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:
This past week, we were very busy with slash burning and manure hauling. We also did some furniture moving, to get Miss Violet (our younger daughter) set up in her new room.
Our kitchen remodeling project also necessitated some extra trips to town, for painting supplies, new light fixtures, outlet plates, light switch plates, et cetera. Now that the roads have cleared, this is a very scenic time of year to travel. We saw snowy peaks, the first greening of the meadows, and rushing snowmelt rivulets. We were also blessed with mostly clear skies. Gorgeous! But all those hours of driving — and the fuel expenses, these days — do add up.
Lily will now fill you in with more details…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Yes, it has been a beautiful week with one day in the mid-sixties. It was wonderful to run around outside in a t-shirt for a few hours.
This week, after more than eight months of our Great room being in upheavel from the removal of the oriental rug, due to the arrival of puppies, and the general chaos of painting much of the house and the remodeling of the kitchen counter tops, we are finally seeing the end of the puppy and remodel chaos tunnel. Thank God.
This week, the kitchen counter tops were completed, though we still need to put in a new sink when it arrives.
Now that our female pup is of a more trustworthy toileting age, we have once again, laid out the Oriental wool rug in our sitting area of the Great room, returning our home to it’s beautiful, peaceful, cozy and comfortable, welcoming state.
Our laundry room is now back in order with new paint and new counter tops.
Also because of the pup’s maturity and the increasing tolerance and fellowship between the cats and the pup, we removed the child’s gate that separated the laundry room and pantry hall from the main part of the house, further opening up obstacle-free quick movement from one part of the house to the other! That is further contributing to increasing my feeling of openness, release and freedom.
We still have some more things to do, like put in the new wood cookstove that should be arriving this week and completing our search for a few light fixtures, a kitchen faucet, and possibly a new appliance, curtains and shades, etc. I’ve also pared down pots, pans, utensils and dishes in the kitchen to what I use on a regular basis and what I would need if we had guests, etc. I also cleared out many of the foods that were being stored in the kitchen that we no longer eat much of, namely flours, grains, pastas, some store-bought canned goods and homemade canned foods. We’re keeping these items for guests, but are storing them elsewhere. I’ve also cleared out the laundry room of all of our extra detergents and cleaning materials, etc. Most everything has been placed in our pantry hallway that is now overflowing at this point, and will need to be seriously addressed in the coming weeks. It’s just important to me to get the main living area of the house, cleaned out, so that I can function, cook and clean with much more ease and have more time for the fun homesteading/prepping, exercising stuff. I find in my older age, that I stress when I see too much clutter/busyness in my immediate surroundings. I don’t want so much visual stimulation. I still want to be prepared and stocked up, but I want the majority of it stored out of my sight and out of my immediate living space…We’re working on establishing an additional specific storage space for it all.
Miss Violet’s finally moved into her new bedroom this week. She has decorated and arranged her furniture in a very tasteful manner. We were going to build her a desk this week, but at the end of the week, we saw a beautiful little wood desk at a furniture store and bought that instead.
We also culled out some more furniture that we no longer need, a bunk bed and two dressers.
In recent years, I have not had houseplants, but this week, we bought about ten plants to liven up the bedrooms and Great room. They are a lovely decorative touch. I prefer plants to knicknacks or even pictures on the walls. We are not putting back up our pictures.
I have been candling the chicken eggs that are being incubated, and see signs of life developing in them. We have one more week to go, before the great hatch occurs. 😉
This week, Jim and I cleaned out the manure from our two-stall cow shed. It was the deepest manure we’ve ever had in there. It was more than twelve inches thick. We tossed it out into the corrals, while our neighbor scooped it up with his tractor and brought it to the manure pile in the main garden. He also scooped up all of the manure in the corrals and put it also in the Main garden manure pile. It was a huge job but, that manure pile is the largest it’s ever been. Yes! Next fall or the following spring–after it has composted–it will be spread on the gardens. Black Gold!
This week, I have also been filling my seedling trays with soil and planting cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, tomatoes to grow down in the Annex garden. Additionally, in bussing trays that will remain in the greenhouse, I have been planting seeds of beets, Swiss chard, kale, spinach, pac choi, basil, Italian lettuce mix, etc for greens in the coming weeks. I plan to also give the main beds in the greenhouse a Shmittah break, also this summer, but will utilize bussing trays and giant pots for greens, early in the growing season.
My herb garden from here on out will be referred to as the Perennial Garden. I plan on transplanting my strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus into it, as well as planting many other perennial herbs. We plan on covering the Perennial garden with wood chips to keep the weeds down in the coming weeks.
This week I’ve begun reading a PDF version of a book called, “Holocaust Victims Accuse” by Reb Moshe Shonfeld. You may wish to check it out.
Keep praying, reading God’s Word, gardening, studying about wild edible foraging, and stocking up on food, cleaning and medical supplies and buying tangibles. Soon the dollar will be worthless and your wealth will be in what you have in your possession. Get prepared to live outside the new coming digital monetary slave system. It most likely will be the Mark of the Beast System spoken of in Revelation 13 and 14. It is coming fast.
The Lord Jesus be with all of you!
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.