Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Ooooh, Lyn, wincing at the thought of eating crab apples, that's a real arris-up-to-the-elbow moment- and yes, I did once try one when I was young and daft. Fine as jelly, not for eating raw.

I was on a bushcraft course a couple of years ago and we were being led about the woods and invited to try and identify certain trees. I could do most of them easily and then we went up onto a bit of moorland and there was a windswept sideways juniper tree/ bush/ overgrown bonsai thing and I was the only one on the course who knew what it was.

The tutor asked me how I knew and all I could think to say was I'd seen one before and there's nothing else which looks like that. He seemed a bit offended that the explanation wasn't better than that, but I have a highly-visual memory and had seen junipers up close in the Lakes 30 years before, so remembered them.

I do have some fairly surreal workplace phone calls with members of the public re trees. They will tell you that they have lived in their house for 30 years and this tree has been in the garden all that time and they don't know what kind of it is. I ask if it has leaves or needles? Dunno. Ask if the leaves come off in winter? Dunno.

Drives me (cob) nuts. I can appreciate that not everyone it interested in trees but when you live in close proximity to it for decades how can you not notice if its leaves come off?!

I'm guessing everyone knows that yew trees are poisonous in every single part of the tree and should be avoided and be careful not to brew-up or cook under them in case some of the toxic needles drop into the pot. Even when you do woodturning, you don't use yew for food use products. I have a beautiful two-tone yew wood light pull in my bathroom, something Mum ran up on the lathe for me.

Frugalsod

danih wrote: »

Found an interesting program on 4OD called Blackout. Its a docu - drama about a week in the UK without electricity, filmed by a variety of people (actors) using their mobile phones. Its very interesting - looks at a variety of situations, access to money, water, government emergency plans . . .

Def worth a watch.

Any other ideas for this type of program?

(Not sure about that prepper series - seems a bit too extreme and edited to be "HAHAHA spot the silly people" for my liking)

The reality is that as soon as you use the mobile for video recording the batteries will last mere hours let alone a week. So I suspect that people unless they have some other way to recharge the phones will be waiting for the phone to get 3 bars of reception again.

For a few days there will be plenty of food as the stores cannot keep the freezers going. Though one problem is will they be able to sell anything as the tills may not work at all. This was the case in London years ago when they had blackouts and no way to price check or open tills in many cases. The big stores were worst hit. Cash would be the only currency then. If a government had previously and foolishly abolished cash then there would be lynchings of politicians imminently.

pineapple

2tonsils wrote: »

Glad the updates on the weather are useful to some on here

I'm probably on my own in finding the constant weather warnings a bit OTT.
Forums like this can be useful as well as entertaining but sometimes I think they cross the line between sensible preparedness/alerts/current events discussion to jumping on every little thing and promoting fear.
It's my problem I know so when I feel the Victor Meldrew in me rising I have to absent myself for the sake of other posters as well as my blood pressure.
So going cold turkey for a few months, maybe a lot longer. Wishing everyone all the best.
Sayonara!

rebeccalb

Frugalsod wrote: »

The reality is that as soon as you use the mobile for video recording the batteries will last mere hours let alone a week. So I suspect that people unless they have some other way to recharge the phones will be waiting for the phone to get 3 bars of reception again.

For a few days there will be plenty of food as the stores cannot keep the freezers going. Though one problem is will they be able to sell anything as the tills may not work at all. This was the case in London years ago when they had blackouts and no way to price check or open tills in many cases. The big stores were worst hit. Cash would be the only currency then. If a government had previously and foolishly abolished cash then there would be lynchings of politicians imminently.

Very true. When we had bad snow march last year, the town I live in was hit badly over night. The power went off about 3am (I remember waking up because the central heating in the next room stopped making a sound :rotfl:). The next morning I woke to find the town without electric or phone signal as the mast had stopped working. People were wandering the streets with a look of horror.
Sorry rambling away.
However the point I wanted to make was there are 3 stores in the town, a coop, spar and a Nisa. None had power so none could open the electronic doors :eek: The queue for the coop was looped around the carpark as people tried to get in, and it was funny and shocking to watch people walk up to the cash point outside and look cluelessly at the machine. :rotfl:

Frugalsod

It is good to see that there are producers of weapons are taking the zombie threat seriously. Now you can get a range of hack and slash weapons to protect yourself from the zombie apocalypse.



http://www.toxicts.com/Biohazard-Zombie-Hack-n-Slash-4-Pc-Set-H803-H806-wb.htm

jk0

rebeccalb wrote: »

Very true. When we had bad snow march last year, the town I live in was hit badly over night. The power went off about 3am (I remember waking up because the central heating in the next room stopped making a sound :rotfl:). The next morning I woke to find the town without electric or phone signal as the mast had stopped working. People were wandering the streets with a look of horror.
Sorry rambling away.
However the point I wanted to make was there are 3 stores in the town, a coop, spar and a Nisa. None had power so none could open the electronic doors :eek: The queue for the coop was looped around the carpark as people tried to get in, and it was funny and shocking to watch people walk up to the cash point outside and look cluelessly at the machine. :rotfl:

Crikey, you'd think those doors could be opened manually. What would happen in a fire?

(Presumably the first person on site in the morning doesn't use the electric door?)

ALIBOBSY

Interesting article here
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/campaigns/high-court-victory-for-leeds-allotment-holders-1-6769196

Love seeing the little guy fight back and win. But its crazy that allotmenteers had to take it to court to prove that putting up costs from £37 a yr to £58 a yr and keeping a chunk of that cash for other stuff not to invest in allotments wasn't fair and was unlawful.

ali x

mardatha

GQ I have a juniper just like that in my garden Overgrown bonsai lol

GreyQueen

Yeah, if you've ever seen one before, you'd not mistake it for anything else, would you? We don't have them down here in my part of southern England, our heathland runs to gorse and broom and that kinda stuff.

I guess It just does isn't a good explanation for successful tree/ shrub/ bonsai recognition but it was the truth.

A childhood spent botanising with plant books out in the countryside has seen me well equiped to identify weeds on the allotment. I even had to ID one for a lottie neighbour which she hadn't seen before (sun spurge).



Close up, seen from above. They were burbling on about having identified 20+ species of weeds on their allotment and I smiled over gritted teeth as I watched several of those species shedding seeds into my allotment and caught myself screaming inside DON'T JUST STAND THERE COUNTING THEM, GET RID OF THE BEGGARS!!!!!!!!!!!

They have thistles and docks and greater bellbind and couch grass and nettles and brambles and all kinds of carp and it's coming over my fence, under my fence, infiltrating on the breeze...........grrr!

Frugalsod

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Interesting article here
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/campaigns/high-court-victory-for-leeds-allotment-holders-1-6769196

Love seeing the little guy fight back and win. But its crazy that allotmenteers had to take it to court to prove that putting up costs from £37 a yr to £58 a yr and keeping a chunk of that cash for other stuff not to invest in allotments wasn't fair and was unlawful.

ali x

This is an example of the impact of cuts. I suspect that this will be an ongoing problem for people.