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 have now mostly recovered from my sprained ankle, so I’m back to light duty around the ranch. This past week, I did a little work on remodeling the workshop. I also set up stock tank heaters for the winter. And I drained and rolled up hoses to keep them away from the predation of our snow plow blade. (I’ve accidentally severed two hoses, over the years, so now I keep them coiled up far away from where I plow!)
I also burned all of our slash piles.
Now, on to Lily’s news:
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather in the Redoubt has been mostly cold in the forties and rainy in our valley, but snowy just above us in the mountains. Our mountains above the four thousand-foot level have had snow on them all week. We are definitely in for an early winter. It’s not even November, yet… Usually, we get some snow at the end of November and then accumulating snow in late December.
A lot happened this week.
Most exciting to me, we received the part that needed to be fixed back from the fix-it guys, for the wood cookstove, one day while I was in town doing errands. Miss Violet forgot to tell us that the fix-it guy installed it while we were gone and I didn’t notice it on the stove until the early the next morning. As soon as I saw it, I questioned Miss Violet about it. She confirmed that the fix-it guy had indeed come and installed it the day before. I then ran to Jim and informed him that the fixed part was here and had been installed and asked it there was anything else we needed to do before we could fire it up. There was not. You better believe I was super excited. I immediately kindled a fire in its firebox and opened all of the windows to air out the house from the chemicals that would be burned off from the new stove and the stove pipe.
Then, seeing how much wood that it would take and that small thin pieces of wood were better for hot fires, I went outside and split several armfuls of wood.
Miss Eloise was coming home for dinner that day. Therefore, I decided to cook her requested meal, Baked Delicata squash, Roasted red potatoes, an apple crisp, stir-fried lamb, and a salad, on the wood cookstove top and using its oven. When I first fired up the stove, the temperature gauge for the oven went up to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Later, when I wanted to bake the squash, potatoes and crisp the temperature dropped to 275. I baked those three items for an hour and a half and tried to get the temperature back up to 350 or higher and only managed to get it to 300, but by that time the three items were mostly cooked it was getting late so I finished those in the propane oven. But the top of the stove was super hot and the lamb stir-fry cooked lickety-split. I loved it.
If you’re curious about how I seasoned this meal, I rolled the potatoes in extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled them with rosemary, thyme, oregano, salt parsley, and a tiny bit of black pepper. The lamb was seasoned with onion, garlic, cumin, parsley, oregano, mint, and salt. Sometimes, I add lemon juice, but I did not this time. The Delicata squash was eaten with butter or coconut butter and salt. The salad was made with Winter lettuce, Swiss Chard and spinach — all from the greenhouse, my tomatoes that are ripening in a tray in the house and a store-bought European cucumber. Miss Violet brought her favorite store-bought salad dressing for those who wanted it. The meal was very yummy.
Since that day I have cooked one more stir-fry meal in frypan on the stovetop surface. I will be cooking with it on a regular basis from here on out. I now have added a new chore to my day: wood splitting. We also are organizing our kitchen for the wood storage and functionality. Currently, I am using one of my large black planter pots to hold the wood next to the cook stove and a black dish pan for kindling, items such as paper small wood and pine cones. We just ordered a canvas wood carrier. Though we have a special pass-through door to the house from the wood shed, I want to keep the big wood in there for the wood heating stove and keep the smaller wood cookstove wood nearer to the cook stove. So I would rather carry the wood in through the regular door than through the little wood passthrough.
Anyhow, as you can tell, I am super excited to be able to cook off-grid in the house with wood.
The past few mornings I have woken up much earlier than usual and have come out to the kitchen and fired up the wood cookstove. I’ve then heated up water for mint tea and have sat quietly on a kitchen table chair situated directly in front of the glass door of the wood cookstove. There sipping the mint tea, praying and contemplating God, his word, the world, and the plans for the day. It is so cozy.
Earlier in the week, I repaired some holes in my old work cashmere sweaters just to keep them a bit more presentable and to keep the holes from expanding. Some of the holes were caused by Miss H. our young female dog’s nails when she jumps up to greet me. She loves me and I don’t have the heart to discipline this exuberant display of love to me. I do gently try to discourage it. She only jumps up on me not the others in greetings ;-).
I cleaned the Hen House, twice. The baby birds are growing fast. They are “a poopy lot, they are”! 😉
I split wood several times.
We received an order of a case of red peppers. I chopped a batch and froze that which came up to a gallon, and then I put Miss Violet to work on chopping the rest of them. Those, I dehydrated. They dehydrated down to one quart and a pint’s worth.
I also received an order for ground Chicken, ground lamb, and Salmon chub. Additionally, I ordered cut and dehydrated rose hips. I’m looking forward to making teas with them.
Jim and I moved more food out to the root cellar.
I went through my armoire and took out a lot of extra clothes, two large totes worth, that I hd bought for the future, my favorite jeans and t-shirts, and/or am not currently wearing, boxed them up and labeled them and put them in storage. Now, I can function better in the armoire.
We moved totes of sewing material, extra bathroom towels and kitchen towels and washcloths, and a sundry of other items out of our bedroom. It is so nice to have another place to store so many things that we have accumulated over the years for, “in case of the SHTF”. As I’ve always said, There is a very fine line between stocking up, having extra, and hoarding.
We all saw the dentist for a cleaning and check-ups, this week.
We made a run to the post office this week.
I helped Jim tend the slash pile fires since he was gimping along and it was difficult for him to walk to all of the piles, the distances are great when one is hobbling, and he had to get back to editing the blog.
My rant time:
Don’t be deceived, Tulsi Gabbard is not for Christian conservatives: The Untold Truth of Tulsi Gabbard.
Don’t kid yourselves she is still a Democrat at heart! Leopards do not change their spots. She is also associated with the World Economic Forum (WEF) and is being groomed for the presidency. Trump did not change his spots either, when he switched parties. It’s all charades and theatrics. They hand you a few carrots to make you happy, but behind the scenes, they are wheeling and dealing for our demise. Our political system is not Republican or Democrat Right or Left, it is the same coin. Both parties have the same goals and have been co-opted by the Masonic/Kabbalistic order. Do the research on this. That is Satan’s Order. God said we are to turn neither to the right nor the left. See these three scriptures:
Proverbs 4:27
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
Joshua 1:7 Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
Joshua 23:6
Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left;
So frankly, in my opinion, that also means politics. Isn’t it amazing how the Kabbalists ignored God’s word when they created the political designations to right and left, against God’s explicit orders to not be either???
If you belong to Christ then you are not of this world. This is not our home. We are looking to the Heavenly Kingdom that is to come.
The voting and honest counting of ballots has been co-opted and the candidates are mostly liars and deceivers.
I refuse to take sides and play their political games any longer.
Look at what the man of God said to Joshua concerning the upcoming battle and taking sides:
Joshua 5:13-15
Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”
“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”
The commander of the LORD’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
And finally, Please read Hebrews 12:18-29. And then please listen to a song, from Paul Wilbur’s “Up to Zion” (Crank up the volume, and praise the LORD God!)
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.