Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

I kind of had the plan to be out of the populated areas and with people in an area where I'm known at the first hint of anything majorly disastrous. I have no illusions about guaranteed survival or safety in the event of something terminal but so help me God, I'll give it the very best go I can and try my hardest to survive and die trying if that's the end I've got stored up for me. I don't think all the preparing in christendom or all the survival gadgets and stores saved up or the skills learned will be of any use if it's my time to go but if it isn't I'll do anything in my power to stay alive!!!

mardatha

Craigy, i would give anything to know the secret of growing nice big turnips!! I like mashed turnip but when I tried growing them they were horrible!

craigywv

mardatha wrote: »

Craigy, i would give anything to know the secret of growing nice big turnips!! I like mashed turnip but when I tried growing them they were horrible!

hi MAR , I grew them last year and they were pathetic like tiny balls , a turnip to me is the ones years ago at Halloween we cut the middle out of and put a candle in as a lantern as we didn't know where to get a pumpkin. the only difference this year I can think is I watered them a lot!!!!!!! also I left them alone I normally go out poking and moving to have a look. I hope uours grows well. xxx

GreyQueen

I've grown turnips this year for the first time ever, a variety called Snowball, if memory serves. Haven't harvested any yet as am holding them and the parsnips in reserve for the winter stews. Dunno how big they are but am now inspired to go excavating to find out. Can say that their coarse leaves are beloved of slugs and snail, tho.

Well done on the spuds, craigyw, there's nothing like some success to bolster your confidence and long may you prosper.

Re long term survival in a SHTF situation, I wouldn't make it past the 1-2 years' worth of meds I have by me, assuming I manage to keep possession of those, of course. No reason not to try to survive as long as possible, though, on the offchance the pharmaceutical industry might revive. And out of sheer bloody-mindedness, of course.

If things went rotten and stayed like that, a lot of people would die of illnesses which are presently managable. A lot of women and infants would die in childbirth. People would contract infections which are presently treatable and die of those. Without oil imputs to agriculture, less food would be grown and there would be starvation.

All of these things are entirely foreseeable. What is also obvious to me is that there would be multiple re-configurations of families, villages, companies, due to changing circumstances and yes, deaths.

You may have Farmer Bloggs, Mrs Bloggs and 2 adult sons out on their farm, all very self-sufficient with their tractors and artificially-fertilised crops. But they will need lots of labour to run farms when the oil runs out so there will be precarious livings for those who can wield a hoe or a spade, manage livestock, build fences and repair buildings using handtools etc.

We used to have only a couple of million in this country, and could have so few again and still have most of the present settlements which we had back then. Provincial City was here in those times, major city of the day with it's 10,000 population, or about 90% smaller than it is now. It was still a perfectly functional city, just much smaller, grubbier and smellier.

And there were people here who wore homespun and ate crusts, and people who f@rted thru silk and ate beef and we traded across the country and across the world, and built stonking great stone buildings with stone imported from Europe without the mere whiff of a petroleum product to assist the process.

Never underestimate the power of humanity to adjust itself to the circumstances.

[Deleted User]

Please Miss I can do sheer bloody-mindedness and stubbornness and determination and not afraid of hard work and lots more too!!! I think the easy way is to be fatalistic and shrug your shoulders and have the thought that trying is futile and you're not going to have a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything to help yourself no matter what, NOT FOR ME!!! I'll fight to my last breath for the chance to stay in this wonderful life for as long as I'm actually able to do so and probably be quite ruthless while I'm trying, I won't know until it happens, if it ever does but sure as eggs is eggs I'll not say I CAN'T and I'll never give up!!!

Mojisola

GreyQueen wrote: »

Never underestimate the power of humanity to adjust itself to the circumstances.

That's true - but the period of readjustment won't be nice for a lot of folk.

Our ancestors regrouped after the Black Death and the civil war and the crop failures of the year without a summer and I'm sure this and following generations will be able to do the same - I just hope life stays stable and we don't have to experience such hardships.

GreyQueen

Mojisola wrote: »

That's true - but the period of readjustment won't be nice for a lot of folk.

Our ancestors regrouped after the Black Death and the civil war and the crop failures of the year without a summer and I'm sure this and following generations will be able to do the same - I just hope life stays stable and we don't have to experience such hardships.

I've thought about it a lot; the gulf between what you had and what you expected to have and a post-SHTF world would be psychologically devastating to those who went through it as adults or as older children. The kind of thing which you wouldn't bounce back from in many cases.

You'd need to have enough mental fortitude to survive the changes, as well as the combination of planning, random luck and physical good health to manage the transition.

I know one woman who is the third generataion of women in her family to only be able to give birth by c-section. As one medic put it bluntly, the natural fate of narrow-hipped women is to die in childbirth. A lot of people wouldn't make it (like me) so we have to hope that things don't go that way, or don't go down and stay down.

I could reasonably be alive in 35-40 years time. I could die tonight if I cross the road stupidly on the way to archery. You can only play the odds.

Mojisola

GreyQueen wrote: »

I could reasonably be alive in 35-40 years time. I could die tonight if I cross the road stupidly on the way to archery. You can only play the odds.

And be prepared for a range of possibilities without worrying yourself silly about what the future might hold.

Those who are skilled in living without all the modern conveniences are going to have a better chance than those who freak out at the idea of going a few hours without their mobiles and will be able to sit out short-term problems in reasonable comfort.

GreyQueen

Worry is only useful if it motivates you to productive action. Otherwise, it's worthless, pointless and self-destructive.

If you damned nearly didn't make rent or your mortgage installment this month, and you learn that you should've had some savings, and pull the horns in on your leisure expenditure until you do have some, worrying about financial insecurity has led to productive changes. With value-added peace of mind.

If you lie there at night staring into the darkness, with a worry-track looping around inside your head, but aren't prepared to get up in the morning and make some changes, then it's just pure self-indulgence.

Righty, am now getting up the road to archery, may check in later, may check in tomorrow. Have a good one.

Oh, jk0, the breadflour (stoneground wholemeal from the windmill) is £6.50 for 5kg. And totally lush.

ZTD

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I've been thinking this morning..... I know, what on earth now??? Well I've been wondering how much use all this extra kit would be if the SHTF event was so big and so life changing that we never did get back to 'normal' life?

What would be "normal" life? Events which are life-changing to that degree, tend to be small (like strokes) rather than large (like an earthquake).

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

If the grid did go down permanently or was damaged beyond repair by a Solar Storm

How would the grid ever be down permanently? The UK started from fresh air and went to a national grid from 1901-1937. There is no natural event that could take the grid back down to fresh air which wouldn't also wipe life clean from these islands.

Even if the grids were stolen overnight, there's no reason why we couldn't reconstruct in the same or less time than people 100 years ago.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

or we had a pandemic that meant most of the world population was ill

Let's say we have a pandemic which would kill (for example) 3 billion people. That would mean the world population would go down to 4 billion - a level not seen since the grim and distant past of 1974. I suppose we would then have to live like the primitive people used to live then - which would involve sideburns, kipper ties and flares.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

and it went on for months would the battery powered gadgets really be any use long term? if replacement batteries were available the answer is yes

There would be no reason why batteries of some description would not be available. You can make batteries from stacks of two pieces of dissimilar metal - which are widely available.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

but if not? wouldn't we be better off having real alternatives to use that didn't depend on 21st century technologies to keep it in use? I may be pessimistic but I think that having alternatives you can make or maintain yourself from materials you find available in your local vacinity might be a better long term survival prospect.

Now you're talking from going from our current "division of labour" lifestyle, to a hunter-gatherer-scavanger kind of lifestyle. Seems a bit much to throw away at least 30,000 years of what's worked just to cope with the National Grid being off.

We could just get people off the dole and make them work in pylon/transformer/battery factories (for example).