When modren technology fails

[Eric_Methven]

What hacks me off though, is the people who take the mickey out of us because of our "hobby" are usually the first to call round looking for us to help them out when the lights or water or gas go off. Then when we tell them to go help themselves, they call us tight ar$ed skinflints like it's our fault.
I told an abusive neighbour to get lost once (This is the guy who used to shout "Hey, it's F****n' Rambo" whenever he saw me out and about) when we had gone without leccy for four hours. He knocked at the door and almost demanded that we use our camp stove to heat us some soup he had brought along for him.
I told him to just go to bed and if the power wasn't back on in the morning, I'd heat up some food for him.
The power did come back on during the night and when I saw him on his way to work, I asked if he had had breakfast. He just gave me a load of abuse and told me I was a waste of space for not helping a neighbour in need. I told him he needed to help himself first, and if he did that he wouldn't need help from anyone else.
Anyway, he's in jail for the next couple of years and he got evicted by the council. He did start helping himself though - from other people's houses.

Eric

 

[British Red]

You always get those sorts Eric - anyone a bit prepared or self reliant is "paranoid" but they come over all "society", "rights" and "greater good" when they want something!

 

[Eric_Methven]

You always get those sorts Eric - anyone a bit prepared or self reliant is "paranoid" but they come over all "society", "rights" and "greater good" when they want something!

Yea, I know. I made the HUGE mistake a few years ago when I volunteered to be area coordinator for Neighbourhood Watch in our area. I asked around if anyone was interested in developing a contingency plan for mutual community aid in the event of any sort of disruption. People said they were interested.
So, I had a meeting and suggested we sort out a communal pot of who could provide what on loan if the need arose. I said I had a bottled gas heater, two family frame tents, porta-potty etc, etc,.
Nobody else was prepared to volunteer up anything, but the look on people's faces told me that they were all going to turn up on my doorstep when the need arose.
Stupid! stupid! stupid! And too damn trusting.
I knocked the neighbourhood watch on the head after six months because nobody bothered their ar$e to report suspicious goings on and thought it was my job as coordinator to do everything. I even had little old ladies phoning me at two in the morning to tell me a drunk was pi$$ing on their fence, and expecting me to get up, get dressed and come sort him out.

Nowadays I keep myself to myself and say as little as possible to attract attention. I'm still the mad survivalist that lives in the corner, but nobody bothers much now.

Eric

 

[Echoes of the old ways]

well i,ve just had a thought !!!! All my camping stoves -gas etc is stored in my garage -------if the power goes off !!I won,t be able to use the electric roller shutter door to get to them ???? DOH !!!!!

Hee hee.. looks like you need a back up plan..

 

[rancid badger]

Spot on RB. I'm not sure its "soft" though - "lazy & complacent" is the phrase that springs to mind. The Nanny state culture of recent years has led to a sense of "entitlement" where people think someone else has to take care of their families and that it is no longer their responsibility. You can sense this now that money is getting tight - everyone has a good old whinge about their "rights" and "demands" - precious few of them spend as much time thinking about what more they can offer though!

Its great to see a few threads on here discussing the practical application of skills though.

For many years, water was the one thing that would have troubled us in a long term outage of services - we have a full width well and an underground victorian water cistern now - to go with wood fired cooking and heating . Its the norm round here - when the power goes off, most folks light the fire and a lantern and then, if its off for a while, spark up a generator. Oddly, they don't expect others to provide these things!

Red

You know; You're absolutely right on the "lazy and complacent" phrase!

That first batch of snow we had up here, just illustrated the point perfectly.

I always tend to watch weather forecasts and not just the TV stuff these days, but the online radar and satellite information too.
This is not just a nerdy "interest" I have always spent a lot of time out doors, for recreation as well as with the T.A. and then later on the A.C.F. and studying weather reports has saved me a lot of hassle over the years.

So anyway, knowing there was snow on the way,I made an effort a couple of days before the snow started to get hold of a snow shifter. (one of those scoops on a stick?)
I found one at a cheap tool shop, in the local gigantic shopping mall (Metrocentre) and paid £6.95 for it.

I took it home and as I was getting it out of the car; a "neighbour" hailed me from across the way, with a smirk, saying; "Hah! you expecting snow then?" I replied in the positive, with the addition of;" Aren't you?"
He seemed to think that the weather men always get it wrong etc etc etc.
I tried to explain that, yes, they do make mistakes but that I'd seen the satellite imagery online as well as the radar plots, provided by the met office and it was obvious we were in for it.

His eyes seemed to glaze over at this point and he then started talking about his new garage door and how amazingly brilliant, his son in law is!

Never mind, it started snowing the following day and didn't really stop for about two weeks. We must have had at least 28 inches in total, though it never got more than about a foot and a half round the house.

Every day, I cleared the drive, foot path and the piece of road in front of my house. Enough to allow me to get on and off the drive with as little fuss as possible.

Most other folk on the estate,including the "neighbour",rather than spending 10 -15 minutes clearing their bit, simply parked up on the school road, blocking access for people who live there and making it very difficult for the council to do their job with the gritter/plough.

There were only three people on the estate who bothered to clear any snow from the road outside their property. A few kept it off their paths and driveways ( mostly 4x4 drivers) but made sure to pile it up on the road, rather than on their gardens!

I have the good fortune to live in what, for a "modern" estate, has a very rural feel and is indeed, just 5 minutes walk from large mature woods and plantation.
The area is classed as "Urban Fringe" though I'd suggest it's; "nearer the farm than the supermarket"

The drawback; is that almost all of my "neighbours" are "townie types" who rarely speak, rarely walk anywhere and a lot of them have no idea what is within 200 yards of their front door, unless they can get there in a car.

Never mind

atb

Steve

 

[ex-member Raikey]

last power out we had was for 2 nights ,

i have a little genny for lighting and got our camping stuff out (Cadac) for cooking,...

i got a stern and confrontational door knock asking "why have you got power and we havent!!"

hahahha

i said "cos i was ar$ed to prepare and you were not!"

but it did get me thinking how long the power would be out before the door knocking turned into more agressive things,...

a lesson not to flaunt our skills or equipment too much,..

Stu

 

[Osprey]

Living out in the sticks, at the end of the power grid ! we often get power cuts due to high winds and trees bringing the line down, so we are fairly well equipped for life without electricity for a couple of days. We have wood for heating, paraffin for lighting and bottled gas or the woodstove for cooking. We have also had a couple of days without mains water, due to maintenance work and manage OK, however the situation in Northern Ireland has made me realise that we are not really well prepared for longer periods without drinking quality water and I am thinking of getting a gravity water filter like those supplied by the Freshwater Filter Company. I was wondering if anyone else on the forum has one of these and whether they are worth having ? Any input would be much appreciated, thanks.

Rancid Badger, agree with your post ! the situation in our nearby town was similar, with very few of the residents or shopkeepers bothering to clear the pavements. When you did see someone with a shovel they were usually well over 65!

Cheers Doug

 

[No Idea]

I never did bother to clear up snow, thinking it would only melt and go on its own, until I watched a little old lady trying to make her way up the footpath, which was not only covered with snow, but also what the plows had pushed up, and that had all frozen solid....

Not pretty.

Made me feel a bit ashamed.

Since then, Ive made a habit of clearing outside my place and my path and calling on any olds I know and asking if they need theirs cleared and if they need anything. Usually they are astonished that anyone had even thought of them.

I live on a housing estate of 10,000 people.

I doubt if 10 other houses were cleared in this last go.

My preparations arnt good enough.

Ive no back up electric or water, or even water purification if I pull some out of the sea.

I also have no snow chains and just cant seem to find any sensible priced studded tyres.

Need to spend a little more time on this....

 

[British Red]

Osprey, all my drinking water came from a freshwater filter (gravity unit) for seven years. Brilliant bit of kit. The only thing close is the British Berkfeld unit.

Red

 

[nenook]

I grew up in a small village in southern Italy, high up on a mountain,35-40 degrees in the summer= drought long heavy rainy days snow and ice in the winter= a mess. water is from the mountain , we prepared fire wood when we dident need to burn any, any spare seasonal food we preserved for the winter, when the electric went ( and during heavy storms it did often) we used candles, we had calor gas double burner and a bottle for any prolonged periods of bad weather( there wasent any piped gas to the house just a tank outside) we baked bread, biscuits,cakes, of course the cupboards were full of pasta , the source we made in the summer too. all in all we had a good life and I learnt many life skills which have since served me and my family well, , life is what you make of it, and preparation is key, and to see people with double shopping trolleys at asda when it only shut for a day , I just smiled to myself and thought what if the electric went ? i bet you havent got any candles in that lot


nenook

 

[Osprey]

Thanks BR, given your endorsement I'll go ahead and order one. We have three sources of water we could use in times when the mains supply is cut off. The farm has an old well and there is a fast-flowing stream nearby, but given that this part of Aberdeenshire is a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone my preferred source would be our own waterbutts. I am thinking of getting the twin cartridge filter with the standard sugarlite cartridges and a couple of extra nitrate cartridges in case we use the well or stream.
Many thanks,
Doug.

 

[British Red]

Doug, the two filter can be converted to a four filter later by removing two rubber bungs so its no loss if you want faster filtration. Buy an extra tap for the bottom too - mine wore out after a few years and its only a few quid.

Red

 

[rickyamos]

My youngest daughter rang up a huge phone billl over a weekend ,
the cable company cut off the phone the tv and the internet without telling us first.
It took 3 days to get them reconected , 3 lovely quiet days ,my wife went to her friends house to use the net.
She can't live without fArsebook
I still haven't told her i have a wireless dongle

Craig..............

Not told the old lady about wireless dongle........nice

 

[bojit]

Well , She never asked

Craig...............

 

[Miyagi]

I once spent a year in a cottage without electricity. Bit of a culture shock at first I admit, but within a few days I'd got used to it. I had a great big fireplace and access to water so eating, drinking and keeping clean etc., wasn't a problem.

This Winter my neighbours and I did a fair bit of work for each other, shopping trips, clearing paths and that kind of thing. I'm lucky that most in our street are good neighbours, many of whom have been through harsher times like the Second World War.

On Boxing Day we had a surprise electric blackout and since then it's been off and on but the road is being dug up to fix this. I went round my nearest neighbours offering them candles etc., and to my surprise they were all prepared - must be a generation thing.

Liam

 

[rik_uk3]

This lot would keep you going.

Red, I think you'll be interested in the range of canned food as I am
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9680441/Shackleton-Expedition-Food-List

 

[TallMikeM]

I must confess that the thought of being without electric at the moment is scary. We've only just moved in and the previous owners were very much connected to the world type of people. There is barely one thing in the house that is not dependent on being hooked up. We are slowly getting round to making the place more "self sufficient" but bizarely enough, the snow and bad weather actually put a lot of those plans on hold.
We do have a well tho (that is locked up and we can't find the key) so that will be investigated as a potential source of water. BR, do you have a link for that water filter you were talking about?

 

[sandbender]

This lot would keep you going.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9680441/Shackleton-Expedition-Food-List

That was a good read, now all I need is 1/1 scale model of the RRS Discovery to keep it in.

Edited to add:

A pdf file of that list can be found here.

Stores List of Supplies and
Equipment Taken to Cape Royds – British
Antarctic Expedition 1907–09

 

[British Red]

Here you go Mike

http://www.freshwaterfilter.com/cat...Filter_Systems/Portable_Filter_Systems,b.html

Rik - thats a great list - thanks! I've read the US pioneer one before - but that one is amazing!

 

[TallMikeM]

thanks RR, I shall investigate further.