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 was fortunate to find a couple of power tools at an estate sale, this week: A drill press and a bandsaw. I had been needing both of these for many years. To get the pair for under $400 was a real blessing. The traditional Rockwell belt-driven drill press dates from 1962. Granted, it will be cumbersome to set different speeds, but I won’t have to do that very often. The bandsaw looks like it was made after 2000, and it appears to have hardly had any use. They are both now safely positioned in our shop. Now I just have to do some online research, to find PDFs of their user manuals to print out for my workshop reference binder. Lily still wants me to find a wood-turning lathe. But finding one of those at a reasonable price might take a while…
I did some more traveling last weekend to attend a gun show. I found a Ludwig Loewe Argentine contract Mauser M1891 sporter, for my Elk Creek Company inventory. I also bought some ammunition, for one of my consulting clients.
I also did some apple picking, but Lily will fill you in on that.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This has been a rainy cold-ish week in the mid-fifties for highs and low forties for lows. We started up the wood heating stove and have used it three times during the past week and a half. Since we are now entering the season of dark clouds and little sun, I broke out the Cod Liver oil to supplement my Vitamin D and A for the winter. Additionally, I am taking Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) with REAL Salt in a glass of water with a teaspoon of raw honey first thing in the AM. I find that it does good things for my body. I have been taking the ACV and REAL salt since early this summer and just added the honey in. It has done wonders for healing my digestive system.
During a search at the Thrift Books website for books on herbal medicines for animals, I came across a book that really piqued my interest, called “Folk Medicine: A New England Almanac of Natural Health Care from a Noted Vermont Country Doctor” by D.C. Jarvis, M.D. Published in 1958. I bought it and read it this week. It was a great book, chock full of old forgotten wisdom and remedies of the old Vermonters who lived on farms, close to the soil. My main takeaways from this book are these: Do not eat white sugar, wheat, or factory-produced foods (packaged). Eat raw honey, rye, and corn, instead (though with the latest knowledge corn needs to be non-GMO at this day and age.) Eat lots of greens, herbs, root crops, other veggies, seafoods, some lamb, beef, pork. Eat/drink ACV several times a day. Honey and Honeycomb are very important for both nourishment and medicinal purposes.
Even back in the fifties, the author recognized that many people were not getting the amount of Potassium that they needed, just like today, and so believes that ACV with Honey help add to a body’s potassium stores and helps release it from other foods. He also believes that the human body needs to lean to a more acidic body chemistry than toward an alkaline body chemistry and goes on to explain how most bacteria are grown in alkaline petri dishes, which proves his point. Acidic environments kill harmful bacteria. He recommends drinking acidic fruit juices at least once a day: apple, cranberry, or grape. He does not recommend any citrus drinks at all since they alkalize the body. This is so interesting to me since the publicly promoted breakfast, is wheat cereals sweetened with cane sugar and orange juice. Doesn’t it seem as though there is some evil force at work trying to make us unhealthy?
Back to his food recommendations. In the early spring before gardens come up, eat wild plants, such as Fiddleheads, Marsh marigold/cowslip, Horse radish, Dandelions, Dock, Yellow rocket, Water cress, Milk weed, Pigweed which can be both Amaranth and Lamb’s Quarters, Mustard, Purslane, Sorrel, and very young tree leaves, such as Apple, Beechnut, Birch, Elm, Maple, Poplar, Willow, and Raspberry.
Iodine is very low in the soils of Vermont so the author mentioned that it is important to take Iodine supplements. Dr. Jarvis recommends a pinch of kelp daily, or Lugols 5% solution for both the Potassium and Iodine, one drop in a glass of water twice a week, a third drop a week if someone is getting sick. Or, spreading Iodine on a small patch of skin to for another route of getting it into your system. [Jim Adds: It should not be used in more than minute doses regularly, for fear of thyroid damage.]
One super interesting point that he made was that Iodine is in the Halogen family on the Periodic Chart. It is the second heaviest of the other halogens; Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, and Astatine in order of their Atomic number and weight. He mentions that in our bodies the lighter atomic weight halogens will replace the larger weight Halogens in our Thyroid. Thus, if there is Chlorine or Fluoride in our water those lighter Halogens will replace the heavier iodine in our system, thus leading to Iodine deficiencies and all the woes/diseases that come from Iodine deficiency. Most of the public water supply is treated with Chlorine and Fluorides…
He also found that Castor Oil can be used topically for many reasons. I am now studying more on Castor oil uses. and we received an order of it this week to add to our medical supplies. This book was a fascinating read and I learned a lot of old wisdom that seems to have disappeared in these latter years regarding maintaining and treating our health. I highly recommend this book.
As a followup to the aforementioned book, I am currently reading “Back to Eden” by Jethro Kloss, published in 1971. This is another gem. But thusfar, I take issue with his promotion of soy products. Soy was a new fangled product in the late sixties early seventies and there hadn’t been enough studies done on it yet. Also, he is into alkalizing one’s body. I don’t agree with this. Regardless, there still is a lot of really good information to be gleaned from this book. Therefore I am continuing to read it. It’s a long book, so it will take me a while to finish it.
This week for prepping, I spread a lot of grass seed of several varieties all over our meadow just as the rains began. We are still working on building up our pastures.
I cleaned the hen house, sheep shed, and little Miss M’s, our nine-month-old heifer’s stall several times this week. I continue to work with little Miss M to tame her and teach her to lead on a halter rope. I continue to work on taming the rest of the cow crew, too. They are warming up to me once again. It helps to offer carrots and then try to sneak in an ear scratch.
This week, Jim and I picked many more of our apples and all of the rest of our plums. I froze (and we ate fresh) the last of the plums.
Even though we have a lot of our own apples coming on this year, they are mostly for people use, mostly for fresh eating. Jim, Miss Violet, and I found some local apple trees from an old homestead in “No-man’s land” and went and gleaned a bunch during a light rain for our beasties’ use. Some of them I am using to make apple Vinegar to use as a supplement for all of our beasties’ health.
I brought the rest of the greenhouse plants into the house that I wanted in here. I transplanted from the garden into pots, oregano, and mint and brought them into the house. I transplanted from the greenhouse into pots two different types of parsley and brought those into the house. I planted seeds of lettuces, chard, beets, and spinach in large trays that are in the bedroom greenhouse.
I harvested another gallon’s worth of golden raspberries and froze them. I pray that the frosts hold off for a lot longer this fall, since I am still getting lots of warm-weather veggies and raspberries.
I harvested more zuchs, and we are eating them. I harvested three very large zuchs that had escaped my attention under the leaves. Those, I grated and mixed with apple, ground walnut and pecans, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, and dehydrated to make dehydrated “zucchini pancakes” without flour. They turned out to be quite yummy.
I made a half gallon of refrigerator cucumbers.
I’ve been hiking all around the ranch and continuing my calisthenics.
I finished reading and translating Psalm 119 from Hebrew to English.
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.