I’m not obsessed by this but I like to think Id be prepared incase of long term bad weather or other problems.
So I keep a well stocked larder/freezer, full of dried goods and cans. packs of candles spare gaz bottle, stock of batteries and enough fire wood to keep me going 3 years !! Fill all my water butts and have stocks of seeds incase it go's on for years ....
As we are on top of a mountain I always hope to get snowed in for a few weeks but it hasnt happened yet
Most freezers have an autonomie of around 20 hours max, good ones can double that (still only about 1,5 days!). Liebherr sells A+++ freezers with autonomies up to 124 hours, and that's still only 5 days. So, if you don't own a reliable generator with plenty of fuel 1 week without power is going to be disastrous...
Dont worry my wine and beer cellar is well stocked for winter.
We have a small genny that would run the freezer if needs be , but our neighbour has a much bigger one and before we had ours ran a lead to us through our cellar window for the freezer.
I have never had a worm in my pantry in the 50 odd years of my life if i did it would be fried and eaten ....;0)
I rarely freeze just vegtables as never keen on them afterwards , Instead I make multi meals, Tom sauces , Ratatouille
and veg currys each time I have a glut of veg so my freezer is stacked with tupperware ready meals. Plus dry store onions garlic and potatoes. while we can still get out fresh veg can still be picked or brought in.
One last point about wood worm in firewood or any other building wood.
We are renovating a barn and each time we have a job done I ask the builder (also a neighbour) would he make sure the wood is sprayed for worms and he tells me its fine as he only uses local wood and wood brought into a building from the locality would never get woodworm... Now I have always put this down as an old mans tale !! I dont believe it.
But after speaking to other younger locals they say the same thing ... this surley can not be true but if it is ...how does that work then ? Saying that very few beams and post in the barn have had to be replaced the ones that have have been due to damp. But I see in them small worm holes and I show them to the builder who shrugs and says thats normal ... but they will not eat through he tells me and shows me wood that has been in the barn for nearly 200 years and he is right it goes in for about quarter an inch and the rest of the beam is strong. The wood he uses is normally cheastnut walnut oak or some times local pine .... Any one have any Ideas about this or should I bring some one to spray the whole place ? Also our fire wood rarely has worm holes its wierd and some of it has been sat out there for years before we brought the place ....
Ever since we lived facing the North Downs in Kent, I have never felt safe without sufficient to keep us going for a couple of weeks.
We live about twenty minutes from the supermarket, it can be snowed in, so my hoarding habits continue.
I think it is just prudent.
My cellar has lots of wine in it but I drink very little so no need to stock up specially! Running out of tea-bags and coffee would be much worse than no alcohol.
Just had my annual wood delivery - now neatly stacked awaiting the cold weather.
I have realised that I have already touched/lifted each log 4 times so by the time it goes on the wood burner it will be 2 or 3 more!
My wife always keeps well stocked freezers (plural) and cupboards - with a spare of most things so when something is finished out comes the spare stock and it goes on the shopping list ready for the next shopping trip. I haven`t caught her system out yet in 31 years!
I just had to read this 'is Pamela a nutter' story - for the answer to the immediate question, you'd better ask my OH. Otherwise I can say that as a former girl guide, I'm as prepared as this Pamela. Freezers full of produce from our garden (you can still eat things with freezer burn).
We have a wood fire to keep warm, food in the freezer, bottled water (and wine...), a gas cooktop in case the power goes off - so we can eat and drink, cook and keep warm - those are my priorities. And I doubt I will run out of loo paper before I could get to the shops again.
It never really snows here so I think we must be "Latent Preppers". We have just defrosted 1 large chest freezer, 1 vertical freezer & 2 fridge freezers. They were all full & there is normally only two of us! Lots of stuff was chucked or given to the chooks. Our neighbour took a lot of last years fruit to make jam & we have vowed to eat stuff from the freezer rather than buying fresh. Mad or what???
Ah but you see Ross I am NOT a sensible lady! I am scatty, and quite badly prganised most of t he time, just ask my friend who is fed up with me cos I missed her party, so why I get so anal retentive over this I have no idea! Everything gets eaten up in rotation, yes I date the stuff in the freezer, ............hmmmm perhaps I need help!
Are we just sad? I actually quite enjoy the stocking up, the anticipation of the problem, the challenge. But of course after a week I am stir crazy, last year we were so fed up we ripped all the wallpaper off the sitting room............!
I keep enough in the house to keep 7 people going for a good fortnight - for the past 3 winters we have been snowed/frozen in on top of our hill for anything up to 10 days so it seems reasonable. We have gas lamps for power cuts and a mixture of gas and electricity for cooking. Dried stuff lives in big insect and mouse-proof plastic boxes, plenty of tins of confit etc and the freezer has fruit & vegetables & bread which are eaten & replaced regularly.
Have I mentioned loo-roll ? ;-) Fellow loo-roll hoarders the leclerc offer is on...
Me too! I start about now to stock up with all the stuff you said, we live pretty isolated and last year had 3 weeks when the car couldn't get down the lane even with chains on. So this week is wood, we will be off into the woods to bring b ack all the dry stuff, cut it and stack it, the freezer and cupboard filling. I run it all down over the summer so it doesnt just sit there from one years end to the next! Always bags of flour and yeast, t-bags, coffee etc which will keep. Are we bonkers? do you do this in other areas of your life too? I dont really I tend to be quite spontaneous, just this abberation!
First winter in the Languedoc we were in England for Xmas and New Year and then motored back...through a snow white UK and France...we live in the far south Languedoc and there were no breaks in the snow. When we arrived in our village the 1 in 7 hill to our house proved almost impossible. We dont have a four wheel drive or winter tyres...never needed them before (now this is a big hint....get winter tyres!). The said hill is one mile long, it took us nearly an hour of zig zagging to arrive. Once parked, we were stuck fast for over 2 weeks. Initially no water as the water pipes froze...insufficient stores...though plenty of wood. Lucky for us our next door neighbours managed the Spar supermarket in town and kindly brought us up 40 bottles of water and all the shopping I required. They shopped for us whenever we needed stuff. Eventually after about 9 days my OH ventured down the road by foot (being a keen walker) and managed to get back up the hill with proper walking boots. But it is certainly not silly being prepared, I now have enough tins, packet and frozen food to keep us going for a couple of weeks.