Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

thriftwizard wrote: »

and dandelion leaves in a salad (preferably before flowering) are perfectly acceptable.

All parts of the dandelion are edible.

The roots can be roasted, then ground to make a coffee substitute.

GreyQueen

Interesting debates.

I wouldn't be alive without my medication, I would have died nearly 20 years ago, so my existance is reliant on living in an advanced society with the ability to manufacture my meds and to distribute them affordably. I have about 2 years' supply on in-date meds at any time, including a cache at the family home and in the BOB and a considerable amount at all times in the daily carry. All are carefully rotated and none of them have ever been allowed to go OOD - they have about 20 months date on them at point of issue. Once they're gone, so am I, and by gone, I mean comatose in hours and dead in days. What a p***er.

I've lost the scrap of paper I did the sums on, but I was running the numbers on population, as in what would happen if the death rate exceeded the birth rate by 4% per annum. I think that in about a decade your population is down 20% or so. That's a lot of people to lose.:( It is also entirely possible, as I sit in the pharmacy, looking at a wall of bagged medications, that there are many people like me, who would be goners without meds. Or like SuperGran with her strong artritus drugs; would be severely disabled without them and in a lot of pain, as opposed to able to walk and in moderate pain.

Nothing is set in stone in terms of how society being organised now being how society will be organised in the future. The platform of our present way of life is oil. There may be another, equally versatile energy source as a platform in the future. There may not be anything of the like, and we're hairless apes who managed to get lucky and have squandered the distilled sunlight and biomass of millennias, and we'll lead much shorter, grubbier lives in the future.

The blogger FerFal is interesting to read as he comes from Argentina, presently living in N. Ireland with his missus and kids. He's very real about what happens to a once-prosperous society when the economy goes rotten, even down to the little things such as people looking shabbier, more faded, less trimmed. If you haven't read his stuff, you're missing out, IMO.

The piece of ground which contains my allotment (and many others) is a known site of Early Neolithic farmsteads. Circa 4,000 BC. Every time I'm up there, I turn up their 6,000 year old tools. I expect they couldn't comprehend the cars on the nearby road, the planes above, my steel gardening tools, the bright colours of the plastic trugs. My rectangular garden shed would look very strange to them. They'd recognise the broad beans (and the bliddy fat hen), but just about everything else grown up there arrived long after their era.

The thing is, their 6,000 year old flint tools are still here. You can still cut things with them, and the one I think was a bradawl still serves the purpose. The New Stone Age didn't end because we ran outta stones, it was superceded by metals. The Petroleum Age will end when we run out of accessible oil and gas. But we'll still be here as a species, in far fewer numbers than we are now, and with greatly different lives.

Gawdelp the generation(s) which have to manage the transition period, though, because it will be bitterly hard.

[Deleted User]

Japanese Knotweed shoots ARE edible, apparently you steam them and eat them like asparagus!

Cleavers seeds when ripe have in the past been roasted, ground and used as ersatz coffee, the plant leaves are apparently edible but very bitter.

mardatha

Just finishing reading "A Vicarage in the Blitz" which gives you a wee glimpse of what it might be like MrsL. She lived in the vicarage (is that a manse?) of St Nicholas, Chiswick, London. I don't know if it's still standing but mean to google it. She had mushrooms growing on her mattresses, milk and washing freezing solid in her kitchen, very little coal, no light and no gas at times. She cooked on the fire and got chilblains. It doesn't sound fun.

Doveling

I don't have a passport or a driving licence and all the bills are in Mr.D's name. I had to use my marriage certificate as proof of identity at my G.P. surgery when I wanted to get my prescriptions online.

I don't get any benefits (or sick pay as my contract ended just before I went to have my op) as my husband earns over the limit and for the last few years I have only worked part-time.
This is as it should be, because I think benefits are for people in dire need not just reduced comfortable income.

With the help of these boards, I've managed things so that our lives are not impacted too much.

What does irritate me though, is that for some things the grubbyment goes on household income and for others on individual income.
This has left me feeling a bit like my husband's chattel and not a person in my own right. What if my husband refused to pay for my prescriptions? :eek: Not all marriages and relationships are as good as ours.

It worries me that child benefit is being taken away from women who, on the face of it, may be well off. Control of finances sometimes plays a large part in abuse.

Ooh! Not like me first thing in the morning! Think I'd better log off and go and re-do my nails. :rotfl:

Karmacat

thriftwizard wrote: »

Cleavers, dandelions & comfrey are all edible!

The information I was thinking of has already been posted but here's a question about cleavers: the seeds are little beggars, you can't *help* collecting them, on your clothes or on fabric gardening gloves, if you're anywhere near them. Could you/we/I collect them on purpose, to use for sprouting in the house in winter? As a source of fresh greens if TSHTF?

nuatha wrote: »

By your definition, I'm an illegal.

:kisses3:

Entirely proper, of course. Please include Mrs Nuatha :beer:

Frugalsod

Doveling wrote: »

I don't have a passport or a driving licence and all the bills are in Mr.D's name. I had to use my marriage certificate as proof of identity at my G.P. surgery when I wanted to get my prescriptions online.

I don't get any benefits (or sick pay as my contract ended just before I went to have my op) as my husband earns over the limit and for the last few years I have only worked part-time.
This is as it should be, because I think benefits are for people in dire need not just reduced comfortable income.

With the help of these boards, I've managed things so that our lives are not impacted too much.

What does irritate me though, is that for some things the grubbyment goes on household income and for others on individual income.
This has left me feeling a bit like my husband's chattel and not a person in my own right. What if my husband refused to pay for my prescriptions? :eek: Not all marriages and relationships are as good as ours.

It worries me that child benefit is being taken away from women who, on the face of it, may be well off. Control of finances sometimes plays a large part in abuse.

Ooh! Not like me first thing in the morning! Think I'd better log off and go and re-do my nails. :rotfl:

The other reason that we pay unemployment benefits is that if you had none then the power dynamics in work can become completely abusive. If the boss decided to fire you knowing that you had no safety net like unemployment then they can completely abuse you.

The other reason is that if people ended up selling their goods and chattels to cope what would that do for new items for sale? If you could be out of work tomorrow why by a new bed or table get a second hand one, because it would be money down the drain if you had to sell it when you lose your job. With increased job insecurity there will be less purchases of all goods because they will need to save for the frequent rainy days. That is one reason why the Chinese save so much, because there is no safety net.

So imagine the abolition of benefits and try and work out how much disposable income you would have left after paying for mortgage or rent and 40% savings for emergencies. Unemployment benefits are there to ease the impacts on family and individual budgets which would cause savage swings in the economy.

Also if anyone thinks that benefits are too generous try living on them for a period of time.

Frugalsod

nuatha wrote: »

By your definition, I'm an illegal.

I still do not think that we should deport you. Please stay.:beer:

nuatha

Doveling wrote: »

I don't have a passport or a driving licence and all the bills are in Mr.D's name. I had to use my marriage certificate as proof of identity at my G.P. surgery when I wanted to get my prescriptions online.

I do have a driving license which will work as proof of identity but not as proof of nationality.

...
What does irritate me though, is that for some things the grubbyment goes on household income and for others on individual income.

Proof that governments can have their cake and eat it.

And very well said as to the rest of your post. I'd sharpen those nails as well as paint them

Karmacat wrote: »

The information I was thinking of has already been posted but here's a question about cleavers: the seeds are little beggars, you can't *help* collecting them, on your clothes or on fabric gardening gloves, if you're anywhere near them. Could you/we/I collect them on purpose, to use for sprouting in the house in winter? As a source of fresh greens if TSHTF?

I have an exceptional crop this year, courtesy of one the cats bring them back on his fur. Fraid I'm definitely going for elimination.

Entirely proper, of course. Please include Mrs Nuatha :beer:

Herself is legal, Mrs N having a British passport

Frugalsod wrote: »

I still do not think that we should deport you. Please stay.:beer:

Thank you. Though the deportation options aren't exactly geographically diverse, I have ancestors that eloped to the Hebrides for a couple of hundred years but then returned to their native borders. The nationality changes as the border fluctuates but the last 150 years have all been in Northumberland.

ivyleaf

Frugalsod wrote: »

I still do not think that we should deport you. Please stay.:beer:

Seconded :j:j:)