To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities. They also often share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, 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 the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
JWR
Dear SurvivalBlog Readers:
This week I did some cross cutting of logs into firewood rounds. The rest of my time was spent on another project, and my usual writing.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
This week I spent the bulk of my time helping Jim with several family projects. We have been very very happily and excitedly busy with our projects. We did some shopping and had a couple of routine appointments this past week. I picked lots of Black Raspberries and Strawberries and froze them. I weed-whacked the Garden and did all of the usual watering rotations. Weeds that offended my eye as I walked by them were pulled while doing other things. I have to set aside another couple of days and get at those weeds with concerted effort!!
We hope you are all enjoying the warm weather and the fruitful abundance of summer.
Many Blessings to All, – Jim Rawles and Avalanche Lily, Rawles
HJL
This week the Latimer family will primarily be focused on the garden. A significant part of the garden is matured and ready for harvest. We are busy picking various beans, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, and more. The tomatoes have grown to where they need more support, so we will be adding about 60-70 stakes for these and continuing the endless weeding effort. The heavy rains that we had a couple of weeks ago have made these unwanted invaders in the garden (as well as the rest of the property) explode in number. We will check on our new potato crop to see if it is time to harvest these this week.
Also, our grasshopper population needs some thinning with the NOLO bait on the perimeter of the garden and we will be adding some fertilizer to the beans and tomatoes. As some plants have gone to seed, it is time to collect seed for later planting or next year’s garden. Obviously, we are quite busy enjoying the fruit of our labors, guarding our garden from pests, and maintaining the property in general. We think it will be a busy and hot week.
o o o
As always, please share your own successes and hard-earned wisdom in the Comments.
Wifey made pickles. I bought an older S&W model 14 that will be used for Bullseye matches. Red dot sight goes on this one, can’t see my irons well any more. Gotta walk the walk and not just talk!
What is NOLO bait? I have grasshopper problems also.
NOLO is a grasshopper and cricket bait from M&R Durango that is designed for organic gardening. Since we abandoned Sevin (Carbaryl) years ago, we’ve had a horrible time with grasshoppers eating the garden. It wasn’t until Mrs. Latimer discovered this amazing bait that we have been able to survive grasshopper invasions. Even when the neighbors are losing their gardens entirely, we still manage to save ours. Like all organic products, it’s not 100% and you still lose some plants to the critters, but it is the most effective that we have seen yet.
*****IMPORTANT UPDATE/PLEASE NOTE*****
To all of you who are interested in, or have used our product, Nolo Bait TM, biological control for grasshoppers, we sincerely appreciate your interest and your business. Unfortunately, we have some very sad news to share with you. We have suffered a devastating fire at our business location and will not be able to supply Nolo Bait for the remainder of 2018. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to serve you again in the future.
We know this is a hardship for those of you who have come to rely on Nolo Bait over the years and we are so sorry we can’t be of help this season with such rough drought conditions in so much of the country and grasshoppers abounding. We are working hard to regroup and begin work on reconstruction. We will post updates as available so that you will be informed and know when we are able to fill orders again. We are currently able to receive emails at info@goodbug.com and telephone messages on our business voicemail at (970) 259-3521.
Thank you for your patience and best wishes, Lee Anne Merrill, President M&R Durango, Inc
That is really sad news to hear. So many in Colorado have lost so much to these fires. Your company has always been a joy to do business with. We will be praying for a speedy recovery for you, your family, and your business.
The work continues and the work continues to pay off. I walk to the raspberries and eat. I walk to the lettuce and eat. I work a little then I eat some more.
Our little grand daughter fell ill. Kawasaki Disease. She has an amazing doctor and she is on the mend so as usual daily prayer has been a large part of our preps. The Lord comforted us and We are very very thankful.
Time to visit our raspberries…..
I just realized that I need to top and remove suckers in our tomato plants. Going to be a great day.
Psalm 118:24 I hope everyone has as good a day as I plan on having. Garden on 3…..break!
The weed picture; the dreaded Goat-head (at least that’s what they call the evil things here. They grow fast, are prolific, and are a bear to get rid of! I had ’em in the vegggie garden. Last year, I went as far as to pull the goat-heads, and very lightly shop-vac’ed the soil surface to pick up the seeds, which are very light when dry. Y’know; this sounds stupid, but it actually worked! I had very few of them in the garden this year!
Not a whole lot since the BOL has to construction crews working on two different projects. Project #1 is the new 24×40 pole barn with 10′ lean-to. The back will have a room 24×10 with loft above it. Project #2 is an addition onto the BOL home complete with additional basement. Just trying to get ready to move much of the stuff in the home garage to the new barn. I sent a couple hours putting nails and screws from partial boxes that I got at household sales into used pill bottles or other containers. Got a new pair of hiking boots, a box of 20 ga for the kids shotgun, and some gun cleaning supplies. Found some great clearance finds at tractor supply- 4 pairs of women’s/kids work gloves, a pack of six shackles, nd the July issue of Countyside magazine.
Added some resources to my prepper binders and researched uses for common things like lime, baking soda, salt, lye, etc.
Starting reach on how different people have designed and built rain catchment systems. That is a 2019 project but will start gathering supplies this year so in the spring we can start that right off.
The best prep is we had our realtor come in to look at our city home which will be on the market early next spring as we move to the BOL full time!!!! You can do it too, just have to stop looking at the reasons you “can’t” and focus on the reasons you “can”!!!! Don’t know why we didn’t do this 10 years ago.
Got the usual chores done before the heat index of 106°. This week it has been so hot we are only working outdoors early morning and after 5pm. We cleaned out the chicken coops and put down fresh straw. Transitioned 8 chicks to the fenced coop with netting on top to train them to not fly over the fences. Once they learn that they can transition to the larger free-range area.
Garden producing well; harvesting and canning lots of tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers and zukes. Grapes and fruit trees are doing OK in spite of the late freeze, which damaged a lot of branches. Kitchen herbs are suffering from the hot weather; had to put them in the shade. Have a great week!
We put a new metal roof on our house; next project we have 57 birch trees to cut down that were damaged last winter by our heavy snow fall. This will be firewood for two years down the road. I keep at least 12 cords of firewood in reserve, and at least 4 that is a minimum of 2 years cut, split, and staked to dry. This project aside from our garden that is doing very well this year, will be the big one for the year. The final projected reserve of firewood will be somewhere around 14 to 18 cords. It should allow for next summer to be one for rest and vacation time.
Has anyone here tried guineas around a garden? If my garden wasn’t so close to the road, I would definitely try it. I’ve heard they will focus more on the bugs than chickens and less on the produce.
Guineas will work, give them a try. They are very noisy and pretty wild. They prefer to nest in the trees until winter hits then they roost in the rafters of your barn. never could keep them in a pen. They are darned ugly birds though.
With guineas, he sure to feed them for a couple of days before releasing them. Then feed them daily for several weeks after release. This will help them associate your place with food and make it home. They range a good bit. We have fifteen adults. Every morning, the patrol in a spread out line, eating bugs out of our yard and pastures and also gleaning from our neighbors pastures. Our neighbors love it. Our tick population is greatly reduced.
I’d suggest keeping 7 or 8 adult birds at a minimum. Young birds don t last long. Everything eats them. We also lose an average of one a year to speeding cars on the road.
During the winter and spring we see raccoons come into the barn and take birds from the rafters. Guineas either roost just before sunset or huddle on the ground if they’ve been driven of the roost after dark. If that happens get out there with a flashlight, find them and get off the ground.
If I hear guineas squeaking after dark i take a shotgun and investigate. If they are yelling there is a reason.
They are great to have on a farm.
Ah, goats-head (or maybe puncturevine, not sure which is which).
I have found that a small infestation can be suppressed by burying the plant and its immediate environment in two inches or so of fresh lawn trimmings.
I don’t know if this rots the seeds or causes them to germinate and then die, but I have cleared about a hundred square feet using this method with good success.
With guineas, he sure to feed them for a couple of days before releasing them. Then feed them daily for several weeks after release. This will help them associate your place with food and make it home. They range a good bit. We have fifteen adults. Every morning, the patrol in a spread out line, eating bugs out of our yard and pastures and also gleaning from our neighbors pastures. Our neighbors love it. Our tick population is greatly reduced.
I’d suggest keeping 7 or 8 adult birds at a minimum. Young birds don t last long. Everything eats them. We also lose an average of one a year to speeding cars on the road.
During the winter and spring we see raccoons come into the barn and take birds from the rafters. Guineas either roost just before sunset or huddle on the ground if they’ve been driven of the roost after dark. If that happens get out there with a flashlight, find them and get off the ground.
If I hear guineas squeaking after dark i take a shotgun and investigate. If they are yelling there is a reason.
They are great to have on a farm.
They also eat grasshoppers! When I start the lawnmower, they follow behind getting bugs that I stir up.