Preparedness for when

sb44

Well, I still haven't got around to making a brick rocket stove, so, I am going to go to Wickes tomorrow to buy some bricks and a piece of wire mesh.

I will build it at the end of the garden and have a go at burning some twigs.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

lol, BB...


re the KK .. when we have been clearing the land here, we have noticed the dried bramble twigs are great for getting a fire going, so maybe these might be easier for some people to cut up into small manageable sizes, leave to dry out, and use them..


here is some pics of our bacon, gammon and pork joint

nuatha

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Re food = do.....keep it cold...keep it safe....for foods that can be prepared inconspicuously if TSTHF.
Yep...pate is one of the things I have in mind if inconspicuous eating is ever required. Don't forget to NOT toast bread...knowing that a version of S*ds Law would probably mean the wrong time would be just the time that the toaster was set too high and the bread burnt and that would be burnt toast smell hanging around for some hours.

Fresh bread would be a problem - baking bread is one of the aromas that really does attract attention.

Flour tortillas do store for quite a while, the various crispbreads are long life and I saw pumpernickel with a 9 month shelf life in a local deli recently.

I carry a large stock of flour and yeast, I would expect to be baking bread, I would expect some would go to neighbours but I would not anticipate that being a one way street, nor would I expose other stocks needlessly.

womble_lancs

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

BBC news this morning was talking about electricity capacity being depleted due to the closure of 2 nuclear reactors with problems, they said this winter would see the energy companies having to use the available slack in the system to keep our lights on, not very reassuring as a thought.

I can't help but wonder if some of these 'the lights will go out' reports are just scaremongering tactics, to persuade us to go for unpopular forms of energy, such as fracking. If we all made an effort to consume less energy in the first place, it would be a big help. I'm sure many people on here are already very careful with their fuel expenditure, but there are many more out there who don't. I know plenty of people who leave lights on all over the house, fill the kettle to the top for a single cup of tea, and leave appliances on standby.

Over the summer, I used a camping stove a lot whilst I was away, and in order to save as much gas as possible, I measured out the water quite precisely, so that I wasn't trying to heat too much, and I kept a pot of water on the campfire too. The fire wasn't hot enough to boil it, but it was hot enough to keep it warm, so that I only had to finish to boiling process on the stove, rather than heat from cold.

GreyQueen

Yes, there is an awful lot of electicity being wasted, both in homes and in businesses and even streetlighting, such as were the timer is wrong and the light is on during the day.

I cannot for the life of me work out why a commerial premises has its building uplit by wall-mounted lights even on the brightest summer's day, as one near my home does. Electricity must be far too cheap.

I use just shy of 2 kWh at home per 24 hours and am careful to watch what I'm doing. I still get shocked that I know people who will leave large TVs running in empty rooms for hour after hour and other such examples of pointless waste.

RAS

There was an experiment in Scotland a couple of year's ago that was broadcast that some might remember.

Folks in a cul-de sac were challenged to reduce usage by 30%. I think they averaged just shy of 50% and some exceeded that?

On business premises; one older property where I worked occasionally had lights on 24/7. No-on ehad ever worked out where the relevant switches ran and we had sparks on the books.

mardatha

Does anybody else agree with me that the old-fashioned way of doing things was far better ? As in one fire that was always lit, that did the cooking / water heating / clothes drying and the kettle sat on the side all day staying warm..

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

Does anybody else agree with me that the old-fashioned way of doing things was far better ? As in one fire that was always lit, that did the cooking / water heating / clothes drying and the kettle sat on the side all day staying warm..

Yup, in many respects.

I think the old ways were often bliddy hard work but one thing that they often had was that a large degree of control was in your own hands, as the householder, not in the hands of a faceless utility. Which can hold you to ransom.

F'rinstance, let's say you have a home with a fireplace. You can usually scrounge around for something burnable and thus not be totally perished. But what if you have a modern home with CH and you can't afford to run it? Your options are pretty limited, aren't they?

In my parents' first marital home, an early 17th century cottage, the plumbing was limited to one cold tap in the kitchen. There was no bathroom. But there was a copper with a flue and a grate in the kitchen, so you'd bail cold water into that, light a fire under it and have as much hot water as you had strength to haul about. And, as Mum often observed, you didn't have much rubbish about in those days (1960s) as almost everything could be burned to heat the water, and was.

At the moment, I am stuck at home waiting for paint to dry, with the flat's door stood wide open, and am doing some stuff, inc investigating how to make bricquettes out of shredded paper. One of the best resources the search engine turned up was MSE Old Style (unsurprisingly). I'm going to give bricquettes a go as, being a tin hatter, most everything goes through my cross-cut shredder and you're part the way to a brick anyway.

If utilites keep going up silly-money, more and more of us will by going all Blue Peter and doing such stuff. Good time to keep your eyes peeled for bricquette makers secondhand, although as I'm just going to be making a few each year, I shall squeeze the water out manually. Unless the Booty Goddess shoves a cheapo brick-maker under my nose, and stranger things have happened.

fuddle

GreyQueen wrote: »

:cool: Well, as it's you asking, and I do have to wait for my first-ever attempt at fishcakes from scratch (FQ's recipe from her blog) to cook.

Gather them and lie them on newspaper indoors/ in-shed and allow to dry out for several days until they have fully opened. Use neat or partially dip into some leftover melted scraps of candlewax. Allow to dry and store in a dry place. I have a large carrier bag of them handing up in the bike shed ready for KK-related emergencies. There are a lot of silver birch growing around here and MrsLW reckons their twigs are the best fuel for KKs. I may well gather some of them up this autumn and store handily in little bundles.

I mean, the power may be off but a wumman still requires her morning cuppa, does she not?

Thank you. We get a lot of pine cone drop around here and already have a little stash (admittedly for christmas decs) but now I will gather at any given opportunity. Silver birch? I will look out for them. How did your fish cakes go GQ?

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

FUDDLE have PMd you re kelly kettles but GQ has said it all, and in far less words, All Hail GQ!!! You need some scrunched up newspaper, only very little to get the kelly kettle going and you have to make sure the ventilation hole is facing into the wind as that helps the fuel to catch and burn. I use silver birch twigs as they get really nice and dry and I've got a whole row of big trees just over my fence in the neighbours garden that give me lots of twigs regularly but really ANY dry twiggy material will burn in them, so wherever you are, you'll find something that will fuel it. Pine cones dried as GQ says and dripped with melted candle/tealight scraps will burn very easily and if you ever buy Edam cheese its red wax coat will melt down and drizzle over them just as well and do the same job, Lyn xxx.

I do buy edam cheese! :T Thanks!

mardatha wrote: »

Does anybody else agree with me that the old-fashioned way of doing things was far better ? As in one fire that was always lit, that did the cooking / water heating / clothes drying and the kettle sat on the side all day staying warm..

Mar I've never lived with such a set up, not even seen in my grandma's home but a central, non too much reliant on other people, set up that combines heat, cooking, hot water would be a set up that I would feel much happier with. Im sure I have a cosy romantic view and in reality they maybe were a bit of a b*ggar but even so... so sensible. I have to wait till I win the lottery to actually live a simple life that given I rent etc that idea sounds so stupid eh?

GreyQueen

Fishcakes were lovely, fuddle, thanks for asking. There were no timing or temp instructions on the recipe so I had to experiement, ended up with Gas 5 for about 15 mins being my best guess after the fiddlings, will do that from scratch next time and see if it works. My oven runs a bit fierce at all temps, so I have to experiment.