Editors’ Prepping Progress

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’ll start out this column with a bit of reminiscing. It was in December of 1990 — 32 years ago, this month — that I completed writing the online shareware novel The Gray Nineties. That grew into what was later re-titled Triple Ought, and then Patriots. When I wrote that manuscript, I was 30 years old. My eldest son was born in September of the following year. He is now an Engineer with a Bachelor of Science degree, a published author, and has a family of his own. It seems so odd… I’m pondering that my son is now older than I was when I wrote my first novel. He is the little boy that you see playing in the background of the photo above. And that’s me in the foreground, at my first ranch, near Orofino. That was before the onset of gray hair and slight pudginess. Now, at age 62, I’m still splitting wood and writing books. But I’m wondering who that old guy is, in the mirror.

I’m still piecemealing my way through the workshop remodeling project. My progress has slowed recently because I’ve had other projects come up. Mostly snowplowing. Lots of snowplowing. We’ve also started obstacle course training our year-old pup. My wife Avalanche Lily will fill you in on that…

Avalanche Lily Reports:

Dear Readers,
We have had some snow and sunshine this week.  It feels like January here.

This week I cleaned the hen house, once.

I cleaned and organized as one of our gifts to Miss Violet for her birthday this week, her bedroom closet and drawers.  We went through her clothes together and took out the too-small items and a few that she doesn’t like anymore, et cetera.

Miss H, our year-old dog has so much energy. I now have more time on my hands, not gardening nor preserving, much. So I decided to begin agility training her, with an obstacle course.  I began by asking her to jump up on all of our furniture in turn, since she already jumps up on one couch when I ask her to go up on it when I don’t want her to go outside with me, rush out the door the moment I open it. Then I had her get on an upside down two-foot by three-foot black shallow plastic trough we have for the animals that is currently not being used. I had her jump on the two couches and two chairs I then had her jump up on the inverted trough.  (Next, I want her to jump up on a round laundry bucket.)  Then I retrieved one of our pickup’s spare summer tires and put it on our porch against the railing very close to the corner and blocked the open side with a folded up laundry rack. I put her beloved frisbee in the enclosed area and coaxed her to walk through the tire to retrieve her it.  I did that multiple times.  Then back in the house, I put a 2″ by 12″ ten-footer plank up on two couches in the living room and taught her to walk across the plank from one couch to the other.  I also had her jump over that plank while chasing me, numerous times. She is a fast learner and is enjoying this interaction with me.  My goal at this time with this training is to stimulate her, give her some fun, and improve her agility.

We need to get our wood heating stove chimney cleaned out. With Jim’s foot still healing and my deep uncomfortableness with heights preventing either of us from doing the job, we are awaiting a local guy to get to it.  We decided, this week to not to use the woodstove, anymore, until it is cleaned.  Thankfully, our new wood cook stove is in great shape and because it has an unusually deep firebox so it can also be used to heat the house. It is doing a great job doing so, now that we’ve learned how to use it properly.  Therefore, I have been chopping kindling and smaller wood this week to keep it going and I have also been cooking meals on it, quite regularly.

I am blessing our nearest neighbors. They are in the long process of moving up here from somewhere in the south. They are currently down there.  We really love and enjoy this family. This week I spent two hours plowing their driveway and shoveling out their walkway and in front of their garage, for them.  I enjoy doing the job for them, because it gets me out of the house and off the ranch and helps me practice my new skill set of plowing snow with our pickup. And it is a good workout, to shovel for them.

This time, I got stuck twice! Once in just the regular depth of twenty-plus inches of soft snow that I accidentally drove a little too far down a slight slope of grass and the pickup didn’t want to get back up –even in 4WD with studded snow tires. I quickly shoveled out and put sand under the wheels and was able to drive back out. Then, the second time, I had almost finished the job and decided unwisely, to try to widen the driveway just a little bit more at the entrance to the county road where the county plow pushes the road snow into the driveway and where I had pushed the snow over to the edge of the driveway to a height about four feet. As I pushed the snow along the four-foot bank and that which was in front of the plow, the snow became very compacted between the plow head and the truck. The front right wheel drove up onto about six inches snow off of the ground and was right next to/into the snow bank which had a depth of four feet.  I could not drive forward nor backward.  By that time I was hungry and sugar-dropping, which I find nerve-wracking. I was not happy with myself.  There was no way that I was going walk home, a fair distance, about a twenty-minute walk, to “beg” Jim for help getting myself out of this predicament. Jim, of course, would help me at a moment’s notice, if I asked for help.  But it was my job and my fault. I drove the pick-up into the snow and got stuck. I was going to finish the job I started!

I jumped out of the pickup, grabbed the shovel, gritted my teeth and began shoveling. I prayed the whole time that I was digging out of the four-foot mess.  With every shovel load, I prayed and declared, that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  There is a kid’s song that I played for my children when they were little. I sang this song as I worked. “I can do all things, all things, all things. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13”.   After a few minutes of singing and shoveling, methodically, I completely relaxed and I calmed down. I tried three different times to drive out. Before I tried to drive out, I lifted the plow and straightened it out. The first two times I had to get back out of the vehicle and shovel some more. On the third try, I drove out.  Thank You, Jesus! Jesus helped me and I got an additional workout. 😉

We need to remember that Jesus is always with us and always going to help us in any situation we find ourselves in.  He will strengthen us and give us His peace and direct our paths in all things, now and in the future.  He is our help and strength!

I continued working out this week, lifting weights, doing sit-ups, using the elastic bands, high stepping with three-pound weights around the wood cook stove, walking up and down stairs, and walking the driveway, and around the parking area.

One night after dark in the full moonlight, after the big snowstorm this past week, Jim and I, and H., went for a walk in the new deep snow around our ranch through the woods.  It was gorgeous out, with nearly as much light as during the day, with trees covered in white snow glistening in the moonlight. Partway through our walk our horse Ch. suddenly showed up and joined us and walked with us the rest of the way.   It was so companionable to have her join us.

I re-read Isaiah Chapters 8-9 in Hebrew specifically to review the new-to-me Hebrew words and their definitions, and I read Isaiah 10. I have been doing comparison studies between Isaiah, Matthew, and Revelation this week.

A lot of news has come out concerning digital currencies, China’s lockdowns and control mechanisms with the vaccine passports, drone monitoring of the populace, and control over travel, work, buying and selling. Klaus Schwab admires and approves of China’s methods and wants them implemented all over the world. I’m also concerned about Canada’s crackdown and new legislation concerning firearms.  You’d better believe that they will try to implement such things here in the USA in the very short term. Please watch this Redacted news. What they’ve been reporting is horrifying and nightmarish to me!

Another link on China.

Natural News linking to Restricted Republic video of WEF Mark of the Beast Technology

As usual, keep stocking up while you still can, praying, and reading God’s word.

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