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 had a typical late May week at the ranch. We took the time for some hiking. Gardening took up most of the rest of our available time, and Lily will fill you in on that. I cut and hauled nearly a cord of firewood. I had to repair yet another gate that our bull tried to wreck. That boy really throws his weight around!
I did a couple of half-day trips, doing some ammo purchasing for one of my consulting clients who lives within a couple of hours’ driving distance.
On Wednesday the 31st, I touched off our burn barrel for the first time in several weeks. I had to dispose of a laying hen that had mysteriously dropped dead. She was one of about 25 hens in our flock. While I was at it, I burned a rubber AR arm brace. That came off my last arm-braced AR pistol. (I had gifted, traded, or sold all of my others, in anticipation of the ATF’s new ban.) Burning it generated a surprisingly thick stream of black smoke that smelled horrible. That brace was an all-rubber first-generation “ATF Approved” SIG brace. I even have a copy of the ATF’s approval letter for that specific model. It is a sad state of affairs when bureaucrats redefine something previously “legally approved” as a felony to possess! I’m a member of the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), so I might be exempted under the Fifth Circuit Court’s injunction ruling, but I figured it was better to torch a $90 brace, rather than risk having the ATF come and shoot my dog, stomp my cats, and throw me in jail. All that I kept was the brace’s velcro strap. So, in essence, I now own a $90 piece of Velcro. What a disgusting turn of events! This is what it feels like to live under the capricious rule of a tyrannical state. My contempt-o-meter is pegging!
The mosquito numbers have recently spiked, so we resorted to putting up the mosquito net over our beds. That is helping a lot. But we are still having trouble sleeping because there are so many hours of daylight at our latitude, this time of year. And it is still three weeks to the solstice! On June 21st, we expect just over four hours of full darkness.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather was such a pleasure to be out in. Warm and sunny.
I’ve been trying to stay away from the computer this week and averaged only three hours a day for news, e-mails and interesting videos Yay! The news and YouTube channels are wearying me to no end. I’m trying to break my addiction to watching so many channels and being on the computer so much always looking for the latest “shock and awe”. I’m so tired of it. I know that evil, war, more man-made plagues and lockdowns, natural disasters and the Mark of the Beast are coming and there is nothing that I can do to stop it. Why keep listening to these doomsayers? The only thing I can do is pray and be in God’s Word and prepare. And that it what I am trying to do. Plus, I am sick and tired of seeing You Tube channels show me things that I am thinking about but haven’t spoken of aloud. It is either really good at guessing with it’s algorithms or it can read my mind?? Only God the Father can read our minds. Satan cannot. But anyhow I still find it freaky. So I am keeping the Wifi off and turning off the computer when not in use. It will not control me.
It’s so much easier to stay off of it when there is so much to do outside in pleasant weather.
I’m doing the usual gardening, weeding, I still need to plant more garden areas.
I’m back to working out, hiking, lifting weights, calisthenics, bike riding and…
We are transitioning our horses out of lawn ornament status back into working animals. We have not really worked them much during the past four years for so many reasons. But I am up for it now. Of course this entails tack clean up, I cleaned it last, two years ago, and reorganization of the tack room in our horse trailer which is currently ongoing. The horses have to be broken in.
We are working on S. our dominant horse, first. Three times in the past week I have ground-worked her. She is trained in dressage and trail riding. On the second day after ground-working her in circles on a lunge line, I had Jim come out and hold her while I mounted her. No one has been on her in about three years. Jim lead her around for about ten minutes with me on her to get her used to the idea again and me too. Then I got off. The next day after ground working her, Jim lead me around on her for a half hour while we both, me and S. remembered and tried different directional cues. It’s been awhile for me to remember everything. She is seeming to remember everything better than I. LOL! For instance, to be on the safe side for a quick bailing off if need be, I Ieft my feet hanging out of the stirrups at her sides. On the second day after about the first twenty minutes when I was feeling quite comfortable, muscle memory is returning, I slipped my feet into the stirrups and stood up while Jim was leading us. I then sat down and was in motion. Suddenly without thinking about what I was doing, I stopped all motion and pressed down on the stirrups. S. stopped dead in her tracks. Jim who was leading asked why she stopped. My brain kicked in and I said, “Oh, I pressed down on the stirrups and stopped moving without thinking about what I was doing and she remembered that that meant ‘stop'”. I laughed. “It’s been so long.” I had forgotten that particular cue, but S. had not. LOL! Anyhow the plan is for a few more weeks of ground work and Jim leading us around, and doing ground work on the rope while I ride her, before I free ride her. I’m hoping that maybe Horsey Friend and I can do some trail riding together again later on this summer…
I’m finding that my hens that I am “forcing” to brood are doing very well. They enjoy their recesses and this has kept them well watered, fed, and helps keep their nests clean. I give them ten minute breaks and I turn their eggs for them just in case they are not doing so. Another two weeks before hatching…
I’ve dehydrated more mint, dill, and chive flowers this week. Currently, I have a batch of comfrey in the dehydrator.
I finished washing the large pots, three inch pots and trays from this spring season’s seedling growing. That was a huge job.
I cleaned and organized the green house. I emptied out some spent trays and transplanted a few more items out into the gardens. I have more stuff that needs to be translated. I harvested my first green house cucumbers. They were super yummy. I have kales, lettuces, Pac choi, beets, chard, celery, tomatoes and peppers growing inside the green house. We have been eating wonderful salads as of late.
I will be planting more basil, parsley and others in the green house, soon.
You all need to keep prepping, praying, reading God’s Word asking Him for Discernment, wisdom, understanding and strength to resist the tyranny.
Grow food this year like you’ve never grown before…
Study wild edibles and medicinal herbs like never before, and plant them, try them and preserve them. Do it even if you don’t know yet what to do with them. Get the books and learn as you go.
Genesis 1:2
Some excellent books to read are:
- The Uses of Wild Plants, by Frank Tozer
- How to Eat In the Woods by Bradford Angier
- The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide by Linda Runyon
- Eat the Trees, By Linda Runyon
- Foraging the Mountain West by Thomas J. Elpel and Kris Reed
- Primitive Living, Self-sufficincy and Survival Skills, A Field Guide to Basic Living Skills For Hikers, Campers and Preppers.. by Thomas Elpel
- From the Shepherd’s Purse, by Max Barlow
- Wild Harvest by Alyson Hart Knap
- Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw
- Plant Medicine by Richo Cech
- The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody
A website that I just found this week: Edible Wild Food
A great video this week from My Self Reliance on Hunting, Fishing, and Foraging in the Wilderness.
LL Bean has gone Woke! Time to call them and give them h*ll for bowing down to this evil agenda! It’s one thing to treat everyone with respect and kindness when having a chance encounter no matter their choices in life and quite another to openly advocate and promote gross immorality. Now this really upsets me, because I love most of their high-quality products, cashmere sweaters, Pima cotton shirts, Linen pants, Goretex hiking boots, sleeping bags, etc.. Jim and I, and my parents when I was a child, have spent thousands of dollars over the past forty-five years of my life, buying from them. But sadly no more…Jim does “thank” them, for now his wallet will be heavier.
May you all have a very blessed and safe week.
– 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.