THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

DigForVictory

Ooh - next time, have a pinch of hm edible glitter handy?!

And watch the menfolk look bemused at the many ways of women...

[Deleted User]

I've been reviewing my prepping supplies, and decided to post a picture of my survival tin.

Anyone else fancy posting a picture of theirs?

thriftwizard

Bob that's very professional-looking! Have to say, I don't have one, unless I can count my van as a very large tin? I do have plenty of tins about the place, but mostly they contain biscuits or sewing kit or stamps. And I do have space blankets, paracord, tarps etc. but they all live in corners of my van or in the "camping" shed.

In other news, I went on a sourdough information course this morning. It was really interesting, and helped me identify exactly where I'm going wrong - why my cultures die off, or my bread takes two days to rise, etc. It's meant to be a taster for a paid day-long event, but I'm hoping I learnt enough for free to go forward in the right direction now, though I will sign up for the day-long thing if my next few attempts don't make the grade. It all helps build self-reliance...

calicocat

mardatha wrote: »

No forecasts yet.
Just one saying we're going to have another money crash like 2008. Which didn't affect me at all so I'm not panicking lol

Hi,

Dipping in again, read more than post as seem like I am always at work.

Anyhow, yes this seems to be figuring a lot at the moment. Which switches me back to prepping and here. They seem to be saying it will be worse than last time, which I in real terms didn’t feel to be honest . They seem to think this time it won’t be the banks going down, but business, in most sectors, which will have a bigger potential impact on everyone . Could be rubbish of course, but got me back into prep mode. Plus thinking I need to list nd check what I have food-wise and rotate/use.

I bought a few bags of vaccume packed wild rice a while ago. When checking them they are no longer vaccume packed , and are now more lose bags if that makes sense.....the vaccume bit has gone or blown. Why would that happen? No holes in bags I can see at all, all been stored in tact and not moved. Sell by date still ok. And how long would they last ?. I have been using them up as wasn’t sure about it and will buy new to store, just curious as to what would make this happen.

Karmacat

Bob, I don't have a tin,unless you count the Body Shop coconut-wax-for-hair tin, which contains a little sewing kit.

I do have a little Colman's mustard tin I put by when I had a clearout recently: trying to decide what to put in it

mardatha

Calicocat I'm afraid I don't know anything about vacuum sealing, maybe Greyqueen or MrsL will see your post and comment, they'll know.
Thriftwizard you really should have a backup tin/bag/stash somewhere in the house, vans can be pinched or damaged!

boddy

Reading Greyqueens what if situation has made me rethink my preps. So list made and today will be spent checking. Then I have thought what if the internet goes down. Maybe handy to have a small notebook with essential information in.

maryb

Sourdough is fascinating isn’t it? I went on a day course and loved it. I had, in fact, managed to get a starter going, though it never doubles in size or anything like that but it does make bread rise very nicely. The secret I stumbled across was to chuck out a LOT more than the half all the books say to discard before feeding it. I only keep a spoonful now and feed it with 50g of water and 50 of flour. Before it always ended up smelling of acetone which I now know is a sign of a starving starter

I also use organic flour to avoid glyphosate residues killing the good bacteria ditto water that has been left to stand to allow the chlorine to dissipate. Seems to help.

DigForVictory

mardatha wrote: »

Thriftwizard you really should have a backup tin/bag/stash somewhere in the house, vans can be pinched or damaged!

Er, yes. Although you are probably geographically safe from my predatory survival techniques, other indolent louts are available.

GQ with her might-be-stashed-in-here somewhere allotment shed backup gear appears to have hidden in plain sight sussed. (Me, I still think dazzle is on trend for camouflage & do only slightly better at persiflage, but the family enthusiasm for things that might come in useful [as well as eating regularly] make us mildly techie, mildly engineering-type hobbits, although we largely blow the breed standard for height.) Happily our house is such a you-have-to-live-here-to-find-things environment even burglars have so far decided it fails their H&S requirements. In this place, a labelled tin might be exactly what it says, or it might be an out-of-date label & in fact contain unexpected items. (So far, I have not been allowed to buy the mercury switches, with this cited as the main reason along with the inevitable bewilderment of our law & order providers.)

boddy - you remind me that I did say I was going to update one son's SOS talisman & my address list, and once I have the mapping pens out I will do so.

pineapple

I live in a rural area with very low crime. Indeed in my village it is almost non existent so it's tempting to get a bit complacent. But a neighbour has had a car stolen and there has been some recent dog napping in the area plus one or two heists. A couple of months back, there was a failed attempt to pull the cash machine out of the wall of a small market town store 2 miles away - on the main street would you believe. And yesterday the supermarket in the same town was raided. This time they blew up the cash machine! Apparently the thieves were seen on CCTV jumping up and down catching money falling through the air. Then, reportedly, they helped themselves to salami and beer...
There have also been other cash machine robberies in the general area.
The first store I mentioned no longer has a cash machine as a result - and the supermarket cash machine has of course been blown up. That leaves either the post office - which was closed - or the sole remaining bank - whose cash machine ran out of money as a result.
So I need to get back to stashing cash as well as beef up home security. Plus we have had a possibly rogue 'fish van' cruising the area. I gave short thrift to a guy who was stood in my garden shouting 'Hello' - I realised he was the same one who was stood in the farm lane outside shouting 'Hello' some months back. Some people suspect they could be involved in the dog napping (a heinous crime imo) and more. Sigh.