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:
This week I did some “puttering around” in our our shop. For example, I set up a 1960s-vintage Model 60 Stanley miter box with a 28″ backsaw that I had found after some patient searching on eBay. Unlike most folks who now gravitate toward buying a fancy power miter saw, I wanted to go “low-tech.” I can make do with a traditional power table saw, a more mobile Skilsaw, several crosscut and rip hand saws, and a hand saw miter box. Yes, this is slower, but this combination of tools will allow me to continue work without AC power, if need be.
I packed and mailed several Elk Creek Company orders, and I kept busy cataloging several new items.
With some help from Lily, and Miss Violet, I also laid adhesive floor tile in our little guest cabin.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather was mostly rainy this week until the end of the week. The high temperatures were again high in the thirties and just at freezing for low temperatures. Our snow has mostly melted. This week, we have had numerous flocks of Canadian geese and Trumpeter swans flying in formation over the ranch as they are migrating south… It seems kinda late in the year for them to flying over…
We wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving weekend.
This week we had a couple of trips into town to pick up groceries and supplies to finish our guest cabin that we had put in about ten years ago… The cabin is On-grid but we are fitting it to be Off-grid. We had finished everything in the bathroom, but never completed the flooring when it was first built. It has a composting toilet and an On-grid sink and shower. We will also be putting in Off-grid methods for showering. We had not finished the kitchen, living room, or loft. This will be our winter project to do so. This week, Jim and I, and Miss Violet too, are laying the vinyl flooring in the whole cabin and tile in the bathroom. The cabin has electric heat, but we will be putting in a small wood stove for both heat and cooking. We need to put in kitchen counters, cupboards, and a sink. We will also put in a tabletop propane stove. The kitchen sink will be hooked up to the water system, and will have a backup cold water gravity-fed water supply, from a slightly-elevated stainless steel tank. I want to make it cute and comfortable in the coming weeks.
For the past ten years our kids and guests had slept out there from time to time. One of our sons has lived in it for months at a time in between his travels. We had had a small compact kitchen sink, refrigerator, stove combo thingy in it, for a while, but I didn’t like it and it wasn’t functional enough. That was removed last winter.
This week I made Farmhouse cheddar cheese, again. I’ve made it three times in the past two months. Jim and Miss Violet like it a lot. They don’t want me to age it, since they like a fresh, mild flavor. So that makes the cheese making process easier in some ways. In the past, I had trouble keeping it good while it aged. I have been ordering cheese culture packets through Azure Standard. This week I opened all of the shipping boxes and consolidated the cultures into their own box and created a cheese-making shelf in the Freezer on the door.
I have A box of Feta Cheese cultures that I want to make with sheep’s milk this spring. I have Themophilic and Mesophilic cultures, Cream Cheese cultures, and some sourdough and yogurt cultures. I also have other cultures in the refrigerator. Someday I will be branching out into making other kinds of cheeses. I really enjoy the process. As a side note, I have not yet tried drinkingthe A2 cow’s milk, but, someday I will. Jim and our youngest daughter drink it often. Sheep milk yogurt is still doing well with my digestion. I have a new energy in me a few hours after eating it. I also feel as though I’m regaining muscles and maintaining my weight more easily than before when I wasn’t eating any Dairy for nine years. So it’s very good.
We had an old clear glass oil lantern that sat in our bedroom bathroom for 14 years. It had red-dyed lamp oil in it. I did not like the way it looked, it’s color, and we never used it. It just sat there, for emergencies, except when I was cleaning the bathroom, I would dust it. This week, I decided to burn up its oil and clean it out and put clear lamp oil into it, and put it back into regular use. But I felt bad about “wasting” the oil even though I hated the color. I thought about dumping it somewhere outside, but didn’t want to pollute the ground. So one morning, while still dark outside, I just lit it. I then got on with chores and forgot about it. About four hours later, I walked by the dining room table and saw it still lit. I blew it out. A few nights ago, I decided to light it while eating dinner. We turned off all of the lights. Oof, what a dark existence our forefathers had before the advent of electric lights. Anyhow, it burned for five minutes and went out. It looked as though there was still oil in it, but on closer inspection, the red dye in the oil had stained the glass. After all, the oil had been in there at least fifteen years. Inside, I rejoiced. I could then clean it out and put fresh clear oil in it. So I did. Now we have a beautiful clear oil lamp on our dining room table ready to go any time we want “candlelight”. We have another beautiful blue glass oil lamp that I put on the table often. I also like having the clear one. Of course we have a lot of other kerosene lamps in storage for emergency use. But these are for now, used for ambiance.
A new bulky sweater that I own, somehow got a small hole in it. I quickly repaired that.
An old blue wool sweater that I have that I felted a flower and leaf on last year, I decided to redo. I’ll leave the flower but I didn’t like the look of the leaves I had felted so I removed the leaves and I’m in the middle of reknitting a patch for it. I suppose I could look up how to repair it online, but I am going to try my own method. Call me stubborn or lazy or whatever.
I’ve been drying squash and tomato seeds. Those I put in envelopes and labeled them this week. I planted some Thyme in a pot this week and put it under the grow lights in the guest Bedroom.
I cleaned the hen house and separated out about twelve excess roosters. We have a lot of butchering to do next week.
I cleaned out the cow stalls. With all of the rain we’ve had in the past four weeks, about seven inches, we have had water pooling issues just in front of the door to the stalls. One morning I dug a channel all the way across the corral to drain the water. That was a lot of work but well worth it for the animals’ well-being. And a very satisfying job for me to accomplish. I like to physically work hard on projects and see the results of the work. It’s very rewarding to me.
We are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. All of the boys are coming home with their families. Miss Eloise is having Thanksgiving with our extended family in New England. We will miss her very much. So we are going to have almost a full house this weekend and I have a lot of cooking and cleaning to do, today, Friday. I just wanted to get this written first, this morning.
I did some more walking this week. I tend to walk after dark in the evenings a lot and sometimes in the morning and sometimes mid-day.
This week I spent a lot of time still in Colossians and listened to the book of Mark.
We are very thankful to the Father in heaven for all of his provision and blessings he has bestowed upon us, many, many they are, and for all of you our readers and supporters of this Blog.
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.