THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

ivyleaf

Welcome to the thread, simplelivingcottage.:)
When you say "over here", are you outside the UK?

GreyQueen

Welcome to the madhouse, my dear, we're a friendly bunch of nutters and between us probably know the answers to questions which are so bizarre that you haven't even thought of them yet.

I'm often amazed that many of our fellow workers haven't anything put by for a rainy day in respect of redundancy, illness etc. Obvs, if each and every month sees you only just able to keep the wolf from the door and there is nothing to spare, there's nothing to be done but keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. But if there is some give in the budget, you really need to sock some money away, even if it means doing without a few fun things like nights out, techy toys, brand new clothes etc.

mardatha

We had an "incident" here on Sat night. We have a big coal burning stove that stays on 24/7 most of the year., apart from sweltering heatwaves which at this height in Scotland come around once in every ten years if we're lucky.. has been warm but with a cool wind for days here. Anyhow the fire has been kept on as it gives gallons and gallons of very hot water.
Sat night we noticed the heating seemed to be stuck on, as the pump kept going. The radiators were red hot (and so was I) - then we found there was no hot water from the taps, it was stone cold. In over 40 years with coal fired heating I've never had that happen before. So we phoned the HA emergency number, to find the only person on call was a JOINER. Really handy, just what we needed! He phoned around and got somebody to phone us, and that somebody was a GAS FITTER (even better!)
Few years ago a back boiler in a house in the next village exploded and I believe a lady was killed, or died after being badly burned. So I wasnt happy at all. Luckily I shouted on FB in a couple of groups and got somebody who lived in the Borders here and had the same kind of heating, her hubby said it was ok. But in the meantime the poor RV had to try his best to empty a load of burning coal and hot embers out of the stove into a pail, and carry that outside. We burn anthracite and it was fumey as hell and very hot.
So after the fire and the drama died down, I was thinking in bed. What if that boiler had been ready to blow? If we had a few minutes to grab stuff and run? W would have to go here to grab the RV's emergency fund of cash, and there for mine. We would have had to go here for the RV's pills and there for mine.
We only have a cardboard cat carrier which is in a cupboard behind a unit that has to be moved to get into it.
I need to rethink how things are kept in this house!

thriftwizard

DFV, you need some water kefir grains to start with - if you're on FB, there's a UK Fermenting Friends group where you can see whether anyone near you has some to give away & they'll tell you what they've been "fed" on. If not, PM me and I'll set some aside to send to you.

Hello & welcome, simplelivingcottage! We all prep for different scenarios - some of us for the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) complete with zombie invasions, some for being unable to get to the shops for a few days, and most of us for something in between! Jam is a very good start...

Any allotmenteers care to give me a little advice? The couple on the plot next to us are sweethearts, but seem to me a little - overanxious? They are serious gardeners, do the Open Gardens thing at home for charity, and she's done several RHS courses. They are double-digging & sieving every inch of their plot before planting, which is probably very sensible (yes, we've double-dug too, and hauled out anything that looked remotely alive. Or interesting.) but when they do get around to planting anything they're constructing big tunnels of net curtain over it. Over everything, not just brassicas & carrots. That's their choice & I don't have a problem with it, but she's been telling me that I should cover everything too, in case I attract carrot fly or butterflies onto the site (which adjoins open fields) then everyone will be cross with me! Am I letting the side down by only covering my cabbages? Or is this actually a little over the top?

GreyQueen

I think it's probably a sign of OCD, frankly. Difficult to handle to their satisfaction, unless you do exactly as they want it done, because that's the only way they'll be happy.

I confess to never having sieved soil in my life, my pov is that I'm a gardener not an archaeologist. I pull out grubs (onto the bird table) and naff things like glass, nails, bits of metal and carpet underlay, and troublesome things like naughty roots (chiefly the horsetails and bindweeds).

Gardening is a hard pastime for the control freak as there are so many vairables. I don't bother growing carrots at all as they're cheap enough and every flying and crawling critter seems to want to eat them. Perhaps you could not try not growing some contentious items to humour them?

I detest seeing nature all done up in nets, it really wicks me off.

fuddle

Thrifty if it's the couple that were up from me but on the front they have their garden fence backing on to weeds galore. Not once did I see them pop round the back to help keep the footpath clear on our estate. Just saying

moneyistooshorttomention

...and one little thought-of thing of being prepared for emergencies = always try to keep the housework bang up to date.

Reason being - it's just when "other things" have distracted you from it that an emergency comes up requiring a workman coming in at once (plumber in my case).

Thankfully - said plumber was round within the hour and it didn't take him long to sort it out and all was back to normal in that respect. Equally thankfully he's the one I've decided to adopt as my "little man" in the plumber department.

But, at the exact same time - there were a total of 3 other minor emergency type situations at once. This was topped-off by the phone going off and so I answered it (thinking it was one of the "minor emergencies") and it was one of those **** spammer phonecalls (her ears are probably still vibrating from how hard/fast I whacked that phone back down again the second I realised it wasnt for "me").

Guess I really should take a leaf out of my mothers book in a couple of respects (not many - but just that odd couple) and you can walk into her house at any given moment and everything is clean/tidy/in order and she could pack up their lives and go in a matter of days. I tell myself that I'm in very different circumstances - as she was an Armed Forces wife (and hence there was a number of moves - :mad: as I was moved too due to being their child).

I don't need to go to the extent she did/does - as I would never have married into the Armed Forces anyway. But I could do with moving a bit towards always always always having all paperwork bang up square/all housework bang up square/all unused possessions gone out the door/etc/etc.

Oh well - the plumber has seen the house and me looking utter tip and "been and gone" now:rotfl:

thriftwizard

Fuddle, these two are recent retirees down from the Home Counties, who live in the next village to the South but couldn't get a plot there. Bless them, they're trying very hard to adhere to the "no herbicides, no pesticides" rule (unlike a lot of other plot-holders) but still want every vegetable to be to show-winning standard! Short of camping down there (also forbidden) and hand-picking every insect off, I think they may be in for the odd disappointment.

GQ, I suspect that would only work if I didn't actually grow any plants at all! I'm not going to deliberately antagonise her, but I shall carry on doing my own thing, with a smile and a cheery word. Stuff is currently growing very well, and I know that we'll lose some one way or another, but other things will make up for that.

DigForVictory

Er, yes, keeping the place tidy in case of emergencies - it really is embarrassing (& sadly not fatal) to have to tell the gas man that you've emptied this cupboard for him, (which is why the kitchen table looks like an explosion in a plastic bag factory with some oddities dotted to add colour), that if he wants a brew to say & if he needs help to Yell as we'll be two floors away...

I've not forgotten *clearing* floors into boxes & cupboards & under beds before the fire folk came to do a free risk assessment. We got a free smoke detector & a thoughtful grin that of course stuff under beds is still flammable... If blushes caused fires, I'd be homeless. Still, we scored bonus points for clear uncluttered stairs & hallway, making evacuation easier - both us walking out & them coming in to carry us out.

I couldn't live Army tidy. One of my sons could, (I suspect!), but not me. I like to spread out as I think, putter off for a brew, and shamble back to the thinking but get another perspective by approaching from another angle... (I might be OK in a submarine if I had it all to myself. Shared with a full crew? Not a hope.) Not tripping over stuff is more of a challenge! [Note to self, move car emergency bag back into car. Not so much use in the hall.]

GreyQueen

I spent a couple of years as a lodger and, because I was working split shifts, tended to be At Home when the meter reader called, unlike the householder herself.

Unfortunately, said meter was behind the lowest stairs, stairs which were enclosed in a cupboard whose door was a good 10 feet away from the meter. Ten, tapering feet of solid clutter.

I explained I was The Lodger and didn't feel I could pull The Landlady's belongings out of there (would have taken about 20 mins anyway). Every three months, the meter reader and me re-played this mini-drama and, bizarrely, I was feeling embarrassed about it.

Yup, there's a lot to be said for good organisation, in terms of prepping and in terms of simple good housekeeping, so we know what we've got and that we don't waste it/ allow it to rot/ end up re-buying it/ whatever.