Preparedness for when

Popperwell

If they change the boundaries as planned here my town will be split and will be in two areas joining neighbouring towns and one will mean we are less likely to do well and the other will do ok...also though we are in co. Durham we could be classed as being part of Teeside...now whether this is just for Parliament or would also mean part of the town is under a different council I don't know.

I also don't know if that would affect houses rented from the Housing Association on the town if they suddenly are part of another area? Or the council tax/bedroom tax would be affected...

annie123

ginnyknit wrote: »

Im so glad BigMummaf brought up the exotic pet problem, I hadnt thought of that and Dd has a large number of snakes of varying sizes. I will get that one sorted for her (she has enough on her plate at the mo) I think the baby hot water bottles would be a start and they are cheap so can pick one up each time I go in a £shop.

BOB for snakes : DS says she needs snake bags. If she doesn't have them already pillowcases with a draw sting work well and cushion covers with zips for the smaller ones. and yes little hot water bottles in for them

GreyQueen wrote: »

In addition to consideration to exotics like snakes and iggies, can I suggest that people who run fish tanks with heaters/ electrical pumps give a bit of thought to a prep plan for their wee fishies?

DS is an expert at this as he has several tropical tanks and gold fish too.

He recommends tanks have bubble wrap on the 2 sides and back if you can reach it now, and a piece to lay over the top too doesn't hurt. Done now because it helps insulate the tank so the heater doesn't have to work so hard and saves elec and should the power go the tank is part insulated already.

If the electricity goes, add bubble wrap to the front of the tank too and wrap whole thing in spare duvets, fleece, old newspaper anything you can find, keeps the tank temp at an acceptable level for upto 12 hours depending on the room temp.
If needed, a 2pt plastic milk carton (sterilised if poss) filled with hot water makes a good temporary heater.
Should you suspect that it could be a long outage, fill containers with tap water and leave to stand so chlorine can evaporate if you dont have any remover to hand, then do 10% water change every 6 to 12 hours depending on how number of fish in the tank.
DO NOT FEED FISH they will be fine for days without food but a nitrate spike would kill them quickly.
Local pet shops that stock fish have back up generators if needed.

Gold fish are fine with very cold temps, dont feed and do a water change as above.

When things back to normal, test water quality and treat if needed and feed again but at lower levels and build up to normal over a few days.

grandma247

Good Morning all.
This is an interesting discussion. I remembered seeing a program years ago where a person showed how he made a sphagnum moss water filter but I can't remember the details.

I also watched a program about an elderly Irish midwife and she used it to make st's after a woman gave birth because they were very poor people.

Butterfly_Brain

grandma247 wrote: »

Good Morning all.
This is an interesting discussion. I remembered seeing a program years ago where a person showed how he made a sphagnum moss water filter but I can't remember the details.

I also watched a program about an elderly Irish midwife and she used it to make st's after a woman gave birth because they were very poor people.

Didn't Ruth Goodman do that in one of the episodes of Victorian Farm?

D&DD

I think she did BB wasn't it on the programme about gathering the medicinal herbs and stuff from the hedgerow?

I think we are quite blessed in this country really for natural resources aren't we? We have plenty of rain/waterways and a lot of plants which can be used as well as animals..a lot of places it would be significantly harder to survive any long term upheaval.

Pops that was what I rang him about as the borough we live in we are happy with services wise and council tax etc..the one we will come under if plans go through is decidedly dodgy all round for kids services etc but I've been assured by said MP that its only for voting purposes and for everything else we would still come under our original borough hope that reassures you

Grandma thanks for another brill link X

I meant to add yesterday about those spiky things don't forget to fold them down/remove them when you are not using them on ice I went for a thrilling skate last year while using my Yaktrax when I entered the shop and no its not available to view on youtube but it would have made me a fortune :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

we had a 6 hour loss of power this week and some of my shtf prep came into play but I hadn`t calculated for boredom, which will be pronounced if we cannot get out. It was too dull and dark to knit and I couldn`t be bothered reading too much. Anyway, thinking cap on this week re boredom alleviators

Re power outages and cold weather, then we have decided to retreat to a very small room, called snug and we`ll be using candles for heating in there. The house is very insulated so it will make a good difference. If it wasn`t insulated then I would be prepping stuff to hang over windows and door but allowing for a small change of air for us and the candles

You can make water filters from layers of sand. You need a container with small holes at the bottom, then pebbles then sand. It will not remove pathogens though. 1/8th tsp of bleach per gallon will do the trick

D&DD

Kittie I always keep a few little travel books in for when DS2 goes into hospital but they come in handy for powercuts too and don't take up much space.I usually get them when on offer in WHSmiths.They do allsorts crossword,seduko,hangman etc
Travel size games are great boredom breakers too.If all else fails and no-one else will play, a pack of cards may be handy?

I've potted up some teeny lemon thyme plants today will keep one in the kitchen and stick the rest back in the greenhouse,I've been really pleased with the herbs this year but struggle with this as the foxes keep digging the plants up
I froze some herbs,chopped up and dried some and also have some herb butters made up in the freezer ready to use

Wet and dismal here with fog still

ginnyknit

I wander off for a couple of hours and you lot fill in the time with amazing ideas and info ...and a damn good laugh too. Been buying lots of ys veggies at Mr A. Then I had to carry them all home still pleased with it all though.

Have sewing machine out and pillowcases at the ready to make 10 snake bags - well I think she has 10. Most of them are babies that they bought as a job lot because the owner couldnt get them to feed, or rather couldnt be bothered getting them to feed. DD's Oh spent ages getting it right and they are thriving.

There are a lot of points to consider aren't there with the prepping life. I think I will get a notebook and set out pages for each thing I need to prep so I feel in control.

2tonsils

Have just caught up with the reading, some great ideas on here and some useful links as well.

Have been spitting feathers since this morning when I heard this news about the Greek government (well, the health system run by them). They apparently stopped paying disability pension to 77,000 people earlier this year. In this country you have to be 79 percent disabled to qualify for it. Now they are saying that no disability pension will be paid to anyone, no matter how disabled, until they have been reassessed. Since the health service is now running at minimum and there are now 77,000 waiting on a list to be assessed it might take a year or more to do it.....and no one will get money backdated!!!!!! I am not disabled but I feel so sorry for the people affected by it. There are no other emergency benefits here so they are their families are to survive on nothing... I can't say how annoyed I am about it, its disgusting!

Still having our heatwave here, its still 27 in the shade but the nights are down to around 14 at the moment. It was cold on the scooter this morning and I couldn't figure out why my OH was not complaining......then I realised he had a fleecy on and his leather coat lol. It soon warmed up though. I hope the forecasts of snow don't come true for you all, hope you get the Indian summer that was forecast that didn't come your way.

I read about the solar flares we have had over the last few days, apparently NASA is worried about the chance of bigger ones later this week. I will keep you posted as I am on the sun watch sites. I am also on the underground sites for weather and a friend of mine on there is predicting a massive storm off Florida towards the end of this week. In his words...a Perfect Storm. (I hated that film , it made me feel sea sick then sad at the end!).

Going to put some chlorine blocks in the water tank under the house, we use a small amount of the stuff they put in swimming pools. Because of the non stop torrential rain we had for five days the tank is full, but we had so much rain it swept the water that had been standing out of the overflow and replaced it with fresh. I would not like to drink it but in an emergency I would of course. I can't treat it with iodine as I am allergic to it and it affects my thyroid problem. We do have two very fast streams in the village should the mains go off and they are drinking quality water. Most villages have lots of wells here, so water wouldn't be a problem as they still get the water out with buckets or pumps that run on generators.

I actually have a nice little spot eyeballed for if we ever have to bug out anywhere. Its an underground room built around the base of a tree on top of the mountain. I think it may be a throw back from the war when the resistance took to the hills to avoid the invaders. It's still in pretty good order, I have had a good scout round. Lots of firewood, pine cones and a stream around there as well as things to pick and eat. I felt quite excited when I discovered it.Let's hope it never comes to that, but the way things are going you never know!

jamanda

2T

I may be muddled, but I think I saw an article somewhere in the last day or two saying that the troika had instructed that all the tax inspectors were to be sacked and they had to set on temporary people (unqualified) to collect taxes on a performance basis. I take that to mean they will be like nasty debt collectors.

I hope I am muddled.