To be prepared for a crisis, every prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We also welcome you to share your planned activities for increasing personal preparedness in the coming week. (Leave a Comment with your project details.) Let’s keep busy and be ready!
JWR
Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
The weather in the northern American Redoubt will be clear and dry with moderate temperatures, this week which will be excellent weather for outdoor activities.
In The Garden and Greenhouse
We’ll be continuing to pull weeds. It looks as though I need to replant certain squashes. I also plan to plant some more carrots, broccoli, and some turnips.
Around The Ranch
Jim will continue to work on the carpentry and plumbing projects which are nearly finished. He will also be hauling firewood from our ranch’s woodlot. Jim will have a shorter work week on the ranch since he needs to make a consulting trip at the end of the week.
Indoor Preps
Number one daughter loves Beef Jerky. She’ll be thawing, seasoning, and dehydrating beef from our recent butchering this week for batch of jerky.
Outdoor Prepping Activities
We plan on cooking at least two meals over the campfire. We also plan on hiking and getting in some fishing this week, if time permits.
HJL
The Latimer Homestead is buckling our belts preparing for the dry, high temperatures expected this week in our area. Because of the unusually high temperatures, our garden and animals will get the bulk of our focus. But we will continue to work on our security and also organization efforts as we have time.
Gardening
We will focus on keeping our gardens and animals hydrated during this week’s high heat. Sarah will contact the people at M&R Durango who make NOLO grasshopper bait for organic gardening and continue to monitor our cucurbita plants. (So far, the spray last week is working well and we have not seen any more bugs or eggs.) We are dealing with some insects on our broccoli, but the spray seems to have eradicated those as well, even though we only lightly sprayed them. We will try to get some weeding done, if the heat allows.
Also, we need to harvest some of our garden items for the refrigerator plus a bulk of chamomile, calendula, yarrow, and other herb and medicinal plants and get them in the freeze dryer, where they are best preserved.
Animal Feeding and Watering
We have received the last of our poultry feed ingredients, so we will mix those in with what we have been giving them and continue to monitor. We are already seeing improvement, even with only a partial “recipe”. Sarah has been sprouting some grain (triticale) to give to them. She thinks that the moist grain may help cool them down, ease their digestion, and provide nourishment as a treat in the afternoon inside their covered run area, where there is shade. They love that, and it is giving them extra protein and enzymes.
We will be adding additional water for the animals this week also.
Security/Video Surveillance and Shop Organization
It is my plan to install two more surveillance cameras on the property this week, if the heat allows. There is some attic work involved so the installation of these cameras will depend on how the morning garden chores go. By 10am, the attic temps are unbearable. The shop organization is going slow, as I haven’t had much time to work on it, but maybe I will this week. I hope to make at least a little progress each week.
Canine Toothpaste
We are running a little low on canine toothpaste, and Sarah has an idea from what she has read on how to make some. She wants to give it a try. Laugh if you want, but when your dog lives inside and sleeps on the foot of the bed, nasty dog breath is not what I want to wake up to. Her plan is to base it on coconut oil, turmeric, parsley, kale powder, and a drop of thieves oil. Our dogs have favored the purchased enzymatic toothpaste that is meat flavored, so we are wondering if we’ll find it as easy to use Sarah’s formula, but adding meat seems like it would not be helping their breath or teeth at the time. Formula suggestions are welcome.
I’m not trying to be critical, but wouldn’t you also deal with fleas and ticks from indoor dogs? I don’t like to have chemicals on them. We have lots of animals on our farm, and every one of them is outside. The only ones that come in ever are the ones who need special nursing during the coldest days of the year. And yes, the dogs have dog breath, but it doesn’t matter, since they’re outside. I don’t spoil my animals that much, I guess. I thought I did, but I guess not.
I’m sure your animals are well taken care of, Rose. We all have different needs and expectations of our animals.
Our dogs serve as excellent protectors and warning. We have had outdoor dogs that are primarily for property management and security, but we also have indoor dogs that do more. I have one that is a great help to me in my chores indoors and outdoors. She picks things up off the floor for me as well as helps with pulling the watering hose, herding animals, and more. Because they are in the house and very personal with the family, they get more maintenance.
We’ve never had fleas and have only seen three ticks in the past five years. Only one was embedded at the time we found them. The one time we had tick-infested animals come onto the property and drop ticks, we treated the area with a mixture of neem powder and diatomaceous earth. We didn’t have a problem after that. All of our domesticated animals have been flea and tick free, with these few exceptions. We try to keep the land free of them. In wet, densely wooded areas, I imagine it would be more difficult than what we experience.
We don’t like those harsh chemicals that are often used for fleas and ticks either. However, our indoor animals are bathed regularly and sprayed with essential oils that prevent these pests. We use a drop of peppermint oil in their conditioner (as it can be consumed in their licking) and then a mixture on their neck and collar that should not be consumed but smells good to us and repulsive to fleas, ticks, and mosquitos. We also use essential oils to protect ourselves against mosquitos and not just fleas and ticks. We use the same blend both on us and on the dog collars. The primary ingredient is rose geranium essential oil along with peppermint oil and a few others. Hugh shared my recipe at one point in a letter. You might search for “rose geranium oil” to locate it using the blog’s search capabilities, if you are interested.
We have three dogs in and out of the house. By far the best way to clean a dog’s teeth is giving them raw beef bones about once a week. Not only does chewing on bones clean their breath, it cleans off ALL the tartar! And the dogs love them. We discovered this after finding out the vets in our area charge up to $400 for teeth cleaning!
Julie, yes raw bones do a great work. However, we seem to need a bit more. When our beef is processed we get the bones for our dogs, so they have bones regularly. We agree with you about wanting to avoid the expense of the teeth cleaning and just as much I want to avoid the risk of the general anesthesia required, too.
Our Vet recommended Science Diet Oral Care. I give our Lab a handful a day. She gets this in addition to her normal feed. A large bag is expensive but at a handful a day lasts a LONG time.
I second the raw bone trick for teeth cleaning. One big one a month seems to do the trick for us.
Security/Video Surveillance and Shop Organization
It is my plan to install two more surveillance cameras on the property this week,……
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Am looking to do such around my place. What I don’t know about the various products would fill volumes.
IF your OP/PERSEC allows you to answer:
What are you installing?
WB
Just as another option, I purchased Amcrest brand cameras for my church. Our pro installer who did our other buildings, charges $1000 per camera for install, plus the cost of the DVR, etc. I got an 8 camera system for less than $300. It cost about $600 for an electrician to come out and put them in with me helping. I probably could have done it myself but felt more comfortable with him there and it looks much more professional than I would have done. Granted they are not of the same quality of his cams but, for less than the cost of one cam from him, I have 8 cams up and running with what I would call good quality. They’ve only been in for a couple months but so far I’m happy with them and used them to see which govt. agency destroyed one of our fences during a snow storm! I’ll give it a few more months and maybe write it up. I got some for my house as well but haven’t put them up yet. It’s on “the list” lol.
Took the BOV to the shop got new bearings put in. Did a 2 mile hike with get home bag. Taught a class on fire starting with a ferrol rod and dryer lint. Repacked the get home bags.
We’ve started harvesting our tomatoes so more of that will be done this week. I pulled a toilet out Saturday to repair the flange, but it was too far gone. After the wife and I discussed it we decided to call in a professional. I was worried I’d damage the PVC pipe since the flange was glued in. They fixed it today for $130.00. While plowing my five-acre field yesterday I had a sealed bearing go out on the harrow. I can’t complain as I got twenty years out of it. Today after work I pulled the axel and replaced the bearing. I keep extra bearings, disks, and an axel handy for situations like this. It took me about an hour to get the gang tore down to replace the bearing and then put back together. The high humidity had me soaking in the evening heat. They are calling for rain all week so most of preps this week will be indoors. The rain will work out well for the field, because even with the harrow failure I was able to get 150 pounds of brown top millet broadcast. To finish the plowing, I barrowed my friend’s harrow that was stored at my place. I did receive a new book this past week, Edible Wild Plants Eastern/Central North America, so I’ll be studying that. Also, while plowing the field I noticed along the edge a lot of black berries were ripe. I picked and ate a handful so I need to take some time to pick some this week when the rain stops.
$130 well spent. Plumbing is my kryptonite
Good to know when to call in a pro. Minor plumbing I can handle-best 4 hours I ever spent with my brother in law learning how to do minor household plumbing stuff. I too have looked at a situation and thought, “nope, beyond what Mike taught me, I’ll only make it worse.” Kryptonite for me is auto mechanics. Just to keep me humble the service advisor at my mechanic is a woman. I usually end up saying, “Cathy, I have no idea what you’re talking about, just fix it and tell me how much I owe you.” Luckily they are honest as all get out! Someday, maybe I’ll take that basic auto maintenance class I keep talking about. Right after the small engine one…