THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Karmacat

Mar, what's impeding you? Shoulders, fingers? Arthritis, CFS? I do think the bigger needles and wool help a great deal.



It's a b*ggr getting old, isn't it I'm away out tomorrow, Chelsea Physic Garden with my new Horticultural Society (two levels of prepping there!) so not around. Can I help with anything once I'm back, Mar?

[Deleted User]

full on wheat combining is starting today, gives a proper meaning to harvest festival. I like seeing the combines but got to be very careful on the lanes, these contractors with grain trailers, they race back and forth. I don`t know how they do it but it is like clockwork, cutting, seed collecting and baling, then before you can blink, the field is empty and ploughed ready for the next crop

Mar knitting will be affected this year, you have to rest that shoulder of yours. I find I cannot knit much at all these days, fingers getting lumpy and too much past knitting.

mardatha

KC it's a rotator cuff tear, shoulder.
God kittie, my fingers are fine it's just this shoulder. I'd hate to never be able to knit again. It keeps me so sane..
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Deleted User]

oh heck, they are getting the combine and tractors ready, I can see them through the trees, from upstairs. I also saw the huge amount of dust, just from moving the combine, not cutting yet and the wind vanes are pointing from that field directly at my house. I have done a massive clean in and out for days, I`ll have to do some of it all over again when they have finished. I still like watching them though, that race to get it all in. Just think, in the not so long distant old days, the whole village would be out there doing that job without machines, nobbly fingers or not, if we didn`t do it, we would starve all winter

[Deleted User]

It's massively dusty everywhere in this heat, I dust and vacuum every day and come the evening I can draw Mr Happy on all the polished surfaces again! you just can't win can you?

Interesting that the EU have just done a very quickly agreed Trade Deal with Japan and are purported to have dropped the majority of tariffs on most of the agreed products imported both ways. We'll have to see if Mr Trumps efforts actually come back to bite him on the posterior and the rest of the world manages to agree more amicable and lucrative trade agreements between themselves, hopefully the UK included.


I am coming to the conclusion that the world is a very unstable place at the moment and it's all happened in the last 20 months since the change of president in the USA and his change of politics altogether from anything gone before. The unpredictability is very unsettling for all other nations so I wonder just who will ally themselves with who in the coming years? When we've finally moved, still no further on and still no date, I'm going to start laying in some serious stores for an increasingly unforeseeable future, I can't see how things will be in a years time and that's not comfortable on any level. I am going to make a concerted effort to move us away from meat and dairy products in what we eat and try to get us used to a more plant based diet, vegan seems nutritious and achieveable and most vegan food we've tried both of us have enjoyed greatly. I have a fair few vegan books and it in the main does away for the need for refrigeration as most foods can be stored without it in the vegan diet (not all I know tofu, tempeh, all the ready made burgers, mock meats, etc. need to be cool) but if we can do that it might be possible under extreme circumstances to actually grow right here in the UK most of what we need to feed us and keep us strong and fit. I know we can grow beans for drying I do it every year and I'm expecting that farms will always be able to supply cereal needs for the nation here in the UK too. It might be fairly repetitive but it will be seasonal and will hopefully give us all dietary requirements. Anyone else thinking along these lines?

[Deleted User]

oh not me for that diet. My diet is greatly plant based but I eat foods that provide vitamin K2 and they come from grass fed animals, eggs are a good source too.I make my bread rolls with grass fed beef fat and not oil, I stir fry in grass fed ghee. I don`t use these foods a lot, only scarcely as they are very expensive but one or another every day, so I get the K2, A and D combo. My butter is more expensive and comes from cows fed on grass not cereals, I don`t eat a lot so I freeze it in 1oz blocks. I know that when I move, that I will keep a couple of laying hens
https://www.drstevenlin.com/what-are-the-richest-food-sources-of-vitamin-k2/

[Deleted User]

I'm afraid we must be not so nice in our requirements, we just buy the cheapest of what's reasonable quality. I'm a realist in many things and don't think all the high end produce will be either available or affordable on our budget as it is already beyond us now. It's horses for courses as always because we are all individuals and I'm sure we all see the future differently so our forward planning must of necessity be based on different scenarios and as individuals we'll all make different but relevant to our personal needs choices.

What I try to do is to encompass change before it's forced on us by circumstance, I'll do what I can to make transitions normal before they become urgent in our lives, it's easier for us that way.

maryb

Lidl sell quite a lot of organic produce so I buy that whenever possible. Organic free range eggs for the price of ordinary eggs elsewhere for example. And their free range chicken is about the same price as ordinary chicken in Waitrose

I don't go to Aldi all that often but when I do I can get organic porridge oats. (I like to get organic grains because I don't like what I've read about glyphosate residues) Their meat used to be labelled as grass fed but I haven't checked recently.

I get Kerrygold butter when it's on offer and stick it in the freezer but this time of year ordinary butter from Lidl is fine - it's Red Tractor and that means the cows are grazed.

I switched to loose leaf tea recently, largely to avoid plastic in teabags. Sainsburys Red tea makes a lovely cup and it's the only one I can get in the local store but I do treat myself to their organic loose tea when I'm at one of the bigger shops. It's quite reasonably priced compared with the better known organic labels and it's fairly traded

I don't think I would personally do well on a plant based diet, having tried it but I know we eat less meat than a lot of people. It's all about getting a balance that's right for each person's individual circumstances. I think that cooking as much as possible from basic unprocessed ingredients supplemented with home grown produce has got to be one of the healthiest ways to eat in general.

[Deleted User]

absolutely dire warnings for extreme killing heat from next week and I think that is what I am going to prep for, bringing back as much veg from the allotment that I can, ice cubes in the freezer, stuff to read in this cave, which I can keep cooler than outside. Not much else I can do tbh. The heat is pervading and relentless. My elderly neighbour is suffering because of the bad air.

I have almost given up watering the allotment, just targeting a few plants and my neighbours courgettes. I suppose the thing to do with vulnerable shrubs is to cut branches off so that there are not so many leaves. I may well do that with my outdoor cucumbers and my rhubarb too. Its kind of like hunkering down and just riding it out

mardatha

Very interesting discussion and very good posts, thank you ladies. I think for us, with my limited energy and cooking skills, I'm better sticking to what I know. So veg in this house is mostly HM soup and stews packed with whatever veg I can find. I don't mind eating a limited seasonal diet, it's easier for me to cope with.
I'm already stashing butter just in case it gets more expensive after Brexit. I like President French butter, but if it goes up a lot in price then we will eat Scottish butter and like it.
This is the first I've heard of plastic in teabags though - wee bit worrying. I have some loose tea, the Sainsbugs Red Label one and will get more.
We eat porridge every morning and I'll start buying organic and see how much of a difference it makes price wise.