on the floor where the water was. Just being very careful here, thinking ecoli etc.

I'm going to give everything a good dunk in a bucket of disinfectant to be sure.

Just had to call the insurance co as no one's been in touch, had to insist someone comes to formally look at the job, I don't want them to ok £xxx on the strength of an emailed CCTV photo, only to have the job turn into £xxxx.

And I'm in the middle of having the kitchen done! I can sooo do without this at the mo.

RB

GreyQueen

nuatha wrote: »

I remember a discussion with GQ and others about possible dates for financial SHTF and I suggested late May bank holiday as the likely date - its Memorial Day in the US.
I've no inside knowledge, but have been getting increasingly twitchy - whether its because of that "prediction" or other events who knows.

I think all public holidays need to be red-inked onto calendars; I have Memorial Day/ Late Spring Bank Holiday marked onto mine. It would be all too convenient to do something when the rest of us were distracted and perhaps not paying attention.

I've been returning addressed-to-me election bumph to sender and hope the LibrulDemonrats and the CONservatives enjoy getting their carp back with a stern admonishment to take me off their mailing lists. Gobsmacked at getting stuff from the Tories, which has never been seen before in these har parts and is surely a portent of the End of Days.....

Come to think of it, we've got some lamp-posts down here which are looking a little..... how can I put it? .......undecorated. I'd enjoy being doorstepped by a Tory candidate but they're more likely to be found up on Acacia Avenue than here in Shoebox Towers.

Recent tallies of events; two arrests and one inpromptu dog fight,, one intra-flat brawl, several screaming matches, one flat leaking into the one below, the big end going on our MotherShip (the boiler house), dog-fouling, weed-smoking, stolen goods-fencing and SuperGran on fine form and going 10 rounds and no submissions with the housing dept.

Me, I keep well aht of it, and have had almost no sleep, but on the plus side have a negative value of in-house locusts and no one is trying to sell me anything today. Plus I [STRIKE]have[/STRIKE] had a kilo of broken chocolate biscuits.

Y'know that when a biscuit is broken, all the calories leak out and it becomes a healthy item by mere virtue of being fractured, don'tcha?:cool:

I'm very overtired and may not make a lot of sense in the next few hours- bear with me, kind preppers, bear with me.

[Deleted User]

You have a BEAR with you GQ????? Don't let it anywhere near those calorie free fractured bikkies, dreadful bikkie nickers those bears!!!

mrsmortenharket

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Is anyone else feeling an inner urge to pick up those items they haven't yet aquired in the prepping supplies? I woke up today and just had that nagging little inner push from somewhere inside my prepping head that I'd better get on with the list PDQ!!! I'm not aware of anything extra on the radar as a perceived problem, but am becoming increasingly aware of the ongoing situation in Ukraine!!! Very odd, but I think I'll listen and act, Lyn xxx.

Me too.

I've got some water, but will get some more. And will also get food that can be eaten straight from the tin as it is or just gently warmed up.

Erm, what to do about toileting if there was no water?

Calories do fall out of biscuits if they're broken GreyQueen! This is what I always tell myself. My weighing scales don't listen though...!