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:
I’ve been spending some quality time with my chainsaws. The main woodshed is about half full. I should have that topped off in about 12 days, if the weather cooperates, and my back stays in good shape. But I will probably carry on for at least another week and cut even more, as is my habit. As long as I rotate and consistently burn from the various piles each winter, none of my stored firewood will ever go to waste.
Our #2 Son has returned home for a visit, from out-of-state. He plans to help me with some of the felling, hauling, and splitting. My daughters will probably handle nearly all of the wood stacking, as usual.
I had to do another fence repair, where some of our Bovine Delinquents had decided The Grass is Greener on The Other Side. Grumble, grumble.
I also went into the nearest good-sized town (more than a one-hour drive). At the farm and ranch store, I bought some supplies for a cross-fencing project, and a corral upgrade. I bought just one tube gate, two heavy-duty cattle panels, a roll of 9-gauge smooth wire for the H-braces, and a 330-foot roll of woven Field Fencing. I nearly had a heart attack when they told me that my bill was around $1,800! The bill would have been even higher because my original plan was to also buy 20 heavy-duty T-posts. But the store was sold out, and they told me that the other store in town was also sold out of T-posts. Oh, and I noticed that their supply of cattle panels was very badly depleted–less than 20% of what they normally keep on hand. The supply chain is fraying and perhaps broken, folks!
Our Jeff Cooper’s Birthday Sale at Elk Creek Company [2] will begin on Monday, May 10th, and end on May 21st. Prices will be reduced on more than half of our pre-1899 gun and percussion replica gun inventory. This could be your last chance to grab some federally exempt guns before prices get out of reach. I fully expect pre-1899s to double or more in price once the Feds enact their “Universal Background Checks” scheme. That is actually a ban on private party sales of post-1899 guns. Once that becomes the law of the land, folks will wake up to the unique private transfer status of pre-1899 guns.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Well, It has been a beautiful week here at the Rawles Ranch. I have to say that I am not as chatty this week, as last week. I apologize. I have been super busy deep cleaning the house and putting in more of the garden. In fact, as I write this just few hours before it’s due, I’m quite tired out. 😉 But in a good way.
One morning this week, I woke up as a woman on a mission to continue deep cleaning the house. I dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed the Great Goom from floor to ceiling, literally, washing the tops of cabinets and walls to the ceilings that had not been washed in who knows how long, especially above a set of cabinets. Chandeliers, ceiling fans, and their light fixture glass bits were washed. Jim came out to watch me and called me “the Alpine girl” (Hah, Hah!), because I was “Rock Climbing” our cabinets, standing on counters, our stove, and hanging onto the tops of the cabinets for support. They have a small divet on their edge that makes a handy finger hold. One of our family mottos is: “Always maintain three points of contact.” 😉 (Jim picked up that phrase in his rock climbing training at Northern Warfare School, in Alaska. He often quotes it, so it has become a family motto.) He was continuously admonishing me to be very careful! I was. I also used a ladder for the area above the refrigerator and on one set of ceiling fans. The Great Room feels so good now. 😉 And two days later, I suffered from neck and shoulder muscle pain for several days! The price we have to pay for a clean home…
I planted the leeks that I had started in February in the Main garden, as well as broccoli.
I spent a couple of hours rototilling the Extension Garden, and raking up two forty-foot-long mounded rows, so far, and planted them with potatoes: fingerlings, red, and Banana, and a purple-skinned potato, that I love to eat. I don’t remember its name, but I have been growing it for quite a few years, now. I have a lot more potatoes still to plant, next week: Russets, Yukon Gold, Chieftain Reds, and Adirondack Purples. A part of the Extension Garden is my herb garden, but this year the rest of it will be a huge potato patch for the first time.
All of our chickies are doing very well. I love having babies around the ranch.
I got away from my on-going Bible studies of the New Testament in the Hebrew language. Hanging my head in shame. I have listened to some of the Psalms this week and have been reading and listening to prophetic web sites, but need to get back into the Word itself! No excuse! I have weeks on and a few weeks off from time to time. It’s life. But we need to keep pressing on and in. His Word is our very life! I have been able to go off a few times this week to pray around our property.
Listen, I hope you are all following the news and are researching the vaccines and the Green Passports. I hope and pray that you see that taking the vaccine and the Passport are incredibly dangerous for your physical health, freedom, and eternal life. I hope you can see that our country is in the process of being taken over by a Totalitarian Digital Dictatorship. All of us must be actively working at disengaging from this society and its economic system. As Christians, we cannot participate in it. You cannot take the Mark, and I believe that the COVID-19 “vaccine” (genetic programming) is a part of it.
May you all have a very blessed and safe week.
– Avalanche Lily, Rawles
o o o
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 want to hear from you.