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Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles [1], but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in this column, in the Odds ‘n Sods Column, and in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

It is great to be back at the ranch! I was surprised to see that the snow coverage is now down just to patches in some shady spots.  It looks like we are having an early spring this year.

Sales at Elk Creek Company [2] have been very brisk. With the help of Miss Eloise, we got nine boxes packed, labeled, and shipped on Friday.  Another four boxes will be ready to mail out on Monday morning.  Take note that a U.S. Senate vote on the Federal “Universal Background Checks” bill — actually criminalizing private party transfers — is looming.  It already passed in the House. So everyone seems anxious to buy a couple of guns that will be Federally exempt under that pending legislation. This means either pre-1899 manufactured cartridge guns or shootable percussion revolvers. I sell carefully selected examples of both. These guns truly will be the last bastion of gun sales privacy in America. Please note that my inventory replacement costs are going up sharply, so this may be your last chance to grab a pre-1899 gun at a reasonable price.

If you have any questions about any of our listed items, the fairly memorable phone number for Elk Creek Company is:  (308) 270-2535. (We chose that as a sort of inside joke, for shooters.)

On Monday afternoon, I’ll be very busy working my way through Lily’s “Honey Do” list. A couple of projects in the hen house are at the top of her list. I’ll have more to report on that, next week. Now, over to  Lily…

Avalanche Lily Reports:

Dear Readers,

Jim is Home!!  Halleluyah!  The week was sunny and beautiful, but only warmish the past three days.  The vultures returned to the unnamed mountain behind our ranch this week.  I am now awaiting for the arrival of our hummingbirds which should be during this next week or two…

The week flew by. I hardly remember what I did.

We had a wonderful Passover Seder meal with our Bible Study group here at the ranch.  I really enjoyed hosting our group.  It was so nice to have all of our friends sitting at our table, discussing the Word of God.  Jim joined us too, through the Wire App.  Jim joked that he and the NSA got to participate in our Seder meal.  One of our members quipped that the “NSA got a little bit of Religion” with us!  😉 Jesus IS the Feasts of the Lord.  He is the Passover Lamb, He is the Unleavened bread, He is the First Fruits of the Resurrection, He is the Trumpet, He is our covering, caparah, from sin and He is the Tabernacle.

The day of Jim’s return, our neighbor came over again, with his tractor to take out a 120 foot, one-layered decorative rock wall that separated the Main garden from the small strip of lawn between the Main garden and the house. One of the previous owners had built it. I hated that “wall.”  It lifted the garden up from the lawn about a foot and a half.  Most of it was hidden from the fifteen years plus of grass and soil build-up.  I often hit the rocks with the rototiller or the lawnmower.  The neighbor came and dug up the rocks with his backhoe.  They were heavy, some over, I’m guessing, sixty pounds. Then we tossed the rocks into the tractor’s bucket and he loaded them in his trailer and took them home to use for a project of his own. After he left, I rototilled the “wall” and raked to spread out the soil to make a very gentle slope up to the garden.  I will be extending the garden out a little bit from the area that the wall took up.

We have another area right next to the house that also has a one-layer rock wall that enclosed a flower bed of chives and a dark purple Columbine cultivar flower. I am slowly removing the rocks by hand.  I have no use for rock walls. I’m not a flower bed type of person. I like flowers very much, but prefer wildflowers more than the cultivated variety.  Plus, I don’t want to grow any flowers that would be poisonous to our cows or horses, since they’re bovine and equine delinquents and more often than I would like, break into my garden.  I wouldn’t want them eating poisonous flowers.

Miss Violet prepped six trays worth of three-inch seed planting pots to start our tomatoes and squash in the Greenhouse, next week.

A friend needed to downsize their flock of birds, so sent some over to our ranch this past weekend. So, I am caring for those, while Miss Violet is caring for her flock. When Miss Violet’s flock is old enough, they will join these birds and then she’ll care for all of them.

Miss Eloise has been working Ch. the horse quite often recently.

I sowed pasture grass seed around different bare areas of the ranch.

I spent a lot of time, studying the raw food diet.  I think that this is a healthy way of eating.  I have begun to do so.  I plan to eat 75% raw, fruits, nuts, and veggies, and 25% cooked. I will still eat cooked meat, just not as much.  I am currently not eating any grains or dairy.  I am cutting back on all oil use and frying foods. I did only eat olive and coconut, but feel that it is time to cut back.  I have been struggling with some digestive issues which are causing other issues and found from testing that I am lacking or am low in some micronutrients and need a non-drug, non-supplement solution.  After a week of eating this way, I am feeling much better and surprisingly am maintaining my weight and I lost some face wrinkles.  Hah!  That is a wonderful thing! It’s a very hydrating diet. It tastes great, too.

I mentioned this change of diet to a friend and said that I am definitely planning to grow a whole lot more greens than I ever have. She asked how I would preserve my greens for the winter.  Well, my answer is that I guess, I will continue to dehydrate, can, and freeze, most of them, and perhaps, as long as we have power, keep some growing in the Indoor Bathroom Greenhouse…

For several reasons, this week was a week of doing a ton of laundry, it was a marathon job.  I also did a lot of food prep, cooking, and house cleaning.  I also had to go on several mail runs and did some grocery shopping.  Because I am now playing/working in the garden, and constantly walking through the house, going in and out of three different doors, depending on which area of the ranch I’m going to, my house has to be vacuumed twice a day and the floors washed more frequently.

I listened to the first fifteen chapters of the Book of Matthew in Hebrew from Youtube [3] and followed along with E-Sword reading in English. I love studying scripture in this manner.

Keep watching events, reading the scriptures and praying that you would escape all things.  Jesus Christ is the First Fruit of the Resurrection.  Jesus is Alive! He is Risen Indeed! He is our hope and our strength and we will praise Him forever.

May you all have a very blessed and safe week.

– Avalanche Lily, Rawles

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As always,  please share and send e-mails of your own successes and hard-earned wisdom and we will post them in the “Snippets” column this coming week.  We still want to hear from you.