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 [1], 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:
I completed some firewood cutting and splitting for an ailing neighbor. He has mostly recovered and is now able to handle all of the wood-stacking part of the project.
Our annual hay season is now underway. We’ll be buying only 16 tons of grass hay bales this year, since we’ve reduced the size of our cow herd. As usual, we’re picking up bales in the field. The bales are running lighter this year, so each ton is 34 bales. We are able to load 50 bales on our pickup truck and 3-horse trailer on each trip. The farmer’s flat trailer can carry 150 bales. We’ve made two trips so far, and have two more to go. We are praying that we can do so before the next forecasted rain, on Tuesday.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We have had a beautiful, mild summer week, temperatures up to eighty four degrees Fahrenheit. We received 0.3 inches of rain when that storm rolled through our part of the Redoubt early in the week.
Once this week, while I refilled the Hummingbird feeders, literally as soon as I was in the process of hanging the feeder, a small native Bumblebee immediately landed on the feeder to get the sugar water nectar. I laughed because, like the humming birds who watch and wait impatiently for the feeders return, so even the Bumble bees are watching impatiently for its return.
This week has been all about Berry picking, preserving them, and haying.
Jim and I were helped by the people haying the land to load it up onto our horse trailer as I towed it. We then did the same with their flatbed trailer. For the first time ever, because the bales were anywhere from 40 to fifty-five pounds. I was actually able to buck the bales up onto the flatbed trailer. Anything over fifty-five pounds, is too heavy for me. I really enjoyed doing this part of the haying process this year.
I’ve picked about five gallons of red, golden, and black raspberries. All were frozen.
My tart cherries are also coming on. I’ve picked half a gallon of those thus far. Those I pitted and froze.
We received 32 pounds of Bing Cherries through Azure Standard and we processed all of them on the same day. Jim, Miss Violet, and I all worked together to get them quickly pitted and processed! Some were frozen and some were dehydrated.
We also picked another three gallons of Service Berries. Those were frozen or dehydrated as whole berries or as mashed berry bars.
All this on top of the usual animal feeding, watering, and sheep milking, yogurt making, cooking, and cleaning.
I’ve done some swimming and bike riding.
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.