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:
I completed my fall pasture discing project. We’ve had a Plotmaster for nearly 20 years, and it has proven to be very reliable. I’ve pulled it with both a gas engine straddle quad and our electric side-by-side quad. It really turns the sod quite well. After a few passes with the Plotmaster, I then squared up the field corners with our rototiller. After discing each field, I pick up any rocks and then spread Dolomite lime prills with a Scott’s fertilizer spreader. Then Lily broadcasts the cover crop seeds, and I follow up with a good soak with the sprinklers. The whole process is not too laborious, but it is quite time-consuming.
On several mornings. I helped Lily dose both of our sheep flocks with drench anti-parasite meds and subcutaneous antibiotic injections.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week we had slight thunderstorms, meaning it was a weak one with quiet rumbles, no seen lightning, and a few sprinkles of rain. Our temperatures high was ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit and our low temperature was forty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. We saw our first night time low this summer of sixty degrees Fahrenheit this week. Nice! Hopefully we’ll have some more “warm” nighttime temperatures in the next few weeks. Overall our summer nights have been a bit colder this year, than other years, mostly between forty-eight and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit for nighttime lows, all summer.
This has been a summer of pests: mosquitoes, fleas, and livestock internal parasites. Mosquitoes still going strong in the evenings, usually by late August they’ve pretty much died off, here. Now we have a ton of mice. Not like Australia had a few years ago, thank God, but a lot. Our cats have killed at least seven that I’ve seen in the past week and have left them on the porch or our cement pad or in the garden, or in front of the porch stairs. Our snap traps in the house have nailed six in just the past five days. Last week and this week, I keep finding drowned mice in the sheep and chicken water containers. (I found a drowned Pack rat in the cows’ water trough in the corrals. But the cows are down in the Open Meadows currently.) I found four mice on different days in the grain barrels that I smashed with the grain scooper. I gave those to the chickens. Now I make darn sure the barrel lids are on tight. Years ago, I just loved mice, had them for pets, and could never ever hurt one or kill it. My how I have changed since living on the ranch. And finally, I found a quite alive, but weakened from dehydration, mouse in the cats’ litter box. The cats are spending their nights outside, hunting, so their litter box is not being used as often so the smell is down, so we hadn’t checked it to clean it in a few days. Did a cat put the mouse in there to play with later? That one, I scooped up between two styrofoam cups and flushed it down the toilet. Rural living!
In the greenhouse, for the winter garden, I mixed organic fertilizer and Magnesium salts in fifteen bussing trays that had been filled with composted manure. Then I planted seeds of lettuces, kales, Miner’s lettuce, Arugula, red-veined sorrel, and scallions. I did some more organizing in the greenhouse. It’s looking almost picture perfect. I just need to reorganize all of the potting pots and trays now.
I harvested Sage from the greenhouse and Dill from the garden and am dehydrating them the old fashioned way: tied up in bunches and hung in a shady spot in the house to dry.
We have a long shallow water trough that Jim had poked holes in to feed the cows hay. They always knocked the hay out and onto the ground. So I asked Jim for permission to use it in the garden. I dragged it into the garden and put it under the eave of the house. Last week Jim filled it with composted manure. I spent a few days breaking up the manure clumps, put the organic fertilizer in it and some Magnesium salts and mixed it all up. Then I finally, planted a bunch of Alpine Strawberry plants that I had started by seed this past winter in the bedroom greenhouse under grow lights. I’m looking forward to eating those strawberries next spring.
We continue to rotate the sprinkler in the garden. Since I planted my garden late, there isn’t much to harvest just yet, mostly just Zuchinnis. But there is broccoli coming on, cucumbers, beets, turnips, squash, soon… I just about finished pulling all of the polygonum/smartweed weeds. The garden is looking pretty good. The outdoor Winter garden in the main garden is sprouting nicely.
This year, I will have a sizeable blackberry harvest. More than just the usual handfuls of previous years. I’ve already picked a cereal bowl full.
I organized our pantry hallway, washed off many of our canning jars that are holding dried vegetables, fruits, spices, and jams.
Our sheep were dosed with Fenbendazol for three days this week and received the second dose of their antibiotic via subcutaneous injection. (Scruff of the neck.) I don’t enjoy injecting them. I nicked my finger with the needle once and drew blood. Not so much fun. However, the sheep all look much happier and healthier. In the next week they will also receive a course of Albendazol.
Our dosing them with Ivermectin in the spring during their shearing and using minerals and herbals during the summer turned out to not be enough for keeping them free of parasites. They also need the pharmaceutical parasiticals on a regular basis. So, now we know.
Last week, I had been feeding them the Polygonum weeds, Garlic powder, Marjoram, Oregano, Fennel, Wormwood, Comfrey, spindly sunflower stalks, Beet leaves, Broccoli leaves, Aspen leaves, Mullein, Old man’s beard and some Dandelion leaves to help them heal, not to mention mixed grains, with flax, kelp, minerals, Bayer Asprin, Nutri drenches and CMPK paste, etc. Properly caring for sheep is a ton of work and quite expensive. I love them, but I’ve decided to sell one of the two flocks sometime in the nearish future, so that I can concentrate on giving the best care to the remaining flock. I also need to lessen my workload.
I finally cleaned out the Meat and Fiber flock’s shed and loafing area. That took me three+ hours. The Dairy sheep were moved to new pen area last week and their old pen was cleaned. Both flocks are penned for the rest of the season while we work on the near-house meadow. I cleaned out the hen house this week. The cows and our horse have been out in the open meadows near the river for the past two weeks. When we bring them in, sometime in the next week or so, they will be dosed with the anti-parasiticals and will be put in the corrals for a while.
The farrier came and trimmed our horse’s hooves last week.
I’ve been deep cleaning kitchen once again. I worked on cleaning the stove top and floor of the oven and the inside of it’s door. Need to now work on the walls of the oven. Don’t ask, it’s bad. We don’t use the oven cleaning chemicals, so it’s scrub-scrub-scrub. I tend to prefer to avoid that..or procrastinate on getting to it…mostly because it takes too long to do. If I could do it in ten minutes, fine, but it takes much longer than that to do. It’s a bigger more involved job than what I want to do. I heard it said that “If a woman’s stove top and oven are spotless…Then most likely, she rarely cooks homemade meals.” I typically cook twice a day and I don’t always clean it up on the daily….
I learned recently that Lemon Balm leaf is an herb for longevity and is relaxing, anti-anxiety, helps with heart palpitations, etc, and has other benefits. So I tried it in my Nettle tea and really like it. I have been drinking Nettle tea a bit here and there this summer. So starting this week, I’ve added Nettle/Lemon Balm tea to my morning routine. I have not been a warm liquid drinker for the most part of my life. I hate coffee and caffeinated teas. So this tea with a bit of honey in the morning is a new thing for me. I also drink cold water with ACV, Celtic sea salt, sometimes lemon and magnesium, and usually elderberry in it. I do like Dandelion root tea from time to time.
A recommended book that I read during the past two weeks: “The complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable”, by Juliette deBairacli Levy. The author is an old school veterinarian. This book was written in 1952 and has much information on the use of herbs for your farm animals. She explains when and how to collect them, store them, and dosages for using them. There are many success testimonies. It is an excellent book with a lot of old wisdom. There are a few spots where modern knowledge supercedes her 1950s knowledge base, but most of her suggestions are spot-on. I highly recommend it.
Most days, I’ve been riding my bike, and doing 50 jumping jacks, 65 sit-ups, count to 90 regular front plank, count to 30 both sides, side planks, five minutes bouncing on rebounder, count to 30 wall sits, calves workout up on tiptoes and down at least 30 times in a row. I went swimming just once this week. I’ve also been sprinting between animal domiciles while delivering hay. I spent some time specifically sunbathing this week. I’ve not been out in the sun enough, in my opinion, this summer. I need to soak it up for the coming winter.
This week, Jim and Number Two Son fixed up a spare older model laptop computer for me, because these past two weeks, I spent a bit more time on Jim’s computer than he would like researching some stuff and ordering a few things. So while I have my own computer again, I am not going to be on it as much as in the past. I like my free time and my free thinking time. However, there have been some things I want to research more, too, in the coming weeks. I’ve missed not being able to look up biblical topics and words with the Blue Letter Bible. Winter is coming and that lends itself to more screen time, too. Moderation!
I’ve been working on memorizing Chapter 12 of Isaiah and Psalm 46.
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.