Wot no preps? [/chad]

[featherstick]

No new preps suggested or posted recently? Is everyone ready for everything? Or are we just giving up?

I've signed up for Selco's SHTF school for his insight into the collapse of the Balkans, it should be interesting.

We're putting off more physical preps until we move house, but then they should include: more storage, more tools and related skills, more water, better neighbours, a multifuel stove that we can cook on, hyper-insulation, and perhaps stepping up food preps with some vacuum packing. I'm not considering solar except as small stand-alone units as I don't have the money or expertise for a large-scale installation.

What are other people considering?

[SleeperService]

Well, in the process of remortgaging to get a 5 year fixed rate ahead of LB3 and others posts about a period of high inflation which I agree with. When that ends the mortgage should be less than 10K:D )

Will be heavy draught proofing and making secondary glazing to triple glaze the windows.

Get my food stocks up to 6 months.

Look at hyper insulating the house, especially the walls. Maybe convert the loft as well.

Hopefully get an allotment, several plots are now neglected and the committee have given notice to several tenants, I'm 4th in the list

Get my weight down and fitness up, get off all medication.

[emordnilap]

What are other people considering?

It's on-going - as I said in another thread, outside day-to-day living expenses, most of what else I spend is spent with the thought of the long-term in mind.

It pains me but we're having to replace the car, which is reaching the end of its life; I'm hoping to get a small, frugal diesel vehicle and every penny spare is now being saved for it. We only do around 5-7K miles a year but even so, fuel is not going to get any cheaper.

When that's out of the way, we're going to re-build the long, south-facing wall that fronts our property. It's already collapsed in one place with another spot on its way. It's stone, so most of it can be re-used, and we have a lot of spare stone which I will incorporate. I want it high and massive. We will be growing fruit against it.

I've got a local carpenter making a 'lobby' for the front door to act as an airlock.

I'm also working on an extension to the polytunnel, looking around to scavenge some windows. This is to give me a dry space for some batteries, panel and a pump for watering with rainwater in the tunnel.

I cycled past a house today which is having all its old, no-maintenance, plastic-framed, never-replace-your-windows-again double glazing replaced with new, no-maintenance, plastic-framed, never-replace-your-windows-again double glazing, so I might have to talk to them!

[/chad]?

[RenewableCandy]

A Chad is a little bald character peering over the top of a brick wall and asking "Wot? No X??" where X is some item that was rare during the war e.g. bananas. They had a bit of a comeback in the 1970s with X being petrol, dustmen, electricity, and other things we were short of fttt.

No relation to the notorious Usonian "Hanging Chads".

[RenewableCandy]

erm...the topic, yes...

Nowt physical has been possible here at Chateau Renewable because of my hand. Marvellous Other 1/2 is overseas at the mo for work. Nowt financial is possible because we have decided to pay off our 2nd-largest debt all in one lump. Fille and Fils are working hard for their GCSEs. I suppose you could call those 2 preps. But it is all very frustrating.

[emordnilap]

A Chad is a little bald character peering over the top of a brick wall

[/gah]

[PS_RalphW]

Our grand plans are not progressing at the moment. I am minded of those senior Russian communist party men sitting in their grand offices, staring at the wall, in total silence, long after all their unpaid minions have gone home to grow vegetables, unable to grasp that the end had already come.

Another colleague leaves today. Another 8 got their marching orders. I am in an office with 20 desks, there will be 2 of us left.

I would so much rather be at home planting onions.

Plans for relocation are on the back burner. Wife's future health is uncertain. She definitely feels the cold more than I do, and as our 72yo house has limited options for hyper insulation, that means turning up the heating or moving to a more modern abode. We are looking in the next village, but prices make York look very affordable. Adopted children's behaviour and reaction to change makes stability and continuity look like the best option for them, too.

Parent's health is also reaching critical stage of independent home living no longer being sustainable, so major changes are likely there, too.

So I sit and read web pages as all about me slowly falls silent.

[ujoni08]

Hang tough, RalphW! You will make it through.

[Potemkin Villager]

I would so much rather be at home planting onions.

So I sit and read web pages as all about me slowly falls silent.

You can never grow too many onions!

I think I may have mentioned the small wind turbine company
that went bankrupt where I worked at one stage. We all had to
sit it out to the end so we would be pushed rather than jumping
and so qualify for statutory redundancy. It was not a great time and
not made any better on discovering that the MD had maxed out
the company credit card buying booze (for himself)!

[emordnilap]

I would so much rather be at home planting onions.

So I sit and read web pages as all about me slowly falls silent.

You can never grow too many onions!

+1

You need at least 366 per annum.

[bealers]

We got a favourable response this week from the Shrops planning dept for our roundwood-frame-strawbale-but-in-a-town pre-planning application.

Does that count as prep?

[RenewableCandy]

God, yes *envy*...

[Catweazle]

I seem to be de-prepping at the moment. I've sold my woodland, turned over my vegetable patch, and run down my food stash.

I hope I can move before there is a catastrophic crash of the £ .

[bealers]

I'll admit that I have to occasionally remind myself that we're already on The Long Descent and that I need to retain focus on longer term resilience goals.

So, as per the OP, our 2012 reskilling/prep/todo list contains:

- Get residential planning permission. Enough renting and moving house every 18 months already. Our youngest is 4 this week and she's living in her 5th house. This is definitely our primary focus.

- Feb: intro to tractor driving course (4 hrs on a Sat @ local agri college). I know this sounds a rather oil-heavy pastime but I've got a lot of trees to shift and holes to dig in the next 12/18 months.

- Feb: 1 day intro to charcoal making, North Wales somewhere, I think it's using oil drums and I've got one here ready for action so it's rather timely.

- Feb/March: Build a compost loo in the woods.

- Between now/May: get 10m3 (2x calendar quarter allowance) of Larch felled and stacked as the FC have refused us a felling licence until May when they can check that our larch doesn't have the dreaded tree lurgy. I want to fell it all now for the obvious reasons.

- Get shotgun licence. Not for sport. Our woodland has plenty bunnies, pheasants, grouse and woodcock on and whilst I've taken a few pheasants (cleanly!) with an air rifle, I'd like the option to take few more as they are in flight.

- Get a dog and train it to retrieve, see above (this may not happen for a few years)

- Start breeding chickens for meat. We've got ex-battery for eggs and they are great for that, but I'd not want to eat one.

- Autumn 2012: Introduce Mr Ram the four, 1 year old ewes we bought last year. Hopefully by 2013 we'll have some lambs of our own.

I'm considering trying for my chainsaw/tree climbing qualification, CS38. If I'm going to be self-building I'll be on a 2 story frame a lot. I'm not overly brilliant with heights so need to gain some confidence. I have zero interest in tree surgery, I'll do my sawing with two hands and on the ground thanks. But it seems the best way to get rope and harness aware.

Mrs B is in final stages of becoming a registered child minder, so we've a fall-back income stream.

There's a few ideas around business opportunities, I'd really like to start a social enterprise locally and I have some concrete ideas on this but there's no point putting the flesh on them until I know where I'm going to stay.

Mike Pepler recently posted something on his blog about a 'first responder' first aid course which looked fantastic, I'd really like to find something like that locally to do this year.

That'll do for now.

[adam2]

My preps are largely done, and only need checks and stock rotation/replenishments.

I have enough basic clothing, underwear, linens and blankets to last 20 years or more. Dont intended adding much to stocks, only replacing things that wear out.

I have food for over a year, and will add more dried pasta and some Mountain house foods, the aim being 2 years stock in total.

I have ample stocks of batteries, and for the really long term I have the means to make batteries.

The only major expense planned is a couple more geiger counters.
Idealy, I want 2 at work, 2 at home, and 2 at mothers home.
Whilst a geiger counter could be vital, 2 are better in order to confirm any unusually high or low reading.

Need replacement filter cartridges for gas masks, replacement chemical light sticks, and replacement chlorine tablets, as these are out of date, or nearly so. These are fairly cheap preps.

I have enough candles for 10 years use, or presuming PV powered electric lights most of the time, enough candles for the rest of my life.