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, 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 had a fairly busy week, wiring, insulating, and plywood sheathing the inside of our new hen house. The wiring was very straightforward with just one outlet and two switches–one for the two overhead lights and one for a 6″ fan. Since the large livestock is now all corraled for the winter, Lily and I collected the partial salt blocks from the pastures. There is no need for them to sit out in the rain and snow.
Speaking of snow, we just completed one small but crucial task: Flipping over both of our chicken tractors onto their tops. We don’t have room for these in our barn, so they have to sit out every winter. They don’t get crushed by the snow if we simply flip them over onto their tops. That is quick and easy. We just have to be sure to reverse the process early next spring, before much grass grows up through the wire mesh.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday. We are actually celebrating it today with all the kids and grandchildren.
Most of this week was cloudy with rain and snow showers. We did have a couple of sunny days.
We did a lot of deep cleaning and organizing this week.
I went cross country skiing several times around the ranch, before the rains came at the end of the week and melted most of it. Wah! It is lovely to be skiing again. Each time I go, Mr. K. (Miss Eloise’s dog), comes with me. He is very good at staying close to me. I let him run free on these ski runs, but we are enclosed by our perimeter fence. Therefore, I am not worried about him running off on the ranch. He comes to me well enough when we are moving along and I call him, but when he is outside and we are inside and call him, he doesn’t yet come well. If we are working in the yard and giving him free time we want him to come also when we call. He does not yet come so well when she calls him. He is learning and is still a very young pup. Additionally, Miss Eloise has gotten a new job and will be gone much of the day. We will be dog-sitting. Therefore, I want him to also obey me and Jim, so I spent some hours working with him, teaching him to stay, wait, sit and come. Come is the most important to me, since, I’m not interested in chasing him AND I want him to go out into the national forest with me skiing this winter. I need him to come to me immediately, if we meet up with other people, dogs or wildlife.
I also had a couple of training sessions with the little female pup, H.; heel, sit, stay, come. She is a little cutie. She has a very endearing way, of jumping up and gripping my thigh with her claws when greeting me or asking for a treat. She actually uses her paws to “hold” me, not just to place her paws on me for balance when standing up.
I cleaned out the new hen house. It is a real pleasure to clean it out, since the company that built it, upgraded their model since the last one we bought from them. This one has a thick coat of glossy waterproof paint on the floor, that makes the sweeping out of the soiled damp straw a breeze. Of course all of that lovely soiled straw went into my ever-growing compost pile, Yes!
I have been cleaning up the cow and horse manure in the parking lot and loafing areas and putting it in the compost pile.
The sheep are now settled into their sheep shed. Jim bought a crook this week and asked me to see if it fit their necks. I chased the ram around and caught him with it, gently. He dragged me around for one circle in the stall. I released him. I was tired and wasn’t thinking very clearly, pushing the envelope, so to speak. (Also, I am not familiar with sheep, their behavior, warnings, do’s and don’ts and where their trigger point is, if there is a trigger point) and immediately tried to make friends with him, pet him and scratch his back. I had to follow him around a few times to get the scratch in and to feel his wool. It’s thick and soft. He was not happy with me at all. Suddenly, he charged me and butted my thigh very hard. Ouch! He is not a very big ram, at all. It surprised me and alarmed me at how powerful he was and that it really hurt. I wasn’t sure how quick he would repeat his action, therefore, I high-tailed it out of the stall. Now, I’m not sure about him at all, if we can be friends… Only, observation, time and experience will educate me…
The girls and I did a whole lot of food prep and baking of egg bread, pumpkin and apple pies, plum/apple pudding and a birthday cake on Friday. There is a lot more of cooking and cleaning to be done on Saturday before our family arrives.
We are listening to the book of Acts this week.
Wildlife Story
As many of our regular readers know, we have a wild hen turkey that winters with us every year. We call her Mrs. Turkey. Generally speaking at night she roosts high up in our Grand fir or pine trees. Lately, when I have been going out to do the evening chores after dark, I have been seeing her roosting on the top rail of our corral fence that is right up against the milking shed. The fence and the shed form a small cozy corner against the rest of the barn. Currently all of our Bovines and Equines are in this corral. I know that she enjoys the companionship of our large animals. However, I am surprised that she is staying close to them at night so low to the ground. She is not making a wise choice in my opinion. I don’t like it. I have been able to approach her very closely and even touch her on the back and breast in the dark, because she cannot see.
Because I am worried for her, I have been shining my flashlight up to a nearby tree and nudging her enough to get her to fly up to those trees, lighting her path up to them. I think, she knows it’s me and isn’t worried about me which is why I had to keep nudging her to get her to fly. It’s rather cool to be able to touch a wild bird and to help her get up to them after dark by lighting her way… I wonder if I will have to do this all winter? Does she feel that safe and comfortable on our ranch? I think she is being stupid or lazy. She appears to be in excellent health. There are raccoons and other predators that could get her. She is getting really comfortable here. She waits outside the hen house door for me to throw her some layer pellets every day. She likes to peek in the door to see the chickens when I go in or come out. She lets me get within two feet of her during the day and gets in close to the cows and horses all of the time. It’s quite a cozy little community of animals we have out there. And no, we are not going to eat her for Thanksgiving of which we will be celebrating, today. And no, as I was first writing this, I was not writing this story because it’s Thanksgiving. In fact as I was drafting this, on Monday night, Thanksgiving was the furthest from my mind. And then my eye fell on the photo, I hadn’t noticed it when I came into the WordPress page, to write. When composing, the “Featured Image” is located in the sidebar. Jim picked out the turkey photo, and for a brief moment, I thought, “wait minute”, how did he know I was going to write about Mrs. Turkey?” Then I remembered , ‘Oh, duh, it’s Thanksgiving, later this week.” 😉
Update on Mrs. Turkey, during the past few nights, it seems that she is going back up into the trees on her own at dusk. I am happy that she has returned to this normal and safe turkey behavior.
We are very thankful for the support and friendship of all of you, our readers of our Blog.
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 want to hear from you.