Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

wondercollie wrote: »

Afternoon, all.

It was -6C this morning and the windchill took it down to -14. So winter appears to have started.

I have a confession to make. I made chilli last weekend. Now for the confession. The first two tins of tomatoes I reached for had bulging tops. The tops of the can just didn't look right. So rather than risking botullism off they want to the landfill. I mean between the e-coli recall on meat and my bulging cans, the landfills of Alberta must be heaving.

Son back from Greece. Sounds like he had a whale of a time. Apparently he missed Crete, too hungover to fall out of bed in time. He's said he'd go back again in a minute. It's his year after finishing high school and he hasn't got a clue what he wants to do, so rather than bunging him off to college to figure it out, we told him find a job and/or travel. He's had a labouring type job on weekends during school and his boss gave him full time hours for a year. He's in total agreement that he should work and travel while he decides what to do. At least he's gone off the idea of the French Foreign Legion and is thinking of the police. He's building "life experience" for his application, as they've started looking for that over university time.

Wondercollie is looking anxious. There is only two sacks of kibble in the basement stockroom for him. It hasn't been on sale lately. He loves the Harrington's from Yorkshire and for some reason it's a better price than similar North american made kibbles. Oh, well, I have to start stalking the pet products aisles for him.

Seeing as I'm so far from the double decker bus, I'll just have to sulk and use the Arctic gear that number one son has.

You did the right thing with the cans, we call that bulge a blown tin which means some form of bacterium has got in to the can and as you rightly say can produce botulism, rusty cans can cause salmonella. (I learnt all of this when I was a staff trainer working in the retail sector many many moons ago)
Canned tomatoes and fruits don't last long because of the high acidity in the fruit

BigMummaF

Wow! You guys are magnificent in the weird & wonderful knowledge you have at your disposal :T Thank You! I shall show the info to Iggie's legal adoptor & then, as a family, we can decide of a PoA (Plan of Action) & hope we never have to use it. Thank You again.

Me muvva is still struggling with various bits going medically mouldy so I spend most of my time over with her now Me dongle is a temperamental little devil so tintawebbie access is still a bit hit-n-miss but I shall join in as & when I can.

As for wet wipes, I don't know if they would be any use..they seem to dry up before they get used as intended, so instead of a swipe-with-a-wipe we end up with an issue-like-a-tissue :rotfl: Plus with most of my personal happy band allergic to them, I reckon the sanitising gel stuff would keep better in the car etc.

wondercollie

The thing with wet wipes is they are never meant to be stored for months after they have been opened. I read somewhere that if you store the packet upside down after it's been opened, the wipes stay moist longer.

Sanitizing gel is the bane of my life. It dries my hands out like you wouldn't believe. At work, we're told we have to wash our hands with water after 8-10 goes of sanitizer.

Another animal question. How much dog food do you keep. I have 30 kilos in the basement and 18 wet meals. Then there is the treat stash. Poor WC is upset, most of his treats come in those plastic ziplock bags. Now things like peanuts and chocolate raisins are packaged the same way. He hears the ziplock and thinks he's getting lucky. Oh, and I have 21 litres of bottled water for him.

vanoonoo

we have wet wipes in our go bags and in the car as well as in the house, we use them for the dog (she's a bulldog and has lots of wrinkles that need cleaning out!) plus years of festivals have shown how versatile they are for us. we use the baby wipe aloe/sensitive ones and they dont seem to dry out for us - we've got a pack in the bathroom that has been up there about a year and it's open and used about once a week and is still ok.

they are also great for getting rid of marks from spillages - i dropped coffee on a cream linen seat at someones house and a babywipe removed the evidence - dunno what it does to a baby's butt tho!

meme30

Morning everyone. Hope all the 'lurgies' are settling down and you are all feeling a bit better.
Welcome Bigmumma :wave:
Just seen weather forecast, big waves of pale blue map coming in from the Arctic this weekend. Looks like winter prep is going to be needed sooner than I hoped for. I'm hoping for brisk and crisp rather than the white stuff, I can only cope with that in small doses. I'm not a good walker in snow, imagine Bambi! Do some of you use those, I think they are called 'Yaxtrax' I am going to have to sort something out because in the last snow I hardly left the house.
Also if I could pick your brains, I have a friend who is an amputee. She never wears a prosthesis (Hip level amputation at 17 and never got away with false leg) and is mobile via two crutches. She is house bound during snowfall because the rubber bit on the end of her crutches slide in the snow and ice. Is there anything that she can get to put on the end of her crutches to help her walk outside more safely?
Stay warm and safe everyone.

vanoonoo

ok folks - membership updated here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=54411383&postcount=2

I apologise if I have missed anyone - just shout out or PM me if you want adding or need to change roles

EVERYONE welcome including pets, significant others, children, nextdoor neighbours and grumpy teenagers.

morning all!

I've had some really good news at work, I've been stuggling with a slacker backstabbing colleague for the past two years and she has finally decided to leave the role and the company which means we can get someone else in that might actually turn up and do some work!

In any other job I've had, someone leaving would have been a SHTF scenario for me - I generally hold my colleagues in high regard and enjoy working as part of a team and pulling together to get things done, but this one has been a huge challenge for me (and no doubt for them too!). So what would once have been a really difficult situation has actually turned out as a relief. phew!

does anyone listen to podcasts or radio plays or talking books? I have discovered a great online american drama series (free) about survival (zombie related obvs just to get the haters riled)

If you want to search engine it - it's called "We're Alive" and I think they've just uploaded the 300th episode (they vary between 10 mins and 30 mins long with a couple of longer ones as specials).

laters taters x

mardatha

Hi BMF and well done annie's son on a BOB for an iguana
The RV and I are trying to think of a solution to the crutches thing. I thought of glued-on astro turf but it would be awkward to cut it small enough. What do they use for boots & shoes that don't slip? And anything like carpet/coir matting wouldnt help because it would be impossible to fix on..

vanoonoo

I think you'd have to fix something swathed around and up and over on the crutches - is this to prevent slipping?

something like a teatowel folded in quarters, place the ferrule (stopper) of the crutch in the middle, bring the corners up around the metal bit of the crutch and then tie or tape or paracord (!) or elastic band in place, this would help get a bit of traction and could be removed relatively easily

missrlr

meme30 wrote: »

Morning everyone. Hope all the 'lurgies' are settling down and you are all feeling a bit better.
Welcome Bigmumma :wave:
Just seen weather forecast, big waves of pale blue map coming in from the Arctic this weekend. Looks like winter prep is going to be needed sooner than I hoped for. I'm hoping for brisk and crisp rather than the white stuff, I can only cope with that in small doses. I'm not a good walker in snow, imagine Bambi! Do some of you use those, I think they are called 'Yaxtrax' I am going to have to sort something out because in the last snow I hardly left the house.
Also if I could pick your brains, I have a friend who is an amputee. She never wears a prosthesis (Hip level amputation at 17 and never got away with false leg) and is mobile via two crutches. She is house bound during snowfall because the rubber bit on the end of her crutches slide in the snow and ice. Is there anything that she can get to put on the end of her crutches to help her walk outside more safely?
Stay warm and safe everyone.

Thoroughly recommend Yaxtrax or cheaper solution if the soles of your boots are thick enough as demonstrated by my neighbour is to screw some screws partially into the tread leaving about 5mm showing and space every 2-3cm. He's an engineer and was fed up with slipping over! Big pack of screws was about £2 from a well know DIY place ending in fix so quite cheap but does render boots for winter use only and DON'T go too far into the sole otherwise you puncture the sole.

Regarding the crutches, I would think that increasing the surface area of the crutch contact point and making this non-slip would work, but the solutions currently popping into my brain are quite imaginative e.g. create "boot" for crutch then apply yaxtrax or studding to the same - how to fix crutch to boot type thing is taking a bit more thought ..... perhaps a bright idea person will have something more to add.

2tonsils

sophlowe45 wrote: »

2tonsils


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/9623863/IMFs-epic-plan-to-conjure-away-debt-and-dethrone-bankers.html


So there is a magic wand after all. A revolutionary paper by the International Monetary Fund claims that one could eliminate the net public debt of the US at a stroke, and by implication do the same for Britain, Germany, Italy, or Japan.

The problem is that the central banks can't be trusted either..they are all in it for the money not for the good of countries. There is a current supreme court case going on that shows the IMF was part of the problem with Greece and the EU in the first place.

Here is another comment under the article in the telegraph. It has been tried before and did not work.

''That is what the French National Assembly said when they introduced the very same system in 1789. It led to disaster - hyperinflation, beheadings for selling a loaf of bread above the official price, the Terror, etc.

You can read about the assignat system and its consequences here, in this short book. It's a free PDF:
http://mises.org/books/inflati...

The central problem of you far-from-new proposal is that by putting politicians in charge it creates the incentive for the most short-term possible behaviour, leading to hyperinflation.

For heaven's sake, politicians are amongst the least trustworthy people in society. ''


Greece need to come out of the Euro as soon as possible in my opinion, they should never have gone into it but the powers that be fiddled the figures....and I DON'T mean the Greeks.......:mad: