Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Being a fully paid up life member of the Awkward Squad, or contrarian, as I think is the modern lingo, I'd not want to do it.

I was doorstepped over a similar thing once, at an inconvenient time (was decorating) and arranged for the guy to come back by appt the following day. Had second thoughts and arranged to be Out to avoid him.

[Deleted User]

jk0 wrote: »

This says they will be honest with me about my participation being voluntary. Is it?

Yes, it is completely voluntary, although some doorsteppers act like it isn't.

Calling cards with phases like "I will call again to conduct your interview", or "please ring me, to arrange a convenient time for me to conduct the interview".

elaine241

Hello all, interesting discussions as usual As I have said before I live in a rambling old farmhouse which has been totally rebuilt over the years as and when we could afford it. Work is ,and will ever be!, ongoing but it is getting there with all the structural work done. People see the lovely house and gardens we have and are often wondering how we could afford such a lovely house. They don't know about the leaking roof, damp, molds, deathwatch beetle, all sorts of rot etc etc!!! And we lived with it!!!! And I was pregnant, twice!!!!. I came downstairs in the night to the "bathroom" in the old dairy (freezing) to be faced with a rat sitting on the salting stones. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I thought sod it! Went to the loo and back to bed!!! :rotfl:

I was in the local CS and found an interesting book, plus candles, kettle that sits on the gas and pottery tea light holder. The book is called " The garden and cottage diaries" my year in the eighteenth century by historian Fiona Houston. She revamped an old byre that had been a cottage in the past, currently an outbuilding to their larger house. She had been tending her veg patch for 20 years so it was already established. She then lived a year in the byre as her ancestors would have ,home made clothes, eating from the garden, foraging, learning skills and crafts. It looks like it will be a very interesting read. What struck me was the opening chapter where she "rants" against supermarkets and the diets that many people live on, mentions peak oil and how life is becoming more unsustainable, how the subsistence economy has gone and the future is looking more precarious for many communities. She reminded me of so many people on this thread!

One other thing, my OH rescued a bee hive a few years back as the PTB were going to kill the bees as the hive was on an old allotment site. Anyway they have been busy doing bee things ever since but with no input from me! I have finally rang a bee keeper who said that they need regular maintenance etc. Anyhow first thing first I have to have a visit from the bee inspector to ensure they do not gave any diseases. I never knew there was such a thing as a bee inspector, sounds very official!!! If my hive gets the all clear I have found they do a 6 week course locally and I will become a fully fledged bee keeper. Watch this space!

I must admit prepping just seems part of my everyday lifestyle now, building stocks, buying bargains and useful items when I see them and keeping preps ready for likely SHTF scenarios. Preparedness in my day to day life just seems natural, largely down to this thread!
Anyway I've rambled on, got to go and put more logs in the fire, not because its cold, but we have no hot water and I'm too tight to put the immersion heater on!!! Wood is free!

GreyQueen

I love your 'rambling on' elaine, please feel free to ramble whenever you can spare the time from RL.

Grinning at the thought of the rat. Sometimes, you engage briefly with a wild animal and have a distinct sense of being weighed up and dismissed. One is used to this casual contempt from our feline overlords, but when vermin get uppity, it takes the biscuit. Could you tell us what a salting stone is, please?

My parents go the Big Market Town once a week and tend to take their ease for a little while in the park. There are a lot of cheeky grey squirrels who lurk around people on benches, hoping for tidbits. The best one ever was when my Dad felt a tugging on his shirtsleeve, looked down, and there was a squirrel standing beside him with the fabric clutched in its wee paw, giving it puppy-dog eyes.........:rotfl:little beggars, literally.

I've often wondered about what old timers, who lived in places infested with vermin, would have thought of the habit some of us have of keeping rodents as pets? They'd've probably thought we were moon-touched.

As I've mentioned, I am reading a very good book about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but felt the need to balance some fiction with the history, as history needs to be digested in smaller chunks, I find.

So, went to the library yesterday and came across a Stephen Baxter book called Coalescent, which was a new one on me. The chapters are alternating between the life of a young girl of Romano-British descent in Britian as the Empire died, and one of her descendants, a middle-aged man in the UK in contemporary. There's some hinted-at spookiness which hasn't been revealed thus far, but why I'm waffling on about it is the very interesting descriptions of life in Britain on the edge of a collapsing empire.

Obviously, it's fiction, but I can quite believe the soldiers on Hadrian's Wall deserting after years with no pay at all, and pay before that in coins which were less than 5% silver, wealthy families packing up and trying to get ship to the continent, the impossibility of getting skilled tradesmen to repair stonework etc, and the rapid decay of a sophisticated state where the organisational collection of taxes and expenditures on roads and public works etc has stalled.

It must have been hell for the people who lost everything.

craigywv

Its the salt a cow licks to give it salt in its diet or something like that ..................im from the city and only know this as seen one in a farm and asked my 10 yr old .............im prob completly wrong. Sorrry about big writing cant see have put glasses down and cant find them now...............hunt on in immediate area bribed son with a dairy milk.....................he will find them...ITS NOT BIG WRITING AFTER ALL I REALLY AM BLIND!

thriftwizard

Oooh, elaine241, I now have beehive envy! I've wanted to keep bees for a long time, and we have a very good place to keep a couple of hives, but as I may be allergic to bee-stings (reacted badly, but not typically, to one in Bermuda) apparently it's not a good idea. And good for you, for saving your farmhouse; that's very different to what the finance-house types do down here. It's all done in 3 months, including the new oak-framed triple garage, complete with home office/playroom above, triple glazing & windows 3 times the size of the originals ("Sooo dark, darling! They had to go.") and usually the 'farmworker's cottage' will have been extended on 3 sides, as well as upwards, just keeping the original facade! The original ground floor is quite often just the kitchen afterwards, full of shiny new cabinets that show every fingerprint. And all topped with traditional thatch, of course...

Not that the original cottages would have been brilliant to live in; I was involved with researching the history of one, and it had started off (in about 1292) as a "living" loft above an open barn, only about 6' high at the apex. At one stage, after the barn sides were filled in, it became 3 cottages, which must have been minuscule; the whole thing made one smallish dwelling once they were joined back up again. The flues were labyrinthine, twisting this way & that to connect the bread oven & the smoking cupboard upstairs, with the flue from one cottage actually twisting clear round another. We found three separate floor levels before hitting the ground.

Interesting that a building that was never intended to be a permanent dwelling-place is still standing, 800 years later; I wonder how many of our efforts will stay the distance like that?

jk0

GreyQueen wrote: »

Obviously, it's fiction, but I can quite believe the soldiers on Hadrian's Wall deserting after years with no pay at all, and pay before that in coins which were less than 5% silver, wealthy families packing up and trying to get ship to the continent, the impossibility of getting skilled tradesmen to repair stonework etc, and the rapid decay of a sophisticated state where the organisational collection of taxes and expenditures on roads and public works etc has stalled.

Hmm. I wonder if that's a vision of our future, as well as our past?

I've had trouble getting skilled trademen for years. Silver coins? We should be so lucky. Expenditures on roads? LOL!

Frugalsod

pineapple wrote: »

I've been considering trying to save money by downtrading to a property which is not within sensible commuting distance of ANYWHERE.
This used to be a lot more do-able before the days of people on short working weeks or being able to network from home. Plus a lot of properties in pretty Yorkshire Dales villages have been bought for silly money as second homes - sending up the price of properties generally and making local housing unaffordable for youngsters (or people like me).
Of course the local people themselves have had a hand in this by selling to non residents in the first place.

This has been a problem in Cornwall for years where second home owners have priced the locals out of a home, and with few local kids have forced the closure of schools shops etc. Then many second home owners bring in everything they need so the local stores do not benefit, and being second homes they pay a discounted council tax as well which kicks the local government finances in the teeth as well.

Frugalsod

cornishchick wrote: »

The house prices are so huge, that locals have built in the large back gardens to take advantage of it..

Around here that has happened as well. Two new places both built in back gardens and both for sale for over a million pounds. :eek:

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

Hmm. I wonder if that's a vision of our future, as well as our past?

I've had trouble getting skilled trademen for years. Silver coins? We should be so lucky. Expenditures on roads? LOL!

Perhaps you could offer to pay tradesmen in american silver eagles or silver britannias as an enticement (about £20 for a one-troy-ounce coin atm)?

The roads are generally appalling. And we didn't even have sharp frosts this past winter, at least around here it was pretty benign. When I drive my parents' car, which is every few weeks, they keep cautioning me on the whereabouts of the potholes. I was making several journeys on an A road and we were virtually walzing around them at times. And they've been there, unmended, for months.

After my Dad left farmwork, he worked on building sites for a few years. This was in the height of the 1960s housing boom, and his workmates ranged from those who'd been working pre-WW2 to twenty-somethings like himself.

I remember what he told me about bricklaying. The older brickies, who would have been building 1930s semis like your own, were up in arms at the rushed and sloppy work they were expected to turn out in the 1960s and afterwards. Sometimes, the work of other, younger brickies was so poor they'd have to be called in to re-work it. They kept telling Dad that you can't get good work done in a rush. How does the saying go; you can have only two out of these three, choose; fast, good or cheap?

We're effectively conditoned as consumers to accept poor quality items as normal. I hear people whose fridge has dies remark how it's lasted 7 or 9 years, so that's pretty good, mustn't grumble, buy another on the weekend etc etc.

No, people, that isn't good. Fridges used to last about 20 or even 30 years. And if 1950s and 1960s level manufacturing can make a fridge which will last for 30 years in constant use, compared to nowadays, what does that say about deliberate loss of quality?

And washers contain components which used to be stainless steel and are now plastic, textiles are p-poor, shoes are rubbish, it just goes on and on and most people don't understand that furniture can last several lifetimes, that a decent saucepan should see you out, etc etc.

We've got so that we can barely recognise quality and know we should be seeking it out, to save money and to save wastefulness.