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 started this week off slowly, recovering from a sprained foot. But by Tuesday, I was back to my normal level of activity. I temporarily stowed 15 sacks — 25 pounds each — of whole einkorn wheat in a pair of brand-new 31-gallon Behrens steel trash barrels. We already have tons (literally) of hard red winter wheat in 7-gallon buckets, but Avalanche Lily has developed an intolerance to the more genetically complex wheat varieties. With some recent experimentation, she found that her system has no reaction to flour from the ancient einkorn. I temporarily left the grain in the distributor sacks and placed them in the barrels. I’ll have to round up some more 5-gallon or 7-gallon food-grade HDPE plastic buckets, for permanently storing the einkorn wheat. But at least, for now, that grain is safe from mice. A side note: This seems to be the story of my life: Whenever it comes to food-grade plastic buckets, the answer is always more. I started buying buckets when I was 16 years old. I expect to add to our accumulation of full buckets for at least another decade.
Today, I’m attending a gun show that is within “day trip” commute distance of our ranch. The quest for pre-1899 guns from my Elk Creek Company inventory continues. Prices of antiques have risen on average 50% in the past four years, so it has become very hard to find any bargains. The once Almighty Dollar is now looking like an aging, trashy pop singer — showing the signs of decades of wanton, irresponsible behavior. She brazenly played the harlot, and now everyone wants to find more respectable company.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had very pleasant weather this week. At the end of the week our highs were in the low sixties and we had lots of sunshine.
This week, I spent a lot of time cleaning house, vacuuming and sweeping, doing laundry, doing a ton of dishes, and organizing some drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.
When I am gardening and working outside, I track in a lot of dirt. I try to remove my shoes but sometimes I am just in too much of a hurry. Plus I am often coming in one door and going out the other, front door, back door, garage door. So taking off the shoes is silly. Not to mention the Pup who is always by my side outside and loves to be in the garden with me and also swim in the redneck pool. She also tracks in the dirt, extra dirt too if her paws are wet. And sheds a lot of hair. Anyhow its “my” house, I can mess it up the tile floors if I want to and then clean it later. I’m the one who does the cleaning of it anyway…. 😉 I do try to vacuum or sweep every day — sometimes more than once a day, so that it is fairly presentable for unexpected guests, most of the time.
I did a lot of wheat grinding by hand and baking, and in general, cooking our meals. I made Pistachio/Date butter this week to put on the biscuits that I made. Yum. We also broke into one of the Strawberry jam jars that I made last summer. We very rarely eat jam, but I wanted some on those biscuits. Yum!
I spent time milking the cow this week. I am enjoying milking by hand again. I thought I had Mesophilic culture in the house to make cheese with. But when I went to make cheese, I found I didn’t have any. Therefore, I ordered some and some Thermophilic culture. They should arrive next week. I’m looking forward to making cheese for the family, soon. I gave raw milk to our pup this week for the first time ever. We’ve never given her any milk before. She drank it. She likes it. I would never give her store-bought milk. She is a finicky eater, only will eat beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, etc. She doesn’t eat any veggies or bread. I’ve tried to give it to her but she doesn’t like it.
“E”, the cow I am currently milking, is now letting me milk her while standing over alfalfa hay and rolled oats. I still tie her up to a post to minimize her movement, though. She gives me a little bit of grief, kicks a bit every now and then, but is getting used to the routine. I prefer to milk them outside than in the crush stall. I am milking her outside of the corrals where the other cows can see what I am doing with her.
I, also have spent a lot of time working with all the rest of the cows this week, taming them. “A”, our now matriarch cow, is beginning to bag up. I expect her to have her calf sometime in the next few weeks. It will be the first of the season. “A” let me scratch her head and neck and shoulders this week. I was surprised. She usually doesn’t let me anywhere near her. And “F”, after seeing all of the attention I have been giving “E” this week, also let me pet her head just a little bit. The Bulls are all in for affection at any time. The heifers, won’t let me near them still as well as the other yearlings. I’ll will keep working on them in the coming weeks.
The sheep are all doing well. I have been giving them a bit of oats too, this week. The mamas are heavily nursing their lambs and need some extra nourishment to put on some weight. Usually, they are quite skittish, even of me. However when they eat the oats they are very tolerant of me petting and handling them. Oats are a powerful motivator for animals to love or should I say tolerate their caregivers who supply them with it. I am taking advantage of their one-track minds to handle them more. Hah, hah! 😉 The ram and last year’s lambs are not letting me touch them, yet, but the mamas are allowing it while they eat the oats.
I cleaned out the hen house and the sheep shed once this week. All water troughs were scrubbed.
Our rototiller needed some routine maintenance and is currently in the shop. I spent a few days turning over the soil in just one section of the Main garden with a spading fork and sifting through the soil picking out all vegetation and roots of Canary grass. Canary grass is a wicked plant!!! Actually, even though it is a lot of work, in the long run it will lessen the amount of grass and other weeds that I will have to fight throughout the summer. Who needs a rototiller, anyhow? It gets me in shape to just use the spading fork. Someday, in a grid-down situation, that rototiller may break down and we won’t have any way to fix it or have any access to gasoline. Therefore this week we ordered a hand plow that can hook up a horse to it to use to plow our gardens and fields from Cottage Craft Works. I cannot wait until it comes. I will have to train our mare “S” to pull. 😉
We are expecting a cold front to come back in next week with freezing temperatures and snow showers, so it is still too early to be planting many things outside.
I went back to doing calisthenics this week after a four-week break. Jim and I went for a two-or-so-mile hike up into the National Forest. With all of the garden work this week, time flew away from us and we didn’t get to hike the mountain. Maybe we can hike on Sunday afternoon?
I listened to worship music this week. I read some more Psalms and Proverbs this week. I went prayer walking around the ranch several times. I read quite a bit from the prophetic websites that I frequent.
This absolutely sickens and enrages me!! It is absolute evil!!!
Also see this interesting video: LOSING EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD – MAJOR HEALTH PROBLEMS.
May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,
– 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.