I seriously doubt the gang mentality that some people seem to assume will happen, history here shows us it doesn't, people pull together rather than fight each-other.
like others we live in a rural area I have a km drive on a gravel road to get to anything that might have been cleared so we have enough food for several weeks, the cooker is gas and we always have a spare bottle, we also have a heater that uses the same bottles if the power goes, we can always have hot water as that's wood fired, so is the heating but that relies on an electric pump. since I have lived here the water has gone four times but the electric never, infact we lose water more often than internet! But I live in a swamp, we have two springs on the property so no issues there. Right now I have enough food in the ground to keep us two alive all year, but we would get mighty sick of potatoes, and if the apocalypse isn't nice enough to start in spring and I had sold them... well we'll be going hungry too.
i just love watching Doomsday Preppers with all those crazy Americans with their bug out plans, armouries and bunkers. The only prep I need is a sharp knife to slit my wrists in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
I seriously doubt the gang mentality that some people seem to assume will happen, history here shows us it doesn't, people pull together rather than fight each-other.
I agree. The human species would not have survived through all of pre-history up to now if we didn't have a basic tendency to co-operate for common survival. I think quite a lot of city people would perish quite quickly if the electricity was switched off but that's because their access to the resources needed to survive is extremely constrained. People with guns would prevail for a while, but they'd run out of ammunition and have no ability to make more or adapt their weapons to fire other stuff, unlike some farmers with shotguns round here who are pretty adept at bodging a solution to cope with a shortfall.
As for day to day 'prepping', we are also very rural and it doesn't take much snowfall for us to be stuck. We can also be stranded by floods though not usually for more than a day so far. The first winter we lived here was a real eye opener when we were snowed in, water supply frozen, reliant on electricity for heat and cooking and it dipped out for 30 seconds - just long enough for us to go 'Oh sh.. thank goodness for that'. Since when we have acquired good snow chains, a 4WD car that can get out across the fields when the road is blocked, a wood burner and a big box of candles. When we can afford it I have my eye on a wood burning oven. I've had to cook on a wood burner before and it's fine, but a bit limited to things that look like stew. So an oven and a couple of hobs would be nice. I preserve a lot of fruit and veg in bottles rather than relying solely on the freezer (though of course if the electric goes off due to snow the freezer would be redundant anyway).
When the solar flare hits, we'll be OK at least for a couple of weeks
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Ohh.. chocolate is even more appealing. Neither wine nor chocolate last long in our house... so I don't have much to offer beyond my sparkling personality.
Getting back to the topic, I think an interest in gardening is a form of preparation.
Simply learning how things grow and sometimes don’t, all the rigmarole, would help if I had to start growing food.
Being in London’s suburbia though, I suspect the population is too high to avoid marauding bandits so I’m pretty sure I’d need to get the family into a rural destination. Our street could be defensible for a time but we wouldn’t have the food production to maintain civility.
I am prepared in another sense, my mother lives about ten miles away, and these days a ten mile run is not a big effort for me.
Running or cycling as a family of five out of the city isn’t a reliable idea imo. And what would be the destination - we’d be one of hundreds of thousands of families on the move.
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As for day to day 'prepping', we are also very rural and it doesn't take much snowfall for us to be stuck. We can also be stranded by floods though not usually for more than a day so far. The first winter we lived here was a real eye opener when we were snowed in, water supply frozen, reliant on electricity for heat and cooking and it dipped out for 30 seconds - just long enough for us to go 'Oh sh.. thank goodness for that'. Since when we have acquired good snow chains, a 4WD car that can get out across the fields when the road is blocked, a wood burner and a big box of candles. When we can afford it I have my eye on a wood burning oven. I've had to cook on a wood burner before and it's fine, but a bit limited to things that look like stew. So an oven and a couple of hobs would be nice. I preserve a lot of fruit and veg in bottles rather than relying solely on the freezer (though of course if the electric goes off due to snow the freezer would be redundant anyway).
When the solar flare hits, we'll be OK at least for a couple of weeks
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Simply learning how things grow and sometimes don’t, all the rigmarole, would help if I had to start growing food.
Being in London’s suburbia though, I suspect the population is too high to avoid marauding bandits so I’m pretty sure I’d need to get the family into a rural destination. Our street could be defensible for a time but we wouldn’t have the food production to maintain civility.
I am prepared in another sense, my mother lives about ten miles away, and these days a ten mile run is not a big effort for me.
Running or cycling as a family of five out of the city isn’t a reliable idea imo. And what would be the destination - we’d be one of hundreds of thousands of families on the move.