THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

GreyQueen

fuddle wrote: »

Please could you educate me as to why eating rabbit could be attributed to starvation?

GQ I haven't eaten dandelion leaves and now, tomorrow, I shall fight off my rabbit to replace the rocket in my salad with a few leaves. Owt else one can do with dandelions. What about dandelion root? I have oodles of them in my weeding bucket!

Rabbit is virtually without fat. Human beings cannot live without fat, hence if you only have rabbits to eat, you slowly starve. Rabbit can be an acceptable part of the diet but you need other things in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_poisoning

Fat has been demonised as a result of a faulty understanding of metabolic processes. You need cholesterol for every cell's stucture (your brain is about one-third cholesterol btw) and, although most of the cholestorol in our blood is manufactured internally not derived from diet, it strains the liver to do the process and it's much gentler on your body to just eat the stuff.

A relatively high fat and very low carb diet is how I'm losing up to a pound a week without any hassle and everyone who knows me comments that I'm glowing with health.

Dandelion roots can be dried and roasted and made into coffee. If you like that sort of thing.

daz378

hello people hope alls well....started off week with water infection dr gave me antibiotics so was able to relax on weekend off....dificult still having to go in work though.....i just have a pocket sized SAS survival handbook to help with foraging in my BOB....im building up quite a stock of tinned vegetables ......not had diet coke all week ....cos of infection remarkable and disconcerting how much i craved one....will definately limit consumption of diet soda in future....you all take care

emmwri

Thanks mrsLurcherwalker I will have to persuade my mum to come over and re-teach me how to hand sew and to knit. I'm not sure what other prepping skills would be good?
Greyqueen I will give the prepping scenario a go when I get home from holiday, whilst I'm off for the summer. I reckon I will do very badly!
daz378 I hope work isn't too hard, nothing worse than having to go in when you aren't well

Going to have a think about where we could store some tinned food and soap in our small house.

OH and I have often talked about skills disappearing. Although he is more practical than me, there is still a lot we have to get rid of because we can't fix it, which is awful really.

AnimalTribe

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I've just found a good sounding book that I'm going to aquire by John Lewis-Stemple.

Thanks for this MrsLurcherwalker I think I might add it to my collection too.

As well as trying to grow my own 'normal' veg I've also been growing alternatives - I've increased my fuschia hedge, planted cuttings of sloe, planted hosta and just ordered a pair of honeyberry (they apparently thrive in Siberia - so I have some hope they'll survive the harsh conditions here).

For me it's about finding plants that will actually survive the harsh conditions here, the explosion of rabbits and the ingenuity of deer.

[Deleted User]

Skills? how long have you got??? sewing, knitting, gardening, cooking from scratch without a recipe book, knowing what is safe to forage and more so what is NOT, how to light a fire with a flint and steel, how to make candles and rush lights, how to gather, prepare and process wool/flax/nettle fibres for spinning, how to spin, how to weave, how to hunt, how to clean, prepare and tan hides and skins, how to work with leather/fur to make clothing, bedding, slippers, gloves, shoes, belts, straps, boots, learning how to waterproof said boots and shoes and repair them when they wear, herbalism both for flavourings and medications, still room work, drying and distilling and preserving and pickling and salting, knowing how to make a clamp for root veg, how to store apples, pears, quinces to keep them through the season, animal husbandry, poultry keeping, basic butchery and salting/drying meat to preserve it, how to make hams and bacon, dairy work, how to make butter, cheese, cream and how to use the whey so as not to waste any part of the milk, learning how to milk a cow/goat/sheep in the first place, laundry work without a machine, how to clean clothes, how to make soap, how to do virtually everything we have done for us and handed to us on a plate in July 2017 petal and so very much more to make a sustainable life should we ever be out in the wilderness because modern life had inverted! A daft but useful thing to do which will give you basic tools to do all of the above is to learn 'Flint Knapping' DD1 and I did a course which produced tools that we made and many useful by products of little flint flakes that could have been arrow heads, were knives (I boned out a lamb shoulder and cut it up for a stew with lovely little hooked flake of flint), made a seed drill, a hand axe and others on the course made spear heads, circular knives, small knives with a handle, Oh so many useful things from one skill.

How could I have left out Brewing? for ales, wines, cider, distilled spirits and for the 'barm' to make yeasted bread and also learn how to use a grindstone/mill to make the flour with after you've mastered growing the cereal crop in the first place!

I'm certain there are other just as pertinent things I've left out so please add to the list anyone who thinks of them.

meanmarie

Lyn.....what an accomplished lady you are, congratulations! I feel that I wouldnt do too badly in a SHTF situation, but you would be hundreds of kilometres ahead, must do better

Marie

[Deleted User]

I wish I knew how to do ALL of them Marie, some but not the whole list! I think there aren't enough hours in a modern lifetime to be able to know how to live an ancestral lifestyle and live the modern one too.

The above is a list of skills (there are many more not in it that we'd need too) we'd need to be post-industrial after all the manufactured items had been used and finished. Most folks were taught from the time they were children in the practicalities of life and would have needed all those skills to run a home and raise children, we don't know we're born do we?

Driving a horse and cart would be very useful too, have a friend who has done several courses on driving shires and just getting the harness on is an art let alone getting it backed between the shafts of the wagon and linked up to pull it, then there's ploughing and not so far back pulling a seed drill and before that learning to walk the furrows and hand sow the seed wheat evenly for the crop (quite an art I believe), shepherding and shearing the sheep, delivering lambs, being able to prune out fruit trees and nurture an orchard and keep the birds off the crop, being a herdsman and tending a herd of cows, also being able to manage the bull to make sure that there are calves next year and thus milk for cheese etc., being a pig man and knowing how to farrow a sow, knowing what they can eat and if you have them out in the woodland to fatten, knowing when to stop them eating acorns etc. too much can kill, then there's the killing another whole ball game and processing the carcass and making the sausages, black puddings, chitterlings, all these things must take an age to learn properly, we're so spoiled!!!

monnagran

OK Lyn, move over. If the SHTF I'm moving in with you.

As far as talents go, I can offer excellent pastry, the ability to cut a straight slice of bread from a loaf, telling a good story and I can teach almost anyone to read.
Oh, and if a warning has to be sounded I can ring the church bells.

Probably not what anyone would be looking for in the circumstances but you never know.

Perhaps I should start a thread for those neither use nor ornament.

DawnW

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I wish I knew how to do ALL of them Marie, some but not the whole list! I think there aren't enough hours in a modern lifetime to be able to know how to live an ancestral lifestyle and live the modern one too.

The above is a list of skills (there are many more not in it that we'd need too) we'd need to be post-industrial after all the manufactured items had been used and finished. Most folks were taught from the time they were children in the practicalities of life and would have needed all those skills to run a home and raise children, we don't know we're born do we?

Driving a horse and cart would be very useful too, have a friend who has done several courses on driving shires and just getting the harness on is an art let alone getting it backed between the shafts of the wagon and linked up to pull it, then there's ploughing and not so far back pulling a seed drill and before that learning to walk the furrows and hand sow the seed wheat evenly for the crop (quite an art I believe), shepherding and shearing the sheep, delivering lambs, being able to prune out fruit trees and nurture an orchard and keep the birds off the crop, being a herdsman and tending a herd of cows, also being able to manage the bull to make sure that there are calves next year and thus milk for cheese etc., being a pig man and knowing how to farrow a sow, knowing what they can eat and if you have them out in the woodland to fatten, knowing when to stop them eating acorns etc. too much can kill, then there's the killing another whole ball game and processing the carcass and making the sausages, black puddings, chitterlings, all these things must take an age to learn properly, we're so spoiled!!!

Of course, our farming community know how to look after dairy animals, pigs and also sheep and other production animals (members of my family are still involved), and these skills are still being taught to new entrants to the industry, also butchery skills

I imagine the skills needed to work horses are in rather shorter supply, but having said this, the brewery in the next town to us still use a traditional horse drawn dray to deliver beer to pubs in the town, and there are similarly knowledgeable people exhibiting at agricultural and similar country shows across the country

So, this knowledge survives in the countryside and market towns. I guess it is city/ urban living that starts to look less sustainable in its current form

[Deleted User]

Au contraire MONNA if you are a good story teller or musician or actor your talents could earn you a very good living in a world where we perhaps didn't have the 24 hour a day distractions of TV and the internet that we do today. One of the most memorable evenings I've ever spent was when Nell and I were on Orkney in a hotel in Stromness and went to a traditional story telling evening where we literally lost time listening and were carried away by the story, you'd be surprised how effective a good voice can be telling a good yarn!