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:
We kept busy with our regular winter chores this week. There was plenty of manure hauling and firewood stacking to do. I also had to do a bit of snowplowing and shoveling, but generally temperatures stayed above freezing.
The odd-sounding squeal of a pressure relief valve told us that the water pressure tank under our house failed, on Sunday evening. It was about 35 years old, which is about a long as those can be expected to last. Thankfully, our water quality here at the ranch is superb, so it was not sediment that killed the pressure tank. It was just rust. We were without running water for just a day and a half. The old tank had a 32-gallon capacity, and the replacement holds 83 gallons. With any luck, the new tank will still be working when I’ve gone to meet my maker.
This week, we took delivery of two Uimoso deer carts with folding steel frames. I’ll be adding some plywood panels to make them more versatile. I’ll attach those with heavy-duty plastic cable ties, so the panels can be removed quickly, if need be. The carts were advertised as having a 500-pound capacity. They were just $75 each, so I have my doubts about their longevity and their capacity, but time will tell.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week was a dry week with temperatures as high as forty-four degrees and temperatures as low as thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. We had a lot of daily fog, some fogs lasting all day, a few clouds, some very light, very short snow showers and two days of afternoon sun.
This week we worked hard.
The neighbors came over, mother and daughter, and helped me remove about half of the island of hay and manure underneath the hay rack of the Dairy sheep pen. While they worked on that, I cleaned out their pallet shelter again. I was very appreciative of their help on that job. This time they wanted to work for free as an exchange for when I cared for their small animals for two weeks while they traveled for Thanksgiving. “Okay.” “Wonderful!” I appreciate those kinds of exchanges.
I cleaned out the hen house twice this week. Additionally, every other day, I have been cleaning out the cow shed front stall.
We bought various grains for the hens and livestock, which I mixed into five thirty-gallon galvanized cans. That should last us about a month.
One day, I scrubbed the nitty gritty pits of our white tile floors in the Great Room. Miss Violet scrubbed the hallway and laundry room floors for me. I seem to do that about six times per year. The rest of the time it just gets a wipe down.
We decided to start up the guest bedroom grow lights again this week. Jim helped me hang the lights. I filled pots with soil. I planted some onion seeds, thyme, Zaatar Oregano, celery, and tomatoes. I still have many more pots to fill and plant in the coming weeks.
The linen for my linen night gown tunic is draped over a dining room table chair. It is looking at me and asking me, “When will you get back to me and finish making me into your garment?”
All three of us have been jumping on the Rebounder mini-trampoline. I like it. I try to jump and run in place for three to four minutes several times a day. I also like using it as a lounge chair in our Great Room. I enjoy reading while curled up on it.
Last week and this week, I read the book , “The Big Burn” by Timothy Egan. It is about the history of the fledgling National Forests and the roles that Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot played in creating the national forestds. The book also describes the events leading up to the great fires of 1910 that devastated the fledgling National forests in Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming. Specifically burned were the forests of Coeur d’Alene, Lolo, Bitterroot, parts of the Clearwater, the Cabinets, some of Yellowstone, Glacier, and a ways into the prairies. It was an excellent, well-written, fascinating account that I really enjoyed reading. While I read this book I had our Idaho Atlas and Gazeteer close at hand to study the places spoken of in this book. (Mostly, the in the areas of the St. Joe and the Coeur d’Alene river valleys.) I also had close at hand the book, “Idaho for the Curious, a Guide” by Cort Conley.
While reading the “The Big Burn” book, I decided that if I was to choose a favorite president, (I don’t trust any of them or necessarily believe in all that they are reported to have done or that which was done, was done for our, the peoples, benefit), would be hands down, TR, Teddy Roosevelt and it would be based on his love for God’s creation and his desire to protect some of it by putting some of our forests into national parks for the public’s use and enjoyment and because of some of his character traits and interests He was extremely vigorous and adventurous and had high self-discipline which are some traits that I highly admire and also try to incorporate into my own life. I highly recommend this book. It is a great read and is so full of names and history of that time period.
Interestingly, two days after I finished reading that book, as I was putting some other books away on a bookshelf, I saw the book, “The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt” by H. W. Brands. I had seen it before, but had forgotten all about it. Jim has many books that I still am not aware of or that I forgot that I have seen before, because my mind is on so many other things. Anyhow, I pounced on it and have been reading it a bit every evening. The letters are in a group of categories: Blessed Youth, 1858-1881, Making His Way, 1881-1889, Public Servant, 1889-1898, Hero,1898-1901, President, 1901-1909, The most famous man in the world, 1909-1919. It is so interesting.
I started writing out Chapter Seven of Isaiah. I’m still working on memorizing Psalms and other scriptures. One can memorize them in one week, but one has to keep reviewing them to go into the long-term memory bank. So I continued to fine-tune Psalms 1, 2, 8, 19, 46, 51. I worked on Revelation 15, and Exodus 20. And read multiple times Deuteronomy 32, Revelation 13, 14, and 15, and again I read through Job 38 to the end of the book. Our Bible study group has been studying Ezekiel Chapters 34-39. I hope to someday memorize those chapters, along with Romans 9, 10, and 11.
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.