THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

westcoastscot

Mar I thought if it was in wee beds I might feel like tackling a small space - I have one of those kneeling mats so thinking spaces I can reach from one spot. I know it will cut down the amount of growing space I have, and that's limited enough as it is with my tiny garden, but it will be more than I've grown this year!!!!
I tried mushrooms once from a kit - didn't go great, but wouldn't mind trying again.
I've stocked up a bit on tinned fruit - not so keen on tinned veg but quite like tinned pulses, and those tins of salad mixed beans. I only have one wee freezer now - it's a waste of money for us with the power going off all the time. You can store even bought carrots in sand, although they keep pretty well in the dark in the shed - if you layer them on sheets of brown paper and cover them up they keep even longer. neeps last quite a while too, and cabbage - we like red cabbage especially! I miss fresh greens in the winter, but sprout a bit when I remember.

Just remembered - we also have tinned soup, and we have one of those cast iron toastie makers for the fire, so when the power is off we have tinned soup and toasties!! I can't lift my dutch oven in and out of the stove anymore - too heavy - so looking for other ways I can cook with my stove.

Si_Clist

mardatha wrote: »

Would like to grow mushrooms but don't know how hard/easy it is.

It's reckoned to be easy. But we've never had any luck at all with those kits you can get :sad:

westcoastscot wrote: »

... so looking for other ways I can cook with my stove.

If you have enough clear space on the top of your stove, have you thought about what you could do with a Welsh bakestone? Even though our kitchen stove's got a top flue pipe which means nigh on half our bakestone hangs over the side and we have to keep rotating it from time to time to even out the heat, we'd be lost without it.

silverwhistle

I know it's not the solution for westcoastscot, but for anybody who can manage the weight a soapstone casserole is great for slow cooking if you have a woodburner with a flat top. It was last year's treat to myself, and I hope to use it a bit more this season. It's the same material they sometimes use on expensive stoves as it retains heat so well.

westcoastscot

my stove is set into the wall, so only enough space on top to rise a loaf of bread - we have about 4 inches. I used my dutch oven inside the stove with the doors open, so looking for something along that line but less weight? An open pan isn't much use as it doesn't keep the food in it clean from the fire surround.

mardatha

My stove is the same, useless for cooking on, that's why I got the calor gas cooker. We can run fine for days without power. I use tins of Sainsbugs Basics mixed veg to nuke in the blender then make into stock or gravy WCS.

westcoastscot

That's a good idea for tinned veg - i'll get some.
We had bottled gas when we first moved to the mainland, after a couple of years it was condemned by the LA (who owned my house at the time) and we couldn't afford to replace it so went to elec. To be honest it doesn't cost much - I use about £30 of elec a month, on top of coal/wood. Took a bit of getting use to though!

If I ever strike rich (highly unlikely given my lifestyle ) I would replace this stove with a coal/wood rayburn like I had on the island - it was fab! It's things like this that I wonder if I would work an additional few months for once my tiny retirement pot is full, but I don't think so!! I think I've said before that with retirement pushed back for me to 66.5, I've swithered with working less hours per week for longer or more for less iykwim. At the moment i'm working between the two, but hoping to retire at 62, which is still 6 years. Just hoping my health holds out that long!!! Ultimate prepping eh??? trying to outrun a poor health prognosis

mardatha

You can take Pension Credit earlier - at least you used to be able to. The RV took it at 61 and it enabled him to avoid a final and fatal heart in a job he hated with a boss he hated more.
I had electric too for cooking but couldnt get used to it and too many power cuts here. My HA are brilliant, they let you do anything you like, as long as you ask and it's done properly by a qualified tradesman.
Know what you mean re the health thing though, that is the ultimate prep lol. Once your health closes in then perspectives change. My current prepping involves being curled up on the recliner totally knackered after the heart scan at the hosp this morning. RV had me up and functioning at 6.30 and on the road at 8. Then there was an accident on the A7 and we had to sit for ages.

westcoastscot

Well the house is mine now, so shall go back to gas when this cooker conks.
Hope it went well at the hospital - hate early starts these days. Nothing worse than getting stuck on the way home either - I always watch the Rest with interest whenever I need to head to the city!

Hadn't thought about pension credit - will speak to our friendly welfare rights officer - I should know this stuff for my job but got a little out of touch earlier in the year.

Know what you mean, my get up and go has got up and gone :rotfl:
It's wild again here although the boat is back out - need to see to the chucks but waiting for a break in the rain!

Karmacat

Back from family visits after I retired I'm pretty glad to be back, too

mardatha wrote: »

Once your health closes in then perspectives change. My current prepping involves being curled up on the recliner totally knackered after the heart scan at the hosp this morning. RV had me up and functioning at 6.30 and on the road at 8. Then there was an accident on the A7 and we had to sit for ages.

Mar, I'm glad to hear you're recuperating after a day like that, but sorry you had to go have a scan.


My health has boomeranged back up to 90% of what might be expected at my age within a fortnight or so of retiring, its absolutely astonishing. Biggest and best prep I could have done


I did a few others while I was away: picked crab apples and rosehips with my brother, though we both found the River Cottage rose hip syrup recipe way too sweet, pretty unpleasant, actually. Rearranged kitchen storage to get in more storecupboard food, and rearranged bedrooms to take account of the way all the bedrooms are needed now, on a regular basis.


Back here at home, I have kale plants, four of them, put into pots after being starved in their little pluglet containers for about a week too long, but they look like they'll cope.


And I have a couple of dozen asparagus berries, which are said to grow into asparagus plants in about a million years. Has anybody ever raised asparagus from the berries? I've got some online links, but always nice to hear of personal experiences.

Save
Save

ALIBOBSY

Hope ev1 is well, been dealing with the dreaded lurgy here this week. Ironically the same week I got a letter from the docs offering my free flu jab, little bit too late lol.

Our new puppy is fast turning into a big puppy and I fear I am moving from being a cat person to a doggy lover lol.

Just a note about Katla in iceland if anyone is interested. Its still rumbling away and in the last 48hrs had over 200 quakes within the caldera including 8 over mag 3. The icelandic authorities have moved the alert level from green to yellow and issued the following statement.

"The National Commissioner of Police and the District Commissioner of Police in South Iceland have declared a Civil Protection Uncertainty phase due to seismic unrest in Katla volcano in Mýrdalsjökull. The contingency plan for an eruption in Mýrdalsjökull has been activated accordingly. Uncertainty phase means that a course of events has started that may lead to natural hazard in the near future. Monitoring, assessment, research and evaluation of the situation is increased.
Increased seismic activity started on September 29 and is still ongoing. Following a meeting with the Scientific Advisory Board of the Icelandic Civil Protection it is likely that the seismic activity is caused by magma movement within the Katla caldera. Three most likely scenarios have been defined.
1 Seismic activity dies out with no further consequences
2. Glacial outburst flood, jökulhlaup, will emerge from the glacier due to a small eruption or emptying of cauldrons
3. Eruption starts in Katla Myrdalsjökull that will force its way through the ice with glacial outburst floods and ash fall
Accordingly a warning has been issued for travellers in the vicinity of Mýrdalsjökull especially around glacial rivers."

Ali x