The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

jk0

Last September I repaired a tyre with a plugging kit, and I told you guys I would let you know how it lasted.


It's been fine. Not gone down any more than others. All four are being replaced this week, so it reminded me to give you a report.

PipneyJane

Greenglockenspiel wrote: »

Hello everyone,
I have been following this thread and its predecessor for a while but have only just made an account because I wanted your advice. We are currently renting and our tenancy ends in September, at which point we were hoping to buy our first home. This is all very well and good but the question is, what to do about my preps? I built up a fair stock in my pantry (murmurings were heard about a lifetime supply of pasta and toilet paper) and I’m wondering whether I should run it all down as much as possible before moving (and then try to build it up again quickly and cheaply ahead of Brexit and winter) or attempt to move it - potentially in a lite version? Has anyone here moved a stockpile?

How far are you moving? And when are you taking possession of your new home? The reason I'm asking is that we transported the contents of our pantry in the back of our car, when we last moved, but we only moved 3 miles away so could easily do several journeys. If you can arrange to take possession a week or so before your lease ends, then it makes sense to just move your stores.

Things I found that helped were to pack the pantry into fruit boxes (which stack) and, because the kitchen at our house was in poor condition, we bought an Ivor bookcase in IKEA and just slotted the fruit boxes into that, using them as drawers until the kitchen was rebuilt.

HTH.

- Pip

ancientofdays

We've just moved and similar to Pipney Jane, we moved the stored stuff over in fruit boxes and crates. Much more storage here which is a bonus.

DigForVictory

I do honestly live a reasonably ordinary cheerful life, just having family in the nuclear industry means all nuclear stories get a second pass & this most recent What to do in the event of WW3 (stay indoors, listen to your windup radio, do not count on the mobile phone network) was reasonably considered despite being sandwiched with political shenanigans & We're All Going To Die excitement.

I appear to have two wind up radios (splendid), have not succumbed to the temptation to buy iodine tablets online (I asked a family member if they had or wanted these & got the look that decodes to "Have You Not Been Listening, These Last Decades, At All?" and, having spent a day with my aged parents who are admirably chipper, alert & mobile for a couple in their 80s have been reminded gently that we are all going to die, just most of us are doing it at the usual one day at a time method.

So, when everything seems Nigh, know where your radio is. Other than that, carry on & if those around you are lacking the requisite phlegm, brew up?

[Deleted User]

We voted early today just after 9 30 and the ladies manning (no pun intended) the polling station said that they'd had a very good turn out already that day and as we walked back there were a steady stream of people heading up to the village hall. I don't think on that basis there is half as much apathy in the populace as I thought there was. It's going to be interesting getting the results this time.

[Deleted User]

Well, we've had tears at the podium, we'll have tears in the sorting out and we'll have many tears for many diverse reasons I suspect before this wretched Brexit debacle is sorted out one way or another. I suspect there will be many tears shed when the results of last weeks Euro MP elections are finally in the public domain.


Not having a scrying bowl I can't forsee where we'll end up or how much time it will take before we get there but I am not going to leave things to chance and will be upping my preps in all areas even to getting in firewood at this time of year if it's available. I shall try for as prepared as we CAN be and wait to see what the future does hold, it's going perhaps to be a fairly bumpy ride!

DigForVictory

My scrying bowl has a load of laundry soaking in it, and another has tea brewing in it. Happily the cupboards are fairly full, the lads documentation is all up to date (and jabs - the latest MMR fuss saw me calling the medic receptionist to ask if she could run an eye over the records & let me know if we needed an appointment - all clear so we thanked each other for saving NHS resources & carried on), everyone has their meds for over the bank holiday.

Personally I am looking forward to things due before Christmas but will just grit my teeth over the political palaver. I've voted so done my bit, now to see what they decide to do. One lad will start an engineering apprenticeship, another the last year of his A levels. Plus I have to learn to make cheese! (Long story..)

Zentimes

Yes the results of the voting will certainly be interesting! I have been in Brexit-stockup-pause for the past month or so but going to do a stocktake and checking of 'use by' dates this week, definitely need to beef the supplies again, because we've been nibbling some of the reserves!

@DFV - The Express certainly know how to provide a detailed guide don't they! (Not). I was fascinated by the linked article, however, on countries that have a large number of bunkers! Clearly Switzerland or Sweden are the places to be!

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1122578/ww3-world-war-3-safest-countries-bunker-nuclear-usa-china-news

DigForVictory

Zentimes, we've a mate in Switzerland with a flat in a new-enough-to-require-a-bunker & I have never seen such an unloved concrete space. Absolutely no attempt had been made to make it into a bunker other than structurally - no food, no water, no air filtration, no external communications, no evidence you could get a radio signal in there. Frankly if I'm given a choice between spending a few hours in that (I have seen better equipped prison cells) or sitting on the hillside eating the local cooking chocolate & looking out at the view, I'll take the latter. Switzerland or Sweden are the places to be - for the views & the chocolate. For the safety, not quite as much.

I think bunkers are over-rated. The Americans have quite a few & some, especially the ex-military ones, are pretty well put together & thought through. Just you can bet the location is known, that they probably haven't been maintained properly & that in the event, unless the current occupants are ready willing & capable of keeping the former military users out, they'll be filled with folks in green. Who have been trained to shoot people, unlike civilians who will have problems before & after pulling the trigger.

Besides, who says WW3 is going to be the extinction event it's hyped as? While there are humans involved, then you have to get a lot of psychopaths all pointed in the same direction. (An issue our military are actually alert to, & quite careful about. They have their uses, but not usually in the high stakes poker game of nuclear strategy. Seriously good bridge players preferred.) Once it becomes "Alexa, nuke Kiev" then things are more difficult but I rather hope it won't come to that.

Onto happier thoughts - how are all your gardens & allotments? These lovely places will be so much more use & comfort to you, filled with light & life and colour & hope, than any bunker ever dug. Plus they're usually reasonably child friendly. If we'd keep prepping, we keep our green spaces healthy!

[Deleted User]

Fully planted as of this morning and growing on nicely. This is our 'test year' as it's a new to us site but all around are enviable examples of vegetable and fruithood looking mighty healthy and a lot further on than ours! We looked sideways when they all started planting much earlier in the year than we thought prudent.....seems we were wrong and next year we shall be planting along with all the other long standing plotholders and also have enviable crops at the end of May. Lesson well and truly learned!