To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both 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 the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
This has been a fairly quiet week. Early in the week, I slaughtered 10 of our young roosters. We had hatched those in our incubator. Since they were just five months old, it was fairly easy to skin them. As usual, Lily handled the final carcass cleanup, washing, bagging, and freezing. I already had a hole dug, to bury the legs, wing tips, heads, entrails, and pelts.
The three of us still here at the ranch all had our regular dental appointments, in rapid succession. Thankfully, our dental health has been stable for several years. We opt for check-ups and cleanings twice a year. I believe that is money well spent.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather was mostly clear and sunny with a day of rain mid-week. I have observed lone species of birds around the ranch that didn’t migrate south with their family flocks: one male Mallard duck, one black crow, and one Varied thrush that has joined a small flock of starlings. We also have a trio of Tundra swans hanging tight in our vicinity.
This week was very quiet. I did very little this week. We are in winter maintenance mode for the most part. I did the usual animal domicile cleaning chores and manure spreading on the meadow. I only did the bare minimum house cleaning, laundry and cooking.
The greens are growing nicely in the bedroom green house. They are still too small to harvest. The cucumber seeds, I planted last week are sprouting. I am harvesting small handfuls of Cherry tomatoes from the plant that I brought in from the outside green house.
As Jim said, he butchered ten of our roosters of which I cleaned. Seven were put in the freezer. Two went right into the stew pot. They were super tender and yummy.
I went for many small walks around the ranch and played Frisbee with our “pup”. I did a lot of calisthenics.
Miss Violet and I went to another Needle Felting craft class. During the week, I needle felted two flowers to patch moth-eaten holes in one of my wool sweaters. It looks great. Additionally, using our own wool roving, I felted a likeness of our sheep. I still need to add legs and more detail. It’s super cute.
I spent time studying some foraging books and a couple of books downloaded from the internet.
My free time has mostly been spent deep reading, (It is so different from just listening to it being read aloud), the books of Luke and Acts with comparison forays into Zachariah and Isaiah. I am very carefully examining the words of our Lord Jesus, focusing on His great love for us.
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.