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Preparedness for when
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Cheapskate wrote: »Our older two have the head-in-the-sand approach to life, money, etc., as do many of my friends, and they think of me as a sort of Cassandra, but even now it's me they ask for money loans or advice, cooking help, OS tips, you name it. Sometimes I fear for them whenever TSHTF - I hope I'd be able to help, but if things got really hairy, it'd be our family we'd bring into the fold, there wouldn't be enough for those who didn't prepare. Does that sound mean? I think you could only do so much!
Over the next few weeks I'm upping the prepping now our garage is more organised, and hope to get the inside of the house into a better state to store more preptastic items. I feel several CS visits coming up, digging out my trusty sewing machine and jam-jar saving (extra to usual stash!) towards this end!
A xoIt's not mean, it's just the way life is. Resources aren't infinate. You won't do your children short-rations to feed your neighbour and your siblings will have greater call on your resources than your second cousins and neighbours. It's how our species is wired.
I was talking to friend and neighbour SuperGran today. She's nearly 70, parents long since passed away, but was recalling hard times when she was younger (she was a nurse all her working life and on very modest pay). Said hard times included being very hungry at times until payday came around and making one tin of baked beans s-t-r-e-t-c-h. She had parents living then but would never have admitted that she was in hardship.
Her generation (and my generation) seem to have the expectation that we will shift for ourselves, including facing hard times if necessary. I frequently come across younger people in their twenties and thirties who are gainfully employed at far above NMW, who keep running to the Bank of Mum and Dad. It seems to be something that happens several times a year and their loving parents aren't treating these as crisis loans but as a free top-up to their offsprings' income, with no expectation that they will be paid back. In plenty of cases, they're jeopardising their own financial security to pay for their offsprings' lifestyle choices.
Sometimes, we need a reality check and to say to people that if you can't afford it; tough. Get over it. Work more, spend less, spend differently or go without. If you continually bail people out of messes largely of their own making, they won't learn to manage.
And if they can't manage now, how the heck will they manage in the future? All signs and portents indicate that this is a cakewalk to what will be happening later on.
ETA, Elaine I do envy you your lifestyle on a Welsh mountain. I'm nestled in the heart of a lowland English city. Whatever resources are here would quickly be depleted with panic buying/ looting. Then it would get !!!!!!, to put it mildly.
I'm now after the book you mentioned from the library. One important issue to consider, which came to my attention originally from TEOTWAWKI by John Wesley Rawles, is "light discipline". Think about being up your mountain with your lights on, off your gennie or whateve. Even candlelight. You'd stand out for miles as people with resources. A reasonable assumption would be that your farm (or my flat) had resources. If you were in a blackout in a remote location, your home would disappear. If you were in a blackout in mine, you'd look like you had nowt and hopefully be passed over.
Here in Shoebox Towers, we naturally use "light discipline" to hide what we're doing, such as being the ones to call the Police in the middle of the night when an incident is kicking off. Lights off and dial by the light of your phone's keypad.
A gunshot can be heard for miles whereas a bow is almost silent, and shells/ bullets would eventually run out and then a gun would be a well-engineered stick to hit someone with. Just sayin'............Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
John Ruskin
Veni, vidi, eradici
(I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
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Hello all, just logging in from the frozen wastes of a mountain in Wales! Been lurking for a bit as nothing interesting to say! LOL I got Alex Scarrows book Last Light from the library as someone mentioned it in a post on here. OMG !guaranteed to get you prepping! I read it in just two days and now I am determined to prep even more.
It might have been me that mentioned the book. There is a follow up, called After light, which is just as bad/worse! It was reading that book that really made me look more seriously at prepping. Although I have always been organised and had a good store cupboard, candles, torches, a couple of bottles of water and the like, after reading those books I really upped my game!
I don't tell anyone about my stores, except close family. I need them to know just in case I am not home for any reason, and they will be able to find them. I don't tell anyone else for security reasons, the less people that know about my stash the better, especially in a SHTF situation!
katie0 -
Just ordered Afterlight also by Alex Scarrow, it is the follow up to last light and set 10 years after the oil stopped flowing. Ordered it as the library doesnt have a copy, ironically it was cheapest from a site that was selling in dollars, $3.37 delivered.
Obviously it is a story but I am always on the look out for ideas. Has anyone got any other suggestions for scaring myself sh*tless reading!! Currently I have from the library Alys Fowler's Thrifty Forager and Ray Mears Wildfood although I am pretty good at foraging. I am looking for fiction books that explore different SHTF scenarios.
I am pretty good, though I say so myself,:), on veg growing , livestock, surviving, foraging, providing heat and hot water off grid, also with my own spring.I am currently learning sewing skills at a night class and I am planning on increasing my skills base through attending courses when I can afford it. I carry essentials in the car and always have a get home bag in the boot and a survival tin plus essentials, tools/knife in my handbag! I also have a cob (horse!) that I will be braking to harness this summer so that I have an alternate form of transport for the family if needed.:rotfl: I often go to local shop on him to get essential supplies of an icecream
I love reading this forum with like minded people (mad!) as I dont feel such a nutter!
"Big Al says dogs can't look up!"0 -
plenty of nuts on here elaine............. but good ones xxxC.R.A.P.R.O.L.L.Z #7 member N.I splinter-group co-ordinater
I dont suffer from insanity....I enjoy every minute of it!!.:)
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Too true, GQ. My older daughter is a case in point - when told (very bluntly!) that she needed to ditch the more expensive frills, her reply was "but I can't live without my phone or laptop!" - which costs her £70+ a month!! Likewise the fags, the new dog they've got....!!!!!!! I've got a serious headache from banging it against the proverbial wall!
I'm only a couple of years younger than GQ, so have similar memories of the 70s, similar upbringing and general outlook, so utterly confused by the offspring's attitude, despite THEIR upbringing.
I will plod along cheerfully in my little world, smile gently when they laugh at us, and then be gleeful when I'm right....mwah hah hah! :rotfl::rotfl:
Oh, and I can still just about make a bow out of elder, but need to practise making arrows!
A xoJuly 2024 GC £0.00/£400
NSD July 2024 /310 -
I was thinking (always dangerous!) about why most people have the head in the sand attitude that life will always be the way it is now because it always has been and anyway 'they' won't let anything happen will they? and if it does 'they' will sort it out and then we will have life as normal again, with very little action from us!!! I came to the conclusion that modern living mesmerises humanity like a Lark Lure did larks in past times. The lark lure was made from little pieces of mirror and was spun so that they reflected light and the larks were drawn to it and ultimately caught and eaten. Life these days is a bit like that with the TV, adverts,magazines,lifestyle coaches,tv cooks, fashion experts, home designers, new models of every artefact, this years colours, the list is endless. All these things attract our attention and take us to 'I must have one of those now!!!' land, and then all our efforts are focused on getting that shiny thing, until the next takes our eye, and that is why people do not recognise that it is not a sustainable way to live life. They are dazzled by all the shiny new and worthless things that society has convinced them they cannot live without. Except us, and I hope many more folks in the world who have learned to see the lark lure as just mirrors and mist, it is difficult sometimes to be different, be regarded as an oddity by our peers, something of a dinosaur fit only for a museum but I see it as the way forward if there is to be a world at all in the future, sorry, that's getting a bit heavy but I hope you all know what I mean, Lyn x.0
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Just delurking to suggest some books!
World Made by Hand by James Kunstler is really good! There's a sequel too. I also really liked The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe is supposed to be pretty good.
Whereabouts is your mountain Elaine? I'm in North Wales and it's so cold here today!0 -
Lyn, it's not heavy, it's absolutely accurate! DH and I often talk the same way; he thinks it's a sort of modern natural selection - those who follow the lure will get taken out by not being prepared, be it financially or practically, even if a SHTF scenario doesn't quite happen. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as the saying goes!
I don't let our kids watch anything with ad breaks, so less temptation for "pester power", I think that sort of pressure starts so much younger now and has probably contributed to what we're talking about. They know I'm serious when I say to eat what's in front of them, no pandering, I won't buy rubbish we don't need (toys, food, magazines, etc., etc.), and if they carry on about it I leave the room!
A xoJuly 2024 GC £0.00/£400
NSD July 2024 /310 -
Try Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I've read it and I sure as heck ain't watching the movie. Scarily-believable.
If you want to understand what happens when law and order breaks down, look for histories of places where it has happened. Bosnia is a case in point which may be more timely and more relevent than some things which are happening/ have happened well outside Europe.
Not denigrating those things, just pointing out that the total breakdown of civilisation in a country just like ours in modern times is more resonant than something which happens on the other side of the world in climate conditions and cultures very different from our own.
Having given it some considerable thought, my conclusion is that conflicts are always, at the very start, about resources and are driven by population pressures. Read about the background to the Rwandan genocide, as just one f'rinstance.
If there's no pressure on land, and plenty of resources, why fight at all? The future will have more of us than ever before, competing for declining resources on a finite planet. Countries which have reserves of fossil fuels and/ or rare earth minerals, will be on every world power's list of Places to Occupy and Despoil. Gawd help you if you're a native of one of those countries, being fought over like a meaty bone by Uncle Sam and the People's Republic of China, for example.
Popluations under stress typically turn on outsiders, so ex-pats may want to think about returning to their native soil, even if they have lived in a place for decades. I've met Zimbabweans of British descent who have fled to Blighty leaving homes and land and having to start again with the contents of two suitcases and some traumatic memories for companionship. This is foriegn to them but they're bliddy glad to have the right to be here.
I was in a shop the other day when a child of about 8-9 did a favour for another shopper who thanked "the lad" and was informed by "his" mother that "he" was in fact a girl but just liked to dress as a boy. I would've taken the child for a lad as well, in those clothes and with that hair.
If things got very bad, and you are a woman, or are responsible for the safety of young women or girl children, you might want to think about that very carefully. A hank of long hair and a pink jacket might see your LO targetted by sexual criminals, who always come out of the woodwork when law and order breaks down, even if the breakdown is a matter of hours or a few days. A bit of fast work with the scissors and some gender-neutral apparel could be the difference between safety and disaster if it all goes horribly wrong.......Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
John Ruskin
Veni, vidi, eradici
(I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
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I was thinking about the horse meat scandal the other day, and the millions of things that are added to packaged and prepared food....it did strike me that as well as making someone an absolute fortune, it could well be used to make food go much further if there was not enough to go round and they thought we wouldn't notice!
I don't buy packaged and prepared foods as they often have gluten in them and it would make me really ill. I buy meat and fish at local butchers and markets . I buy my fruit and veg (mishapen and often covered in earth or leaves) in the market or locally in the village. I just don't trust ''them'' to sell me the food they say they are selling to me. Is it just me?
I try to prep on immediate threats and then prep slowly for other possibilities, however, I don't lose any sleep over any of them. I was interested in the comment about bows and arrows as many of my friends here have a bow. I always had a yearning for a cross bow but you can't buy one here now.
You can buy a very powerful air rifle or air pistol here and be the registered owner ...ones that would need a firearms license in the UK. Both of ours are near silent. The law is strange here, you can buy a powerful rifle but not have a scope on it or silencer. You can also buy and use a taser or a gun that fires rubber bullets for self protection in the home. I hope I will never have to use the gun for self defence but you never know..the number of break ins has soared here in the last couple of years and worryingly they have started breaking in when the owners are still in the house this winter. We now have the house alarmed and I never thought that would be necessary here.“The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin.” Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC):A0
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