OK you have been given the chance to accept a challenge to live on an island for 5 years with a non electric house, decent soil, good water, mild weather,you can take dried,bottled and canned food of your choice to last for 6 months only. You are allowed to take some seeds, tubers, and livestock. You may take 3 three pieces of sports equipment and a small box of tools with a maximum of 6 items ,plus string and nails, your choice. There is a large amount of cash for you if you stay for the full 5 years without asking for help .You can take a partner, You can take a large packed lunch for the journey that contains anything you want for 2 hungry people.
Seeds you may take are 20 regular sized packets , off the rack seeds, your choice.
Tubers you can take total of 5lbs each of any 2 types of your choosing
Livestock you may take 10 poultry , and 4 farm animals. Mixed if you wish
You can request 1 other item
Would you take the challenge
What would you choose
How would you best use your choices
XX Jeannine
Jeannine, would I have a water supply and if yes is it down a well??:)))
Any idea how many daylight hours I would get during the winter months?:))
You can see I'm taking this seriously :)
I think to accept the challenge it would need a lot of thought. I'm still thinking.
working on my list good question :)
I was thinking Cambourne if I didn't need a bucket for the well to collect my water, I might have a crate of candles if the winter months don't have many daylight hours for my one extra item ;D
a crate of candles are not going to last that long!
Do you have to pay for these items yourself if so would it exceed the winnings??
I would take the challange if there was internet and a computer and a flushing toilet !
Excluding books, personal hygine items, food/medical stuff for animals and human medical stuff my list would inc:-
seeds
1 Mixed salad
2 tomato General
3 Tomato Plum
4 corn
5 pinto beans
6 Shallot Seed
7 Harricot Beans
8 Soya Beans
9 Red Onion
10 White Onion
11 Butternut Squash
12 Onion Squash
13 Spinach
14 Sweet Peppers
15 Chillis
16 melon
17 carrots
18 parsnips
19 Cabbage (savoy)
20 Brussel Sprouts
Tubers
- Sweet Potato
- Potato - Early and late
4 Farm Animals
-2 cows and 2 pigs (one of each sex please and pref with the females already pregnant)
-10 Poultry - Presume you need a male and some females so 2 ducks one of each sex, 2 turkeys one of each sex and 6 chickens one of each sex 3 cookers and 3 layers :)
Dry Goods
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Toilet Roll!!!
Dried Beans/Peas (these will also germinate providing additional crops)
Flour
Pasta
Rice
Breakfast cereal
Instant potato powder
Powdered Egg
Dried Onions, peppers, tomato, garlic
Pulses inc lentils
Soya Mince
Beef/chicken stock cubes
Milk powder
Tea/Coffee
Suger White/Brown
Yeast
Beer Yeast
Honey
Herbs/Spices
Tinned
=======
Tomatos
Baked Beans
Spegetti in tomato sauce
Raviolli
Fruit
Vegis inc potatoes, sweetcorn
Beer malt starter kits
fruit jams
evaporated milk
cream
Tinned Ham
Tinned Spam
Tinned meals - Fray bentos pies, stagg chilli, stew
Soup inc cream of tomato soup, oxtail soup, french onion soup
Bottled (resuable)
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Renit (how ever you spell that but what you use to turn milk into cheese)
Beer, Pepsi Max, 7 up
Chutneys
Pickled onions
Pickled Beetroot
Pickeling Vinager
Milk
brandy, vodka, whiskey, port
Sports Equipment
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-Hard one !! But i am guess excercise bike (static one which i can use to make electricity)
-Push Bike preferably a trike for transport
-Boat (yes this is sports equipment!!)
Tools
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Wetstone
Machette
Saw
Hammer
Shovel
Wolf Garten full set of tools
Additional Item being torn between a fishing kit but i am rig something up with the string and nails so i guess the additional item has to be a bee hive so i can have honey and make candles from the wax...
Packed Lunch
============
In a water proof chest i would like the following as lunch
Roast Chicken
Sliced Ham
Cheese
Salad inc tomatos, cucumbers etc
Boiled eggs
Loaf of bread and Bread rolls
chutney
Pickeled onions & Beetroot
Salt/Pepper
Butter
Tea
Coffee
Suger
Milk
Chilled bottle of white wine, glasses, mugs, plates, knives, forks, spoons, can opener, bottle opener, stove top coffee percolator)
Chilled bottle of sparkeling water x3
1 bottle of port
Bag of alsorted apples and oranges (saving pipps to grow trees from)
In addition to food items i would like the following to accommodate lunch!
Packet of candles
Packet of matches (waterproof)
Storm Lantern (which candles fit inside)
2 picnic blankets
A large bag of coal for a fire and kindling to get fire started
mosi net for over the area were going to eat which might or might not be used as a fishing net in the future :)
I know, but if you were careful you could eek them out for quite a while until you worked out another source of light. Bit gutsy if it gets dark early in the winter but there again I suppose you would get light from the fire. Mind, you'd probably be too knackered to worry about light by the time you had collected the wood for the fire ;D
What would your one extra thing be? I might go off the candles :)
Good grief Cambourne what a brilliant list.
I can see I probably wouldn't last a week. I was just thinking of taking a Toy Boy with me to do the graft, collect the water, fetch the wood etc ;D ;D ;D
You're a survivor Cambourne, I'm a dreamer ;D ;D
I don't think I can enter the challenge Jeannine, I wouldn't last ;D
Quote from: Sinbad7 on July 06, 2010, 19:14:16
Good grief Cambourne what a brilliant list.
I can see I probably wouldn't last a week. I was just thinking of taking a Toy Boy with me to do the graft, collect the water, fetch the wood etc ;D ;D ;D
You're a survivor Cambourne, I'm a dreamer ;D ;D
I don't think I can enter the challenge Jeannine, I wouldn't last ;D
AHAH thanks Sinbad7 in fact i had a nightmare about 3 years ago that would not shift after watching day after tomorrow i would wake up inside the supermarket and i had 20 min to grab anything and fill the car before i had to leave and barricade myself in the house. I know its stupid but i found the only way to stop the stupid nightmare was to actually do a list hence the list above :) So i had a slight unfair advantage hehe :)
you could add a bag of sunflower seeds, flax seeds etc to you lunch box for eating and forget to eat them and plant them instead or use as bait to trap birds for meat :)
It's still a great list Cam however you got to it.
I was so overwhelmed by it I didn't read it fully. The sports bike to make your own electricity stopped me in my tracks as I was thinking candles ;D
But saying that I think you might be spoiling yourself a bit, with the toilet rolls, and Pepsi, beer and vodka ;D ;D And I love the 2 picnic blankets.
This is 5 years we're talking about, wont you be fed up with eggs for breakfast every morning by then. The cereals are only for 6 months.
Mind I like the bee's for the candles would never ever have thought of that.
Quote from: Sinbad7 on July 06, 2010, 19:29:54
It's still a great list Cam however you got to it.
I was so overwhelmed by it I didn't read it fully. The sports bike to make your own electricity stopped me in my tracks as I was thinking candles ;D
But saying that I think you might be spoiling yourself a bit, with the toilet rolls, and Pepsi, beer and vodka ;D ;D And I love the 2 picnic blankets.
This is 5 years we're talking about, wont you be fed up with eggs for breakfast every morning by then. The cereals are only for 6 months.
Mind I like the bee's for the candles would never ever have thought of that.
To be honest i am more of a toast person hence the jam and making cheese :) and thinking about it the bike might be better used for irrigation of crops as you dont want to be 2 close to the water :)
You really want to be there for 5 years without booze!!
You going to have enough stuff for bread for 5 years?
Maybe some of the fancy seeds had better go and you'd be better off growing wheat and barley ;D
True, maybe a crate of wine boxes then, or better still I'd better make my own, I'll go for a crate of the wine kits, oh, but I'd have no bottles to bottle it up with. A dozen bottles of wine in my lunch box the ;D ;D ;D
I really don't think I could trap birds let alone eat them. I'm not too sure I'd be eating my live stock either ;D ;D ;D
dont forget the tin opener x
A good blade to make the tools with is me only real thing to take with me then live off what is available to eat as you do not know where the island is.
What about hair removing cream and hair dye, when I was released after five years they would find a very grey haired hairy person. Probably unrecognisable. Also would I be allowed a copy of Collins Little Gen Food for Free.
Cam, you can't really be serious about taking spam and tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce. ;D ;D
The Spam was OK, it was the vision of Cam pedalling her own leccy that did it for me..I think the extras should have include Vaseline for her sore bits. I wonder how many pedal turns equal half a candle.
Hair dye... maybe you could trade with the natives for that. Did I say there were visiting natives.
Nobody wanted a goat.. oh what a pity, it would have cut the grass for you too, unless Cam was hoping to turn enough leccy to generate her lawnmower.Nobody planning on growing rice?
So you get your baby pigs from the preganat Mum, now what are you going to use to slaughter them? Maybe the machette?
Ducks, nice one, but you are on an island, they may not hang around for very long!!
You were not offered dry goods by way and it said food for 6 months, it didn't offer you a choice!!
Boat? planning an esape or to go fishing from.
Of course if you played your cards right your packed lunch could have all kinds of thing in it you could utilise instead of using stuff from yout list.
Fresh yoghurt eg. you could keep that going.
No cooking oil, how you gonna make your chips to go with the fish caught from your boat.
Oh Landimad, just a good blade, well you are a handy person to have around, maybe you should team up with Sinbad.
So you are going to grow squash, well pick yout types carefully, if you get ones that cross you could end op with more varieties.
Corn, well the older varieties would give you flour.
No strawberry, rhubarb seeds, or are you hoping this island will be full of fruit, well you could be right.
Next bit of info....the island is hot and humid, with a river running though it. Visited occasionally by folks from a nearby island. No internet, no flushing toilets but Landimad could rig one of those. Oh and you will be given a set of drums.
Rennet was the name of the stuff for using in cheesemaking.
This toyboy who is going to be collecting wood, does he have any other talents?Maybe he could do the bird trapping and preparing too.
Good thinking on the sunflower seeds, that is why the packed lunch is of offer by the way.Think of the things you could utilise from that.
Cam, I really like your style though, darn good lists.
XX Jeannine
By the way, I didn't make this up, it is a project that my friends kids did in school.
I remember doing something similar to this exercise in school, a loooong time ago. Nothing as comprehensive as this though.
As far as I remember, we were stuck on a sinking ship, and had a choice of 10 items from a list of 20, but only had five minutes or so to decide. Great fun.
Given the success of my allotment crops I don't think it would matter what I took. I'd be dead from starvation within a season.
If there are visiting natives, and we can assume that they've had no contact with other civilisations, can we use the old colonial trick of taking gold, jewels and wowing them with our 'thunder-sticks'?
That way, we can make out that we're incarnations of native gods and be made kings or queens of the tribe.
That way we get all of the food and drink that we can eat for free. They've got to be a hundred times better at living in that locality that we are.
Also, there would probably also be a ready supply of toy boys, or hand maidens for that matter.