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 kept quite busy, early this week: Hauling black soil (1+ year-old rotted down manure) to our main garden, rototilling, cutting up a couple of surplus telephone poles to fence post length, and dragging them with our UATV to a pile for future use, packing and mailing out 15 Elk Creek Company orders, and working with our livestock. One day was dedicated to delivering two cow-calf pairs from our herd to their new owners. The next day, I came down with a head cold. At first, I thought it was just a reaction to Alfalfa dust — since I had moved a 1.5-ton pile of compressed bales, the day before. But by that afternoon, I knew it was a bad cold. So I started in on zinc lozenges, 6 grams of Vitamin C, and elderberry gummies, immediately. By Thursday, I was felling better.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather was quite nice this week with a few showers, a little on the cool side high in the fifties and low-60s.
This week I put in more of the garden, four more rows of potatoes, more cabbage, and Zuchinni. I mowed the paths in the Main garden. I worked in the Greenhouse.
I picked oregano and dehydrated it.
I am regularly picking salad greens from the greenhouse and picking wild “weed” volunteers from the Main garden.
Over the last four months, we have butchered two yearlings and sold six of our cows with calves, and yearlings. Our senior bull is destined for freezer camp in a few weeks.
Our last cow, E. gave birth to a heifer this week. She is so cute.
We will soon be buying an A2A2 cow with calf at side and a couple of bred A2A2 heifers and will be rebuilding our herd, Lord willing. We already have a disrelated A2A2 bull, to serve as the herd sire.
In the next week, we should be hatching out another batch of chicks from our second set of eggs that we incubated.
We took a tick off of our “pup”, using Vaseline. We smeared a thick layer of the Vaseline all over the tick’s body. The Vaseline suffocated the tick. About a half hour later we were able to lift it off the dog’s body. This is a great natural remedy for removing ticks without leaving the tick’s head embedded. Thankfully, we don’t seem to have too many ticks on our ranch, but whenever we go hiking off the ranch we seem to run into them regularly…
I spent a lot of time cleaning the house this week, doing laundry, washing the refrigerator, sorting out freezers, vacuuming, washing floors, etc.
I spent a lot of time studying edible wild plants this week.
I spent time preparing healthy smoothies and healthy meals for all of us so Jim could get over his cold faster and Miss Violet and I will build our immune systems to keep it from infecting us. Also I have been sitting out in the sun and trying to take naps to keep healthy. So far, so good?
May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,
– 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.