THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Cappella

Not necessarily in order.
Generally my life rules are:

1. Never lose your sense of wonder and your curiosity about life, the world, the universe and number 42.
2. Read books, lots of books. Experience other, lives, other worlds and meet other people.

My prepping rules have changed over the years. Currently they are
1.Live below your means and save the surplus.
2. Eat healthily and walk as much as you can. It may not help you live to be 210 but it will not hurt either.
3. Have a well stocked first aid box.
4. Make sure you have £20 in the zipped pocket of every coat and bag you use regularly and 5 £1 coins in your bag as well (I only have three coats and 1 bag so it is not as expensive as it sounds and it distributes my emergency cash rather than having the lot in in a drawer).
5. Try to have work in your home done BEFORE it becomes essential. A stitch in time saves a lot more than nine in terms of expense and worry. Not always possible, but saving regularly has meant we could have the walk-in shower put in last week rather than waiting another few years; and now we can enjoy it before MrC s Parkinsons makes it a necessity rather than a luxury.

DigForVictory

Top 5? Er turned into 7 & there are more but I need tea.

Know where your pass is. (I'm in a no access, no earnings situation & the pass has legal freight as well.)

If you cannot put your mortgage on direct debit, make a point of that being the first thing paid from a paycheque.

Learn things that will come in handy - how to change a cloth nappy, recognise a ramson, lash an unweildy package to a pushchair (& carry enough paracord to use), start a fire at least 3 different ways not All including matches or lighters, judge the gap needed to open a capped bottle so you don't risk teeth, essential tools or damage public art, the calls for lifelining (& how to tie the bowline knot), how to get around a locked door (yours, usually), use stars to find North (bonus if you can manage the southern hemisphere too), have a rough idea of how to use a horse & a boat in their environments (migods please learn to swim if you can't already) - little odds & bits that add up.

Carry a notebook & pen so you can look back on what worked or not later. (People can move out of range, knowledge shouldn't.)

Carry some cash only you know is there. How much is for you to decide.

Read. Every room can be a library & a library is a treasure store of How To If - if you only look at the pictures you can still learn.

Grow your own. Even if its just a few herbs. If you're minded grow on the neglected bits of land but you gamble on others not recognising an edible plant. Or thinking ransoms are weeds & coating them in nasty chemicals.

Exercise. Be it walking when you can take a lift, gardening, a treadmill - anything that reminds you that the upside of gasping etc is endorphins & a more interesting life. I do Not advocate running in a strange city unless you can run really really fast but walking lets you see bits bus tours do not.

Back to why I popped back in!
Mrs LW how're the edible 'weeds' round your way? As a pal came back, beaming "Lady's Smock, Jack-by-the-Hedge, Fern Fiddles and Horsetail shoots" - and I only had time to cheer & plan to head for Google..... I vaguely get fern fiddles - the green curls before they open into hulking great frondy things (which apparently the French go loco for & have airfrieghted Daily in season - I think us Brits must be missing a catch as the harvesters are coining it even if the planet is whimpering.) but the others?! Mind, he does love the country names rather than anything Linnean.

[Deleted User]

Looking good, hawthorn although the leaves are a bit too big to harvest now, jack by the hedge, luscious new nettles, blackberry leaf sprouts for an 'indian like tea', dandelions, cleavers, yarrow for tea, mallow for 'melokia soup', ladies smock , hairy bitter cress, hawthorn flowers for fritters, sow thistles, plantain and young daisy leaves, coltsfoot for coughs, the clover is coming on nicely and the flowers are edible, gorse is in full flower now for tisanes, the purslane and sea beet along with the seakale are beginning to wake up on the shore line and I know where there is samphire too, the weeds is GOOD M'dear! no young bracken fiddle heads as yet, I look daily for them but only last years dead remains are there at present. I know too where there is a wild hop and the young shoots from that are delicious when fried off in a little butter then there's elderflowers for cordial and fritters but they're enbrionic little buds on the bushes.....Oh the deliciousness to come!

DigForVictory

Oh good grief yes - Gorse - I love how the schoolchildren hike past the scratchy thing & snarl at it, whereas I wander along & reach down the flowers for tea. I conk out easily, but out camping I love a mug of gorse tea to slide me under.

Just been introduced to a gluten-free, vegetarian friendly panbread called socca (which I foresee causing no end of misunderstandings) and am now thinking where's the big heavy pan & I'll try this on the chaps for breakfast. (As they are fine strapping healthy eat-anything lads, with an unfortunate thumping intolerance of vegetarians, & I'm thinking it would be nice to be able to slide a meal without meat past them...)
Also as it's Ramadan, the gram flour by the great sackful is now easily available & if my lads like it, my scouts will probably be willing to try it too...

Cappella

DfV

Also as it's Ramadan, the gram flour by the great sackful is now easily available & if my lads like it, my scouts will probably be willing to try it too...

I make quick chappattis with gram flour. Mix itwithwater and a little salt to a very stiff dough. Knead for 5 to 10 minutes, cover and let it rest. Break off small pieces and roll out to about half a cm and bake in an ungreased very hot frying pan, or on a hot griddle. Turn the chappattis when they begin to bubble and cook the other side. Very quick, very tasty and gluten free. Excellent if you want a quick pin bread in a prepping scenario. You can cook them in your fingers over an open gas flame - my Indian friend does - but you need asbestos fingers and a fearless disposition, which I haven’t got :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

D for V I found on this afternoons walk purple and white dead nettles both of which are (or at any rate used to be) grown as pot herbs, charlock (which is a brassica) in bud, three cornered garlic in profusion, leggy but still usable (only the leaves) chick weed and spotted some Silverweed which is a member of the potentilla family and I'm fairly certain that in the autumn the roots are worth harvesting so have mentally marked the spot.

maryb

Rules for living, let's see

Make life easier for those you love
This does not mean you have to be a doormat. Saying no to children in the short term if it makes their lives easier as adults because they are not spoilt entitled layabouts Taking responsibility for yourself and sparing those who love you anxiety

Know and accept yourself and don't compare
If you are not a driven high achiever don't beat yourself up. Good luck to those who are if it gives them satisfaction but if you're not one of them, trying to be what you're not takes a toll

However, try to be competent at whatever you do
Acquiring skills is always useful. Even if you have an academic job, learning a practical or creative skill is never wasted (especially if TSHTF). Otherwise you might know all the answers but you can't come up with solutions

Count your blessings
I had ME in my 30s and was very lucky to recover to a large extent. However recently I've been feeling as if I'm having a relapse and the feeling of exhaustion if I do too much is all too familiar. But I had many years in which I was able to do most of what I wanted even if I didn't have much stamina and now I am very thankful that I am retired and can take to my bed when I need to

mardatha

Oh god maryb don't risk the ME coming back - it's the most horrible evil awful illness out there.

maryb

It's the bone chilling cold that goes along with the exhaustion that makes me think I've been here before. I can sleep all night and still need to crawl into bed for a couple of hours in the afternoon. At the moment I can reckon on being able to do one 'thing' per day Or maybe I'm suddenly getting old

ivyleaf

Oh maryb, I do hope it's not that again. Would it be worth seeing the GP for a blood test?