NEEPS

StuP · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 11:29 am Post subject:

I think there's a big difference between having appropriate supplies and 'hoarding' - a word which often has very negative connotations. Personally I think that getting to know your neighbours and establishing a sense of community is one of the most important things to do for making it through hard times.

Also, in the words of Saint Ray Mears, "Skills weigh nothing". If you know what plants you can eat, how to catch and process wild meat etc you're well ahead of the game and these skills can be acquired for the cost of a book and a little effort.

wildgarlic · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 12:55 pm Post subject:

Good points StuP

Skills - excellent! If you've got them, share them with others too - something we try to do as much as possible.
_________________
Neeps Flickr Group - check out some of the fab photos from other Neepsters and share some of your own.

Smooth Hound · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2009 1:14 pm Post subject:

i agree with all that, but ts the 95% that have not thought to do anything that worry me, and the people that only think of themselves, they worry me enough now, but how will they react if put in a position of needing to survive. and how will i react in defence against them, who are friends and whos pretending,

all of this i think is yet to be discovered, personally i dont have a good opinion on this. i do hope though.

Stonehead · Last edited by Stonehead on Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

Deleted. Sorry, misinterpreted the original post.

Maria · Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 4:03 pm Post subject:

StuP - you gave me a very timely reminder to get some reading material!! Will let you know how I find it....I feel a shout out to other would be bushcraft and foragers when the weather warms.

Stoney - I missed out the note from my first quote as it's quite long...but it's about fuel safety not engine use - apols. I've added below as I found the fuel storage regs interesting, and although perhaps difficult using diesel subsitutes long term, it would be good to have some transition fuel. Wouldn't it take a growing season to have enough ethanol? Like the idea of alcho power (as long as it's not tasty enough for my own consumption

)

Smooth Hound · Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 5:18 pm Post subject:

ive just got hod of a hedgerow chutney recipe. when ive got time ill put it on the foods section. a good book for your collection would be food for free, i had it once, i could do with getting it myself again as well.

Fia · Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:43 pm Post subject:

Maria · Posted: Mon Feb 02, 2009 10:53 pm Post subject:

SH wrote

oakesme · newbie Joined: 19 Dec 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Turriff

Should we hoard? I would say that most people do it already. Often they call it investment, savings, pension or insurance. Trouble is much of the reality behind these financial devices is abstract, remote and giant scaled. This means it lacks resilience to use transition speak. Or to peak oil doomers its simply worthless. You save up stuff for the same reason you save money now. To help yourself and to help others, to influence events and to live. You can't help others if you are a casualty.

In a modern urban household often people have zero useful stuff. They have no tools, no warm clothes, no wet weather gear and one day's food. Every need arrives just in time by car, and the car separates people from real weather. 50 years ago this would be different. Hoarding can bring back some resilience in the home.

I would agree that skills are worth more than physical stuff, they cannot be stolen, are easy to transport and can be cheap to aquire. Ray Mears' courses are expencive. Ultimately if we cant buy stuff we need then sustainability demands we do something different. Hoarding is for the transition period.

Hoarding now means not using stuff, keeping it for later. Its a discipline lacking in an age of credit (now ended). Its about getting people to think about what is really essential and how dependent we are on daily shopping. We will need to last from one harvest for a whole year, maybe two in a bad year, we don't think like that now. Culture change is essential, community and personal.

Other stuff I would add to the list might be:

Practical warm clothes and repair kit
Kilner type food storage jars
Metal boxes to keep rodents out of food (old chest freezer).
Books (on growing, medicine, entertainment, education)
Musical instruments (no TV on dark evenings)
Camping gear (people will be on the move)
Roofing material (slates, nails, felt)
All building materials (difficult to store paint, cement or lime)
Woodstoves and spare parts
Ray Mears type kit
Bike trailer (you wouldn't use it now, but in future with no cars?)
Wind up torches
Fencing
Seeds
Woodsaws (old style that can be sharpened repeatedly)
Hand tools (when was the last time you drilled a hole by hand)

Julie · Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 1:20 pm Post subject:

We tend to stockpile as a result of our lifestyle anyway. Anyone who has seen my stash of filled Kilners and dried food can verify that. It's only the preservation of this years harvest though, not hoarding. We also need to keep several weeks supply of perishables in the freezer, and the same in animal feed, as a precaution against getting snowed in in the winter - or just to save unnecessary trips to the shops for just one item...very wasteful of fuel, imo.
I think a better long-term approach would be to find ways of doing without these oil byproduct items, after all, no matter how much you hoard, sooner or later it will run out and then what are you going to do?
Maybe we should look to the past and see what people used before this stuff was available.
_________________
It is better to light a candle than to rail against the darkness
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET!