MMM It's definitely a day for Mutterings! I have spent most of the day at work, counting down the hours till I could leave for my safe haven of home. Not the best day, but I've had worse, and I always survive.
Today, whilst wading through the treacle swamp that I call work, a question popped into my head, as they do!
WHAT would you do, if all the shops and supermarkets HAD to close for 2 weeks, completely, nowhere open, no take aways, no supermarket, corner shop, newsagent, NADA? Oh and there was no advance warning either, so you haven't stocked up on anything.
Now, I mentally trawled through the cupboards and freezer, and decided that I would have enough food to last around 3 - 4 weeks, with the exception of fresh veg, that would only last for around one week. I have enough flour etc to make bread to see us through, and dried pulses will make soups and stews, cakes and biscuits would be OK as well, as would eggs as we have agood supply from our 9 chooks.
As for veg, well that would be a little tricky, we don't have much in the way of crops at the lottie yet, but we DO have plenty of seeds for salad leaves, and these would produce edible leaves quite quickly, also, there ARE some people at the allotment that DO have veg stored. It brought home to me though, that I need to do a lot more preserving of veg than I currently do, so I will be on the look out for canning jars this year, as the freezer can't hold everything we have an excess of!
Soap is also not a problem, as I make my own and have enough to last for approximately one year, and it can be used for clothes washing and shampoo as well. Toilet rolls, again we always have a large stock, but if not, we DO have vinegar and sponges, but then again, there is always soap and water in extremis.
Medicines would be difficult for anyone, and that has made me realise that I really do need to make sure that we have the basics at all times. Note to self, restock meds cupboard ASAP!
What to do though, if the meat should run out? We COULD go and hunt rabbits I suppose, but in a city there aren't that many and catching the blighters isn't that easy! We COULD find someone that DOES go hunting and buy or barter from them. OR we could just...GO WITHOUT! We have plenty of dried pulses we can use instead of meat in recipes, we also have a mushroom kit that produces several flushes of those yummy little balls of goodness.
Cheese is not essential, but comes in very handy in many recipes or just in a sandwich, and YUP, I'd make that as well. All in all, I don't think we'd actually find it too much of a bind, milk would be hard to come by as we don't have a cow or room for one, but there ARE a fair few farms around and people with goats, so I suspect that with a bit of hunting around, we'd get by.
It also made me stop and think about what we DO buy from the shops, which to be honest, isn't much these days.
SO...what would YOU do?
That should get your brain cells going.
Today, whilst wading through the treacle swamp that I call work, a question popped into my head, as they do!
WHAT would you do, if all the shops and supermarkets HAD to close for 2 weeks, completely, nowhere open, no take aways, no supermarket, corner shop, newsagent, NADA? Oh and there was no advance warning either, so you haven't stocked up on anything.
Now, I mentally trawled through the cupboards and freezer, and decided that I would have enough food to last around 3 - 4 weeks, with the exception of fresh veg, that would only last for around one week. I have enough flour etc to make bread to see us through, and dried pulses will make soups and stews, cakes and biscuits would be OK as well, as would eggs as we have agood supply from our 9 chooks.
As for veg, well that would be a little tricky, we don't have much in the way of crops at the lottie yet, but we DO have plenty of seeds for salad leaves, and these would produce edible leaves quite quickly, also, there ARE some people at the allotment that DO have veg stored. It brought home to me though, that I need to do a lot more preserving of veg than I currently do, so I will be on the look out for canning jars this year, as the freezer can't hold everything we have an excess of!
Soap is also not a problem, as I make my own and have enough to last for approximately one year, and it can be used for clothes washing and shampoo as well. Toilet rolls, again we always have a large stock, but if not, we DO have vinegar and sponges, but then again, there is always soap and water in extremis.
Medicines would be difficult for anyone, and that has made me realise that I really do need to make sure that we have the basics at all times. Note to self, restock meds cupboard ASAP!
What to do though, if the meat should run out? We COULD go and hunt rabbits I suppose, but in a city there aren't that many and catching the blighters isn't that easy! We COULD find someone that DOES go hunting and buy or barter from them. OR we could just...GO WITHOUT! We have plenty of dried pulses we can use instead of meat in recipes, we also have a mushroom kit that produces several flushes of those yummy little balls of goodness.
Cheese is not essential, but comes in very handy in many recipes or just in a sandwich, and YUP, I'd make that as well. All in all, I don't think we'd actually find it too much of a bind, milk would be hard to come by as we don't have a cow or room for one, but there ARE a fair few farms around and people with goats, so I suspect that with a bit of hunting around, we'd get by.
It also made me stop and think about what we DO buy from the shops, which to be honest, isn't much these days.
SO...what would YOU do?
That should get your brain cells going.
4 comments:
We're probably in a better-off situation than most as we're in the country and next door to a dairy farm, so we would get milk from them - I could even make a Crowdie-style cheese, and our own butter too. I could walk the mile or so to Ian's for eggs (F/R and Organic of course).
We have two freezers stocked to the gunnels, and enough tins to last a good fortnight. We currently have 2 1/2 large sacks of cat biccies, but when we ran out of the tinned cat and dog food, they'd just have bics, and Trixie (dog) would have to have scraps.
Bread I would bake - I get my bread flour by the 16 kg sack - cakes, biccies etc no probs. Have plenty of jam and chutney. We would soon run out of fresh fruit and veg though, and so would have to rely on frozen veg, frozen blackberries and find something to do with frozen sloes. We could always have tinned peaches!
We would probably run out of loo rolls after 2 or 3 weeks - or just have an "emergencies" only usage. My asthma medication I have sufficient of and I think we're fine for the basic medicine cabinet too.
I have all the ingredients for making soap here, so I would just HAVE to make some, or we could use a little shampoo or something - there always seem to be half-finished ones laying around that the girls haven't finished. We always get the biggest size of washing powder, and have enough of that at present.
Well that's YOU sorted then BB, Our cats would happily eat scraps as well!
Not only does my poor brain find it a horrible thought but it can't quite make as much sense as yours does Wrennie! The chicken went to heaven about three years ago and the lottie is bare at the moment!!!
But then living on the edge of London IS horrible - so I suppose we'd just move that much quicker.
Congratulations on what I'm sure will be a fantastic blog!
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