What Preps are you doing this week? Part 10

[GillyBee]

I'm replacing most of my wardrobe having lost a lot of weight in the last year. I'm doing it with an eye to longevity since I'm way past the age of wanting to be fashionable. Fast fashion makes it quite hard to acquire what I want at a reasonable price. So I have turned to making a few items which I expect to get a lot of use out of. As part of this I am really going back to basics and learning how to draft my own patterns. It's not easy finding patterns to fit when you don't have measurements that bear any relation to the standard - and even if you do they are not in the same place or plane!!

Well done for losing the weight. I am still struggling with that one. I echo the problem with patterns for non-standard sizes. i have been using the book "Ahead of the Curve" as a DIY fitting course. As a bonus the basic patterns in it are working quite well as personalised starting points to hack into different styles. I have added a new sewing machine this spring and between the two I think I might actually be starting to to feel confident when making and fitting my own clothes. I have always been OK assembling them but the old machine was not helping and I have had quite a bit to learn about fitting and choosing the right (modern) fabric for each make.

[pseudonym]

So is your gold and silver actually an investment or simply a hedge against banking collapse which may eventually break even?

I am still waiting for my Father's Estate to be completed 2 years after his death.

My relatives will have my gold/silver less than 24 hrs after my demise, the Govt none the wiser.

[pseudonym]

Bought some more gold sovereigns, which upon arrival will magically disappear in a tragic boating accident.

Be a similar boating accident to where mine ended up!

It's a very deep lake.

[jansman]

Bought some more gold sovereigns, which upon arrival will magically disappear in a tragic boating accident.

Be a similar boating accident to where mine ended up!

It's a very deep lake.

My youngest knows where to take her diving gear!

[Frnc]

Well done for losing the weight. I am still struggling with that one.

I lost 3 stone in about a year using the Nutracheck Calorie Counter app. You just put your age, weight, height, and how many pounds a week you want to lose (0.5-2,, I said 1). It tells you how many calories a day you can have. There are two modes, Separate and Combined. I think the default mode is Separate. In that mode, you don't get to eat extra if you exercise. Combined is for people who do a huge amount of exercise on certain days - they get to eat more on those days. There are also options for special diets, eg I tweaked mine a bit to lower sugar, protein and salt, due to kidney stones. It's not very time consuming once you get into it and have a few set meals. You can duplicate a meal, so you can tweak it and have two versions. Most people can lose weight at about 1lb a week using this method. I still use it. A lot of people lose a few stone and then put it back on. What a waste of effort. I still weigh myself most days and count calories. If I stick to about 1800 I don't gain weight. I'm not quite on target, but am into the green zone.

[mbbaltic]

Thanks for the book pointer. I'd seen blog posts by her but hadn't realised she has published a book

[pseudonym]

Be a similar boating accident to where mine ended up!

It's a very deep lake.

My youngest knows where to take her diving gear!

I've fallen foul of the Nosey HMRC and their money laundering Dept. However my passport and a British Gas bill will somehow prove my innocence

[jansman]

It's a very deep lake.

My youngest knows where to take her diving gear!

I've fallen foul of the Nosey HMRC and their money laundering Dept. However my passport and a British Gas bill will somehow prove my innocence

I totally understand P. Whilst I still wake up in the morning,I am sorting financial assets for my wife in order that HMRC don’t do the same!

[ForgeCorvus]

I have a question about the whole gold and silver thing.

If I buy Brittanias from the Royal Mint they will cost me about £32/oz once VAT and post is factored in. If I sell them back to the mint they pay spot rate which is sub £20/oz. So the price of silver is going to have to increase 50% before I break even.

Similarly I have some scrap silver as I make hobby jewellery. But if I sell it back to the silver scrap supplier I will at best get 50% of the spot rate, probably less as I am not registered trade. I recycle my own into fresh makes where I can as it doesn't make sense to sell it back and buy special casting grain unless I cannot be certain I have acheived "sterling grade".

I like the concept of having some PMs around instead of numbers in the bank or bits of paper but this does not make a lot of sense to me.

So is your gold and silveractually an investment or simply a hedge against banking collapse which may eventually break even?

The way I see it is PMs are a way of storing wealth.
Say I have £2000 and buy gold with half of it (call it £50 a gram, so 20 grams) and stick the other half in the safe, in twenty years time my gold will still weigh 20 grams at whatever the market value is (very unlikely to go down) whereas my £1000 of cash is only £1000 .

[jennyjj01]

Had another hour dedicated to pulling out B*****d mares-tail shoots.

And again, and again. and again!!!
... So an hour a week is not going to cut the mustard.

Each time, again, I harvested a half bucket of marestail shoots up to about 4" high. I have done some experimental spraying with 'the good stuff' on a bed that I've yet to tackle, but I'm mostly attacking by knife.

And so, today an experiment in Nuking that 645t4rd pernicious weed. Bring on the big guns!

On most of my beds, I'm tugging out new shoots of which there's an endless supply. The new shoots being there because I broke the roots when digging. Doh!
But on one bed, which has not been dug or disturbed, the marestail has been left pretty much alone. It had two sprayings of glyphosphate that did nothing of consequence except kill off some other weeds. Here, the marestail is between about 6 inches and a foot tall. NO NEW BABY SHOOTS to deal with! I guess that any viable bit of root has got a nice green bushy hairdo out above the surface. Kill the hairdo systemically to kill ALL OF the root... is my plan.

So tonight, I went nuclear mode. I mixed up a strong spray of Ammonium sulphamate and with a gloved hand, I individually soaked each frond. (it felt strangely calming ) Now. This stuff is supposed to be about the only stuff that kills it systemically (that isn't kurtail)*. Allegedly, it can wipe out a marestail infestation, roots and all, in ONE session, maybe two. If it works, then within a week, that bed will have been purged of the mare for at least this season.! I wonder?

Assuming I missed a few fronds, I'll repeat the operation early next week, then I'll watch in anticipation.

Ammonium Sulphamate was a potent weedkiller that lost it's EU license, because the manufacturer was not prepared to pay the large sums required to test it on domestic animals. It is not deemed unsafe and is far more natural and environmentally friendly than Glyphosphate.

* Horrendously expensive 'kurtail' is mooted to kill the mare, but there's uncertainty about whether it kills the root
* Allegedly, simple WD40 can also kill marestail, but that is ecologically unsound and still may not kill the roots.
* I bet Arsenic would kill it https://scienceline.org/2016/01/arsenic ... esticides/

Researching further, marestail apparently grows a potato like tuber at the deepest end of it's root and that survives even the death of the roots. It's clever and well evolved stuff.

In other preps, I've been copiously watering all my veggies in anticipation of dry weather.

And I've seriously restocked with Stockwell baked beans. leaving only the dented tins in my nearest Tesco Extra. About half the tins on the shelf were dented and I wonder if that's deliberate.