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:
We set an all-time personal best for gathering hay and hauling it to the Rawles Ranch. With the help of our hay contractor and his assistant, we picked up 25 tons of hay in the field in a single day. This was a 12-hour work day, and that included three 50-mile round trips, in two vehicles. We also stacked most of it in our barn, the same day. As night fell, I still had about 130 bales left to stack. That was a bit of a shoe-horning exercise, since our three-sided hay barn will only hold just over 25 tons if it it stacked from floor to ceiling. By mid-morning two days later, all the hay bales were in the barn. Lily helped me by staging the bales on the edge of the trailer and hefting some up to my platform in the barn. Whew! What a big job!
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had a very lovely summer week. Temperatures reached a high of eighty-eight with lows of forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit.
This week we drained the Redneck Pool, scrubbed it quick and refilled it. The pool took only two days to warm up to a good swim temperature of seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. Thusfar I have swam three times, doing fifty lengths each time alternating between using the kickboard, breast stroke, and doggy paddle. While I can do the fifty lengths, I am not in the same shape as I was at the end of the last summer. It feels like a bit of a struggle just now, but I know in about three weeks I will feel like a power boat doing those lengths. In a few more days I will add the crawl, side, and back strokes to my workouts. Just now, I need to get into shape before adding those in.
Jim has been in twice thusfar and swam some laps the second time in. Miss Violet has swam once so far. She needed some cajoling to get in, though. “Don’t be a Cream Puff” “Come on in, the water is just fine!” “Have courage!” “Be Brave!” ;-). “Be Brave” is a family saying that she brought into our family when she was but four years old. I had to get a blood draw for some Life insurance?, I was applying for. The nurse came to our house to give me a health check. The girls were watching when she took out the needles and syringes to collect blood. Everyone was talking about the blood drawing hurting while my arm was being prepped. All of a sudden this tiny little daughter of mine, said in a quiet serious little voice, “Be Brave, Mom” I looked at her and laughed. And ever since when there is a challenge facing one of us we encourage each other with those words. “Be Brave.” 😉 Well, once Miss Violet was in the water, she was also swimming laps and enjoying herself.
This week, except for getting our hay in, we have been mostly trying to stay on top of the garden and maintaining the ranch.
The Raspberries in our Main garden are ripening at a rapid pace. I have picked and frozen thusfar about two gallons. I still have to bag them.
Out in the woods, Service Berries, Huckleberries, Thimbleberries are ripening quickly. This week we will be foraging for them. I’ve noticed that there looks to be a large crop of Dew Berries also coming on, they are the blackberries that grow along the ground.
Getting the hay in was a huge blessing. Our large number of animals have pretty much eaten up our pastures. So we are super glad to be able to supplement their grazing with the hay. Plus, since I use the hay for bedding, it is nice to give them comfortable domiciles once again. We had bought two pallets of hay to supplement for the last two months. I did not use it for bedding. They ate it. Then we bought a round bale, but it was not a nice round bale. It had some mold on the top and the bottom. The center was somewhat acceptable. Only the cows munched from it. I used some it for bedding in the Hen house, but not much.
Last week, I had scrubbed out the hen house, but left the floor bare because we were out of clean enough hay for bedding. This week, I quickly scraped it out and laid down the new hay. It is a very pleasant hen house once again. Likewise for the Dairy sheep pen. I still need to work on the Meat and Fiber Flock pen this coming week.
As I clean out the Dairy flock domiciles, the hen house, and the yucky round bale of hay, I am putting it in the paths in the garden between the planted mounds for a mulch to help fertilize our veggies and to keep the weeds down.
Last week I said my garden was the cleanest it has been in years, weed-wise. Well, one week later and there are a ton more weeds in it. Well, I’m still weeding those rows once again.
May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,
– Avalanche Lily, Rawles
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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.