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 finally did some substantial snowplowing for the first time in 2025.
Because I’ve gradually developed cataracts over the past three years, I had to make a decision on getting replacement lens surgery. I’m scheduled for surgery on my right eye this coming Wednesday. Even though this surgery is considered a “routine” outpatient procedure now in the 2020s, I’m still feeling a bit anxious. So I’d appreciate your prayers. The surgeon says that I’ll have a good chance of having 20/20 uncorrected vision. I’m also writing to beg you for some patience. My blog posts might be a bit incomplete, infrequent, or replete with typographical errors, starting on Wednesday. Ditto for the days following February 20th, when the surgery on my left eye is scheduled. Other than a few days after the death of my first wife in 2011, I’ve always been able to post SurvivalBlog daily, without fail. But the next few weeks might be an exception to the norm that I’ve established in nearly two decades of editing SurvivalBlog. Thanks for your patience! – JWR
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
The weather this week has been all over the map. We’ve had rain and snow showers last weekend. Then, throughout the rest of the week we’ve had several snow storms roll through dumping about nine inches of snow as of writing this on Thursday. Our temperatures have been quite steady between a low of 15 and a high of 32, but mostly highs, in the mid-twenties.
Well, I can honestly say that I did very little this week. Just maintaining the animals and doing regular household chores. I don’t like electric stock tank water heaters. So I use heavy-duty black rubber buckets. The water freezes in them after a time, but twice a day, they are light enough for me to pick up, throw the buckets on the ground, and stomp on them to get all of the ice out and then refill them. I think that is an easier method. And even though Jim wants to use the electric heaters, I don’t want to rely on electricity in everything we do around here. We do rely on it, to get the water, but…
I think we all have cabin fever. Twice this week I had to break up cat fights. Our two 3-year-old cats are ganging up on my 15-year-old cat. When they do that, I give them back their own medicine, hiss, spit, and a cuff, to tell them that bullying S. is not okay. That surprises them. I do it immediately, so they get the picture of why I am doing this to them. They may think they have their own pecking order, but I am the head honcha here and that behavior is not allowed here. Plus, I do not want them to think that they can run off my princess kitty.
We’ve had a bully male cat run off a couple of our kitties in the past. Someone asked us to take him as a teenage cat, so we did. It was about four months later that he took it on himself to bully our original resident kitties. Not good! That cat was brought to the humane society for adoption, right quick. If one cannot peacefully integrate with the originals, out they go. But in this case, these three are going to have to make peace, or they will be hearing from me. We love them all.
I did some walking earlier in the week around the ranch. After the snow fell, I haven’t been walking quite so much. I’m looking forward to doing some cross-country skiing.
I wrote out chapter 18 and most of 19 of Deuteronomy.
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.