What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

[GeraldTheBonzai]

Battening down the garden. We are in the hit zone for this coming storm.

[Frnc]

Yellow zone tonight, 52 gusts. About 48 on Sunday. I guess 50 is criteria.

Renewed my buildings and contents insurance, which was due to auto renew in 2 days anyway, but I wanted to check something with them. Not related to the coming storm (touch wood).

[Kiwififer]

Battening down the garden. We are in the hit zone for this coming storm.

We should get off lightly in Edinburgh but thanks, you have reminded me to get a few things sorted in the garden like getting coverings for various garden things like the chiminea.

[Frnc]

I did a brief check of most of the BBE dates in food cupboard. Stocks are a bit low, so I'm going to do a food preps shop. Mainly pasta, tuna, tomato puree. Maybe some tinned butter beans. Also made a note to get some dried egg next month.

I have loads of coffee. Long life curry is low, will rectify soon, but there are specific reasons for this - Spice Tailor have discontinued one of my favourites, and possibly another. All the ones I got previously in bulk expired in December. I have two new varieties to test soon anyway. I may take a chance and get 5 of the ones still being sold. I have to get them off Amazon so I can't see the BBE dates. If it is still Dec that will be very annoying, but hopefully not. Would be bad to be selling packs of 5 with only one month on them. If it is, I can have 2 in Nov, 2 in Dec and 1 Jan so not the end of the world.

[Mad Scientist]

Replaced a couple of blown lights on the car last week. Just as well, the other headlamp just went so it’ll be off to Halfords again tomorrow. If it hasn’t blown away. Howling gale, bucketing down in Gloucestershire. Not the time to have car defects! Bloomin’ headlamps always go close together and didn’t have time to change the pair of them. New tyres next on the list and a good service to prep for winter.
Charged up the power pack and stocked up on “blackout food.”
Stay safe, all, it’s nasty out there!

[Adjee]

We are well behind here having not even started our normal winter preparations. It is coming to the end of October and we are still harvesting from the garden/field and preserving everything. Our day is still out by seven and collapse by eleven! We ran out of jars so had to buy a few hundred more to see us through. With the temperature running @ 10C lower all year we have had a glut of fruit, vegetables, herbs along with the happy small livestock we keep and bees that have not stopped producing. We finished processing the last chicken boiler batch this week, the last of the summer rabbit litters to do (hopefully) this week then on to the surplus quails, goats, geese, ducks and chickens. The final muscovies and Orpingtons of the year hatched today, these (if up to standard) will replace our current breeding stock which will be despatched.

Whilst doing the above we have started our winter breeding, rabbits are being bred as we move them back into the rabbitry and goats as they come into season. Also we are adding to our seed bank saving some potato seeds to plant next year (that is a two/three year project).

Had a set back when Nelson died, he was only five but being so busy we did neglect him and despite our attempts to resuscitate him he slowly died, thankfully Harry (our spare) quickly replaced him. Harry has been joined by Horatio and hopefully their lives will be long and productive (don't you just love sourdough cultures!). We also found some hop bines growing wild so have harvested them and dug up some roots in an attempt to grow them. It is the wrong time of year so we marked the original roots and will get some more in spring if ours fail.We will make some yeast cultures from these hops and then feed their remains to the blueberries as they will acidify the soil.

Finally, we were notified the electric will be on and off for repairs these last two weeks so we decided to turn all the power off and do our winter Off Grid practice even setting up and living in the tent in and outside our derelict house. We still disagree here, I prefer using the Ionosphere where as my partner prefers our tent. Anyway, we compromised on a camp set up using both and a tarp for the long term scenario and just bivvy bags and tarps for the short term. I would like to say it was fun experimenting with different set ups out in the open and in the forests that surround us but then again female intuition and logic has always defeated me!

Apologies for the long post, now off to resolve our stray dog and fox/jackal problem, our LSGD caught one last night, hopefully together we can resolve the issue over the next few nights.

[pseudonym]

Thanks for the update, you seem to be living a great lifestyle.

Oh just a reminder UK clocks change at 0200. Dont forget the car.

[Frnc]

All the wind has made my house cold. Am gonna go over on gas budget today. Within limits. Will increase from £1 to £1.60.
Burned through 30p worth of electricity yesterday using my electric radiator for about 7 hours.
Last of the big spenders.
Need to check no rain's got in my cellar. Has only happened once, so not likely. But there was some water coming down presumably from the gutter above the light well earlier.