Greetings from PPrep.

[PPrep]

I've been following this forum for some time and have finally decided to join, assuming I'm accepted. Hopefully my conduct will be OK, but I can get a bit confused with how to use a forum sometimes. I'm no longer a fast learner.

The way I'm prepping seems to be ongoing, a bit of a hobby in fact. I've spent about £600, not including food, which may be too much. I like to reuse or repurpose junk, make simple things, and am a general jobber rather than a specialist. People on the forum seem to be well informed; hopefully there's something useful for me to add.

I lived on a narrowboat for several years, on UK canals.

My basic strategy is to bug in. Having said that, I have a bug out bag (primarily for enforced evacuation), which also has supplies which are an integral part of my very basic BOV setup. I can live in passable comfort in the BOV for about 5 days. My home is semi-urban, on the outskirts of a town in SW Midlands. I'm retired, but in reasonable health, and a passive approach to prepping has to be undertaken because of my age. I have no wish to get caught up in civil disorder. Currently, the basic idea is to prepare for water shortages of up to 3 weeks, food for 2 or 3 months, power outages of up to a couple of weeks, etc. There's clearly room for improvement.

Preparing for something like Covid, or if I fall ill for any reason is well worth doing. My immediate area is not prone to natural disasters, but there's always a very slim chance of a freak tornado, or a coronal mass ejection, I suppose. Loss of utilities is a distinct possibility. There will most likely be little or no notice of a CME. I've done work on Faraday bags and other such small containers for protecting electronic kit. Panicking, looting and angry people would most likely be the greatest problem. Disruption to international trade caused by war is another possibility. Poor governance is leading the Western world down the pan. A house fire would be catastrophic, straight away.

I started prepping for food in late 2019. I had to give up my allotment owing to back trouble and missed having vegetables in store over the winter, or available "on the hoof". I've spent a surprising amount of time on food preps and have over the years decided to dehydrate vegetables and store in jars with silica gel sachets, and used mylar bags with oxygen absorber sachets for very long term storage of dried pulses and such. There's also a regular food store of pulses, rice, tinned fish, muesli, cooking oil, dried fruit, etc, which is rotated. These are stored in lidded buckets for protection against mice and pantry moths. This has been modified and refined over time. It's a matter of syncing it all as my regular diet. After a lot of experimenting, I've learned to grow beansprouts, and radish as a microgreen using water only. Seeds keep for a long time, and I can have at least 4oz or 110 grams of fresh, highly nutritious food per day for some months. The radish can be grown on a windowsill, and moved away from the window with home made low power supplementary lighting in the Winter. I don't eat processed foods, which is a disadvantage in prepping. I've experimented with stinging nettles and plan to grow some. They keep coming back (2 harvests a year, with care), need no attention, and nobody will steal them!

Physical home security has been considered, and reinforcing access doors is for me. Then security is more or less equally strong (or weak) around the building. I'm not keen on having plywood ready for boarding up windows, and a in few years' time won't have the strength to put it up anyway. I've yet to figure out some very discreet physical full-time ground floor window security.

I've experimented with cheap webcams and security software in conjunction with an outdoor security light with some success. I want a standalone spyfi - free system for true privacy and security. This is easier said than done; nearly all the available kit is wifi and "overlooked" by Big Tech or is really expensive.

I can cook with a portable gas stove for some months.

Heating is a problem; apparently portable gas heaters from eBay or Amazon can be unreliable.

Personal hygeine and First Aid preps are ongoing.

Am considering an EDC, but a really compact, basic and boring one.

Currencies and financial risilience have been considered. A cash reserve will be good for perhaps the first few days following a long power blackout or a run on the banks.

I'm a bit of a techie and have a basic 12 volt solar power setup. I've been playing with small scale "alternative" energy for many years. I nearly renewed my amateur radio licence from the '70's, but found modern equipment to be so user-unfriendly that I decided against it. I have a Software Defined Radio (amazing kit with a huge 2GHz bandwidth) and make my own antennas. There's also a legal FM/AM CB radio with home made antenna and a pair of PMR handhelds. SSB CB is too expensive although better. I also have a good portable digital multiband multimode receiver.

I'm also interested in general computer privacy and feel that it matters greatly in the modern age. I repair or rebuild old PC's and install Linux (and sometimes Windows) on them. My offline PC provides maximum privacy and security; the others have above - average security and privacy protection.

As far as I know there are no preppers in my area. Although I'm independently minded, I feel that community is the way to go, but anonymity can't then be maintained.

[jennyjj01]

Greetings from Cheshire.
Great intro. I look forward to reading more of your contributions

[pseudonym]

Hello and welcome to the Forum.

[Arzosah]

Welcome to the forum wow, you've done an amazing amount of prepping work! As for your age, I think you'll find you don't stand out at all I'm retired myself.

Totally with you on microgreens providing fresh, highly nutritious foods, they're very unobtrusive, I think they're an ideal prep. And I go for dehydration as well, it makes storage so much simpler.

Looking forward to seeing your other contributions.

[PPrep]

Hi All,

Many thanks for your kind welcome. I've done a couple of posts elsewhere, but have forgotten where. I'll do a keyword search to try to find them and continue dialogue if needed.

PPrep.

[Arzosah]

Hi PPrep, if you hover over your own name and click, you'll come to a screen where it says, somewhere on the right hand side, "search user's posts", something like that - that'll tell you exactly where you've posted, and offer to "jump to post".

[PPrep]

Thanks, Arzosah - it works.

[PPrep]

This may not be the right place to make this query, but it's the best I can do.

I've received a private message and can't find a button or other means to enable me to reply; the sender may consider me discourteous. It may be that being as I'm on "probation", I'm not yet able to send private messages. Please advise.

[Yorkshire Andy]

This may not be the right place to make this query, but it's the best I can do.

I've received a private message and can't find a button or other means to enable me to reply; the sender may consider me discourteous. It may be that being as I'm on "probation", I'm not yet able to send private messages. Please advise.

You've made 9 qualifying new posts if I've looked it up correctly one more post outside the new members section should remove all new member restrictions

[PPrep]

Yorkshire Andy - many thanks for your advice.