Editors’ Prepping Progress

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:

On Monday we took a snow hike in the National Forest, starting from a trailhead just four miles from our ranch. It was just a 2.5-hour hike. To avoid deep snow, we picked a trail on the south side of a mountain. For more than half of our hike, the trail was clear of snow. The dogs had a blast, and the hike was invigorating. Our visiting grand-dog was so funny, to see her snapping at a miniature waterfall. I don’t think that she had ever seen a waterfall up close before. But I suspect that she had snapped at a gushing garden hose at some time in the past.

Now, Lily’s part of the report…

Avalanche Lily Reports:

Dear Readers,
All week the temperatures hovered night and day in the very low thirties Fahrenheit with clouds and heavy fog until Thursday night and Friday when the sky cleared and the temperatures dropped into the high twenties for the day temperature and into the teens Friday night.  It was a very gloomy weather week.

This week I cleaned out the hen house twice, but not any other animal domicile.  I just continued with the normal feeding and watering chores of everyone else.

I was very sad about losing the Ewe.  She was the one that lost her lamb after twelve days last summer and I milked her for the rest of the summer.  She was my favorite.  Interesting how those things happen. But she was ailing for a time.  Like the little ram lamb that couldn’t seem to eat enough, that became hypothermic some weeks ago, that is still alive but is still too thin.  I treated him, too, with Ivermectin, an antibiotic, and Vitamins A and D because he seemed to be having a relapse of weakness. Just those two were struggling this winter.  The rest of the sheep are robust and thriving. So it must be their genetics.  I explained in another post that these sheep were brought in to our country about forty years ago, a very small group of them, and since then all that are in the USA except for a bit of semen that was allowed in but since has been forbidden to import, no other imports are allowed, the whole of the USA flock of them are from these original genetics. So what we’ve got, is what we’ve got.  If I had had more understanding of this narrow genetic pool five or six years ago, I’m not sure that  would have acquired them.  But I love them.  So we will continue with our original stock and the first and second generation for as long as we can.  The third generation will all be for food.

I kept up with the cleaning of the house, floors, laundry, dishes, etc.

This week, I washed and sliced five gallons worth of our homegrown apples and started the fermenting process of turning them into Apple Cider vinegar in a plastic food-grade five-gallon bucket.

I haven’t eaten pizza in ten years because of food sensitivities to wheat and A1 Dairy.  I have in the past also struggled with histamines, among other things.  Cheese can have a lot of them as well as aged meats, which I don’t eat.  This week I finally tried Hook’s sheep cheese.  Even though I made sheep milk cheese a few times, last summer, I did not eat it. But I finally tried it this week and had no issues.  Thank You, Lord.  So now that I can eat Einkorn flour and Sheep milk cheese, I proceeded to make pizza crust with Einkorn and cut up our toppings, which were: beef bacon, kale, orange peppers, and sheep cheese for me, and regular Tillamook cow cheese for Jim and Miss Violet.  My Pizza crust was made with einkorn flour, olive oil, baking soda, ACV, salt, oregano, and five cloves of garlic. I did not have tomato sauce or tomatoes this time.  But anyway, it was super yummy and caused no issues whatsoever with me. So while we were eating the Pizzas with a salad, we discussed toppings for many more pizzas to come.  Yum! I also restarted my sourdough starter. So, perhaps we can have sourdough pizza crust in a few days. I never can seem to keep the sourdough starter going, I leave it out too long between feedings and it gets way too sour and suspect, so I throw it away and have to start over again when I want sourdough.  Oh well. Maybe this time around I can remember to put it in the fridge in between uses.

We went to town for errands, groceries, and clothes shopping.  I needed a new pair of winter Muck boots for deep snow or deep manure. But right now we don’t have either, so the new boots will be stored for future need. My others had developed many holes in them. Man, they are very expensive now.  I also bought a new off-brand rain coat/wind breaker.  My other one I had had for sixteen years and it was starting to disintegrate. We also bought for me and Miss Violet new Slogger garden shoes. I love them for their protection against wet and muck and their easy-on, easy-off. I wear them summer and winter if there isn’t deep fluffy snow on the ground. I seem to go through a new pair in about a year of very heavy wear and tear.  Once they start splitting, it’s “over” for them.

Yes, Jim and I went for a hike up the local mountain trail. In addition to hiking we did some trail clearing of downed limbs and small trees that came down in the windstorms during the storms in December.  There were quite a few very large trees down that we had to climb over.  Hopefully, the National Forest Service will clear the big ones from the trail this coming spring. Jim and I always do Trail Maintenance (“TM”) as we hike, out of habit. Some hikes after wind storms, like this last one, are almost  “limb chuckin” than hiking.

A neighbor invited me and Miss Violet to ice skate on their pond one evening.  That was a fun outing with them.

I also went for long walks around the ranch this week to get my exercise and to help me cope with the socked in dark weather days. I jumped a lot on our Rebounder, too.

The rest of my time this week was spent in being quite studious. I worked on re-memorizing Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments. I also reread Ezekiel 38-39 and studied in depth Genesis 10 genealogies.  I read Bill Cooper’s Book, “After the Flood: The Early Post-Flood History of Europe”.  Cooper shows with maps the dispersions of the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth.  This is very important for understanding the countries mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39. I also  re-read Ruth Beechik’s book, “Adam and His Kin.”  I read “Adam and His Kin” once every few years.  I love this book. And I read Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Genesis 10.  I also read some of the Septuagent’s book of Baruch and the Book of Wisdom and the 151st Psalm.

I studied the Genealogies to understand God’s anger of Turkey and her Allies.  Who are these people that God in Ezekiel 38-39, puts a hook in their jaw and turns them around to make them go up against The Mountains of Israel in the last days, so he can destroy them?  Turns out they are a mixture of the peoples of Magog, sons of Japeth, and some of the sons of Ham. Descendants of Japeth settled Europe, Central Asia and India. Descendants of Ham settled areas of Iran and Iraq and northern Africa.  America has the whole world’s genetics in her. And South America has both Japeth and Ham. Basically, people of the whole world are mostly of Japeth and Ham.  Zechariah 12 describes the same war as God and Magog in Revelation.  It says that all the nations of the world go up against Jerusalem. This war occurs during the Seventh Seal, which is God’s Wrath.  Christians are not destined for God’s Wrath and will be taken up before so at the Sixth Seal. (From our reading, we foresee a post-Tribulation but pre-Wrath rapture.)

I suggest that if you are not a Christian and don’t plan on becoming one, if you are still alive on that day, that if your country chooses to go up against Jerusalem, that you do not support it.  Otherwise, you are against what the Creator Father God loves and it will not go well with you personally on Judgement Day.

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.