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:
The past week entailed a lot of driving. I had to make trips to Coeur D’Alene two days in a row, for my cataract surgery, and a follow-up examination. After my surgery, since I had one eye dilated and covered, Lily did all of the driving. She is such a wonderful blessing, as a Helpmeet.
My vision in my right eye is recovering about as well as can be expected. That eye is optimized for “close” focus — the distance of my desktop computer screen or a pistol front sight. Hopefully, it will be nearly perfect by the time the surgeon does the lens replacement on my left eye. That one will be optimized for driving.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather was sunny, crisp and cold all week until Friday. Temperatures as low as -3 degrees Fahrenheit off on our porch thermometer with a high of 23 degrees Fahrenheit. It was lovely perfect winter weather. Just the way winters are suppose to be, cold, lots of dry snow, with sunny weather to play in it.
Over last weekend we hosted the grandsons. We had an absolute blast with those boys. We went sledding, went snowshoeing down to the river in the “moonlight”. The moon was occluded most of the time by clouds, but is was still light enough to see without flashlights. It was beautiful. Jim and I, with their help, dug them a snow cave with tunnels. The cave was large enough for all four boys to fit in at one time so it was super cool.
We cooked hotdogs, ate cheese and orange slices, and had hot chocolate over a campfire while sledding. Later that evening, after dinner, we turned off the lights and we roasted Marshmallows for S’mores through the front door of our wood heating stove. I sang some campfire songs that I learned at Girl Scout camp to everybody. I also started to read the book “Rascal” by Sterling North, to the boys for their bedtime story. I very much love it when the boys come and spend time with us here. We may get to have another visit with them in a few weeks…I cannot wait. 
For preps this week, we just maintained the health and well-being of our animals. And as already mentioned above, we took care of one of Jim’s cataracts, so Jim will be able to see clearly in the future.
We also had some local help come to troubleshoot the wood cook stove.
The three of us did some cross-country skiing around the ranch, on Monday. (Two days before Jim’s eye surgery.) It was a beautiful, sunny day. We have about 10 inches of semi-compacted snow on the ground, so it was fine for skiing. Again, it was perfect snow conditions for Cross Country skiing.
I hand-copied the rest of Chapter 19, copied chapter 20, and started chapter 21 of Deuteronomy.
May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,
– 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.