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:
The snow at the Rawles Ranch is melting quickly, and The Un-named Rover will probably rise up out of its banks soon. We usually see that in happen March or April, but not in early February. This has been a very unusual winter!
Working on perfecting our “Frugal Mode”, we’ve set up some new clothes drying racks in our living room. Two of them are free-standing. The other one, purchased via eBay, is a wooden Amish-built folding wall-mounted rack. Mounting the latter was quick and easy. For a strong mount, I just had to be sure to have the two mounting screws hit a stud behind the sheetrock.
This week I did another on-site visit with one of my consulting clients, to discuss the details of some new construction at his retreat.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week’s weather has been very cloudy, foggy, rainy, and dreary despite the temperatures mostly just above freezing. I hope there will be some sun in the coming week.
This week we received the new kits to make metal laundry racks. I assembled the two of them. I felt really good about that job, since I seldom assemble things. I immediately used them in our Great room with the next load of laundry. I like them. Our propane dryer is a newer model, and is horrible! It will dry a very small load of light clothes in one and a half cycles, but to dry a large load of towels, it takes three cycles. It drives me crazy! 😉 So, I do want to be frugal and save money on electricity and propane. Also, clothes dry much faster by the wood stove in the winter and out in the sun during the summer. They smell better too. If we want something soft, then I can always throw them into the dryer for a few minutes…
Jim bought a large amount of laundry bar soap some months ago, from Mexico called Zote. It is a large 14.1 oz pink bar. The ingredients are: sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, glycerin, fragrance, optical brightener, and Violet 10. Anyhow, I like the smell, and I feel that it is a better soap, fewer ingredients than laundry soaps found here in the States. So, this week I grated a whole bar, put it in two quart-size mason jars, and have been adding a five-finger pinch of it to my regular homemade laundry detergent that is made of Borax, washing soda, and baking soda. The combination is doing a great job of laundering our clothes.
We received my mail-ordered archery 25-pound traditional bow this week. Every day I have been dry-pulling it but not snap-releasing it, to build up my strength. (A bow should not be “dry-fired”!) After five days, I can now pull it to its full draw length, at my cheek, I will continue to pull it, to build up my strength. Miss Violet is also practicing pulling it. I shot one arrow early in the week to give it a first try. I liked how it shot. But I don’t want to lose them in the snow. Also, I still need to make arm guards and finger protection before doing more practicing. The bow string tends to graze my inner elbow and inner lower arm and wrist which hurts. I’m working on the right way to hold my arm while shooting.
We also received from Amazon many of the mason jar accessories, handkerchiefs, and beeswax food wraps. (I forgot to mention those, last week). Jim will be canceling Amazon again, in about a week, once the last couple of orders arrive. As I mentioned before, we only temporarily re-joined Amazon so that Jim could order a big batch of his novel Land Of Promise. Amazon is the only source for that book.
One of the Mason Jar accessories is a screw-on plastic cap with a handle. I am using those for a maple syrup pour jar and for a white vinegar pour jar, for cleaning purposes. We have Maple syrup but very seldom use it. I bought a cap for pouring olive oil from a quart mason jar. Now we all can better control how much oil we pour into the pan or over our salad. I also bought sprayer accessories for the Mason jars so now I can make my own cleaning solutions and can use the mason jars as their container. I bought a package of “frogs” so we can arrange flowers in Mason Jars — or other types of decorations…
This past week, we also ordered cloth paper towels and cloth toilet paper. Those should be arriving soon. I really want to give those a try. I love paper towels for wiping out cast iron pans after washing them and for cleaning up animal accidents, but other than that we should use cloth for other types of clean-ups.
Jim bought two new large enameled canner pots with lids for me to use to make soap.
I reorganized a corner cupboard in the kitchen.
Miss Violet’s old, old dresser bit the dust this week. We can no longer repair it. We’ve been searching for a reasonably priced dresser for over a year now. For a temporary solution, we dug out of the shop two long under-the-bed clear totes. I then helped Miss Violet go through her clothes from both the dresser and the closet. We culled a lot of them out and put a lot in a large tote to be stored in the shop for later use or use for someone who may need them in the future. Then we folded and rolled her remaining clothes and organized them in the two totes in a way that will give her more control over them. She can now see exactly what she owns and can choose more easily what she will wear on a given day. We also ordered her two more shirts and a sweater to round out her wardrobe. It feels really good for both of us to get her clothes in order once again.
This week we released all of the cows and horses from the corral and the bullpen, so that they have freedom and better healthier living conditions. Our Senior Bull and our new young bull get along just fine. All of the cows and heifers are most likely bred, so we’re not worried, at this point. I am feeding them once again out in the house meadow. I’m hoping that all of the grass seed that gets dropped from their hay and all of the leftover grasses and their manure will really fertilize our meadow and cause lush grass to grow in it once again for them next summer. I also have moved their dining areas to other spots on the ranch from time to time that I want extra fertilized and seeded. These include the area around the bullpen and in the south pasture. As the snow melts more and more we will go further afield, to feed them.
I guess we won’t be butchering for a while…
I cleaned the Hen House again this week. I put that manure in a manure pile in the Main garden. I have not cleaned the sheep shed because the hay is absorbing the urine smell better. Though I cannot let it get moldy, for my health. So I’ll clean it again, next week.
In the bedroom greenhouse, I planted scallions, celery, leeks, amber onions, Walla Walla onions, and a mix of white and red onion seeds from my gardens from last summer, for next summer.
A dog story: Last Saturday afternoon, after Bible Study, I went out to feed the beasties in the near-house meadow with our “pup” H. The dog and the horses were in higher spirits than the usual. Miss H had just been let out after being alone in the house for about four hours. The horses were hungry and were prancing around and kicking up their heels. As I took the hay bale out of the barn in the sled, they tried to grab bites from it. I yelled “No!” to them and gave a short chase to get them away from the sled. Miss H. immediately started barking at them to “protect” me. I always tell her “No”. She kept at it, all excited to make them obey her mistress. I kept yelling “No” to “H”. I wanted to whisper, but she wasn’t listening. I thought. “She’s gonna get kicked.” She has been around the horses regularly, night and day for the past two and half years…She has been kicked twice before, you’d think she’d remember that? Really, I should have stopped and brought her back to the house, but I was in a hurry and wanted to get the job done.
The tension was high with all of us.
I pulled the sled towards the meadow with the horses hanging in really tight, sneaking bites. I chased them off the bale, twice. Finally, I reached the meadow and threw a flake immediately to each of the horses. I moved away from them and began spreading out flakes for the cows in a hurry. I moved as much as twenty-five yards away from the horses. Miss H. stayed near the horses and kept barking at them. They kept wheeling around. I yelled at her to stop about three times. I should have called her to me, too. Suddenly “Ch” kicked and I heard the loud contact with H’s ribs. “H” yelped and I yelled to her that she was “stupid” for not obeying me. I watched. She ran away about ten yards and stopped and sat down looking like she was in pain. But, she was not limping. I yelled, “Go to the house” and she slunk away toward the house, but not all the way. She sat in the driveway by the house watching me finish the chores. I was very concerned for her, but I could not stop right in the middle of the job.
As soon as I was finished, I called her to me she came a little bit towards me, not acting hurt, and I was talking to her about the incident. She then slunk away. When we came to the house, she slunk to the door, I let her in and she slunk right for Miss Violet’s bedroom. The door was closed so she laid down in the hallway. I immediately went to her. She would barely look at me. Her ears were back, her head tucked. all submissive and apologetic but with major avoidance. She let me examine her but she was trembling all over. She was only bruised. After a while, I realized she was associating that kick from the horse with me yelling as if I had done the kicking/punishing to her. Hey, that is not the right association. Gee! I was pretty upset about that. I gave her snacks and tried to call her to me while in the house and she wouldn’t come, the whole day and into the next day. Unless she was outside, she wouldn’t look at me and outside she was very obedient to me, but in an excessively submissive fearful way.
At one point when she was lying on the floor in the hallway, I tried to make up to her and she actually did the submissive pee, on the tile floor. She hadn’t done that since she was a pup. I was so sad about it. I brushed her, hugged her, praised her in a quiet voice and with exuberance which she usually responds to. I played ball with her in the house, but she would only go after it once or twice and then run back to Miss Violet’s room. We played outside, threw her frisbee, but she wouldn’t relax with me. Oh, and usually when I am on the computer on the living room floor, she is right by my side. But for two days she stayed in Miss Violet’s room. I kept going in three trying to coax her out. She would only come out if I put the leash on her. Then she would go right back in and under her bed when I released her. Several times I went in and got on my hands and knees to pet her head and took her muzzle in my hands stroked her nose, talked to her, and kissed the top of her muzzle, just below her eyes. I missed seeing my ever-companionable sidekick’s usual happy carefree behavior.
I talked to a friend on the phone about it and she mentioned that her dog did a similar thing when running cattle near an electric fence. My friend was out in the field away from the fence. She saw her dog getting too close to the fence and just as she yelled for the dog to come, it got zapped. It associated the zap with her yell. She said that her dog didn’t come to her for over a month…So sad. Finally, on the second day, after that phone call, suddenly Miss H. was herself again and came to me with her ears all perked up ready for a game. I don’t know what the catalyst was that caused the switch in her, but I saw the switch and immediately loved her up and we played frisbee outside in the dark for a half-hour to rebuild our bond. After that, for the rest of the week, she has been very responsive and obedient to me while helping me do chores.
I have been particularly diligent this week with lifting weights and doing calisthenics every day. Also, Jim and I went for a long walk to check on the neighbor’s place. Then on the way home, took a side trip, walking two miles up into the national forest.
This week I have also been even more diligent in praying and reading God’s Word. We have had some answered prayers concerning our children this week which have inspired me to continue praying for other areas in their lives. God answers prayers if they’re in His will for our children. He truly directs their paths if we diligently intercede for them.
I read First and Second Thessalonians this week, Joel, the last few chapters of Daniel yet again, First and Second Timothy
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.