Preparedness for when

RAS

Completely off the wall but....

I remember many years ago seeing a survival programme with an Atlantic rower (John Ridgeway?) leading a group of townies on a sodden Scottish island.

They were trying to harvest limpets and similar. Then I spies out of focus large white blobs in the background. Woolly maggots!

Now if I was surviving in that situation, them there sheep would have been barbequed long before I started trying to lever limpets off rocks.

Would have helped if any of them could have made a fire though...

Steel and flint, fireweed anyone?

GreyQueen

Too right.

I'd've been after the woolly maggots for their mutton and their sheepskins and then would have been looking into boat building to get off the soggy Scottish Island, down England to the Channel and across to the continent.

You can walk from Southern England to Southern Spain in less than 200 days, y'know.

I would have ended up foraging in the sweet chestnut and almond groves of Andalusia. Where, should I become peckish, they have sheep as well as goats. Nomnomnom. Plus I've been there before and know my way around some of the Sierra Nevada. Just don't touch the Pine Processional Caterpillars.....!

Bu88er shellfish, nasty little disease-harbouring organisms. Although I have levered them off rocks from a kayak of the coast of New Zealand...........there are easier ways to get lunch.

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

Too right.

I'd've been after the woolly maggots for their mutton and their sheepskins and then would have been looking into boat building to get off the soggy Scottish Island, down England to the Channel and across to the continent.

I had in mind meat, fat, skin, soap, bone, sinew for sewing, bladder as water carrier or to contain fat, intestines for storage or for preserved/smoked meats, grubby bits to attract crabs and lobsters (assuming willlow or similar to make pots) and glue from hooves and joints.

Sure others can think of other uses.

And I would be getting off a sodden island.

Plus possibly the odd club?

GreyQueen

RAS wrote: »

I had in mind meat, fat, skin, soap, bone, sinew for sewing, bladder as water carrier or to contain fat, intestines for storage or for preserved/smoked meats, grubby bits to attract crabs and lobsters (assuming willlow or similar to make pots) and glue from hooves and joints.

Sure others can think of other uses.

And I would be getting off a sodden island.

Plus possibly the odd club?

Respect!

And if they happened to be a horned variety of sheep, possibly drinking horns and horn buttons and craft work. You could dress out the skins and stretch them over a frame of bent willow or hazel wands and paddle your coracle over to the mainland and dilly-dally down Sarf.

There were good reasons why the majority of the neolithic people were in Southern England. Plus you can make waterproof capes by attaching long reeds to a woven collar (they function to shoot off the rain) and take the soft rushes from the boggy ground and peel them to reveal their white poly-strene like innards and use them as rushlights.

Or keep them unpeeled and use them to cover the spruce broughs which are in turn covering the branchwood slats of your rustic bedframe under your bushcraft shelter.

Oh yes, it's amazing what you can learn in the woods.

vanoonoo

Karen_ wrote: »

If any of you are seriously worried about some major disruption to normal life, I would suggest that rather than stockpiling a few months supply of chopped tomatoes, why not invest the money spent on stockpiling on a course such as self sufficiency/bushcraft/foraging etc.

In a disaster those with the practical skills to live are the ones who will survive. Those with a well stocked larder and no practical skills will not in the long run.

as has been said - many people posting here ARE skilled and others are skilling up, however, fortunately most are not "seriously worried" as that leads to panic. we are calmly considering and collating. then we'll dehydrate our tinned tomatoes, plant the seeds, use the lids to cut our paracord and make a hobo stove out of the tin.

welcome to the party

SpikyHedgehog

Popperwell wrote: »

Thank you D&DD. I'll give that a go and have some fun. From what you say I will have to give my CC details but I won't be charged...fantastic...

I have an Amazon account but now being in my situation will probably be buying very little and I have the kindle software on my laptop for downloading but it does not not download directly but may kick in when I do what D&DD suggests. I don't own a Kindle as yet.

I think if you log into your account, it should load without any need for your details

prepareathome wrote: »

There are plenty of bushcraft tutorials on youtube if you want to learn basics, handy for going camping:D Courses are not cheap now unfortunately and as I know I have forgotten more than I ever knew would love a refresher for an old codger like me but all geared for mobile fairly active people so I just refresh via the videos and books and adapt for me now although have to be something major to make me toddle out:rotfl:

With all these end of the world predictions we need to learn to step and so can go live in 'The Long Earth ( Terry Pratchett 2012) now that would be a handy skill to have

Cool, thank you, PAH, will check them out. I'm sure they're not good as the courses, but better than nothing. It will give me the incentive, I think, to learn more

We had a letter come home from DS2's school, the HSA are offering first aid training for parents (we have to pay). So I filled in the slip & sent straight back saying I'd love to do it, & please can DS1, too?

They came back to me & said he can (yay), only it's a school day, & my long day at work Will see if I can swap the day though, but I don't think DS1 will be doing it this time...


With them woolly maggots, if no-one's said it yet (since coracles have already gone ) sheepskin are jolly good for any babies we happen to have with us, they can sleep on them & if they wet them, are (apparently) easy to wash out. Also good for anyone out of infancy who has incontinence, I suppose.

(My source for this is Juliette de Bairclai Levi, &.she also recommends moss.)

Live sheep, good for providing warmth in any temporary shelter needed while curing the skins enough for making the coracle.

prepareathome

No Lyn its a sideways step, but most people need a stepper machine to help them, although some people are nature steppers :Dand you can step from this earth to the next one and the next, there a millions of earth's but the further you go from our earth the more they change..........it was in one of his new books this year, came out May I think, he is only author I buy books of when they come out. Over population of the world solved quite easily and everyone can live where they want to, unless you are one of the poor unfortunates who cannot step.

You need all your preppers skills though as all the earth's are bare of mankind so you have to know how to do things, oh and you cannot take iron with you except what is in your blood, iron stays behind when you step.:o

Not a Discworld book

mardatha

Wool is excellent for wicking off water yes. But I think I'll be the prepper in the nice big 5* hotel on the other side of the island, getting out of a hot tub into a white fluffy bathrobe. I'll be thinking of youz though..

StumpyPumpy

Has the Zombie Holocaust happened and no one told me?


MSE is echoing! :eek::eek::eek: :rotfl:

2tonsils

prepareathome wrote: »

No Lyn its a sideways step, but most people need a stepper machine to help them, although some people are nature steppers :Dand you can step from this earth to the next one and the next, there a millions of earth's but the further you go from our earth the more they change..........it was in one of his new books this year, came out May I think, he is only author I buy books of when they come out. Over population of the world solved quite easily and everyone can live where they want to, unless you are one of the poor unfortunates who cannot step.

You need all your preppers skills though as all the earth's are bare of mankind so you have to know how to do things, oh and you cannot take iron with you except what is in your blood, iron stays behind when you step.:o

Not a Discworld book

Now that kind of earth, bare of mankind..sounds like shangrila to me at the moment. The good news is we have not had the rolling electric cuts hit us yet, the bad news is my other half is still sick in bed and now I have a sore throat and stuffy nose as well...

All our politicians are falling out and resigning over a disclosure of 2000 tax evaders. It's a long story but the **** is hitting the fan and splattering over Europe as we speak as 20,000 tax evaders are named in other countries as well. Many more heads are going to roll and I can see a few people disappearing into the mists of time ...before they get arrested.

The EU inspectors are here and they have made impossible demands that simply cannot be met...10 billion in cuts in one year to pensions/services when only 9.5 million live here...it cannot add up. I think they are going to leave Greece to declare themselves bankrupt so the Germans can't be blamed. Not sure if that will work, suffice to say my BOB is ready.

Just in case I can't get out should things get really bad, I am pleased to say I have done survival training, have umpteen skills in everything from foraging to herbal medicine, can shoot great and have been trained in dirty street fighting tactics should the need arise! (It was part of my martial arts training).

Talking of dirty street fighting, a few months ago I was complaining about the rise in break ins and other problems here and I was told that a ''lookout'' group was being set up in the near future. Well folks, they are here...and it hasn't half gone quiet in our area...no more noises on my roof at 4am with people using it to get through the village unseen, no dodgy gypsies selling goods in the village unless they are known well, and no outsiders blocking my doorway with their cars tonight...... its silent again out there!

Have been watching the reports of earthquakes in Italy today and we have just had one tonight...first one for ages..here it is on the map
http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/stations/maps/events/ev121003184520/index.html

This afternoon I heard a strange deep rumbling that lasted for ages and someone outside commented on it. Not only a strange sound but a deep vibration ran through the whole house and lasted for a couple of minutes. Earthquakes here usually last around 20-30 seconds. Odd. I can't help feeling we are in for a bigger one shortly. :eek:

Love to all, sorry I have not updated before but I have been busy running up and down stairs to look after my OH. If he has ''shared'' it with me he is going to have to look after me well....:D