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:
The summer heat and lack of recent rainfall prompted me to begin running sprinklers in our Near Pasture. This area is about the size of two football fields. I’ve been running the sprinklers 24/7, and moving them roughly once every six hours, to get full coverage of the pasture. Thankfully, we are on un-metered well water, and our electricity rate is low (under 10 cents per kilowatt hour), so the expense of pasture irrigation is minimal.
Last Friday, I attended the gun show over in Missoula, Montana, but I didn’t have tables there. That was a fun and productive trip.
I’ve nearly completed construction of out “Just in Case” outhouse, here at the ranch. All that it needs now is steel over the plywood on te roof, and a door.
In Lily’s part of the report, some more births at the Rawles Ranch…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Lots of smoke here from the Spokane fires, upwind of us. Ugh! Temperature highs ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Then a windy co;d front came in and dropped our high to sixty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. Brrr! The low of the week was Forty-three degrees Fahrenheit. Ponder the Spokane in-city-limits fires. These eerily reminded me of the fires on Maui, Hawaii, Palisades/Malibu, Santa Rosa, and Paradise, California. Hmmmmm.
We have the grandsons here this week. Canoed down the Unnamed River with them and their father and some friends from their church. Great time had by all. Grandsons stayed for four more days. Still here, so my post will be truncated…
Lots of swimming.
Harvested garlic.
Nine more baby chicks hatched from our incubator this week and were fostered off to another broody hen. I love it when a broody hen gets chicks and thrives with them.
Threshed and winnowed a quarts worth of Red Russian kale seeds. I enjoyed that process.
Picked gallons of red and golden raspberries in our main garden. Made raspberry syrup and a raspberry pie and froze some.
Our sheep are recovering from illness but we lost one more at the beginning of the week. Sad, but she was going to be culled anyway at the end of the season.
Resumed milking our senior cow.
Our bred heifer is due to calve any day now. Her udder is becoming quite turgid at this point.
Started to read, “Drums Along the Mohawk River”. Meh, it’s okay. Not something that I highly recommend. It’s too run of the mill novel-ish. I prefer higher language, plot and educational detail type of reading.
Read the book of Daniel this week.
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.