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:
This past week I was quite busy packing orders and writing catalog descriptions for Elk Creek Company. There are more than a dozen new gun listings. I also did about 2.5 hours of rototilling in the main garden, I hauled another load of alfalfa from our “local” supplier (a one-hour drive each way), and I slaughtered a couple of roosters. Just keeping busy. Now, on to Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather this week was a very sunny in the fifties for highs and we had about four nights in a row of frosts with temperatures as low as 26* Fahrenheit. I am glad I haven’t planted anything in the garden, yet. I did not bring in anything from the green house. I suffered some frost damage losses in there. My cucumbers were killed and the Zuchinnis and tomatoes suffered heavy damage, but appear to have survived. The Basil was slightly nipped. All the rest of the greens and peppers growing in the greenhouse took the cold in stride and were not damaged, thankfully. I had brought in my Rosemary because that would have definitely had been killed. The season is still early for starting and growing cucumbers and tomatoes, so I am not too concerned about it. As I have said before, we can have a frost at any time of the year, here. So it is always a gambol.
Lots of birds have returned and are about. The vireo is back, a beautiful very light gray dove has been spotted. A great Blue Heron was in our small pond in the meadow hunting frogs. The tree swallows are flying about looking for places to build their nests in our eaves of the house, barn and shop.
Again most of this week was about the animals.
The day after the calf was born, my poor Matriarch cow’s udder was so packed with colostrum and milk, she looked super uncomfortable. I felt so bad for her. I really wanted to milk her out some to relieve that pressure. Baby calf wasn’t big enough, yet to milk her out. The problem though is that our Matriarch cow has rarely been milked and only within the last three weeks allowed me to even touch her nose. We’ve had her on the ranch for five years. I needed to get her into our crush stall and lock her up, in order to do the deed.
My cow’s weakness is rolled oats!!! She will do anything for rolled oats.
Milking
The first order of business was to get her and baby into the stalls and into the hay barn from the corrals. I lead her in with a tray of the oats. Baby didn’t follow. Once I got her into the barn. I next wanted to put a rope halter on her. I prepared a rope halter — opening it really wide and then I draped it over a bucket of oats. She came over and ate the oats. While she was seriously distracted with eating the oats, I gently lifted the rope loop up onto her nose and slipped the other loop over her ears and tightened it. Easy Peasy. I then tied the rope to a post in the barn, that she was right next to and tried to pet her and brush her and make friends with her for just a few moments. She was not having it. She was getting upset and was pulling the rope too hard. I didn’t want her to hurt herself. I decided to get baby who had been left in the corral. Baby was still so young that she didn’t know to run from me. Also tiny enough for me to handle, yet still too heavy for me to pick up. I got a hold of her. I held her neck and tail and guided her into the stalls and through the door into the barn without too much trouble. Then I untied mama and let them be, until the next day.
The next day, we had to get all of the safety gear set up. In the crush stall, I got a rope ready to tie down her leg. We found a one and half inch metal pipe bar to put in holes through the back of the door into the wall behind her butt to keep her from backing out of the stall. I tied a rope to a very large eye bolt near her head of the crush stall to hook to her rope halter to so she couldn’t turn her head to the opening of the crush stall door, through which I was milking her through. I collected two large metal tent stakes to slip through the crush stall door’s latchets to lock the door closed. Then we lured her in with the oats. She went into the crush stall and I closed the door, and slipped the metal bar behind her rear end. I then took the opportunity to put a horse halter on her and then hooked her new halter to the rope at the side of her head. Finally, I gently and carefully put a stout rope around her leg with a slip knot. I tightened it slowly and lifted it up keeping it from touching her leg until it was small enough then, I sent the end of the rope through an eyebolt and wrapped it around the post of the crush stall. I then cinched it. She kicked like a wild thing for a few moments. When she calmed down, I cinched it even tighter and shorter around the post. I put a slip knot in at the post and had her leg locked down with only a few inches of play. I then put a horse hobble on her ankle, but we didn’t yet have the hook attached to the eyebolt at her ankle level. to attach to the hobble. That afternoon later, Jim had put in a stout hook on the eye bolt.
I then commenced to wash her udder and squirt the first drops on the ground from each teat and milked her. I mostly only milked the back two quarters. I milked about a gallon and half. Afterward, I brushed her and patted her and thanked her for being a good girl, unhooked her head, untied her ankle, removed the metal pipe and the tent stakes swung open the door and let her out to be back with her baby in the barn. Back in the house, I filtered the colostrum and put it in four Freezer bags and put it into the freezer. I milked her two days later and then the next day after that. The second time I milked her, I saved that Colostrum and it also went in the freezer. The third day, I milked, we gave it to the dog and chickens. We think she is getting used to the idea of milking.
I made butter from the cream of the other cow we are milking. Miss Violet is being retrained in cow milking also with this cow. We milk her together.
Dehorning
Later in the week, Jim and I, with the help of Miss Violet, separated Mama and calf again in order to dehorn baby with dehorning paste. Jim ushered mama cow into the stalls and out into the corrals where the rest of the cows were residing. Jim, then came back through the stalls into the barn and caught and held baby while I cut three 18-inch Duck tape strips and taped their ends on Miss Violet’s sweatshirt sleeve, for quick access. While Jim held baby, with scissors I gently trimmed all of her fur around her horn nubbins. Then I took a large wooden tongue depressor and evenly applied a bit of paste on each horn nubbin. When that was finished, I quickly took each of the three cut Duck Tapes and wrapped them around baby’s ears, over her horn nubbins to keep her from getting that caustic paste everywhere. Then a moment later the pain hit her and she rolled around shaking her head and raced around the barn. I feel SOOOOO bad. I hate doing this to our calves. They hate me afterward, sometimes for months. But we just cannot have horns. I prayed that the Father would forgive us and that baby would too, and that her pain would very quickly pass and that she would be friends with me sooner rather than later. All the while mama cow who could see everything, we have an open barn and was watching us, mooed and bawled the whole time. She was furious with us. Usually, I let mama right back in with baby after dehorning for mama to comfort baby. But this time I wanted to clean out the barn, so I cleaned for a while. About twenty minutes later, our Farrier came to work on the horses’ hooves. So that delayed the finishing of the cleaning of the barn a bit longer. However, an hour later after the farrier left. I finished cleaning and reunited mama and baby.
Each day, I spent a lot of time mucking out the barn, the stalls and the loafing areas from cow manure.
Earlier that day of the the dehorning, I had called the horses up from the meadows and spent a lot of time brushing them both out. This time I also did their manes and tails. They are looking really good. I later brushed the cow we are currently milking, and our new bull. Our older bull only lets me brush his head and nose. He won’t let me brush his sides. The cows are also shedding a lot.
This week Miss Violet and I had a private lesson to learn how to go about packing with our horses. We were introduced to all of the tack and shown how to tack up the horse with it and how to load your gear, different knots one would use, etc. It was very interesting, and mostly intuitive. I was primarily interested in what the harnessing was all about and how to put it on the horse and how to attach the various packsaddle components to each other. I still need to work on the names of harness parts, as you can see. 😉
A Wayward Rooster
At the end of the week, we decided that five roosters was too many. Jim butchered two more. What was so funny to us was that the last time Jim butchered some roosters one of them escaped him and had a stay of execution that day. Well, that same rooster escaped from Jim again, this week! But this time I went after him and caught him again for Jim. We put both roosters right into the pot after cleaning them. Now, we think the three roosters that we have left, will cover our 24 females nicely. All three of them have traits that I want to pass down to the next generation. They are a mixes of Rudd Ranger/Buff Orpingtons, Aracauna, and Jersey Giants, all really big meaty birds. In another three weeks we will be incubating another batch of eggs. These three will be the sires of the next generation.
I also cleaned the Hen house twice this week.
We have been letting the sheep out to graze the house meadows. They are also very addicted to oats. Each evening when it’s time for them to go into their shed for the night, I get a small bowl of oats for them. I call them and shake the bowl. They run right up to me. I open their Sheep shed door and go in and place the bowl on the ground. They rush in behind me to the bowl. I just back up and go out their door and close it and they are in for the night. I cleaned their Sheep shed twice this week.
Jim bought me a hand plow The same type that we linked to a few weeks ago. It arrived this week. I tried it out in the garden and it works great. I really like it. It works super well in areas that are recently rototilled or turned over with a spading fork. It would be very difficult to use it just with your own body weight to break up virgin sod. I suppose that the plow would work well on virgin sod with a horse pulling it. With an adaptor, it is made to also be pulled by a horse. I hope to try to teach our horses how to plow soon.
I organized a wire shelf we have in the kitchen that stores our cast iron pots and pans, stainless steel pots and skillets, canning supplies, blenders, popcorn maker, rice maker, cheese-making paraphernalia, etc. Also sorted out some low sliding shelf unit cupboard that stores our food storage containers. I did laundry, and general house cleaning. I still need to reload the propane freezer that I defrosted and cleaned last week.
I went for multiple prayer walks this week. I spent more time in Proverbs and Psalms. I keep going back to Proverbs, lately. I went through the last five chapters of Daniel yet again and Zechariah, Amos, and Malachi. I read Ephesians again.
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.