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:
We had a fairly quiet week at the ranch. Hearing a forecast of a possible ice storm on Wednesday, I scrambled on Tuesday, logging almost 200 road miles, running errands, and buying hardware and plumbing supplies for a couple of ranch projects. The fall colors were still gorgeous, and there was snow on all of the peaks. On these driving days, I also often do some “personal shopper” duties for a couple of my Secret Squirrel consulting clients who live in my region. To maintain a low profile, these are all cash transactions.
We had some family members visit for a Thanksgiving dinner, here at the ranch. It is always great fun to see them.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends or peacefully alone if that was your circumstance. We enjoyed our family and grandchildren with lots of yummy food, great conversations, and fun.
The weather was intermittently rainy with sunshine and moderate temperatures in the high thirties and low forties.
It was another very quiet week, just maintaining the Rawles Ranch animals and keeping their domiciles clean.
One extra thing I did, was to work on widening some trails by further limbing trees and cutting down a few saplings trying to grow in paths for Cross Country skiing this winter, if we get enough good snow for it. Additionally, I cleaned up some of our woods of dead limbs in the understory.
Miss Violet and I went to one more Needle Felting class this week. We will now be taking a break until after the New Year. But we hope to Needle Felt on our own now that we have the tools and the wool to do so.
During our Thanksgiving dinner celebration, the grandsons were given our gift of a Mechanical building project. They were constructing it and needed a very small screwdriver to open the battery compartment to install the batteries. We didn’t have one in the regular household tool drawer and most of the other tools are out in the shop now. So, with a parade of boys and Miss Violet, we marched to our bedroom to get it from my Bugout bag. Instead of searching through the bag for it in the bedroom, I grabbed my Bugout bag and we paraded back to the livingroom to look for a micro-eyeglasses Fixit kit in my Bugout bag’s First Aid kit. Well, I ended up dumping the whole thing out on the livingroom floor with the whole family in audience and began showing all of the things that I have in my first Aid kit. We talked briefly about each item’s usage, until I found my miniature Leatherman multi-tool that had a small enough screwdriver in it, instead, for the boys to use. Then when the boys returned the Leatherman tool to me, we all continued to go through the Bugout bag to see what else I had and the reasons why I had them. Daughter-in-Law was very interested and we discussed making bags for the boys in the near future.
In my Bugout bag, I have a tarp, ax, folding saw, folding hand shovel, jackknife, Slingshot, wire for snaring, Magnesium & ferro rod fire starter, lighter with tinder and dry kindling, matches, water filter, mess kit with one small Sterno can inside, a few gallon-sized Ziplock bags for carrying water, large skein of olive drab parachute cord, 3/4 inch rope, a 3/4 inch bit hand auger, sleeping bag, headlamp, flashlight, Duct tape, toilet paper, rain pants, rain jacket, down vest, bug baffler with hood netted shirt, wool long johns, cashmere sweater, wool socks, wool hat, wool mittens, two bandanas, leather work gloves, underwear, food bag. (That has packets of salmon, sardines, Himalayan salt, Celtic sea salt, teas, sugar, spices.) I don’t take supplements so they are not in there; mesh bags to hold foraged foods, and two different miniature edible plant guides. In the event of needing to Bug out, I hope and assume that I would have time to get my compact bibles both English and Hebrew, a bushcraft book. I would be able to wear my wool t-shirts, more sweaters, camo pants and jacket. I would collect nuts, dried fruit and other dried foods, filled water bottles, glock and ammo.
For exercise we did a lot of walking around the ranch and once up into the National Forest and some calisthenics.
I finished reading the book of Acts this week and plan on reading the Book of Romans, next.
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.