Preparedness for when

Frugalsod

StanwithaPlan wrote: »

Also...where is everyone? I'm missing my evening MSE prepping fix!

My sister thinks I'm nuts as I insist on having 6 tins of everything and my freezer is overflowing...I like coming here, it makes me feel normal! Definitely an ameteur prepper admittedly...but I do have two solar torches

I have been preoccupied elsewhere. I do agree about the positive attitude here. My own solar kettle usage has raised a few eyebrows locally, and I do not think that it will pay for itself very quickly, even if I use it every day. It is more about maintaining a low impact lifestyle.

Frugalsod

At least one government is taking the Zombie threat seriously.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11121755/How-Kansas-prepares-for-the-Zombie-apocalypse.html

GreyQueen

Karmacat wrote: »

I was wondering that. Then I thought, oh no, they're all off busy prepping, and I'm sitting here at the computer :eek:

Sorry not to be around last night, was very very tired and weary and decided to rest my eyes by not going online at all after work (I work on a pooter) and a pal also came around for a chat.

Today will be doing some preptastic things to the allotmentino, sadly not involving pyromania as the burn-ban doesn't come off until 1st October. Then I need to wait for the wind to be in the right direction, i.e. away from the street, or a nearly windless day. And things being as dry as possible.........and then mwahhaha!!!! I do love a bonfire. I may even take the opportunity to bake some spuds in the embers.

Nipped into a reclaimation yard after w*rk. Bygorry, are those places a temptation. I starting eyeing up materials for all sorts of things until I dragged myself away by the scruff of the neck. Plenty of things in such place to interest those of a preptastic nature, I feel.

I was just going to price up some slabs (£2) and we'll nip in to get them on the way up to the allotment as we'll have the family car for a few hours. I formerly had a water butt on a very strong h.m. wooden stand, but it had gradually sagged sideways over the years and was about to give way, so I drained down the water butt and removed it. The slabs will hold a couple of chunks of 3 x 3 treated fencepost, to stop the base of the butt, which is a food grade barrel, from coming into contact with the concrete. This can cause the plastic to deterioate over time, I have read.

Trying to organise my life so that things are long-lasting, and also having an awareness that I'm getting a bit older and will strangely continue to get older too, and that things which are relatively easy now may become difficult or impossible later on, in which case some of the problems may be able to be mitigated by using some savvy now.

Oh, and re the comment about LED torches and IS? An irrelevant remark, IMO. If we have power cuts this winter, some people may find themselves making their way home in darkness at teatime, even in urban areas. You can break your ankle falling off a kerb, as one of my friends can testify, for want of a torch at the right time.

Onwards! Have a good day, one and all. GQ xx

craigywv

Good morning all im still here too just got nothing of any interest to donate so i lurking here absorbing the wisdom. Keep it coming and keep safe xxx

GreyQueen

Ooh, this was interesting, I was in my friend's curio shop a couple of days ago and several of us were looking at a 1902 Hungarian banknote. It was scarce as a collectable and would have been a choice item if in good condition but alas was very tatty, torn and stained, but it still sparked an interesting converation from the Hungarian present (a historian).

He explained that this note, which was a ridiculously high denomination, would have brought you TEN OUNCES OF GOLD * in the early 1900s. Most Hungarians would never have even met someone who had met someone who had seen such a banknote, it was that valuable.

Their currency steadily devalued during WW1 until by 1919 this banknote was almost worthless. But once the trouble had started, the opportunity to turn this valuable bit of fiat currency into gold was lost; gold hides when there is war and/ or financial catastrophe. Which is why you can find 1914-1918 gold soveriegns in immaculate condition secondhand, as the people who had them, held them, rather than spending them. And why the printing of paper pounds took off then.

I find it interesting to talk to people from countries which have experienced invasions and dramatic currency losses in either their lifetime or their parents' lifetime, as they tend to have a distinctly tin-hattish view of things and an innate distrust of authority. Some of them prep, too, at least in the tinned food and water way of things.

* 10 ounces of gold at yesterday's prices was £7,520.94. Mind-blowing, hey?

DawnW

cornishchick wrote: »

But no room in my freezer, I keep making meals from a small amount of bits then they have to be frozen , it's a perpetual problem.
CC

I do that as well - what with that and the tomato sauce and runner beans, it is a struggle getting anything into my freezers. Yes, I have two

I have been taking out various fruit and making preserves, such as marmalade, redcurrant jelly, etc in order to make more space. Not sure if that counts as prepping, but it looks good in the larder

Still not enough freezer space for a spare loaf of bread though

jk0

Morning all.

I've been off for two days as my computer power supply packed up. (Something I was not really prepared for.) I have a Windows 98SE machine that uses dialup, so I could still send or receive emails. Trouble was of course, that all my contacts of the last seven years' email addresses were locked up on my non working machine.

I had local & online backups, but no machine to download them to. I have ordered a new machine with Windows 7 to keep in reserve.

GreyQueen

My freezer is rammed with allotment produce, broad and runner beans and blackcurrants. There's about one or two things which aren't in those categories, such as a couple of blocks of cheese. Can't get any more in.

Next year I really must be organised to get the runners laid down in jars; I lucked out about 2 weeks ago with a dozen Le Parfait jars, which are being processed and I aim to do better in 2015 than I did this year.

So much to learn in the world of gardening/ home-making. I suffer from larder envy, knowing that some people here have jewel-like glowing jars of jams and conserves on their shelves, just waiting to be eaten.

Ach well, a person isn't born knowing all this stuff, we have to acquire it as adults. In many cases, these would have been things passed from parent-to-child only a few generations ago, but those links have been broken for a lot of people, alas.

Thank goodness for the interweb and dead-tree books and knowledgable people we meet IRL to share skills with.

thriftwizard

I have two freezers too, and have to be very stern with myself about keeping track of what's in them & rotating stuff so nothing goes to waste, and so that there's always a bit of room to store a genuine bargain or a glut. The best way of making myself behave is to remind myself that they are 'leccy-dependent; if the power goes off for any great length of time, we'll have lost the lot. So whilst they are very useful, they're not the be-all & end-all of my food storage system.

Had the local stove-fitter in yesterday to give us a quote, and whilst he is significantly cheaper than anyone else, and able to fit it in less than a month, it's still quite a lot to cough up. I need to consult the Ways & Means Committee, in such a way that they end up agreeing that we do actually need one, this time...

[Deleted User]

Please can I join the 2 freezer club? Ours are currently so chockablock I can't get another bean in and I've been doing my best to use up the meat we've got in the bigger one and no sooner do I find a space than He Who Knows brings me more produce from the lottie. Yesterday it was 7 large ears of sweetcorn he'd been gifted by a fellow allotmenteer so I took them all off the cobs and froze the corn nibbs. I'm still trying to make enough space to get some tomato products in, so far to no avail. I'm going to use only frozen meat this coming few weeks and not buy any more, no matter how good a bargain it is in the hope that I can make a huge batch of tomato puree with my pyramid of tomatoes ripening on the windowsill.

I'm listening to the news in the background and becoming increasingly concerned about the likelihood of terrorist activities in this and other eorupean countries. Last night I was waiting to hear that DD was safely back from her choir trip to London and there was the news that Paris and a lot of France were on highest alert as there was information of imminent likelihood of attacks because France had joined in the airstrikes against Isis. That coupled with the Australian actions last week to prevent the killing of random citizens there and the killing of the french tourist in Algeria leave me with a hollow feeling inside. Not fear but so much anger that a 'human' can contemplate an action against another human being just because he/she exists. Such evil is incomprehensible to me! I'm not religious in any way but I cannot believe that any deity would need blood sacrifices in order to allow entry into an afterlife and certainly can't believe that there would be extra reward for such actions.