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:
We’ve returned from a week-long trip to California, to attend a family reunion. We logged more than 2,000 miles in our SUV. We didn’t do much vis-a-vis prepping this past week.
I did some weed-whacking after we got home to prepare a plot in our south acreage for discing. This will be the first time this soil has ever been cultivated, so it might be a challenge. (Read: Lots of rocks.)
The general deer and elk season opens soon, so we plan to be out hunting a lot in the next three weeks.
Our senior ram from our wool/dairy flock battered down the end of his sheep corral fence, again. This time I had to reinforce the fence with an additional fir 4×4, when I repaired it. This, by the way, was the same ram that head-butted into my leg, two weeks ago.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We enjoyed our trip to California. It was a small Rawles family reunion. It was lovely to see Jim’s brother and sister and their spouses and for me to meet one of his cousins for the first time. Another cousin from Jim’s mom’s side was there too, a very lovely cousin. We ate a lot of good food, had a lot of great conversations, some great walks on the beach in Montara, California. A wonderful time all in all and great sunny warm weather. So unusual for the San Fransisco Peninsula.
On the way there we stopped up at Donner Pass and hiked up the Judah Mountain Trail to the Pacific Crest Trail and hiked five steps on it to say, we’ve been on it. Ha-ha! We would have hiked more but we had an appointment with a friend of Jim’s down in the foothills. And we had run out of time and had to get back down to the car. But perhaps someday, we’ll hike on it more….
Later, we went birding on the Shoreline Park Nature Reserve in Mountain View. That was so neat. We saw a lot of water birds: Pelicans, hawks, ducks, western Grebes, Yellow leg sandpipers, western Oyster catchers, etc. And along the Pacific ocean we saw Murres, Cormorants and some others, that I still have to look up to identify.
We took our pup with us. It was her first time on the ocean at a beach. “Beach” is a new word for her vocabulary. She loved running on the beach and found herself a stick for me to throw for her to play catch. She was so funny. She went into the surf and lapped at the water, and then gave me a funny look as if to say, “Hey, this isn’t fresh water.” Later we went to a more sheltered beach on Half Moon Bay that didn’t have big surf waves. She actually went into the ocean and took several more laps at it to taste it. It made me a bit nervous, not knowing how good it was for her, but after about four different laps of it she stopped. At this beach we saw Harbor Seals and a jetty just chock full of pelicans, thousands and thousands and thousands of them! It was so Amazing to see so many birds.
On the way home we stopped up in the Sierras to see Lake Kirkwood, where one of Jim’s aunts had a cabin for many years. That lake, at 7,600-foor elevation, is on Highway 88, up near the Carson Pass. What a lovely little lake and what a gorgeous region.
Also closer to home, we stopped at the Lapwai Nez Perce museum near Lewiston, Idaho. That was such a neat museum. I asked the museum host a few questions about the name of the native names of the bulbs they were displaying for the Native American’s food. He looked them up and brought out a large box with jars of dehydrated bulbs and foods to examine. It turns out that the major bulbs we were looking at were Lomatian/Biscuit root, Bitterroot, Spring beauties/potato and of course, Camas. Fascinating. Additionally, I was very interested in their bags in which they stored their dried bulbs. They were made from threads coming from Dogbane and corn leaves. So interesting. We have a lot of Dogbane in our area. I want to try to process it and make similar bags. I bought a couple of books. I will describe them as I read them, this winter.
I just have to say that I really like the Riggins, Idaho region, the Salmon and Clearwater rivers, Heaven’s Gate and the Seven Devils mountains. That is such a beautiful part of the Redoubt. Jim’s photo above shows early morning along the Salmon River, a few miles below White Bird, Idaho.
Since the Feast of Tabernacles holiday, I began to read through the Bible again. I am currently in Chapter 47 of Genesis. I’ve also finished writing out Chapter 10 and 11 of Isaiah.
It is good to be home.
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.