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:
A local buyer came with his stock trailer to take delivery of two of our yearlings: A heifer and a steer. That went smoothly, with no real rodeo required.
I had to make a trip to town, for some grain and other supplies. I also bought a 25-pound sack of juicing carrots. We use those as training aids, for our horses and cattle.
We dehorned and elastrated a week-old bull calf.
I helped Lily with more manure hauling and rototilling.
I turned the water back on, to our fenced orchard/garden. (That part of our water system had been drained, for the winter.)
I’ve also been very busy, adding a backlog of pre-1899 antique cartridge guns to my Elk Creek Company online inventory. At the risk of sounding self-promotional, I want to mention that a whopping 19 antique cartridge rifles have just been added. They include:
- A Restored Winchester M1892 Carbine in .45 Colt, with Half-Magazine
- A Ludwig Loewe M1895 .45 ACP Scout Conversion Supressor Host Carbine
- A Fine Winchester Model 1894 Round Barrel .32-40, Made in 1898
- A Chilean Loewe M1895 Mauser 7×57 Boyd’s Laminate Stock Sporter
- A Ludwig Loewe M1891 Argentine Mauser Scoped Sporter
- A Scarce Pre-1899 Schmidt-Rubin M1896/11 Rifle, 7.5 Swiss
- Two Turkish M1893 Mauser 8x57mm Mauser – Ankara Arsenal Rework Rifles
- A Nice Finnish Valmet M39 Mosin-Nagant on an 1896 Receiver
- A Remington Rolling Block 7×57 Mauser Rifle – Circa 1896
- A Chilean Loewe M1895 Mauser 7×57 Iron-Sight Sporter
- A Winchester M1892 .44-40 with 23″ with Round Barrel
- A Sporterized Swedish Mauser, 6.5×55 with Weaver Scope
- An 1895-Dated Swedish M1894 Carbine 6.5×55 Semi-Sporter
- A Winchester M1894 .30-30 Saddle Ring Carbine — Made in 1897
- An Early Winchester M1892 .38-40 with 23″ Barrel
- A 7.62mm NATO-Converted Ludwig Loewe Chilean Mauser
- A Ludwig Loewe M1891 Argentine Mauser .308 Winchester Scoped Sporter
- A Ludwig Loewe M1891 Argentine Mauser Scout Sporter (7.65mm Argentine Mauser)
I haven’t yet posted photos of all of them, but please take a look at the Elk Creek Company website.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had gorgeous weather this week, with sunshine and temperatures up in the seventies. Lovely!
This past week, we bought new hummingbird feeders and set them up on our back porch. It is so fun to have the hummers come and sip from them.
I noticed a baby finch flitting around the outside of the greenhouse where I had some containers with a bit of water in them. The baby would drop into the containers to get sips of water. I knew it was a baby fledgling because of it’s ruffed up appearance and the slow way it flitted short distances from object to trees and through branches. Give that baby a couple of more days and it will be as fast and strong and sure as its parents.
This week, I noticed that the geese are back with their offspring. I have also seen a Bald Eagle flying around trying to take out the babies for their meals. I have mixed feelings about that. It is the way of our world…
Well, Jim is telling you a lot of what we did this week, “stealing” my thunder. 😉
Okay, so, last week our sheep were sheared. This week, Miss Violet and I spent some time picking out grass seeds, hay bits and leaves from the sheared fleeces. Then we washed about five of them. and hung them out to dry on a clothing rack. Now that we have this year’s and last years fleeces, Jim ordered another hand-crank wool carder, so Miss Violet and I, can card our wool to get it ready for felting or spinning. The Memsahib, Jim’s first wife, had had an Ashford Carder at one point, but after searching high and low around the ranch, we can’t find it. We think she may have given it away before she passed away. If it does show up, then we will have two. Two women will be able to card together. And that old adage that Three is two, two is one, and one is none applies here. 😉
I asked Miss Violet to read aloud Proverbs 31 to remind us that a virtuous women is not idle. Her hands remain busy at the distaff and spindle. And that we are fulfilling the Biblical mandates for women, in working with the wool from our sheep. I love it!!!
I am constantly looking for other wild food sources, so that we do not have to rely on conventional stores. This week I made a salad with kale, parsley, Pac Choi, basil, volunteer Lambs Quarters and volunteer Sheep Sorrel from the greenhouse, and Miner’s Lettuce that I planted, last fall in the greenhouse. It didn’t come up that simmer. The bussing tray was not labeled. I dumped the bussing tray in the garden during a greenhouse clean up. Lo and behold, the Miner’s lettuce sprouted in the garden. So I am now harvesting it in random spots of the garden. It was a yummy salad.
Jim and I went for a drive this week to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary, around our region looking for blossomming wild edibles to mark mentally where they are located. We really enjoyed this time revelling in the region we are so blessed to live in. Revelling in the blessing of the Father to bring us together in marriage partnersip and to further His Kingdom. We spent some time praying for our marriage and for guidance for the future plans that the Father has for us and for how and what He wants to use our union for. We prayed for our children and grandchildren.
We have been very dry weather-wise for a long time. This week, after Jim turned back on the meadow and orchard water systems, we set up hoses and water sprinklers in the meadow. We also bought two more sprinklers, and three more rubber hoses to replace some cheap decade-old vinyl hoses that were springing leaks.
I planted some cabbage this week. The planting is going very slowly, because I am digging out the grass roots to prepare the beds. It is a lot of work, but it will pay off in the long run. Next week, though, since we are running out of time, I may just plant the rest of the beds with the cold crops and just keep working on weeding it as I harvest crops this summer. The warm crops still cannot yet be planted. It looks as though we could still have frosts during the next two weeks.
I am harvesting the first of our Asparagus this year since this is the third year since planting them. A few are big spears, most are very thin, but I understand that if you harvest them anyhow it forces the plant to put energy into growing more spears and they will become larger and larger as time goes by. We are eating them raw, right after picking them. Ooh, they are so yummy!
I started incubating another batch of chicken eggs.
I only milked E. a couple of times this week. I decided to let her dry off. I think we are within a month of her calving, so I want her to get a break. I milked A. a few times. She is getting used to the idea.
Jim put small two-inch mesh wire fencing on the tube gate to our garden, thus making it much more difficult for the chickens to enter. So we have now been letting them free-range the ranch. As long as they behave and stay out of the garden, then they can have their freedom.
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.