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 fairly nice weather this week, so I got outdoors to do some snow shoveling and various other projects around the ranch. Spring is coming!
I’ve had a few recent auction purchases arrive, so I soon added them to my Elk Creek Company online catalog. These include a U.S. Springfield Armory 1884 Trapdoor Rifle that is Chicago “Boston Store”-marked and a scarce Carcano M1891 Torre Short Rifle that is dated 1897 on the barrel ring.
Now, Lily’s much more loquacious report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Okay, this week I am feeling extremely talkative, so bear with me. A whole lot happened this week that I wanted to tell you. Last week nothing happened because it was dark, gray, rainy, and snowy So, as you can see I will write a lot when I have things to talk about and not write much when there isn’t much to talk about. 😉
The weather started out very snowy. Then it turned gorgeous sunny with bluebird skies mixed with big fluffy white cumulus clouds for four whole days! Our temperatures ranged from a low of 16 degrees Fahrenheit to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. It is so lovely here when the sun is out! What a beautiful lovely week! The Chickadees have switched their winter song over to their spring song. I have seen crows, robins, and red-winged blackbirds. I finally heard the owls calling two nights ago.
Lambing Season
Spring lambing season has begun! Our first lamb of the season was born on March 5th. He was a fairly vigorous ram lamb, with quite protruding horn nubs. Such a cutie! The little ram, was really cold and still damp when I found him. It didn’t seem able to nurse, and the mom hadn’t passed the placenta yet. So I warmed him up under my sweater. These are very small lambs. Then I milked his mother’s teats for a bit and tried to introduce him to the idea. He didn’t take to it. I left him with his mom for a while to let her care for him. I went back out with a mason jar and syringe. I saw that his mother had passed the placenta. I tried again to get him to nurse. He refused. I milked about 90 ml of colostrum from his mom and sucked it up into the syringe. I dampened my pinky finger with milk to check the sucking reflex. It was there, a bit. I gave him forty ml through the syringe. Then warmed him up under my sweater again for a few minutes.
I decided to bring him to the house to show Miss Violet and Jim — and more importantly to dry him up more and to warm him by the woodstove. So I did so. In the house, we finished drying him off. I gave him the last of the 90 ml of milk. A couple of minutes later he was running all around the house and calling for his mama. So I brought him right back out. He was in the house for only about twenty minutes. He and Mama were super happy to be reunited and from there he took off and is doing great.
(The photo above is Martha Rawles, caring for bummer lambs in Boonville, California, circa 1948.)
A cute little Rammy story:
The day after Rammy was born, he looked vigorous enough to me to be let out into the sheep run with the rest of the flock. So I let him go out. I was not thinking. I forgot the fact that he was small enough to fit through the hog panel squares in the fencing of their sheep run. A short while later Jim came up to the porch and looked back towards the loafing area and saw S. our dominant horse playing with some little animal that looked like one of our cats about the same size and color. The animal and the horse were nose-to-nose and the horse gently nosed at it and then they ran around with the horse chasing it. Jim realized that it wasn’t our cat but the rammy. (Our cats never play with the horses.) He yelled to S. to stop and be gentle.
The porch door was open and I heard Jim yelling at the horse and was already getting my shoes on. I was wearing shorts and a sweater when he came to the door to tell me that Rammy had gotten out. I ran out of the house immediately, to get him. When I saw them, the ram lamb and horse were once again nose-to-nose. The horse had a look on her face and exhibited body language that said: “This tiny baby lamb is not where it’s supposed to be and I’m trying to corral it.” She is so big and the rammy so small. She was so gentle.
There was a snowbank between me and them and a shed behind them and the horse arena and forest to the right. I wasn’t sure which way to go so I went over the bank and spooked the lamb to the left towards the loafing area formed between the hay barn and corrals and shed. He streaked so fast over towards the barn that I marveled at such speed and energy from such a tiny lamb so brand new to the world. S. started towards the barn, too. But then when she saw I was on the case she got out of the way.
The rammy ran towards the hen house and up onto a snow bank. I tried for him and he ran around the chicken run and got himself trapped between the chicken run and the hen house. I dove for him across a snowbank and caught him by his back legs. In the meantime I scraped my bare knee and drew blood from the hard snow. He sprawled out on his belly with me holding his back legs, gently. I scooped him up and hugged him. He is so adorable. He is so cute! He is so small — Eagle Bait! His heart was a-pumping fast and his breathing was rapid. I looked at him a bit worried and prayed that he hadn’t overextended himself. I held him gently for a few minutes to let him calm down. He hadn’t overextended himself!
I carried him to the sheep shed. I put him down in one half of the shed and went to get his Mama who was out in the run. She was terribly anxious for him. When she heard him bleat in the shed, she came bounding in. I had hid behind the door, so when she went in I shoved it closed. The two were reunited. I will not let him out again for a week or so. I don’t want him escaping, again, out into the barnyard away from the protection of his flock, becoming eagle bait.
In three days, he has noticeably put on weight. It’s amazing how fast lambs grow.
Leatherworking
Well, guess what? I am a leatherworker, now. 😉 After much thought, research and sleeping on it, for the past few weeks, on Sunday, I finally decided on a method I wanted to use for lacing a rustic leather quiver for my arrows.
First of all, I used a three-inch round disc of Tamarack for it’s base. Jim sawed that 3/4-inch thick for me, out in the shop. A week or so ago, I had cut a swath of leather that turned out to be too short for my arrows, so I had to cut up another swath of leather and attach it to the bottom to make a “cup” to hold the arrows. I had a dilemma about how to attach the two pieces. I had wanted to use hemp twine to do the lacing, but this week I discovered it was much too thin.
So after much thought on what else to use. I wanted something with contrasting colors. I remembered that I had some extra long dark green bootlaces that came with a pair of hiking boots that I had recently bought. I retrieved them from my armoire and measured them against the length of the leather. They appeared to be the right length. So I measured and marked intervals on the two pieces of leather and began punching holes with one of our rotary leather punches.
Once both pieces of leather had their holes, I experimented with two methods of lacing, straight lacing or “X” lacing. I picked the “X” method for the attaching of the two pieces of leather. Once that was completed. I wrapped the leather around the Tamarack round and began tacking it to the Tamarack round using Antique Brass Furniture Nails. I placed them at approximately 2 cm intervals. They were not evenly spaced by any means, but “hey” at least I did the job. Then I measured the whole length of the leather and using a tapering out method from the cup area to the top of the quiver, I marked the leather at one-inch intervals. I then punched holes at one-inch intervals. For this part, I was much more uniform in the spacing of the holes. I made a knot in my second shoelace and laced the bottom “cup” area with the straight single stitch to about six inches above the “cup” area. From there I did half a ‘z” stitch all the way to the top. Then, for the carrying strap, I used a piece of old leather and brown rubber horse rein with a broken end that we’d kept for some future project. I cut the leather ends to the length that I wanted.
I tacked the bottom end to the Tamarack wood round base with brass upholstery tacks. Then for the top part, I punched four holes in the top of the Leather of the quiver and eight holes in the leather strip of the strap. I folded it over the quiver matched the holes up and did the straight lace with an extra piece of the green bootstrap. Then I rubbed mink oil all over the leather quiver. It looks so nice. I’m quite excited about it. I had made a simple, functional, and rustic quiver! It took about eight hours in all to complete. I still want to do something with the top edge, but I haven’t decided what, yet, and I plan to decorate it more, perhaps… This is just the second leather project that I have ever done. The moccasins were my first project. I very much enjoyed doing this project. I’m looking forward to doing another, one soon as soon as I can figure out what I want to do. It has to be functional, practical, and useful or it isn’t worth the time.
Question: When one is contemplating doing something new, have you noticed that to just do it cold turkey doesn’t work. But if you work on studying how to do something and then sit on it/think about it for some time, sleep on it, that suddenly you know how to do what you want to do and it flows quickly? I find that with a lot of subjects that I want to learn, especially with Hebrew. I can learn new words and their meanings or new grammar facts, that I can memorize, but I don’t own it until I sleep on it for some time and then review, then I can actually recall it later and can use it. An Example: When I was in my twenties, first learning Hebrew, how to read, pronounce, etc. It was so foreign to me. I heard this song in Hebrew, “Adon Olam” for the first time and fell in love with it, for both it’s tone and the meanings of the lyrics. This version of Adon Olam has the lyrics in both Hebrew and English in the video.
Jewish people sing this song super slow for the first and second verses of the song. They then repeat the first and second verses at an incredibly rapid pace. Oh My goodness! I could sing the song no problem in first slow time around but could not sing those same words super fast the second time around. I wanted to be able to do that “some kind of bad.” This was back in the day of music books and cassette players, in the early 1990s. I literally spent two whole weeks before bed and first thing in the morning before work, reading the transliteration of the verses aloud, and then listening to that cassette tape and trying to sing that song with it and rewinding that cassette tape and listening to it and singing with it over and over and over and over and over again. The Hebrew words were such tongue twisters to me. I just could not do it. I became super frustrated. After two weeks of this, I stopped playing and trying to sing it for a while. One morning, I played it and “suddenly” I had it! I could sing it fast. My brain and my tongue could pronounce all of the words correctly and in time with the beat. I was so ecstatic and amazed that “suddenly” I could actually sing it fluently. So I am a firm believer in memorizing and sleeping on new information so that one’s brain can integrate into one’s being.
Gardening AND ANIMAL Update
This week, I planted in the outside greenhouse a whole bunch of seeds of greens and carrots as a form of winter sowing. We shall see what happens. I planted, Mesculun, lettuce, beets, pac choi, Red Russian kale, chards, spinach, carrots, arugula, and Vit mache. I watered them all. Now we shall see when they will sprout on their own.
In the bedroom greenhouse, the brassicas are up and are now putting forth their secondary leaves. I planted in three inch pots many tomatoes: Ukrainian Purple, Cherokee Purple, Orange, Yellow, Red, and Black Cherry tomatoes, Delicious, Stupice, Yellow Sweet, Green Zebra, Spoon tomatoes, Black Krim, Roma, Italian Grape, and two types of cucumbers, Persian and Container. I also planted Zucchini and was going to wait to water them in a couple of weeks, but accidentally watered them this week. Oops! They will have to be transplanted into in big pots in the outside greenhouse and they may grow too big to be transplanted into the garden by the time the weather warms up enough for them. They may be greenhouse plants.
I cleaned out the hen house once this week.
Kitty Story
A Kitty story.: Miss “M” our female kitty, this week, has finally, after three years of life “saw” the screen of the computer and all the action being demonstrated on it. So, I showed her a kitty channel of goldfish swimming across the screen and she kept trying to get them. Then I showed her a video with a mouse flitting across the screen. That one caught her attention even more so.!! Funny. Then the next day as I was taking a break, sitting on the stone hearth of our wood heating stove, she came and sat on my lap. I was watching a video of goats and rams butting heads and she watched that. So funny.
Homestead Kitchen
I rendered the fat from the two yearling cattle that we butchered a couple of weeks ago. We got four quarts worth. Using that tallow, the next projects will be, Lord willing, pemmican and soap-making.
I have not eaten any type of grain in over three years. I’ve been missing it and I know that when I was overseas I could eat the bread over there, but not here. The wheat here, in the USA makes my heart race an hour after eating it. I have been lamenting it. The Bible says we can eat bread. Why can’t I eat it now? This week, while talking with my mom, she had been talking to other friends who suggested it, I heard again about Einkorn wheat grain being very digestible and tolerable for those suffering from gluten intolerances. I did some research on it again this week. I had bought Einkorn grain about two years ago through Azure Standard, but I had been sitting on it, too afraid to try it.
I had had bad scary reactions during the past years to grains, eggs, and dairy. So after talking with Mom, and our daughter-in-law who is also very on top of food issues and solutions for them. She has eaten Einkorn and Heritage wheat. I decided that it was time to get out the Einkorn grain and make some flatbread and try it. I ground four cups of the Einkorn wheat in our Harvest Right Grain Mill. I took two cups of freshly ground Einkorn flour and three tablespoons of Olive oil and a quarter teaspoon of Sea salt and about a half cup of water, mixed it up, kneaded it and rolled it out super thin and cooked it in a hot cast iron pan on top of the propane stove. I then prayed over it and I ate a palm-size worth and waited until the next day to eat any more. No heart-racing episode. The next day I ate a whole flatbread. No weird responses. I, thus far, think I am okay… So I started a sourdough starter with this flour so I can make bread for Jim and Miss Violet. I will continue with the flatbread for now, a little bit at a time for awhile and then I will try the sourdough when I know for sure I’m fine with it.
I ate other things this week that give me stomach reactions but not heart reactions so I am not too sure if I did really react or not. I ate Pistachios and Coconut milk yogurt that was also reintroduced this week, and a cabbage smoothie that I had a lot of this week. These three things can mess with my stomach function, sometimes.
A Bit About Einkorn and Milk
Einkorn is an ancient Middle Eastern variety of wheat. It is the simple-est wheat with only 14 chromosomes in it. It is extremely hardy and can be grown in the USA in areas that are not too cold and wet. It has an extremely low Glycemic index meaning that it hardly raises insulin, and has very low gluten. I am very excited and hopeful about this.
Piggybacking on the grain research, I did further research on the types of casein protein in different milks from different animals. I am very, very sensitive to A1 Casein in cow’s milk. We are currently testing our cows to see if they have A1 Casein or have A2/A2 Casein. I had scary reactions to our cow milk nine years ago and haven’t drank any milk since then. This week, I learned that all sheep have A2/A2 milk. And people with A1 Casein sensitivity can often drink A2/A2 milk. So I am contemplating trying it in a few weeks when our lambs are old enough to be separated from their mamas overnight. If I can handle this, I will be making sheep yogurts and cheeses in the future. Lord-willing. I also plan to acquire a few more sheep, another ram and a couple of more ewes to expand our flock to hopefully be able to milk year-round. Regardless, we will continue with our cows for beef purposes as we already have been doing.
Star-Gazing
Tuesday night, around 8PM, our skies were clear of clouds for the first time in about a week and a half. I took my Planisphere and began to study it for a few minutes to orient myself to the location of the major constellations and stars. I then put on ski pants, sweater, jacket, hat, winter boots, gloves, grabbed my binoculars, a light that has a red light function, and a sleeping pad, called the dog and went out into our meadow. The temperature was about 28*F. I laid down the sleeping pad on top of the crunchy four inches of snow, and crashed onto it and began scanning our sky to the south. I quickly located Orion, Taurus, Pleiades, Canis Major, Auriga, and Gemini. To the North, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Polaris, and Cephus. I also quickly identified some of the brightest stars: Sirius, Capella, Procyon, Pollux and Castor, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Aldebaran.
Then I began working on identifying the constellations. I had trouble recognizing some such as Perseus, Andromeda,Triangulum, Aries, Cameopardalis, Lepus, Monoceros, Cancer, Hydra, Leo, Leo is really hard for me to see for some reason, also Virgo and Bootes. I think some of the issue is that I am still not quite familiar with the location of the Equator and the Ecliptic, I am also now trying to judge correctly the degrees of the Dome of our sky in relation to the horizon, to that which I can see above the horizon, that is. Our mountains and our trees do not allow me to see down to the horizon.
Generally speaking, to our east the mountains block the first twenty degrees of the horizon. Our west mountains seem to block eleven degrees. So I keep working at trying to identify that which I can see. I took the binoculars and pointed them to the sword of Orion. I could see the cloudiness of the nebula located within it. Also when one looks into the Milky Way with Binoculars, Wow, there are billions of stars that one can see. So amazing! The Father granted me the chance to see two fairly large meteors streaking from north to south and from west to east. During this time, our pup kept trying to get me to play games with her. Then our two horses came over to see what I was doing. They were snorting and blowing as they approached me. I talked to them quietly.
I was lying on the ground. When they realized it was me, they both stood over me as if to guard me. They seldom see me lying on the ground. They both kept sniffing me, the ground pad, the flashlight, binoculars and the Planisphere. After a while, “Ch” went back to the woods, while “S” continued to stay with me. She was being very companionable, so I stood up and began petting her and talking with her for a long while. She misses me, I know. I am so busy in the house doing other things. I rubbed her neck, and throat. She loves to have her throat rubbed. I sniffed noses with her, leaned on her for quite awhile. I felt sad that I haven’t spent much time with her, recently. She has been with us for over ten years. That is quite a history to have with an animal.
I forgot to mention last week that, I brushed the two of them out and cleaned up their manes and tails. They are looking good!
Additionally, the Farrier trimmed their hooves, about two weeks ago. He comes about every two months to do their hoof trimming.
After being outside for about an hour, I became quite chilled, so I walked back towards the house, “S” accompanied me until we reached the Redneck Pool. There she stopped, because she knew I was going into the house. I, turned and sadly said goodnight to “S”, called the Pup who was a bit jealous of my time spent with “S” and we went in the house. I wish I could spend the night out with her under the stars. It’s just too cold and I need to sleep well in my own bed. I know that she would stand guard over me all night if I would stay out there… I went out two more nights to star gaze. Wednesday night, I couldn’t sleep so I went out from 11:15-to-midnight. I spent more time looking to the north and east.
Exercise
We did not swim this week and are now finished with our one-month pass to the pool We are not renewing it because spring activities have begun.
Recent Bible Study
Spiritually, I have been reading scriptures about the Appointed Times of the Father, Leviticus 23. For the past two weeks I have been paying attention to the state of the Barley harvest in Israel. The Rabbinics have called for Passover to be in April around the full moon of the twenty-fifth, thus adding an extra month to the yearly calendar. But that isn’t biblical. The Appointed times of the Father are not meant to be set on a calendar, they are to come by observation. The observing of the readiness of the barley to be harvested, in Aviv. Aviv is the first month of the Agricultural year according to the scriptures. It is observed when one can easily harvest an Omer of barley that can be offered to Lord as the Firstfruits of the barley harvest. When it is close to being ready, the next new moon is Aviv. Then fourteen days from that sighting of the New moon is the Passover.
The new moon will be sighted this weekend around the tenth of March and if the barley is ready enough to easily harvest an Omer then the leadership can declare that Passover will be celebrated on the 14th of Aviv or Nisan which will be about March 25th or 26th. If there isn’t a harvest-able amount of barley, then they will push the appointed time off a whole month. But this year, a whole month will bring us to the end of April, which is very late in the harvest season for the barley of which most if not all would already have been harvested. I watch Deborah Gordon of Deborah@DeborahDateTree.org. and Rivkah Biderman of Ancient Path New Moon. She will be making an observation this weekend. She also works with some other observers. If she calls for it, we will be celebrating in March. I feel that it is very important to observe what the Father has commanded in His Word with the help from His Holy Spirit.
UPDATE The Barley has been found to be in Aviv! Passover will be on the full moon Monday March 25th. But she still needs to sight the New moon this weekend.
Additionally, I have been following what folks are saying concerning the Total Solar Eclipse that will pass through Jonah, Texas and will travel through seven towns called Nineveh on its path through the United States on April 8th.
During eclipse totality, people will be able to see a line up of planets–very unusual–and a comet called Pons Brooks that is also known as the Devil Comet. It appears to have many omens of impending judgment associated with it. I would pay attention to them and repent of any sins and spend time seeking the Father during this season. Keep preparing the best that you can.
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.