Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

daz378 wrote: »

A guy i work with a sensible chap , same age as me late 40s , effective carer and fosters a little disabled guy......yet even he said " the new I-phone comes out in a few weeks.... really excited over a phone consumerism at its best..... day off tomorrow bit of a prepp shop...tomorrow .... kept most of my receipts this year of shopping etc .....i eat out a lot working shifts etc scared off totting up my fast food purchases..... will motivate me to cut down when i do ... for next years hol in tenerife ... first sunny clim hol in 5 years

I will be watching the Apple Keynote on Tuesday to find out what I will be missing out on. My current iPhone contract has literally just expired so I could upgrade but I bought a load of accessories so it would seem a waste to have to replace them. At the moment I think I might hold off for a year and see what is available next year. I think I will look at the idea of buying a phone outright and getting the cheapest contract possible. Though a very good cash back deal might be worth considering.

My eating out is very modest but I do try and avoid the fast food as much as possible. Though once in a while I will succumb as a treat. Next week I will be making some home made pizzas to fulfil that fast food desire, and save a fortune in the process. It is even cheaper than the prepared pizza in the supermarket. I will experiment with making small amounts of pizza dough.

ALIBOBSY

GreyQueen wrote: »

Had a bit of a moment this afternoon, picking runner beans, an enjoyable task well suited to a lanky lass like myself. My lottie neighbour, apropros of nothing, started talking about how they thought it was important to get gardening in case of the apocalypse..............!

Darlings, I didn't know where to put my face.:rotfl:

There's something in the air, even on a lovely sunny afternoon in Englandshire, with nothing worse going on than the kids screaming obscenities at each other whilst playing football on the street.

Have been working the tiny bit of the earth's surface for which I have custodianship and managed not to dig up a toad, which has been a nerve-wracking habit of late. I did dig up a devil's coach horse, which seemed distressed about being out in the light, so I scooped it up and parked it beside the turnips, where it scuttled for cover.

I really like beetles, is that odd? I think they're kinda cute.

Been picking handfuls of french beans, but my runners still look a bit small sadly, plenty of flowers though and we are quite sheltered so hopefully will get a decent amount before any frosts kick in-was still picking in end of Oct last year, but we will see.

Yack to the beetles, hate em and woodlice :eek:.

Spiders et al I am fine with, but beetles no way lol.

My celery has done amazingly well this year, I grow the self blanching stuff which is more leafy than full of stems but still same flavour. Been picking to eat and cook with for months and they keep coming back, going to have pounds to chop and freeze lol.

Don't you love gardening :T

Ali x

1Tonsil

Your comments about others telling us about prepping is interesting. I have found more and more people are talking about stocking up on food and fuel ready for rough times ahead. I went to a spiritual evening talk and he was talking about helping each other and ourselves by being more aware of what is going on with the earth and all around us. I could not agree more! We need to be constantly aware of what is going on, both locally and worldwide.

I have done well today, I managed to avoid a big storm in the village by being out in the town, then avoided another in town by being on my way home in the car.

We have hot sunny spells in between the horrendous storms at the moment, and I can live with that. Waiting to see the wood man so I can order our first load of olive wood now that my OH has finished the wood shelter.

Parts of Italy got absolutely devastated by the storms and huge hail stones that have been around for the last five weeks. I do think we have less to fear from war and terrorism than we do from natural events at the moment.

ALIBOBSY

thriftwizard wrote: »

Oh dear goodness... I can't stop looking at that flamin' volcano! I don't know why, maybe just a spot of Weltschmertz, but ever since the magma started to move about I've felt that it's quite possibly one of the defining events of our era. And it's been stopping me from booking DS3 onto a flight in two weeks' time, which is just plain daft, because it'd cost three times as much to send him by train. And if it were really to go pop and cause transportation & economic mayhem, I should be making sensible preps, not just sitting admiring the lava fountains on the webcam!

LOL I keep flicking back to the various sites with drum charts and webcams and maps and discussions. Been been more of the larger quakes around the actual caldera itself and the rifting shows no signs of slowing down, the lava is now hitting rivers and water to clouds of steam rising.

Saw a screenshot of the evac notices given to people in the area around the volcano telling them to prep for a quick exit. Once notified they are to put the notice on the door with the details of their vehicle the people in it and the direction they are heading. It also said in big letters no livestock to be rescued.

But the icelandics I have seen posting seem pretty stoic about the whole thing, and plenty are taking advantage of the business angle-flying tours to see the lava etc. Guess they have no choice but to take things as they come given where they live.

Ali x

ALIBOBSY

Vid here of a guy actually going down into an active volcano, crazy guy lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdFvTo9874

The lava lake is amazing.

Ali x

Frugalsod

1Tonsil wrote: »

Your comments about others telling us about prepping is interesting. I have found more and more people are talking about stocking up on food and fuel ready for rough times ahead. I went to a spiritual evening talk and he was talking about helping each other and ourselves by being more aware of what is going on with the earth and all around us. I could not agree more! We need to be constantly aware of what is going on, both locally and worldwide.

I think that it is a growing realisation that governments are lying to us. The fact that they claim prices are only rising by a few percent does not hold water when people see the things that they spend money on regularly is rising far more than official figures. People can see how life is all around them and cannot see what the politicians are claiming.

I discovered why TPTB are deliberately under reporting inflation. If the economy grew by 7% but inflation was 7% then the real growth is zero. If they report inflation as 2% then with the same activity increase of 7% then the growth rate is 5% and looks a lot healthier. So if they claim growth is 3% but real inflation is 7% then the economy is actually contracting by 4%. That is why some economists are suggesting that we target nominal GDP growth which includes inflation.

People are stocking up for rough times ahead because they do not feel that things are really improving. It clearly depends where you are. If you are in the eurozone periphery then yes things are not improving and while things might be deteriorating more slowly they have not started to improve.

Further out I do not see things ever getting back to the way they used to be because of peak resources and people really need to make better use of what they have. Energy prices are going to be significantly higher especially if they need to finance fracking which really needs prices well above $100 a barrel to be profitable.

It does not help when there is substantial misrepresentation of things like benefits. Many people actually believe that benefits are far too generous and so support cutting them, even believing that it is what drives legal and illegal immigrants to come here to claim benefits. When the reality is nothing like that. Most migrants do not claim benefits and even then that is not what drew them here in the first place. So it gives governments cover to slash benefits and then when people realise that they are to lose their own job they fail to appreciate that they supported the cutting of benefits.

Frugalsod

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Vid here of a guy actually going down into an active volcano, crazy guy lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdFvTo9874

The lava lake is amazing.

Ali x

I was looking at the viscosity of the lava, and that is an exceptionally low viscosity lava. That would explain why he could get so close to the actual crater. There is a similar crater in East Africa which is very viscous and has been active like that for centuries but never been explosive. The gases can escape very easily and so it never really erupts dangerously. If you look at those Volcanoes in SE Asia they are far more viscous and explosive as a result. The plus is that is the lava moves far more slowly and so you can out run it. When it is very fluid then out running the lava is not an option.

Butterfly_Brain

Ali I grew Czar runner beans from Real seeds this year and they have been great, large pods but tender and I have had over 60lbs already, which have been frozen, dehydrated and salted and we have also eaten loads.
I still have lots of flowers on them as well so more to come by the looks of things.
I just hope that I can save the seeds succesfully.

Last year I got lots of lovely big runners from a variety called Enorma that I got from Wilkinsons, well worth a try.

Don't forget to feed them with a standard tomato feed every couple of weeks and keep their feet wet all the time, they are very hungry and thirsty plants x

1Tonsil

The latest long range computer models for weather are showing a big storm close to the UK around 22nd September. It is too early to say it will actually hit but I will keep you updates as the readings change as time passes.....better warned and it not happen than not warned at all

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

People are stocking up for rough times ahead because they do not feel that things are really improving. It clearly depends where you are. If you are in the eurozone periphery then yes things are not improving and while things might be deteriorating more slowly they have not started to improve.

Further out I do not see things ever getting back to the way they used to be because of peak resources and people really need to make better use of what they have.

These are my thoughts, too.

We've grown accustomed living in a consumer society and many people have no knowledge that things have only been this way for 2-3 generations and that this is very much the exception to the rule.

Living high on relatively cheap oil, then our deterioating wages mitigated by low-priced things imported from countries which pay peanuts, have disguised what is really going on. There's a lot of stealth inflation out there, with the liliputisation of groceries and other consumables. Getting less for the same amount of money seems to be de rigeur now.

My Dad retired 8 years ago. He's just seen the job he did advertised for a lower hourly rate than he was getting then. And, heaven knows, he wasn't paid shedloads when he was in work. And the money goes noticably less far and the things I buy are perfectly likely to go up 30-40% between one day and another, and I sneer at so-called inflation figures and their laughable percentages. Pull the other one, mate, it's got bells on it.

It's getting to the point that even those I know who are least inclined to trouble themselves about the big picture are starting to notice several somethings are badly wrong, and getting a tad concerned.

When the don't-worry-be-happy crowd are starting to worry, the wheels are about to come off the cart, big time.