THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

herbily

GQ. it would work if there's no moisture under the nylon car cover, so I'm thinking the car will have to be cold before you put it on. Otherwise warm bonnet/cold air, trapped under nylon = condensation = frozen-on car cover.


FWIW I once put cardboard over the windscreen on a frosty night. It froze solid onto the glass, car heater wouldn't shift it, ended up with an extension cord and a hairdryer. It didn't save me the time I thought it would :-).

Karmacat

Hi mar, hi all - yep, my basil is only supermarket-bought I'm complete rubbish at growing from seed

I was quite wary when I got back about power cuts - and there must be very heavy useage, but there doesn't seem to be any power lines brought down, or have they just not been in the news yet? I'm carrying a tiny little torch around the house with me - there's such a lot of extra stuff in here right now, I'd break my neck if I didn't have a torch on me during a powercut!

mardatha

If you got a lot of snow GQ then you'd never have the strength to get the cover off
A few times in heavy snow the neighbours have dug out their car from under a lot of snow. Only to find it wasn't their car.. :rotfl:
Hard to know when all you have is a white mound in the road

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

If you got a lot of snow GQ then you'd never have the strength to get the cover off
A few times in heavy snow the neighbours have dug out their car from under a lot of snow. Only to find it wasn't their car.. :rotfl:
Hard to know when all you have is a white mound in the road

A pal in Aberdeenshire 'lost' his car for several weeks. It was a vague mound buried in a snowbank on the driveway. At least he knew it was his and not someone else's ............:rotfl:

ivyleaf

GQ It's a great idea (the car cover, I mean), but wouldn't work for those of us who need to display a Blue Badge or a Resident's Parking Permit

GreyQueen

ivyleaf wrote: »

GQ It's a great idea (the car cover, I mean), but wouldn't work for those of us who need to display a Blue Badge or a Resident's Parking Permit

Ooops, never thought of that, and I've sold many a residents parking permit to the public in my city, too. My bad.

Dad toddled off to the paper shop this morning in his yax trax (I bought them for the entire family in 2010 and we've not had much snow and ice since then). They work well.

Wild Thing has now become Tame Thing and has taken up permanant residence on the windowsill over the big radiator. She's slacking off on her rodent-scaring duties and there's a juvenile rat hanging around under the bird feeders. Told ' em to send WT out to put the Fear of Cat into the varmint or book a pest controller. The amount of times I've heard residents say their place is all over rats and it started with a single critter a couple of months prior.........

DigForVictory

Mechanical things is tricksy GQ, you'll be on safer ground twocing a equine type getaway.
No pesky number plate, and it's startling how different a rug & bandages can make a led nag look, let alone one with a packsaddle, or for optimum bewilderment, a sidesaddle.
(Though lifting one of those will be a sight harder than lifting a nag, unless you've a low security museum nearby, as sidesaddles can cost as much as cars.)
No need to source explosive & sought after fossil fuels either...

thriftwizard

Anyone seeing any problems with this idea (I haven't got a car these days so can't test it IRL)?

Erm, yes - persuading OH to actually use the dratted thing! We have one, it fits his estate perfectly, and mostly it gets used to protect the upholstery from compost being hauled up to the 'lottie. He's not going to look like a wimp, mollycoddling his car! Which is a shame, as its windscreen is huge and at quite a shallow angle & I can't reach into the middle or the top even with a long-handled scraper & have to wait until it's melted off. The van, having all the aerodynamic properties of the average housebrick, has half the amount of windscreen, much closer to vertical, and takes about 30 seconds to clear...

GreyQueen

DigForVictory wrote: »

Mechanical things is tricksy GQ, you'll be on safer ground twocing a equine type getaway.
No pesky number plate, and it's startling how different a rug & bandages can make a led nag look, let alone one with a packsaddle, or for optimum bewilderment, a sidesaddle.
(Though lifting one of those will be a sight harder than lifting a nag, unless you've a low security museum nearby, as sidesaddles can cost as much as cars.)
No need to source explosive & sought after fossil fuels either...

I'm competant with horses and ponies but one could also look at half-inching a llama, from one of those trekking centre places. Too small to ride (although I guess you could strap a toddler to the top) but handy as a load carrier.

Even if all that could be swiped was a short-arrissed pony, it could do for a load-bearing companion. Except Shetland ponies, cannot get along with those evil-tempered critters.

There are about 18,500 thoroughbred racehorses born every year in the UK but something sturdier and rather more proletarian would be better. Legging it at about 44 mph is fun (if you weigh as little as a jockey and your nerves will stand it) but not strictly necessary. I'd feel safer on a feather-footed semi-carthorse.

Still recalling the wonderful chestnut-coloured mule I saw with some hippies in Andalucia a few years ago, its horsey parent must have been something like a plough horse, it was conker-coloured, unbelievably strong and utterly magnificent. I pulled its ears gently while murmuring Ya mama wuz a carthorse. It snorted knowingly.

Old country boyz like my grands and great-grands always used to reckon to have something called the horseman's word which was a charm to get nags to do what you want. I always remember that horses are about as intellectually able as human toddlers, but significantly heavier, and we fools even put steel on their feet.

Have just been rummaging in the cupboard for my trekking poles, think I'll amble up the street with one of them tomoz, we have had very dry granular snow for the past several hours and it's starting to lie - loads of cars outside are now anonymous white lumps.

mardatha

Heavy snow up here tonight, and a lot of it.