Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

Just checked the library website and that book is on shelf (well, just until I get hold of it).

Weather cannot quite decide between delivering wet snow or sleety rain, both are cold and disgusting. Trapper hat a go go, I think. Gawd, how I lurve my trapper hat......... a Russian acquaintance quips that all I need is a red star on the front and I'll be just the ticket.

Nuatha, metal thefts go thru phases here, but have slackened off a little now that the scrapyards are being more closely-regulated. We have lead flashing on some of our council houses, mainly the older ones, around the chimmney stack and where porches join walls. About 4 years ago our phones were ringing off the hook as householders woke up and found they'd had their lead stripped overnight. We replaced with a non-lead product (its brand name escapes me). SuperGran's church has also been done over.

Then it was the ironwork in the roads and parks, signage, some war memorials (:() then a rash of thefts of the condensate pipes from combi boilers being cut off, sometimes in broad daylight when the householder was in. It was absolutely infuriating. We too have thefts of wrought iron gates from private homes and the rare council home where a tenant may have installed them themselves.

Seems to me if it ain't bolted down it's liable to be nicked, and if it is bolted down, it's still liable to be nicked.

I suspect that there will be a lot more of this kind of thing as hardship increases and the pressure on raw materials means scrap values go higher. Buy your landfill site now, investors, and prepare to start mining operations............

Cheapskate

Saw this earlier, I know it's scaremongering by the press and it's not new news, but have read so many articles by more authoritative sources that I'm sure there is something in this. Think there'll be more people opening up the old coal fires, buying blankets, or maybe even freezing to death! :eek:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297296/Gas-bills-rise-15-chill-cuts-UK-reserves-just-36-HOURS.html

A xo

JayneC

mrs_lds wrote: »

We think we have it bad on the roads in south Africa my friend says that they are stealing man hole covers to sell Onto metal dealers. Do not travel at night walking on unlit paths danger.

Apparently in parts of America people have ripped out their own plumbing to sell the metal for cash as they are so desperate - you don't see that on the news do you?

The basic problem is that now everything is about the money. And when you make everything about the money, everything becomes about the money. When the only real measurement of how well a country is doing is how much money is created there, what incentive is there to really take care of health or infrastructure?

Doing a good job (such as building a house or product) is not as important and doing the job for the least amount of money, so that the most amount of profit is made, investing in health or education is only important if there's money to made, research is only undertaken for profit and things are now even designed to become obsolete so that they will have to be replaced, nothing is made to be economical to repair, everything is shoddy and sometimes even downright dangerous. Animals, the environment and yes, even people are abused to make a profit because that's become the most important measure. And people are convinced (brainwashed??) to worship the god of money and the economy, like some kind of crazy cult!! Only a radical shift in thinking is going to change the way things are now, but people are losing confidence is this 'reality' and beginning to see it an elaborate charade.

Ok rant over!

I'm off to get some logs before the snow comes, it's looking a greyer by the second and there's blizzards forecast for tomorrow:eek:

See you all later

Shropshirelass

:T:T:T

Thanks for some really inspiring posts in last 24 hours, with admitting the truth, using our common sense and supporting each other we'll survive, and thrive, and help our families to do the same.

3 inches snow here this morning, bitter wind, schools closed early for Easter hoiday, more snow on the way. Will go out and melt the birdbath soon, when I take MrDog for his walk (he loves wearing his waterproof coat). Dh not feeling for going out in the cold, so will leave him tucked up in the warm with his book until his Drs appointment.

I think chilli soup for lunch with potato scones, and needing some inspiration for tea-time....

GreyQueen

Cheapskate wrote: »

Saw this earlier, I know it's scaremongering by the press and it's not new news, but have read so many articles by more authoritative sources that I'm sure there is something in this. Think there'll be more people opening up the old coal fires, buying blankets, or maybe even freezing to death! :eek:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297296/Gas-bills-rise-15-chill-cuts-UK-reserves-just-36-HOURS.html

A xo

I just went and turned my gas CH off. I'm now giving careful thought to possible gas outages as my cooker is gas. I need to have a plan for heating stuff if the gas is down but the electric up. I can work perfectly handily the other way around. My Kelly Kettle is currently on its way.........

I saw one of those warmers that use tealight candles in the c.s. recently. We had one of those at home in the seventies, 2 tealights, used to use it to warm up the butterdish. Has anyone tried using them for warming through canned food like soup or beans and how did it go?

I'm thinking if the wotsit is still at the c.s. I might well buy it as it's only a couple of quid and have an experimundo. Going to experiment with cooking pasta the vestigal heat way.

I always cook pasta by boiling the water, adding the pasta, bringing the covered pan back to the boil and turning off the heat for 10 mins then it's perfect. What I want to know is this; if I have a cold pan with pasta in, add boiling water (say from the KK) and cover will it cook at all and how long will it take?

Some things such as using woodburners for cooking (for those who have them) and various other unconventional cooking methods are worth checking out. You can eat cold baked beans but it's a lot nicer if you can have hot ones, ditto soup and rice pud. And some easily-stored carbs like pasta and rice need cooking to be edible at all.

Thinking on...............

ETA JayneC, yes! 100% behind you. I get very frustrated with politicos constantly banging on about growth. You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. Resources come from somewhere and waste products go to somewhere and there is no such place on any map called Away. We have to exercise commonsense and adapt ourselves to living as lightly as possible, or billions of us will end up not living at all.

Martin Luther King put it best;

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. There is such a thing as being too late. Over the bleached bones of numerous civilisations are written the pathetic words; Too Late. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the dark corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without responsibility, might without morality and strength without sight.

mardatha

GQ - a circle of tealights, say 9 of them. Balance an old oven shelf or grill mesh thingy on top of 3 bits of wood, with the tealights in the middle, lay the oven shelf on that so it just touches the flame, and place yer pot on top. Or kettle. Takes 20 mins to heat a kettle.

pineapple

Morning preppers.
3 inches (can't do with cms :rotfl:) of snow so far, a lot more in the drifts and it's blowing a horizontal blizzard out there. Not able to get up or down our lane - we'll get no postie today! We all knew this was coming and most of us prepped. However the usual suspects have been caught out.
Have been supremely organised this am having just cooked, portioned and frozen 6 border collie dinners. She is on steroids at the mo so permanently ravenous - it's been torture for the poor thing to watch/smell all that food wafting by. :eek:
Cyprus due to vote. There is continued speculation that at least part of the reason for this unheralded treatment of Cyprus was to get at it's financial links with Russia. I do think that this thing is bigger than the sum of its parts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/22/eurozone-crisis-cyprus-bailout-russia-vote
Re the use of tealights someone on another forum said that a tealight under an upturned dish would act as a slow cooker. But I'm thinking it would run out of oxygen and go out? I'm going to revisit that forum and ask.

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

I always cook pasta by boiling the water, adding the pasta, bringing the covered pan back to the boil and turning off the heat for 10 mins then it's perfect. What I want to know is this; if I have a cold pan with pasta in, add boiling water (say from the KK) and cover will it cook at all and how long will it take?

Pasta will not work. Get some 3 minute noodles. Put in a container and cover with boiling water. Leave 3 minutes stir and drain. If I am camping in a hoolie, I pour another lot of hot water on to heat them up, drain again. Add flavouring and marg/butter to up the calories.

Also use the hot water to make cuppasoups. Add extra dried potato purls and or marg/butter and eat with loads of bread.

You can also coddle an egg by putting in a mug and pouring over boiling water, if you put as saucer over the mug. I find that this works OK with small eggs and large mugs or with a food flask and smallish egg as long as you use some of the water to pre-heat the mug. Supposed to be 7 minutes but I find 10+ is realistic.

GreyQueen

Thanks, RAS. I can see a weekend which will include some experimention. Can I ask about "potato purls" as this is a new one on me? I'm wondering if these are a purchased product or something you'd make at home?

Isn't there an issue that some noodles are very low in nutrition? I know a bloke whose student housemate decided to live on them to save money. He got scurvy (yes, you did read that correctly, but noodles was all he was eating).

I've just started adding dried soups to the preps this week. And something I used to do for an economical warmer in my impoverished student days was to add a bit of an Ox0 cube to a mug of boiling water, stir well and have a meaty broth. Used to get about 5 mugs from one cube............

Sunshine4

Morning everyone,
We have had a blizzard all night, a few inches of snow so far and it is still coming down.

There is about 40,000 homes without power here, and they can not tell them when it will return or if more houses will lose power.

So I have made a nice pot of soup,some bread and a casserole.
So if we lose power I can heat the food up on my little camping stove.
Plus we have lots of food in and dont need to go out for anything.:)