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 finished unloading and stacking the last of the hay that we hauled to the ranch last week. That was only about 50 bales. No sweat. (Actually, just a brief sweat. Good exercise!) So I can soon temporarily get back to my firewood project. But first…
We had some trouble with a few of our cattle escaping a pasture along a shallow stretch of The Unnamed River (TUR). This has also happened in a few previous summers, when the river water level dropped. So I built a new 300-foot-long fence, with an arch gate. That should keep the cattle where they are supposed to be. But only time will tell…
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had some clouds and thunderstorms earlier in the week with cooler temperatures. Really nice weather to work outside in.
Last Friday I received a twenty-pound box of organic black cherries. Miss Violet helped me to de-stem them. I then washed them and took out their pits. From there I froze about a gallon’s worth and dehydrated a gallons worth. Then I blended two quarts worth and dehydrated four trays of cherry fruit leather. Yum!
I weeded more of the garden.
We spent five hours one morning, picking huckleberries and Serviceberries (“Saskatoons”) in the adjoining National Forest. It was a pleasant time for the three of us. There were hardly any mosquitoes. Starting at 7 a.m., we gathered nearly 18 pounds of hucks, and more than 18 pounds of Serviceberries. We came back the next day for another four hours, and got even more. We three have serious cases of Huck fever! Only the first hard frost of fall will cure us! 😉
The Saskatoons, I dehydrated into little cakes, again, like last week.
I helped Jim line up the T-posts that he drove for the “new” fencing along part of our south pasture. In the past few years, our neighbors had generously offered up a small plot of their land for our animals to graze on. (Their benefit is cropped grass and a clearer view across the meadow, because we removed our boundary fence line between our two properties — one less pasture fence to look at.) So we removed our boundary fence and established another fence on their land, outside of their view of the meadow, in which to keep our animals in. Unfortunately, their stretch of the river becomes very shallow in middle and late summer and our cows will go into the river to go around the new fence to get into another pasture area of their land which is not properly fortified with cow-proof fencing
Anyhow, our one and only yearling steer calf alerted us to the fact that his mother, father, and a few other cows had gone around the fence into the other pasture area because he was too afraid to go into the river to follow them around the fence. So he, in his separation anxiety, bawled and bawled and bawled, alerting me that something was wrong. This prompted me to go out to see why he was bawling and discovering that the bull and cows had gone around the fence into the river and onto our neighbor’s other plot. So we had to reestablish our boundary fenceline where the river is deep, to keep our cows in. Bovine Delinquents, they are.
Another cow story. This week, I was awakened at 1:45 a.m. to cows bawling and lowing. This was after the new fence was built. I listened and listened. It seemed that the cows were going further and further away. Then it got all quiet, but one yearling kept bawling. I woke up Jim and told him that I thought that the cows had broken out and were either heading back to our neighbor’s pasture or were going the other direction. We got up, dressed, grabbed our Glocks and flashlights and went out to investigate. Jim had to do something so I went down the house meadow to the open meadow first by myself. I saw a bunch of glowing eyes staring back at the flashlight. The cows and horses were in the northeast pasture. The Southeast pasture had another pair of glowing eyes…Predator? Skunk? Our cat? I counted noses and ALL the cows were accounted for in the Northeast pasture. The eyes in the southeast pasture had disappeared into the darkness. I have no idea what it was. I couldn’t judge size from that distance.
The horses had been in standing in the gate way to the Southeast pasture looking toward the river, but not acting overly concerned. The cows were safely behind them. But I could still hear our expectant cow up in the corrals bawling and lowing. I turned around and started back up to the house meadow Jim was walking towards me. We met, and together, we trekked up to the corrals to see what was happening. Lo and behold her new calf was on the ground beside her. So that was what all of the commotion was about. The cows heard her labor and wanted to be with her, but couldn’t, so they gave her their vocal support. Such amazing animals. Yes, another calf to add to our herd. She was approximately twenty-one days behind the last cow to calve.
So the next day, when we returned home from berry picking we saw that the Bull had broken out of the pastures and was in the near-house meadow. I’m pretty sure we had forgotten to put the chain around the post of that gate after working in those fields two days ago. The chain was not broken. I surmise that the gate swung shut up against a rock after he passed through it. Then he pushed the gate over the rock to open it up to let his herd out. Smart beast He is. He wanted to meet his new offspring. I believe this, because…
Then, he had pushed open the gate to the corrals where the new Momma cow and new calf were located and, visited her and the calf. In fact, I bet all of the cows had gone in, to meet the calf, but then went back out to grazze, before we returned home. But now also, Momma cow had been “sprung her from her captivity”. She was out by our shop when we drove into the parking area.
Again, we had not chained that gate because we knew the momma cow doesn’t know how to push against it and open it. Only our bull has the strength and the smarts to do so. He pushed the gate inward from outside the corrals.
When I walked over to investigate what had happened with our dog, Momma cow ran back into the corral to protect her baby. I immediately closed the gate and chained it, to keep her in there. She needs to stay in there for at least five days until we dehorn and band this baby. It is a bull calf.
Further, the bull had “sprung” the chickens from the chicken run (possibility of acquiring some uneaten grain), and they had eaten some of the new hay from the unfenced hay barn.
So Jim, that afternoon, put up the fence panels again around the hay barn to keep them out. They will now have the run of the house meadows and the big meadows for the foreseeable future.
Oh my goodness, it’s a few weeks earlier than last year that I am already harvesting all my razzes: reds, yellows, and blacks. They look marvelous!!!
This week I began harvesting Zuchinni and turnips. We have finished eating all of our previous years’ frozen zuchinni this year. Therefore, I’ve been very much looking forward to this year’s harvest. This week I harvested, chopped, and froze three gallons worth of Zuchs. This is only the beginning…
This is the time of the summer when poor-doers, disease, and pests begin to make their unwelcomed appearances in the garden. Here are three examples of such on our ranch:
I harvested one row of red potatoes because their aerial vegetation looked diseased and horrible. The potatoes were small and most of them looked good enough, so we are eating them. I will, obviously, not replant any of these next summer. I will be burning the potato top vegetation this fall in our burn pile. The rest of the potatoes in several garden patches look great! I’m looking forward to a large harvest in a few weeks.
I harvested a few rows of garlic. This garlic was from my volunteer cloves that I planted last fall. They did not grow very well in this garden bed, their greens were small and spindly and had fallen over when I weeded them a few weeks ago. They never developed scapes. So I pulled them all up. They were round bulbs. They taste good. I still have about fifty garlic still growing from organic cloves that I bought last year to plant. They are gorgeous-looking plants. They are also in the same bed as the volunteer cloves that I planted but are doing much better.
In the greenhouse, a large shallow tote of celery went from bright green leaves to some turning yellow in just a few days time. On closer examination, I saw that they had aphids. Therefore I quickly cut them all back to the crown but leaving the just forming baby leaves in the center of the crown intact. (I expect them to grow back and hopefully not be infested again.) I soaked the harvested celery in cold water to drown those minute beasties. Then I brought the celery into the house and scrubbed them off in the kitchen sink, I threw away the yellowed leaves, but kept their stalks and put them in the refrigerator for future use. I still have a large amount of them growing outside in the garden that look great!
The World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab is talking about chipping everyone in order to access their bank accounts.
Prepare, prepare, prepare. We cannot, as Christians, join in with this Satanic system!!! Prepare to live outside the system. Be ready to lose your home, jobs, use of money, and perhaps your life to persecution. The main thing is to get food security regardless of access to money. Know what wild plants are edible. Dehydrate fruit, veggies, and meats so that they are compact and easy to carry. Also read God’s Word and Pray, Pray Pray!
May you all have a very blessed and safe week.
– Avalanche Lily, Rawles
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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.