Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

HERBILY yes parafin lamps are very effective, the problem is that parafin is increasingly hard to obtain and increasingly expensive as it is oil derived and will probably become increasingly more expensive and unobtainable in the future. The lamps also smell a little in use so you may not like them in the house. In fact parafin is as expensive as petrol these days. I have a couple of lamps that I have had for years but we don't light them as we have better light from the solar lamps we have, which are free to run, Cheers Lyn x.

Goldiegirl

RAS wrote: »

Having grown up when SHTF was potentially nuclear (my first political question "What is a world war, daddy" was inspired by the Bay of Pigs), I was astounded to discover that one of the few useful bits on advice in the Government publications was to whitewash the windows!

Apparently the flash precedes the blast for a considerable distance and the whitewash reflects the flash and protects from ignition. If the community can reduce the number of burning buildings, firestorms etc can be prevented. Not that I fancy surviving a nuclear war.

As a very small child I can remember the Domesday Clock - I thought it meant that if the clock was showing six minutes to midnight, we had six minutes to hide if they launched the bomb!

GreyQueen

maryb wrote: »

http://www.preservingabundance.com/blog.html

http://justincasebook.wordpress.com/

Two blogs by Kathy Harrison, the author of the book GQ mentioned

Thanks for the links but it was someone else who mentioned the book, I've just added it to my wants list.

Butterfly_Brain

You can make your own oil lamps from olive oil and a wick
http://down---to---earth.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/how-to-make-oil-lamp.html
alternatively buy a oil lamp and lamp oil.

ginnyknit

You can sharpen scissors reasonably well by 'cutting' the neck of a bottle a good few times - very carefully as obviously the scissors slip off as you do it. I do it with even cheap scissors and they do revive well. My pet peeve is when Oh finds my dressmaking ones and cuts paper with them, they are antiques (well as old as me at least:D), good solid steel scissors and very precious to me. I must have about 30 pairs of cheap scissors around the house as I use them constantly and am finding the cheap ones are getting better nowadays. I also have 2 pairs of hairdressing scissors both picked up in a CS, as I do my own and anyone who sits still's hair :eek: actually I dont do a bad job and cannot guess how much I have saved myself over the last 30 years.

I long for a small gardening knife like they use on Gardeners World as it seems very useful but think I may opt for a good quality penknife.

mardatha

I use paraffin lamps in power cuts and some of mine smell, some don't. But I'm going to get solar ones instead, because paraffin is so dear.

GreyQueen

pineapple wrote: »

Too right 2T... Nor do I think we can assume our government will always be benign (if indeed it is).
Anyways - today I found myself trying to give myself a trim - always a sign that my hair is in dire need of a cut! As ever the scissors were rubbish and as ever I made a pigs ear of it and need to go get it done properly. But it got me thinking - I need a pair of decent hairdressing scissors in my arsenal. Plus a sharpening tool for knives and scissors.
My parents used to sharpen their knives but I think less people do it in today's throwaway society.
It's the never ending shopping list...
http://alpha411.blogspot.ca/2012/11/100-free-survival-downloads.html

I've often thought that being able to cut hair, as it only needs some basic equipment (scissors, mebbe thinning scissors and clippers - you can get manual models as well as electric ones) is a very useful and money-saving skill now and would be useful and perhaps a barter-skill in a post SHTF world.

Certainly, I hear reports from wherever people are on LETS schemes that those who can cut hair are in mucho demand. I did find it difficult to keep tidy hair on a limited budget so now wear mine all one length in a bob. Mum cuts the menfolks' hair at home; Dad last went to a barber in 1970.

Mind you, she must be doing something wrong, because back then he had a full head of hair and now there's just a wraparound bit from ear to ear with nowt on top..........;)

craigywv

i am a qualified hairdresser and can honestly say its a great thing to fall back on, i did the whole 3 yrs in college and apprenticeship thing when i was 16 , worked 7 yrs at it then left and its notchanged that much,granted thestyles come and go but colours are colours and cutting is easy when your taught how. my biggest fear when learning was taking a pair of shears in my hands and doing that first shave lol my poor dad was in nerves. roll on 26 yrs and 2 pair ofclippers later and i can honestly say theresnothing to it. i still cut all themenfolks hair in the family and cut and colour the womens. i just dont want towork in a salon enviroment again . anyway i would say go get a pair of clippers they come with scissors,combs,clamps gowns the whole shebang much cheaper than buying seperatly. xxx

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

But it is certainly an interesting idea. We can live without electricity but we would lose a lot which we have come to enjoy and value.

I do wonder if a more low-powered future might see lots of micro-generation of power at homestead or neighbourhood level with the tendancy to use it for, say, lighting, rather than energy-hogging big appliance use.

Here is one little scheme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEPOG8CiAfs

I know another community which ran its own small hydro scheme in the 1930s from the local beck. It provided 3 or 4 hours light per night for subscribers. A pond was dammed and the water directed down a wooden leat running above the beck, into a small generator building at the bottom a garden. it was disused when I first saw it and more recent the dam was broken down to disencourage swimming in the pond.

mardatha

I always thought canals should come back into use, and water power in general. Up here there are hundreds of mills, every riverside in every town is covered with them. One day they might need that technology again I'm sure of it.
Been to hospital today for ultrasound and this time got a good techie person who says she thinks I have got gallstones but they are hiding
So that explains why I'm having such probs with food, and now I need to research diet. Which will probly mean a complete revamp of the bloody stash yet again