Preparedness for when

Paul_Varjak

BessieBooBoo wrote: »

Hello PV

Just an idle thought, but, if you have metal hollow crutches, could you put emergency stuff inside them?E.g. weather proof matches, tiny torch, flint, firestarting stuff, compass, obviously, not so the weight slows you down.... Or, whittle out a hollow in wooden ones? Dunno why this thought popped into my head... Please excuse me, must be something I've read; another idea good weapons to bash someone (zombie) with....



BBB

I had been thinking that too! I have aluminium elbow crutches. No doubt the preppers in the USA would want to make the crutches into guns - as in the film, Day of the Jackal!

mysterywoman10

Are you really planning for surviving outside? Is this in case you have to leave the existing areas in which you live? Sorry I'm a bit behind with all of this.

Tooth still agony, but have been inspired by this section to put washing on the line

Paul_Varjak

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

Are you really planning for surviving outside? Is this in case you have to leave the existing areas in which you live? Sorry I'm a bit behind with all of this

I am not a long-term prepper. I just want to survive an emergency situation for a few days should I be caught outside, such as car ending in a stream etc and no-one nearby to help.

The other scenario is if the River Humber should dramatically flood with little notice. Being disabled takes me longer to do things.

The nearest escape route to higher ground in the village is just about suitable for a car, but once you reach a safe height you can get no further by car and I would struggle to walk to the nearest habitation with my disability, so I would be stranded safe from flood waters but would need a means of survival until help arrived.

The other possibility is that I am stuck at home with rising flood waters so, I am preparing for that too.

Finally, I also want to be able to cook and keep warm in other eventualities, such as short term loss of electricity/electricity/gas without having to leave my home.

So, no, I am not really a prepper expecting doomsday to come at any moment, I just don't think the chances are too great in my lifetime and even if it did happen, I don't think at age 62 and disabled that I would want to live in a post-apocalyptic world anyway.

JayneC

Shazaaym wrote: »

Found this today...

http://www.wildernessgathering.co.uk/index.html

Possible summer SHTF thread meet?


.

Looks good. I may try this one. I went to Off-Grid festival in Somerset a couple of yeras ago and that was excellent. Loads of workshops and interesting speakers, but DS didn't like it at all, this one sounds more up his street - I reckon the Archery and Axe Throwing will keep him enteretained:rotfl:

Lovely sunny day today - at last! Tho still cold, did yet more digging on the lottie and took the dog for a long walk, where I think I found some raspberries growing wild. Will have to go back later in the year and see if they are in fact raspberries or if they were just pretending:rotfl:There were lots of fallen branches too so may have to go gathering firewood;)

mysterywoman10

Paul yes it makes sense especially if you are potentially in a flood area, we aren't here no rivers nearby and we are quite high up. (Probably if the costal areas all flooded everyone would flock to the middle!)

We want to move, downsize a real fire is a must and would like solar panels too, and out of the West Midlands conurbation selling is the problem!! And finding somewhere else. We do have a caravan though!! That's if you can get fuel to tow it somewhere. We can last quite a while of a couple of bottles of propane though. You can get solar panels for them as well which I'm looking into. So we can keep warm and cook on their without having to leave home in the event of a loss of power/gas as it's on our drive. We were in it in the snow in January and we were fine kept the water on board to avoid it freezing.

I know what you mean about the age I'm a bit younger but my OH is approaching 60 our son is only 19 though so would want him to be safe, if at all possible. Hopefully a post apocalyptic world won't be in his lifetime either, but it will happen at some point.

nuatha

Paul_Varjak wrote: »

I have been looking at an Alpkit bivvy bag - breathable thought not as good as Goretex. I agree that plastic bags don't make the best bivvy bags; wetness, whether from rain or sweat can be a killer and I have decided to avoid cotton corduroys, lest I should be caught in an emergency situation wearing them.

Until I discovered moleskin, all my climbing and walking trousers were corduroy. Strangely denim is lethal is cold wet situations, the same basic fibre, cotton, woven as corduroy is far better and as moleskin is superb. My current climbing and walking kit is moleskins or a hitech man made depending on my mood or where I'm heading.

The Alpkit bivvy bag is quite simple and may not be suitable in a full bug-lout situation without,say, a tarp for added protection. I guess the army goretex bivvy bags are better designed in this respect but I have not checked yet.

Looking at reviews, the alpkit isn't quite as breathable, but it is a lot lighter and it would make sense to me in your situation to opt for the Alpkit. (rigging a small shelter to cover your head would provide you with a dry breathing space and that seems to be the major drawback of the Alpkit.
I've used a goretex bag on a night when we had 100mm of rain, and stayed dry. (I've also used it in what turned into a stream and had it fill with water, my comment above about sleeping on pathways).
Military kit is rarely the best around, but it generally does a good job, my bag is 20+ years old and still performs well, hence not being familiar with current models. When it needs replacing I may well be looking at the Alpkit. Weight is increasingly important as I get older and that is considerably lighter than my goretex bag.

I have already ordered a sleeping mat - a Thermarest Ridgecrest SOLite...

http://cascadedesigns.com/en/therm-a-rest/mattresses/trek-and-travel/ridge-rest-solite/product.

It is a 3-4 season mat

I decided against air beds and self inflating mats in case they puncture - you can also cut a closed-cell foam to size to fit inside a sleeping bag or bivvy; you cannot do that with the inflating type of course. They may not be as comfortable as inflating mats, but I sleep OK on hard floors (even without any mat) and they weigh less than the inflating type, but somewhat bulkier.

If there is room, I will line the bug-out bag with the Thermarest to give some stability to the frame-less bag, otherwise it can be attached to the outside of the bag.

I have a 6mm closed-cell sitting pad. I tried that outside at 0C on concrete the other day and was amazed by the almost instant warmth felt in my posterior. The Thermarest is 2.5x that thickness!

Being older and disabled, I do feel the cold in my feet so I found some 2.8 tog socks on Amazon that are brilliant; they will be used as sleeping socks.

One trick I picked up from backpackers years ago was to cut a mat down so it only had sufficient length to go from head to hips, looses about a third of the weight and bulk but delivers most of what you need in insulation - though in winter I always use a full size mat (inside my bivvy bag).
Closed cell mats are one of the great twentieth century inventions in my book (fleeces being another)

Sounds like you are well on the way to having the bug out situation covered.

Paul_Varjak

I assume you are not talking about solar panels that feed electricity back into the grid? During a power failure, those solar panels are automatically disconnected and produce no usable electricity whatsoever. The reason being is that the 'power cut' may be by design rather than accident, in order for maintenance and the electricity workers don't want to be electrocuted by someone's solar panels!

Is it something like this you are talking about...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sun-Oven%C2%AE-Ultimate-appliance-cooking/dp/B009GI8V8K/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1364918613&sr=1-1

Paul_Varjak

nuatha...

Apparently the original Goretex had a breath-ability of 15,000 (whatever the units are, but the higher the better) Current Goretex is 25,000 and the Alpkit bivvy is 10,000.

I had read too about cutting sleeping mats to 3/4 length; you can even buy some mats in that length. For winter use, some people use their 3/4 mat on top of a full length mat (either closed cell or self inflatable)

RAS

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the chicken advice, I will visit the lets keep chickens thread and see if they have heard of this, brilliant idea, Cheers Lyn xxx.

Have had a little read around and it seems that it is illegal to feed kitchen scraps now, and if one of your birds dies it is illegal to bury it in your garden or cremate it, it has to be taken to a hunt kennel, a knackers yard or a proper incinerator so I think I won't get any more chickens although I did find that you have to register them with DEFRA if you have 50 or more in your flock but not if you have less than 50, Lyn x.

Hi Lyn

Been away so a quick note.

1. It is illegal to feed scraps from a kitchen in which meat etc has been prepared. So if you wrangle your veggies in a space other than the kitchen, you can feed your garden scraps to hens.

2. The other thing I have been thinking about is quail; I reckon three would keep one person supplied with eggs all year and oversupplied in summer with they do as well as suggested (Coturnix). They can be kept in an aviary or are quite happy in a rabbit hutch. They fly upwards so need something low enough to ensure thay do not hurt their heads or high enough for them to have stopped vertical take-off. Feeds costs when I priced recently was less than £20 per year for a trio plus some grain or corn that I could grow.

mysterywoman10

Paul_Varjak wrote: »

I assume you are not talking about solar panels that feed electricity back into the grid? During a power failure, those solar panels are automatically disconnected and produce no usable electricity whatsoever. The reason being is that the 'power cut' may be by design rather than accident, in order for maintenance and the electricity workers don't want to be electrocuted by someone's solar panels!

Is it something like this you are talking about...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sun-Oven%C2%AE-Ultimate-appliance-cooking/dp/B009GI8V8K/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoors&ie=UTF8&qid=1364918613&sr=1-1

No, but it looks interesting and expensive.

You can back up a house system with batteries though so still have power if grid goes off or run totally off grid.

The ones for the caravans are more like this

http://www.sunshinesolar.co.uk/khxc/gbu0-prodspec/KHXCseo.htmlu0-prodspec/KHXCseo.html?gclid=CLTByO-9rLYCFXDKtAodvVkA0w