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 cleared out the 14 remaining pumpkins from our barn that we had not yet fed to our livestock. Those last few pumpkins had started to rot. On the day that I moved them, they were frozen solid. I set those in clusters of 3 or 4 on the ground along the treeline at the north side of our near-house pasture. Hopefully, those will sprout some new pumpkin patches. With successive wheelbarrow loads, I heaped manure that I shoveled up from the horse loafing areas on top of the pumpkins. I thought that was a good use for the horse manure, because we don’t like to use it in our vegetable gardens. (Unlike cow manure, horse manure can pass along viable seeds. The extra stomach in a cow’s digestive system makes a difference!) Even if nothing sprouts from those pumpkins, they will form useful compost mounds for future squash.
I kept busy writing and editing. I also cataloged several recent arrivals for Elk Creek Company.
With the help of a local handyman, we finished installing three new propane kitchen appliances. The old ones went to charity. That leaves us with just two AC-powered major appliances at the ranch: a washing machine and a chest freezer in our garage. Our other two chest freezers and our refrigerator-freezer are now all propane-fueled. I can sleep better at night, knowing that we are less at risk of extended power failures. Now, all that we need is an additional “Granddaddy” propane tank — probably around 4,000-gallon capacity. But we’ll have to budget, for that.
I attached our snowplow to our pickup. From the forecasts, it looks like will belatedly be getting some substantial snow.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Happy February! We have nearly seven more weeks of winter!
The weather was quite chilly with temperature highs in the twenties and lows in the teens, but beautifully sunny until Friday when the weather rolled in, with snow and rain showers. Our temperature reached a “balmy” high of 37 F. Friday afternoon. Rain and snow showers are expected this weekend with snow showers coming the rest of the week, though, not much snow accumulation is expected in this coming week.
Since the winter solstice we have gained nearly an hour of daylight. The difference is noticeable here, and welcomed.
Our ground has been frozen hard for two weeks, but the warming action of the sun melted the horse manure in the parking area, giving Jim and I the chance to clean up the loafing area and the area around the hen house where the horses have been hanging out.
I spent some time cleaning out the cow stalls. They still have some frozen manure in them, but I cleaned out that which I could.
Our local farrier came and gave both of our horses a hoof trim.
Our new baby chicks are growing fast. Because of the intense cold we’ve had, and will have next week, the chicks are remaining in the house, in the bathroom of the guest bedroom to protect the house from their molting dust and to protect them from drafts and the chemical off-gassing of our new appliances. We have been opening up the entire house to air it out several times a day. We thank the Father for wood stoves that quickly reheat the house after the frequent frigid airings. Just for the record, two of the appliances sat out on the porch for two weeks before the handyman came to install them. During that time, we continuously opened their doors to get rid of the vinyl off-gassing. I also washed them out with baking soda and Hydrogen Peroxide, separately. But once they are set up and lit, they still off-gas the protective oils on the outsides of the pipes of the propane pipes while burning/running. So that smell is the reason why we keep airing out the house.
After the handyman left, I put all of our frozen meat and produce back in the fridge and freezers. We had put them in totes and put them out on the porch for the duration of the switching of appliances. With temperatures that day barely reaching the mid-twenties, our frozen foods were safe out there. It took some time and organization to get it all back in. The new propane freezer was smaller than our old electric one. So to reduce space, I boiled down some more cow bones for broth for our animals and us.
On Friday morning, after the night time temperatures had been about thirty all night, the frozen manured hay in the Hen house had thawed enough for me to clean it out. So I did. I’m so glad, because it had become really icky in their house and I had already thrown in fresh hay on top of the ick. I don’t like building up a manure pack because of the mold potential and the extra hard work that it is to clean it out later. So they are already for the next cold spell that will hit us in a few days. Maybe, I’ll clean them out one more time before then?
Two years ago, we installed new kitchen countertops, made of birch wood. We did not put any sealant on it. They became stained. This week, I sanded them down to prepare them for a sealant. I still need to sand them some more to finish the job. We will be covering them with plastic until we can pour the sealant — hopefully next week.
I’ve been listening to Heidi of Rain Country this week to glean more information on natural herbal remedies. She has channels on both Rumble and YouTube.
We went ice skating on the local lake two more times this week, and also in the meadows. So much fun!!! It was a really beautiful sunshine week. We really needed that sunshine. What a blessing. It was a treat to have so much “windowpane” ice skating. The ice was 3.5 inches thick the first day we skated. By the last day of skating it was about seven inches thick. I know this because I came across a very large set of frozen methane bubbles in the ice. I sat down on the ice and chopped one of them with my skate. The first layer of the ice broke and let all of the methane out of all the descending bubbles and the lake “burped” up it’s water through the hole. Wow! That was cool. I reached into the hole to one level and it was about two inches thick, and I thought, “Nah, that can’t be right. I’d be falling through the ice right now if it was only two inches thick here.” So I chopped the hole wider and reached my hand all the way down the descending bubble “ice molds” until I felt the bottom ice with my fingers. The depth of the ice went half way up my lower arm. I thought that that must be at least five inches.
When I went home, I measured my arm from where my fingers bent under the ice to place where the surface of the ice touched my arm midway between my wrist and elbow. It was seven inches thick. Very cool. It was clear throughout the ice column and one could see clearly down to the bottom of the lake. (The photo above shows the view we had of the water plants on the lake bottom, through the windowpane ice — and in about 8 feet of water.)
I also did a lot of walking and prayer walking around the ranch this week.
I hand wrote chapter 16, and started chapter 17 of Deuteronomy 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.