Preparedness for when

mardatha

What you need in a house post SHTF is an older style house... I'm talking purely about housing here, not security.
You look at old cottages, (up here anyway because I've no experience of anywhere else) - they're built facing due south into the sun. The back of the house faces north and that's where the kitchen and larder are, my house is the same. Add a veranda or sun porch on the front and that's your greenhouse or for drying the washing. You use the sun for heat as much as possible.
The back of the house is always cool because it faces north.My house had a pantry in the back wall of the kitchen, complete with stone shelves and wee mesh window (had a coal cellar next to it!)
If you've got a coal fire then you drape the washing around it overnight when you go to bed and it's dry in the morning.
I honestly manage fine without elect, in a way I prefer it, although I hate no internet. I don't keep the freezer stashed full in winter, it's too much money to risk because of powercuts.

[Deleted User]

NUATHA Our woodstove is in the lounge but I'd still be able to live with a drying wrack on the ceiling in there if it meant keeping food safely and dry clothes. I think that being adaptable in your habits and thinking is a must in any changing situation whatever that may be. Being open to ideas and not having set in stone values is essential to surviving change. With the bacon and the depth of smoking, if you wanted to keep the bacon edible you'd very quickly have to put down what you were used to and accept that life was different and if you wanted to eat meat in the winter the saltier and smokier taste would be what you'd get along with the brined meats etc. Brining is something that we could possibly use to preserve defrosted meats if the freezer was out of use due to power cuts, and salt is cheap enough to be able to keep a fair quantity in store just in case. There are precise instructions about setting up a brine tub online all you'd need is a suitable container.

Our lounge and kitchen are side by side with a connecting door so bringing prepared stuff in to cook/dry would not be a problem.

D&DD

ooh you are a clever lot do please keep your ideas coming


I do have an ulterior motive as I have 3 freezers which are chock full and I need a plan B so currently playing with ideas of what to do with what if needed.


I have all the equipment for preserving now just need to get myself organised as to how to preserve what!!


For example,Peas and sweetcorn dried fabulously in the dehydrator but as a matter of habit when I got my shopping this week I slung them into the freezer..


Must put my brain to work and make a suitable plan and I really need to make more use of the gadgets I have.


Does anyone know if clones are available to rent yet?? lol


Off to do the next round of 'little and often' seeds although as per usual I've done far too many and far too often!!!


I'll add my dream house later for you GQ ooh I may be doing a mega post and MrsL a veranda is on my list too complete with swing


Have a wonderful day in the sun all XX

[Deleted User]

At 1442hrs yesterday, I received notification from Amazon, that my Hybrid Radio had been despatched.

It arrived 5 minutes ago. :cool:

jk0

There's an interesting discussion both pro & anti conspiracy theories on PP that might interest you guys:

http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/85359/book-review-mysterious-collapse-world-trade-center-7

nuatha

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

NUATHA Our woodstove is in the lounge but I'd still be able to live with a drying wrack on the ceiling in there if it meant keeping food safely and dry clothes. I think that being adaptable in your habits and thinking is a must in any changing situation whatever that may be. Being open to ideas and not having set in stone values is essential to surviving change.

Sorry if that didn't come across, I reckon we'd need a lot more flexibility and have to dispense with the idea of single function rooms. My first house had a range ripped out just months prior to my renting it. A couple of my elderly neighbours still baked bread on their ranges in the living room (and several more boiled kettles and made tea there. I'd love something similar but the current house isn't suitable, though I have removed gas fires and reinstated a coal fire.

With the bacon and the depth of smoking, if you wanted to keep the bacon edible you'd very quickly have to put down what you were used to and accept that life was different and if you wanted to eat meat in the winter the saltier and smokier taste would be what you'd get along with the brined meats etc. Brining is something that we could possibly use to preserve defrosted meats if the freezer was out of use due to power cuts, and salt is cheap enough to be able to keep a fair quantity in store just in case. There are precise instructions about setting up a brine tub online all you'd need is a suitable container.

Our lounge and kitchen are side by side with a connecting door so bringing prepared stuff in to cook/dry would not be a problem.

In the longer term we'd get used to it - I used to really enjoy the flavour 30+ years ago. However we've become so used to fridges and freezers that most traditional preserving techniques and now used to add a "flavour" rather than to preserve.
Another issue taste wise, not all salt is equal in saltiness, I tend to buy bulk seasalt, however I recently ran short and bought common table salt - which tastes twice as salty to me. Whether that will impact of preserving capabilities I don't know.
Brining to produce corned beef, (smoking and brining to produce pastrami) there's a lot of useful techniques to be relearned and practised.

GreyQueen

jk0, I once saw a series of brief video clips of controlled explosion demolitions of very tall multi-story buildings......and one of WTC 7 at the end of it.

Ab-so-lutely identical.

ETA, haven't got the above-mentioned clip at hand but have this one; http://www.nuclear-demolition.com/911-wtc-7-demolition-wtc-7-collapse-video.html

Because fire just reduces a multi-story building to dust in under 10 seconds, doesn't it?

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

My freezer is only a tabletop model, 50 litre capacity.

Mine's not even half the capacity of yours.

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Mine's not even half the capacity of yours.

Never mind, Bob; size isn't everything.

This is what I have; http://www.johnlewis.com/zanussi-zfx51400wa-compact-freezer-a-energy-rating-52-5cm-wide-white/p514282

SuperGran was so impressed she got one for herself. It's parked on the counter in her kitchen, sits on top of a regular-sized fridge * in mine. Lots of people are unobservant and think I have a small fridge freezer but it's a Zanussi sitting on a Miele larder fridge.

Very light user of leccy, contributing to the 2 kWh my household sips every 24 hours. I'd recommend them - got mine 7 years ago and never given a moment's trouble.

* If there are any Americans in da house, regular-sized here is 'dorm-sized' for you.

[Deleted User]

Talking of milti function rooms, when we were in Sweden a couple of years ago we visited a living history museum called Jemtland in Ostersund and saw what is a really sensible idea for living in the one room that is warm in cold climates. They had what are called 'Cupboard Beds'. Not the fold up variety that are common in France but a proper bed with storage space underneath it and cupboard doors to keep draughts out from underneath but a bed actually built with walls around it fastened to the frame, a bed sized cupboard in a corner of the living rooms with solid ends and going up to the ceiling walls and closing doors on the front for privacy and warmth. It's like a solid walled 4 poster and makes an awful lot of sense if you have no heating other than in one room. They had a little cupboard inside to take snacks and drinks if you wake up and a mesh grid in the top of one of the doors for ventilation and must be toasty warm in an arctic swedish winter. I would try to make something along those lines if we got a cold winter and bring the bed down into the lounge in a corner, even if I could only hang blankets round and over a makeshift frame, it would make sense to have the benefit of the residual warmth from the woodstove.