The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Nargleblast

You're right, squirrel girl. This era will have changed all of us in some way, and we can choose how to deal with it. My way is to reconnect with my home and garden and relax to a different routine and rhythm. I will definitely start building up stocks of things like flour and yeast for the winter. I am changing my shopping habits and getting fruit and veg from the van that comes to the village once a week. Meat wise I have placed an order with Donald Russell to start stocking up the freezer. It wasn't worth my while before, when there were three of us, it worked out expensive and the portions were small. Now there is just me, plus my son who is here temporarily, I think it might be worth doing to have grass fed beef and top quality pork and lamb in the freezer. The milkman delivers milk, orange juice and eggs once a week so I only need to go to the supermarket for tinned and dried foods and household and pet supplies.
I am trying to grow stuff from seed, the mange tout and salad veg are doing fine but the courgettes are a little slow. I am starting batches of home made liqueurs for gifts and for home consumption, and will start this year's Rumtopf next month.

cornishchick

homemade Liqueurs sound amazing    can I ask which ones you are attempting?
I was just watching an American prepper who dehydrates frozen veg when it's on offer to use in the winter as it takes less space in the freezer, and I wondered if anyone here had done it, your thoughts.? 

MingVase

Hi Cornishchick, haven't seen you in ages! I was thinking of you yesterday  - our forecast is snow tonight

Nargleblast

Orange brandy using layers of zest, sugar and brandy, left for at least 8 weeks then double strained into small bottles. Absolutely gorgeous.

I had some white currants in the freezer so I defrosted them, added a chopped up mandarin orange and half a lemon then sugar and vodka. Orange, lemon and white currant vodka, will be strained next week. It smells beautiful.

You know those packs of cheap frozen mixed berries? I have in the past got a few packs and separated all the different fruits, and using the redcurrants made a red currant vodka. I gave some to friends one year when having a Scandinavian/German inspired Winter Solstice meal. They absolutely raved about it, a pleasant fruity vodka that's not too sweet.

[Deleted User]

This time of difficulty has been  very hard for all of us because we've jerked to a sudden stop with normality in our lives and after having that bewildering 'milling about' time at the beginning and thinking 'why me?' we now find that the time period this situation is going to continue for is unknown and could be years.  There is the beginning of a groundswell of dissatisfaction after just a few weeks and although the objective of the social distancing seems, if you look at curve shapes and patient numbers, to be having a slowing effect many posters (not here in this thread) seem to think it is in place just to curtail their freedoms in life and they are actively lobbying for life to be unrestricted very soon.  We have adapted pretty well and although we would love to be able to interact with friends and family and actually go to a shop or the library in person and buy what we select from the shelves, actually be able to go for coffee on Sunday mornings as we used to, drive somewhere to go walking, we're currently content enough to be able to walk out every day,  get our supplies delivered and skype/face time with the  family every day and potter on the allotments and around the house.  It might get tedious as time goes on BUT today we're OK and I hope all of you are too.  I am coping by doing 'one day at a time' and by looking ahead as much as I can to what needs to be in place for the rest of this year.

I am terrified of the idea of any lessening of the social distancing measures, people are mostly adhering to them here where we live and being considerate of keeping distance if we meet them out and about but lots of people seem to be under the misapprehension that when the social distancing IS relaxed, that will be the end of the pandemic and it will be 'back to life exactly as it was before the virus' and it cannot possibly be that way.  If things are relaxed we will have to be even more vigilant than we are now in avoiding catching covid because people mixing more freely and with less fear will inevitably mean a bigger incidence of infection and more people needing hospitalisation.  I think for me the one thing I am longing to hear is that an effective drug and treatment regieme has been found that will give better chance of recovery if I catch covid or that a working vaccine has been found and will be made available to all of us.  Until then I don't feel that I will feel safe changing anything in  the way we have to live life today, it's is daunting thinking this may be for years but I can't see any other way of hopefully coming through the pandemic and being here afterwards to live on for the rest of our lives.

Life for now and for some time is going to be filled with planning and stocking up for the winter, utilising everything we either buy of grow so we don't waste precious resources and enjoying the tiny things in life that are given for free but lift hearts and lessen just for seconds the pressure of anxiety we all are feeling, yesterdays was seeing the first swifts of the year wheeling above us as we stood in the garden and standing by the 5 bar gate we found on the highest spot on our walk and being able to see the Malvern hills across landscape listening to the bleating of lambs and the whisper of wind tossed leaves on the old oak tree next to it.   Little things DO, in these times, mean a lot!

gran3

I think most people realise that we wont be going back to 'normal'. No one wants to run the risk of catching this. If we can have limited contact with family I'm not bothered about the other restrictions. We have found ways to make this work, I like to be able to get a shopping slot more easily, but other than that I'm in no hurry to go to a garden centre or anywhere else. I'm sure that will help some who are struggling and allow them to be distracted by their gardens. I have a very young grandchild and I'm missing the many changes that happen in such a short time, but I speak/facetime/text the older ones. If I could see them and their parents once a fortnight I could live with that.

Suffolksue

sounds idyllic MrsLW and I’m sure it is for you .
however if you were a single mum of 3 kids ,on Universal Credit, living in a 2 bedroom flat on the 15 floor of an inner city multi storey ,then you might have a different view of lockdown!
Im not getting at you ,my husband is dying,so lockdown as such isn’t affecting us much either ,
But some people aren’t as fortunate ,

[Deleted User]

Regardless of where you live or the circumstances you have to live with this virus is a killer and dead is dead no matter if your life is idyllic or horrendous.  Every life is precious regardless of colour, race, creed, preference and every life lost because of this virus is a tragedy.  I just want everyone to be able stay as safe as it's possible to keep them until this pandemic has  either run its course or been cured/prevented.  I don't want people (and some will, it's human nature) to be given extra chances to catch it because they think it's OK to mix again, that's an awfully sad worry that I just can't shake off.

Yes, we're lucky to live where we do and I have total sympathy for people living in high rise crowded flats and stuck in with kids to cope with not able to let them run free.  It's not I'm alright Jack because I live in the country!

pineapple

Well it's back to basics for me - I'm certainly reconnecting with my oven! On that note, does anyone have a tried and trusted recipe for Irish soda bread? Either a loaf recipe or one for soda farls and using natural yoghurt not buttermilk. I lost my old failsafe recipe and so far I've not found anything as good.

Floss

Suffolksue said:

sounds idyllic MrsLW and I’m sure it is for you .
however if you were a single mum of 3 kids ,on Universal Credit, living in a 2 bedroom flat on the 15 floor of an inner city multi storey ,then you might have a different view of lockdown!
Im not getting at you ,my husband is dying,so lockdown as such isn’t affecting us much either ,
But some people aren’t as fortunate ,

SuffolkSue you are quite right, a lot of folk don't have the ability to see countryside from their home, people with any disability, illness or mental health problems are struggling to cope, families whose income was managed down to the penny now find that income reduced (or even gone in some circs), home schooling is not an easy thing to do when parents are still working from home (see Jamie Oliver's show, where he's regularly video-bombed by his kids), key workers are spat-on, abused & berated for doing their jobs, and as yet there is no plan for repaying the borrowing by the government which will almost certainly impact on my state & very limited personal pensions.