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 was busy this past week cross-cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood. Our youngest daughter did most of the stacking.
I helped Lily harvest part of our potato crop and put them in storage in our cool room.
One day this week, I did an on-site seminar for one of my consulting clients and a couple of his close friends.
I also mailed out several Elk Creek Company orders. These included several pre-1899 Schmidt-Rubin Model 1896/11 rifles. There is now just one of them left, from a batch of 10. “Going, going…”
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather was sunny and in the mid-eighties all week until Thursday when thunderstorms rolled in and we had wonderful rain showers through Friday.
We have had a fair amount of fog this month starting the first week of August. It is very unusual to have so much fog before September. Sometime in the past few years, I heard someone mention that the frequency of fogs in August indicates how hard of a winter we might have. I did some research and found that yes, indeed an early indicator of how many winter storms we may have this winter in the northwest is correlated with the frequency of foggy days there are in August. Well, we have already had about eight. Additionally, we have already had more rain than is expected for this time of the year. On the weather satellite, I can already see the winter weather rain patterns setting up in the Pacific Ocean. I have additionally listened to a few long-range forecasts. They are indicating a very cold and snowy winter for the region from mid-California all the way to South Carolina. Everything north of this line can expect a very very cold and wet winter with lots of huge snowstorms. Plan for very cold weather and extended power outages with lots of warm clothes, blankets, sleeping bags, lighting, water, food, meds, etc. Most of you know the drill.
This week I harvested Transparent Apples and made freezer applesauce for Jim and Miss Violet. I also blended raw apples with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and cashews. I dehydrated this into raw apple pancakes. Yum.
I pulled terrible Smartweed going to seed while, while harvesting four rows of potatoes. I filled three cartloads of weeds to be dumped in our burn pile. Hopefully, I just drastically reduced next summer’s Smartweed problem. We had a sizeable harvest of potatoes. I am very pleased with it. We still have many more rows of potatoes to harvest in the coming weeks.
Thusfar, I have replanted one of the harvested potato rows with cauliflower and kale. We shall see how the cauliflower does, It may be too late for it.
I also pulled weeds in many other rows of the Main garden. There are still many more to do.
I harvested many cucumbers from the outside garden.
I harvested more raspberries, but we ate most of those. I began to prune back the spent canes.
Last week, I mentioned that our neighbor called us and reported that he had heard a wolf pack calling in our vicinity. We had not heard it.
On the day that I was outside all day harvesting and pulling weeds, I kept hearing this very odd disturbing cry in the distance off and on. At first, I thought it could be a giant tree-felling machine very far away, but the more I tried to distinguish it, the more like it sounded like a cow in distress. But I don’t believe there are cows in that direction. Finally, in mid-afternoon, I decided to take a walk down to the open meadow near the river to see if I could hear it more clearly. As I stood along the river, I prayed that whatever it was, would cry again. It did at the very moment I ended my prayer! Instantly, my adrenalin kicked in. It was closer and clearer than I thought it would be. It was a wolf cry! A hunting wolf cry, from up on the mountain that rises directly up from the river above me. It sounded “sick” to me. It was still fairly far away. I surmise that perhaps it had cornered an elk cow and was giving its hunting call to the rest of its pack. So that would explain the two different cries I had been hearing.
The clearer wolf call reminded me that we really do live in the wilderness! I was unarmed. Immediately, I called to our pup and jogged back to the near-house meadow. I then walked the rest of the way to the house. The cows and the horses remained out in the open meadow. They were in a tight-knit little grazing herd. I wasn’t too worried about them. I was concerned about our sheep, though. But I saw them up in the loafing area, close to the barn. So they were okay. Interestingly, even though I went back to work in the garden, I didn’t hear that wolf cry again the rest of the day. In the evening all animals were put in their respective housing. Yes, we have wolves in the vicinity at the moment. Yes, I will be constantly carrying a pistol around the ranch now that I have personal proof that the wolves have returned to our valley.
I did the usual animal cleaning chores. I milked every day this week, for the pup’s sake. Our dog enjoys milk on her food. I cook her beef, rice, carrots, field peas, and add egg and milk to this, twice a day. The cow is a very small breed of cow, not necessarily a big milk-producing cow, and she has her heifer calf nursing on her. So she is giving us only about five cups per day. Jim and Miss Violet are not big milk drinkers, so this suffices for us at this time.
So about twenty years ago, I heard a prophecy and this is how it went. Paraphrased, because I don’t remember the source or all of the details. In the last years of the USA, when the economic crash occurs, it will be an election year, a woman will be elected, it will be the same year of the worst economic crash the world has ever seen and the worst winter ever. This coming election cycle and weather patterns certainly look like they will fulfill this prophesy. For the record, I am not voting. I am not for either candidate. Both candidates are literally controlled by the elite and I feel that the voting apparatus is just a game to keep our populace divided against one another. I refuse to participate in this farce. I am a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. This world is no longer my home. Whatever is going to happen is God-orchestrated. I will pray for the protection, provision, and concealment of our family, friends, and Readers when whatever schemes and events the elite’s plan to orchestrate and unleash on our populations. We will not participate or comply.
Continue to read the Word of God, pray, fast, prepare, and trust in the Father to see us through to the end he has established for us, whether that be martyrdom, or meeting Him in the air.
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.