What Preps are you doing this week? Part 5.

[Ara]

To complete, I would add a fried egg aswell.

[diamond lil]

I'm wondering whether to get coal or not.. I couldn't afford a lot or store a lot though but maybe enough to tide us over a cold spell. Husband is thinking about clearing out one of the sheds to put the sacks in there. Currently costing £20 a bag and the coalman says he has no idea what will happen after brexit but the price will be up in Jan.

[grenfell]

One good thing about coal is that it can be stored anywhere , it doesn't matter if it gets wet for instance although it's just a tad more messy to handle . I'd say if you have somewhere to put it and the spare cash then go for it you're not going to lose unless by some weird freak the prices drop.

[grenfell]

To complete, I would add a fried egg aswell.

Deeps help me out here with a gif of drooling Homer...

[Brambles]

[grenfell]

WOOOOO HOOOOOOO

[Deeps]

To complete, I would add a fried egg aswell.

Deeps help me out here with a gif of drooling Homer...

Sorry, missed it mate. Bramble came good though. If you use the 'picture' facility (9th in on the toolbar next to the 'link' button) and find the address of whatever gif you want, just drop it between the ] [

Hope that helps mate.

[jansman]

I'm wondering whether to get coal or not.. I couldn't afford a lot or store a lot though but maybe enough to tide us over a cold spell. Husband is thinking about clearing out one of the sheds to put the sacks in there. Currently costing £20 a bag and the coalman says he has no idea what will happen after brexit but the price will be up in Jan.

Cost is the issue Lil.It is not a cheap way to heat,but it is more resilient.My coalman only delivers to his elderly/ regulars now,since his brother died. I am fortunate that I can pick his coal up at the farm in 20 kg bags for no extra cost.You are unfortunate in your remote location,as it obviously incurs a delivery cost ( we pay £15.50 per open sack).Also ,it is not as easy to store as some may think.If it's piled too high,for too long,the bottom layer becomes dust.It is not good in the open either.Wet coal is messy,and takes no harm,but it is the same as chucking wet logs on the fire!

It's not a bad idea to keep a little back up though.I do.I also keep one logstore ( about 6 week's worth) of split firewood in case I am ill or injured ( it's happened a time or two),as I normally spend an hour every two weeks splitting for the back door store.I also keep two dustbins full of kindling,ready to go.

How many sacks of coal do you use per month? Just keep that as back up,as a month is a long time.

[Arzosah]

I've finally been able to draw a line, for the moment, under "cutting back the dratted laurel", and gone on to "cutting back the box hedge" - since I was last able to do it, it leans about four feet over the property line. Last time I did it, about three years ago, I used tiny little secateurs, but nowadays I have lovely hedgecutters - still manual, but sooooo quick compared to secateurs! I'll need another couple of goes, then cut back the rhodedendron tree a bit, then I'm ready to start digging over the ground where the kale and chard will have one of their two homes

[Deeps]

This time of year is usually about 'stuff', we did get a bumper harvest of 'yellow sticker' veg from Asda the other day, Her Maj has been making batches of bolog/bean chilli to use a load up and I'll be dehydrating the rest. Hoping to get away for a weekend to test some new gear in the next week or two. I need to be a good boy now and STOP buying things, all my money is spent.