Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Thanks NUATHA I just assumed it was because of the association with Will Straw, wrongly as it happens!

GreyQueen

That's so sad, Cappella. Mind you, knowing several teachers, I'm not overly surprised. One of them asked her class how many legs a chicken had and was initially baffled to hear 'six, miss'!

Confusion caused by the legs being sold separately in packets of six, apparently.

On the plus side, those of us who do know where veg and fruit comes from will have a helluva an advantage over some others if SHTF and there is no food in the shops. On the downside, that will mean a lot of folks will suffer for their ignorance.

The village school where my Dad, Aunt and their Dad were pupils had its own veggie garden, where the boys were taught to grow veggies (the girls were sent to a village matron to learn housework and cookery, sadly, this was the bad old days). The veg was then cooked and eaten by the pupils. Mind you, they were the children of farmworkers and would have learned veggie growing from their Dads.

I learned veggie gardening from Dad and Grandad and there are pix of me as a toddler, trowel in hand, anorak hood up, in Nan's back garden, looking sturdy and determined. I'm eternally grateful for having the wonders of veggie gardening imparted to me at a young age.

Particularly when I see what happens when you don't learn by example before you're too young to know you're learning at all. Such as the plotholder who used to be next to me. He had a derelict half plot, and cleared a couple of beds amid the waist-high couch grass, each about the size of a tabletop, and was seen down on his knees, with a hand fork, scratching away at them, week after week and achieving nowt.

A kindly neighbour on the other side gently suggested that a full-size digging fork would be a better tool for the job. So he got one, and was then down on his knees, holding the fork by the top of the tines and using it like a hand fork.

[Deleted User]

Or they'll follow us to see what we're doing with our gathering basket and be desperate enough to try the same things rather than face starvation. Our plus if you like is the knowledge of how to process these wildings and make them palatable to the modern taste, wild foraged greens are usually bitter, sometimes stringy and unless you're familiar with them wholly unpalatable because they're so unfamiliar.

Woke up this morning in the middle of a bizarre dream and my first waking thought? would people when cooked make crackling? euggghhhh!!!

nuatha

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Thanks NUATHA I just assumed it was because of the association with Will Straw, wrongly as it happens!

It was a reasonable assumption. Will Straw stood for Labour at the last general election, works for a left wing think tank as well as being Executive Director of Britain Stronger in Europe.

This is the first issue I can think of that has cut so strongly across party lines, we've been trained into thinking issues are right/left, Conservative/Labour that its hard to see that many issues have supporters and opponents on both sides of a political debate.

I've found myself in the un-imaginable position that either I'm going to agree with David Cameron and George Osborne or I'll be in agreement with Ian Duncan Smith and Boris Johnson.

thriftwizard

Only if you rubbed them well with salt & basted them frequently, MrsLW.

I hesitate to mention again the sad time the Brownies were prevented from doing a foraging walk, in case they tried to eat things from the hedgerows when they didn't have an "expert" (i.e. me!) there to guide them... The wrongheadedness of the thinking behind that decision still disturbs me.

I'm another one with a stupidly high pain threshold and an actual allergy to several drugs; my dentist was almost in tears the other week when he found I had rather a large abscess under one of my teeth. "But what CAN I treat you with?! And why are you not on the floor with pain?!" he wailed - imagine a heavy greek accent and a young man waving sharp implements round my head in distress. So I had 5 days of a very strong antibiotic, which made me feel considerably worse than the tooth did, but all sorted now. I'd only mentioned that I'd had a nasty twinge one night and had to get up & take a paracetamol; it was all gone the next morning... And I'll also not mention when I was expecting the twins and the midwives made me stop eating my cheesecake & hold my breath so I'd look flushed & out-of-breath; then the delivery ward medics would examine me & I could go home. Only I was 8cm dilated & they were born within the next couple of hours. Never did get my cheesecake...

I sometimes wonder whether the disconnect between people ("consumers") and their food is being deliberately fostered; some of my friends & family are horrified that I handle raw food & regularly cook for my family. It doesn't take many of their comments/questions to make me start doubting myself & sounding defensive... fortunately I can usually talk myself out of it quite easily, and one ready-meal bought in times of desperation usually cures me altogether. But if you surround yourself with advertising, TV chefs using outrageously exotic & expensive ingredients, & TV pundits announcing that the "epidemic" of food-poisoning is down to bad food prep. & storage in the home, I can see how cooking would start to seem strange & potentially dangerous. Never mind preserving & fermenting...

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Awful news coming through about 2 terrorist attacks in belguin ...

My thoughts and my heart is with the belguin people and people and the families that have been injured ..

[Deleted User]

NEVER DOUBT Thrifty, you are at the pointy end of sanity with what you have as a lifestyle, never let the sheep bleat you into doubting that yours is the right path!!!

Thanks for the basting tip, Mmmmmmmm!!!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Newshadow has the wonderful JackieO got a thread going???

When ever I see her posts in threads I love them!!!!

Karmacat

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Have a jar of coinage preferably £2 and 50p 20p and 10p s as the £1 coin is being phased out. You'd be amazed at just how much you can stash away in a I litre jar.

I didn't know that :eek: That's pretty important for my stash of coins! Thanks Mrs LW, have found an Independent article from last December about it: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/royal-mint-produces-last-ever-round-pound-coin-a6777266.html

I've made notes on the first aid that people have mentioned in the last few pages too - thank you all!

Thinking of all those in Brussels too

Siebrie

The S has HTF right next to me. I live a 5-minute walk from Brussels' airport, and work at the other side of it. Many of my colleagues live in central Brussels. I didn't hear the bomb(s) go off, but some of my colleagues did. Last time I heard (and felt) a bomb go off was in 1996 in London, at Canary Wharf, when I was au pairing in Rotherhithe. I don't think I need a prepbag, but I do need a bug-out bag. Thank goodness dds are at the grandparents' next week.