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 helped Lily complete the reorganization of our Hall/Pantry. I discovered that I mail-ordered a few too many Sterlite plastic storage bins for the hall shelves, but the excess bins will go to good use in our workshop.
I split and stacked some more firewood.
At this stage of my life, most of my firearms acquisition and gunsmithing is for the benefit of our grandchildren. I just completed another M4-length .223 Wylde AR build. For the first time ever, I used a 1/2″x28-threaded Kaw Valley Precision “MACH 3” Modular Linear Compensator. I ordered that from Optics Planet. (They are one of SurvivalBlog’s affiliate advertisers.) I also ordered a few additional threaded MACH 3 body sections, for greater versatility.
These “linear compensators” have no baffles, so they are not classified as “suppressors” or “silencers” by the ATF. But they do a great job of throwing sound forward, so there is less sound heard by the shooter. By the way, I plan to order another one of these goodies to install on our SW .22 rimfire pistol. It has a now ubiquitous 1/2″x28 threaded muzzle. I’ve found that pistol is the one that I grab the most often for pest shooting, or putting down livestock. It has a high-mounted red dot sight, so the large diameter of the Kaw Valley compensator won’t be an issue.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week we had very little precipitation, temperatures as usual day and night in the low thirties to highs about 38 F. We had only a tiny bit of diffused sunlight through thinning clouds during most days this week.
We continued to fine tune the organization of the Pantry hallway and the kitchen. It is an ongoing project that I spent time on nearly every day this week.
I made Einkorn Sourdough bread several times. It is so yummy and my technique is improving both in taste and in “loft”. It’s not so dense, anymore.
I made chicken and Butternut cream soups.
I have been also making Einkorn pan bread. It goes like this: Grind four cups of Einkorn into flour. Put three cups in bowl, add two Tablespoons of Olive oil a teaspoon of salt, a Tablespoon of honey, a couple of small pinches of baking soda, two Tablespoons of Apple cider vinegar. Knead it. Divide dough into four rounds. Flatten it out between my palms. Heat up skillet, put in some oil and put a patted round into the pan, cover the pan with a lid, cook for five minutes, flip it, cook for another four or five minutes and flip again, for a minute or two to make sure well done and slightly brown in spots. Repeat three more times. I like dipping it in soups or spreading plain sheep yogurt over it with a drizzle of honey.
I planted seedlings for this upcoming summer gardening season. I placed them under the grow lights in our greenhouse bedroom. I planted, celery, Amber onions, two types of scallions, leeks, and Sweet peppers, thus far.
The hen house was cleaned out. I had one day, that the hens gave 21 eggs and now we are down to about a dozen to fifteen per day. This week Jim has boiled up a couple of batches for breakfast and egg salad sandwiches. It has been about eight days since I started a batch of eggs in our incubator. This week I candled a few of the eggs and saw veins and arteries around the inside of the shell of the eggs and little baby chicks “swimming” around the egg. Life is so amazing and precious to see.
Jim and I gave our “pup” a shower this week. She had not had a proper bath in months. In the summer and fall she would swim in our redneck pool, but now it’s too cold. She likes to squeeze under the fence into the cow corral to be with me when I am working with the cows. Right now it’s extremely wet and muddy with manure in the mud. Her belly was caked. She comes in the house and leaves mud spots wherever she lays down. This neccessitates me washing the tile floors nearly every day. It was beyond time to wash her. But now, after her bath, she is so clean and soft and beautiful! What a pretty girl she is. I’ve decided that she isn’t doing chores with me anymore while we are so wet and muddy. I will walk her before and after chores so she stays out of that mud.
My cow went dry on me, unexpectedly. A lot was happening during the last few weeks. I had a few days that I wasn’t able to milk my cow. I had thought that her calf was taking care of business for me. My cow is probably five months pregnant. Her calf is now eight months old. Unbeknownst to me, she was weaning her calf. So for about four days, I didn’t milk her nor was I out spending much time observing her and her calf. Though I do remember that the last two times I had milked the cow and released the calf back to her mom. The mom was eating grain and the calf went right for the grain instead of her mother. I should have sat up and taken notice. Well, after the four-day break I went back to milk her and I got a half gallon, but the milk was thick yellow and a bit sticky. I thought it was all cream because the day before the four day break she gave me beautiful milk and the most cream than ever before. So I thought that maybe it was mostIy cream this time, but it didn’t rise in the refrigerator. I warned Jim and Miss Violet on it after the first day, we were still working on the previous milk. I then gave it to the chickens.
I milked her again the next day and it was much less milk and still thick. But she wasn’t inflamed or anything. I was worried still, a bit worried that it was mastitis. But she didn’t have any other symptoms. So I milked her that night and the next morning her bag was empty and the calf had not been with her at all during the night. And when I released her out to her calf, the calf did try half-heartedly, to get a drink from mama, but mama didn’t let her. The calf only tried to get a drink twice and mom said no and the calf didn’t push it. I was surprised at how respectful and obedient the calf was to her mother. Yep, she has weaned the calf and gone “dry”. So that’s that.
This cow is a pure-bred A2/A2 cow from a small breed. She is very different from my previous other cows that had milk all the way through their pregnancies and allowed other cows to steal milk from them, really they were all “universal donors”, and almost never weaned their older calves even when they had birthed new calves. So this was a tad bit unexpected for me. But, okay. Now, I know. I could have gotten her back into milk but then I would have to milk her two times a day. I really don’t have time or energy for that. She is five months pregnant and is a small cow. So obviously she wants and needs a break to grow that baby. So we are done until next summer. We are on the hunt for another cow. We are still slowly rebuilding our herd.
I found a video concerning the North American Union. This might be coming to the USA and the world.
I continued writing out Deuteronomy Chapter 11-13. I read 1 Corinthians 14 and 15.
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.