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 had a fairly busy week, shipping out Elk Creek Company orders, and catching up on projects around the ranch. Starting today, we are running a pre-Black Friday sale. For the next nine days, all of our shotguns and all of our percussion revolvers are greatly reduced. Take a look!
I lucked into a small batch of original Swiss Vetterli bolt-action rifles from the 1870s and 1880s, from a collector’s estate. They are in remarkably good condition for 150+ year-old rifles. Since these shoot the obsolete .41 Swiss Rimfire cartridge, they are strictly “collector” guns, rather than shooters. (.41 Swiss Rimfire ammo is almost impossible to find. But these rifles can be converted to centerfire, for folks who reload.) I will be picking those rifles up in December and I should have them all cataloged before January.
Now, Lily’s report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather was snowy and rainy highs in the mid-thirties and as low as twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. We received two inches of snow that stuck around until heavy rains came at the end of the week.
It was a quiet week for me just maintaining our animals and the ranchhouse.
I cleaned the hen house, cow stalls, and sheep shed.
My side of the bedroom, the wall on my side of the bed, has bookshelves and is where I keep my Bugout bag and some paraphernalia. It was a wreck with books stacked up on the floor along with two zippered bags of sweaters, papers, old notebooks from years ago, cards, pictures, etc. It was a real mess. I reorganized it and filed some papers away into my filing cabinet. I reorganized the books and reshelved them in various places in the bedroom and throughout the house and vacuumed and washed the floors. Now we are neat, tidy, and clean, again.
When we had returned home from our trip to New England our Master bathroom toilet didn’t work. It kept bubbling and wouldn’t flush properly. Additionally, our shower and sinks would cause the toilet to bubble. Our Fixit guy wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong with it when he was investigating the toilet. Even though something was wrong with the plumbing, Jim and I still used our sinks every now and then. There are two sinks in our bathroom a “his” and “hers”. And he would test the toilet out of curiosity. Jim also used our shower, very quickly. Then one day the toilet flushed without bubbling. We began using the toilet and the shower more often with no more bubbling. Finally, it occurred to Jim that my sink and the toilet share a vent stack. While we were away, no one was using my sink, the water gradually dried out of the sink’s P-trap. When I quickly used the sink multiple days in a row the trap filled with water and the toilet behaved normally again. So this all came to light in the past two weeks.
This week, I finally deep cleaned and reorganized the bathroom since it is now fully functional again. We had had totes of extra medicinal and toiletry items stacked up between the sinks. Those are now all stowed away properly. Note to ourselves: In the future, if we leave for more than a week, on return we must run the faucet in my sink for some time to fill trap’s the air gap.
One night at 7 PM it was dark out, it was snowing, and we had two inches of snow on the ground. It was beautiful. I went out to the barn to separate the cow and calf. I decided to clean out their stalls first. I hauled five loads of manured hay out to a compost pile near the greenhouse. I used a flashlight for the first two loads. After that, I just walked in the dark, because I could see well enough. After working on the cow shed and finishing the job and getting the cow and calf separated, I turned off the barn light and started walking towards the house. I could dimly see the snow on the ground and the snow draped over the trees. Snowflakes were falling on my face. I was warm from the work and joyful. It was so beautiful in a very dim light sort of way and so quiet. I loved it. I wasn’t ready to go in the house so I went for a walk/run around the house, driveway, and parking area for another half hour or so. Every now and then I would stop and just stand there quietly listening and looking around and feeling the immense quiet of winter settling into our valley. Winter here is so quiet. It’s also very pretty. I also enjoy feeling and hearing the crunch of the snow under my feet.
I did a lot of walking and praying and some fasting this week.
This week I did an in-depth study of 2 Timothy. I spent a lot of time defining the meaning of words from certain passages to understand if they applied to me so that I could do some deep introspection and repentance. It is time to get my nitty gritty character sins repented of and out of my life. I’m also seeking the father for healing of a few mild chronic health issues. I have been studying Henry Wright’s “Be in Health” book. In the early 2000s, I went to one of his week retreats with my first husband, who passed away a year later. There are many truths and keys to health and healing in his gleanings of the Word for helping people be healed of their infirmities.
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.