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:
In the past seven days, I did a lot of roto-tilling in our main garden. My aching back is now reminding me of it! We have a rear-tine Troy-Bilt Horse tiller, but making lots of tight turns with it is hard on my back.
We assisted our excellent sheep-shearer, who visited us on Thursday. He made quick work of shearing both of our sheep flocks, with nary a nick. After he was done, I disassembled the temporary holding pens that I had set up in our ban. Pictured above is a sheep shearing day at my great-grandfather’s ranch in Mendocino County, California.
Our daughter and three of our grandsons helped me assemble a 4-foot-deep set of rivet shelves in our shop. This was the last set that we had planned for the shop’s main floor.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather was mostly cloudy and downright cold for early June. Our temperature highs were mostly only about Sixty degrees Fahrenheit We reached seventy-one degrees on Monday afternoon. Our lows were about thirty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. But there was a light frost on the grass in some spots one morning and there seemed to be a very light dusting on snow on the top of the “Unnamed” Mountain on Monday morning. We had a few sprinkles of rain down in the valley. Nothing much to write home about. The Great Blue Heron is hanging tight in our meadow area. This week we saw about seven baby Canada Geese goslings. They’re so cute but are so vulnerable to our Bald Eagles and crows. Grrrr! Just for your information, our pup never goes way out into the big meadow without me. So she only chases geese if I go out when they are in our nearest pasture. I don’t go out when there are babies about. Anyway, that is a rare event.
We had the grandsons here this week. Early in the week we went canoeing and fishing at the mouth of The Unnamed River. We paddled up the river till we hit the rapids and then rode them back down to the mouth. Jim had the two older boys while I had the two youngers. Miss Violet paddled her own one-man kayak. We saw yellow Irises lining part of the shoreline. Those are a first for me. We looked for fish in the shallows and deeps where we could see down to the bottom. We didn’t see nary a fish. It was a fish desert. Grrrr! When I first moved here sixteen years ago, The Unnamed River was teeming with thousands and thousands of trout. Now one rarely sees them at all. It is very upsetting. Needless to say we didn’t catch anything.
The boys spent time catching and playing with the “one and only” frog in the swimming pool and gave it a piece of bark to float on. Then they asked to go down to the big meadow to look for the small frogs that usually live there this time of the year. We didn’t find any. Two weeks ago, a group of crows were seen hopping all over the meadow. I surmised that they were eating the frogs. Well, we didn’t see a single one. So we tried to fish our part of The Unnamed River and the small spring stream that flows through our ranch and dumps into river.
The eldest saw an eight inch trout in the spring stream, but it didn’t go for the worm. We didn’t catch any fish on the stretch of The Unnamed River that passes through The Rawles Ranch, either. While we were trying to fish, the other boys who had brought the pool skimmer and a bucket with them began scooping the water’s edge of the river and kept pulling up little water creatures: Hellegramites, Caddisfly larvae, stone flies, what we think was a Cutthroat Trout fry, snails, and many other such critters. While we kept checking out each dip of the net, it occurred to me to mention that we have a microscope. So the kids grabbed a large scoop of water and put it in the bucket and we went back to the house.
I immediately pulled out the microscope and put new batteries in its base illuminator and I showed them how to make a slide and how to focus with the macro and micro knobs, and off they went looking at all kinds of microscopic critters. I then dug out about six books that I had that talked about water critters: Bacteria, Protozoas, Planktons, worms, etc and quickly showed them the most common critters that one might see. Others: Euglenas, amoebas, diatoms, Algae, worms, pollens, etc.
When I was in college, I took Limnology, and Stream Ecology courses, so I took those books out and showed them to them. I will never sell those textbooks. I had also bought several kids books about critters in pond water, and I brought those out. The kids literally on their own accord spent hours looking at critters and Biology, and some Advanced Biology prepared slides that we still had, from homeschooling their parents and aunts and uncles, for two days while I cooked and cleaned and relaxed around them. They kept looking and excitedly calling me over to look and tell them what they were seeing. It was so much fun. I too, was mesmerized by all the critters we saw swimming around in each drop of water. I was so impressed with their fascination and self-study of these critters…
During some early evenings the boys and Miss Violet scoured the garden and found five different Garter Snakes and played with them for a time. We seem to have two types of Garter snakes in our valley and that is all that I am aware of, for snakes. (Thankfully we are too high in elevation for rattlesnakes.)
Yep our sheep were sheared and their hooves trimmed and they were dosed with Ivermectin this week. The boys were able to help us with the sheep, control the gates, and to watch the whole operation. So the sheep are happy sheep, though, I did see a few of them shivering in this unusually cool temperatures a few mornings. Plus now the mosquitoes have easier access to their flesh so they are even more itchier than usual. HOWEVER, THEY ARE SO CUTE WHEN THEY ARE FRESHLY-SHORN! My Meat and Fiber flock is especially cute. They really are small animals. Jim says that they only look “half their size”, when they are shorn.
We had heard about the Libby, Montana Museum years ago, but we had never been there until this week. Libby is known as the City of Eagles and has several giant steel Bald Eagle sculptures throughout the city. They are very cool. So with the boys here this week, we decided to day trip over there, to take a look. It is a beautiful little museum that is quite comprehensive in representing the history and natural history of this region. We highly recommend a visit. On the way home we went sightseeing at the Kootenai Falls and the Swinging Bridge. That thing is a bit scary for me…The Falls were really amazing in full flood at this time of the year.
We took the boys hiking to several local spots and did some foraging for wild strawberries and wild rose petals. We ate the strawberries in place and gathered about three cups of rose petals. I made Rose petal Jello and dehydrated the rest, for tea. We made the jello Monday night, so I will have to let you know how it was next week, or maybe we’ll be able to update during the day on Tuesday. I plan to forage for many more petals, to make rose petal jam.
Before the boys came I was able to plant tomatoes and Zuchinni in the garden. This next week I hope to plant the rest of the garden.
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.