Preparedness for when

Butterfly_Brain

Even Jerusalem has snow!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2260223/Jerusalem-hit-worst-snowstorm-TWENTY-YEARS-inches-falls-Holy-City-closing-roads-schools.html

chinagirl

:eek:Crikey , snow in Jerusalem !!!

katholicos

kittie wrote: »

2010 I was so bored after being snowed in for six weeks so I have hobby stuff ready this time. I have becoming a spinning dervish, I can`t get enough of it, started with £7 ebay drop spindle and a bag of prepared fleece and just gone on and on. Will be knitting my first home spun in about 10 days

I sowed broad beans and little gem lettuce last week and all are up, so protection at the ready and also got fleece for pots, just in case, as some big shrubs in pots never recovered after 2010

May i ask where you got the prepared fleece and how much they sell for. It might be something i would be interested in myself.

How did you find using the drop spindle?

Perplexed_Pineapple

Well I've finally caught up with the end of the thread so far
Just wanted to say thank you to GreyQueen for recommending the Columbus 2 wind-up/solar radio/torch/phone charger which I picked up today, seems to be a great little gadget that will be invaluable in any power cuts (we had one of 48 hours in the not-all-that-bad winter ?2 years ago).
I think my prepper credentials are fairly flimsy compared to most of you, but I do have a trapper type hat with ear-flaps that I picked up at an army surplus store a few years ago (second-hand Swedish army I think, very warm). Also three different camping stoves with enough fuel for a few weeks at least, and a reasonable store cupboard although nothing like some of the fantastic arrangements some of you have kindly let us see in earlier posts :T I want to develop this primarily as a hedge against adverse economic events (personal, national or global) but this is a medium-term aspiration for now, still I'm following the discussions here with interest, I probably won't be posting very often but thanks to all the regular posters for some great hints and tips as well as some fantastic anecdotes SHTF scenarios to think about :eek:

pennib

The book caught my eye as we tamed our 'wilderness' up here in the east of Scotland. We have great success with veggies. The fruit last year was rubbish tho.

the_cake

OK. I am now prepped as much as I can be for the BIG CHILL ... we live about 12 miles away from the nearest supermarket - our nearest small food shop is 5 miles, so I do need to have stores in. Today I topped up the horse feed, shavings and cat food. OH and I will be fine, have been building up my stores for some time now, mainly against food price increases but very nice to have a full larder at the moment. And I have joined the Trapper Hat Gang! Not a pretty sight (frightened the cat, who met it on the kitchen table and thought it was an interloper, and alarmed the horses) but boy is it warm. Many thanks for reminding me about them, GQ and 2T. The shop where I currently work part time actually sells them, so I had no excuse. My Pr**ark thermal tights are also doing sterling service, and I invested in a pair of YakTrax before Christmas. The OS forum has completely changed my shopping habits!! I hope all of you stay warm and safe.
PS I also have lots of chocolate .....

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Cold weather?

[Adds industrial sized quantities of bird seed, dried fruit and suet to the shopping list]

Can't forget the wee beasties.



Off tomorrow to IKEA to get a pair of curtains to cover both doors (money only goes so far - and a new oven just before Christmas did for me financially). And the free breakfast/strong coffee they are apparently offering until tomorrow morning is encouraging me somewhat. I may need to be tied to a trolley by a string round the wrist lest I flat off into the ether like a child's balloon , but a free caffeine boost never goes amiss.


My SHTF time has come. My housing benefit and council tax benefit have been thoughtfully cancelled by the council. Apparently, migrating to income related ESA means, whilst you are still entitled to the same amount, some keyboard mashing buffoon can just hit close rather than bother to enter the details in - and then not tell you about it. So there will be council tax demands, threats of eviction and I have to convince said keyboard mashers that I did send in the information they have chosen to ignore. And the tax credit people, despite being told DD no longer lives at home, have refused to not pay CTC to me, so technically, whilst I will have to pay it all back, I'm getting more than I need. :wall:



So, I can expect to have income befitting a diet of air pie and runaway beans from now on.



Could be worse. I've got a good layer of bodyfat to go through before there's a huge problem. I could have been really thin and go through this.

[Deleted User]

katholicos wrote: »

May i ask where you got the prepared fleece and how much they sell for. It might be something i would be interested in myself.

How did you find using the drop spindle?

coming up on the positive thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4362365

GreyQueen

Moning All.

Glad you're liking the Columbus II, Perplexed Pineapple. I'm very fond of mine. It's narrow enough to sit on the pathetic excuse for a windowsill here and low enough to be out of casual sight. I'm hoping it's solar cell will keep it topped up in the brighter weather. In the meantime, I have charged it off the USB cable from the computer tower.

I think it's good to have a degree of redundancy in your preps, by which I mean Plans B, C and D. Plan Z is best summed up as putting your head between your legs and kissing your a$$ goodbye.

the cake, as a city centre dweller, I am very well-served by foodshops on first glance. However, they are all small convenience stores or small supermarkets relying on just-in-time deliveries. The larger supermarkets are 2-4 miles out in the 'burbs and that'd be a stiff return bike journey for someone with my health problems.

If I look at the population (which I know to the 1000 through my job) and the amount of food sitting on the shelves in the stores, I have serious concerns about the city's ability to stay fed if there is prolonged disruption to delivery networks.

In Dec 2010 we had a lot of CH boilers down. And they stayed down for days as the parts had to come from Scotland. We're in southern England and the roads were just not passable for days. As a warehouseman's daughter, I've long known about JIT systems and there is a lot less resilience in our supply chains than there was even 30 years ago.

If the freight doesn't move, your CH boiler part doesn't move and your grub sits in a distribution centre somewhere. Or it never even got that far and is at the cannery, the packhouse or the mill. I think a lot of people, just regular folks, haven't seen what prolonged seriously-bad weather can do to a shop. Wouldn't take much to strip my Tosco bare; as it is normally, things are a bit thin on the ground first thing in the morning until that day's delivery lorry has been unloaded and shelved.

((Jo Jo)), can't believe the incompetance of the benefit assessors. They'd've got the info via DWP and should have just changed your claim. What a male-bird-up. And our assessment program auto-generates letters every time an assessor does something on the system, and Tax Creds have told me that their system does the same. Hopefully, now you know what they've done you can get them to un-do it.

Ohhh, found a good tip on the interwebulator; good fruit choices if you are looking at a possible period of disruption are apples and oranges as they keep pretty well, unlike say bananas or berries.

This weekend I shall go for the Kelly Kettle. If we're going off-power they'll be a run on such things. Best to have your alternate methods in place before the rest of the world wakes up to 3 feet or more of snow and goes Now what do I do? :huh:

Quick thought; children's buggies are a nightmare tp push in snow and wheelchair users are also going to struggle if we have much. Please be careful if you use either and think of neighbours/ pals who might suddenly be in a pickle. A sled is a useful way of moving small children (not babes of course) on snowpacked ground and great for getting heavy shopping or other supplies across from vehicles. I'm also thinking of people who may keep animals and require to move heavy feed sacks/ hay bales.

Keep on trucking, ladies and gents.

VJsmum

I am off on my travels with work tomorrow to hot and sunny climes (Sri Lanka - so excited :j), but need to prepare the family staying at home for any disruption. SO I am off out later to stock up with juices, long life milk and maybe a bit more water "just in case". My stocks aren't too bad generally but these items and bread and bread flour seem to have got run down. Just hope the runway is clear a week on Sunday so my plane back can land.:cool: