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’m pleased to report that we became grandparents again. Both Baby and Mom are doing fine. I’m just hoping that all of our kids decide to live nearby us, long term. That will make the “Grandpa and Grandma Time” much easier to manage.
For a ranching family in “the dead of winter”, we’ve been surprisingly busy this past week. We’ve had lots of errands that kept us on the road, plenty of projects around the ranch. I generally try to keep the blog written three days in advance. But with all this activity, I’m down to just being one day ahead. Some of my errands took me as far away as Coeur d’Alene. One of those trips basically shoots an entire day.
That reminds me: I should mention that living in a remote and lightly-peopled area has its drawbacks and requires some special planning. You don’t just casually say: “I need to shop in the Big City today.” You need to maximize the benefits of the trip with some phone calls and web research in advance. If you don’t come home from one of these infrequent trips without your vehicle full, then you’ve failed in terms of logistical efficiency. As we used to say in the Army: “Bzzzzzt. You are a No-Go on this station.”
One other thing about living in the hinterboonies that I don’t believe I’ve previously mentioned: When choosing a brand of pickup truck, then consider the brand sold by the nearest dealership that has a fully-stocked parts department. If it is an extra 60 miles of driving to get you to a fill-in-the-blank _________Ford/Chevrolet/Dodge dealership, then you should probably skip buying that brand. Stick with what is common in your vicinity, and with parts readily available.
I’m pleased to report that the sale of my late mother’s house went well. It sold for a good step above the asking price to a cash buyer, in just five days. Close of escrow came just 10 days later. It doesn’t get much better than that. Given the pile of paperwork now required for a home sale in California, that was quite a feat. My sister (the trustee) and an excellent real estate agent handled it all, wonderfully.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week The weather was quite nice with snow showers, some sun and rain. I saw a sundog, a huge circle made from high water crystals in the atmosphere, one exceptionally cold day of a high of twenty degrees.
I went for a three-mile hike with some of our neighbors during a snowy afternoon up into another area of the National Forest. We caught a view of a beautiful little waterfall and some of the majestic mountains of our region.
I skied for an hour at the end of the week around the ranch.
Miss Eloise, Miss Violet and I all got our dog K. to pull us up and down the driveway in a small toboggan. IT WAS LOADS OF FUN! He is getting so big and strong. He enjoyed himself, too.
One day this week our horses had a spa day. Our farrier came and trimmed their hooves. I gave them a super good brushing of their fur and manes. They were given snacks of dry cob, apples, and carrots. They really enjoyed the attention and now they are looking like the very beautiful lawn ornaments that they are at this time of year. 😉
Of course, I spent time doing the usual housework: vacuuming, dusting, washing windows, bathrooms, laundry, dishes, cooking.
I culled out the last of our apples that had been harvested from our apple trees and fed them to the beasties and put the still edible ones in the refrigerator for smoothies and an apple something or other, that I will bake.
I read and translated up to Genesis Chapter 33 in my bible studies in Hebrew and Latin.
We are very excited about that little grandchild that has been added to our family this week, a real little cutie! We’re looking forward to meeting that little one face to face. 😉
We want to sincerely thank all of our readers that stepped up to the plate and sent in their Ten Cent Challenge donations during the past four weeks. We really appreciate the payments AND WE SUPER ENJOYED reading your letters to us. They were so encouraging to us and warmed our hearts to know how you feel about the Blog and are also supporting all that we are standing for.
Listen… Here is a POSSIBLE scenario of what is coming next to be on guard about:
The whole world is up in arms about the Covid-19 plandemic and are demanding an end to the mandates. All over the world governments are now opening up and dropping these mandates. Do not be deceived. Just because they give us back our “freedom” doesn’t mean they are really doing so. For one, at least two-thirds of the world’s population in developed countries has taken these kill shots. These people could all be sick or dying in the next three years of immune system depletion diseases such as cancers, autoimmune diseases, and cardiac issues. So the elites have accomplished one step toward their stated goal of dropping the world’s population down to five hundred million. The next thing that very well might happen is that they will release a far deadlier set of viruses and they are perhaps counting on people not believing that they are so deadly, but they will be. Perhaps something like Ebola or Marburg, or perhaps Smallpox. Ebola and Marburg have a death rate of one out of three. Also, the threat of war is now sky-high.
So all of this to say is do not trust the authorities! Do not believe that everything will be returning to normal. Do not be deceived by them. Continue to get ready to hunker down and to isolate once again. Keep the course of continuing to stock up even more. We need at least three years worth of food and more probably even seven years if possible. Do the best that you can…
Update on my Dad: This week, he had two days of the “rotorootering” of his arteries near his heart, one artery had the greasy-type plaque while the other had calcified plaque; and having stents put in. He will spend another night in the hospital and hopefully will be released tomorrow afternoon. He is doing well, but please continue to pray that his body adjusts well to the stents and heals up from the invasion that it had this week and that there are no further complications. Thank You very much. We really appreciate all of your prayers for him.
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.