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:
This week, I completed most of my Spring slash burning. Now I can concentrate on cutting my annual supply of firewood.
I rebuilt our sheep-milking stand.
There has been a recent surge in pre-1899 rifle orders at our Elk Creek Company mail-order biz. We recently increased our silver divisor to 24.5 times face value, for anyone who prefers to pay in pre-1965 U.S. silver coinage.
We had a delightful visit with our four grandsons, who came to stay with us for five days here at the Rawles Ranch. Lily will fill you in on all of the details on their visit, in her part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had lots of sunshine this week with a high temperature of about 67 degrees Fahrenheit with some lows of about 27 degrees Fahrenheit with obvious frosts.
Last week one of my young ewes from my meat and fiber flock, the last one who lambed this year, lost her only ram lamb at twelve days. We have no idea why. Anyhow, I’ve been loving sheep milk yogurt so much and have been chafing at the price to buy it in grocery stores and champing at the bit to begin milking our dairy sheep that won’t be lambing until about the second week of May. So I decided to give it a try with this ewe. All sheep, regardless of their breed, can be milked. In fact, I’ve read from one source, that my breed of sheep, has been milked in the distant past. So, I’ve been milking her twice a day and have been getting approximately 12 ounces of milk per milking. This has been enough to make our own yogurt, all week. It is yummy and it is basically saving us $7.00 per 16-ounce container. I’ve been eating four to five 16-ounce containers of Bellwether Farms plain sheep milk yogurt per week. Now, I don’t have to pay for it any longer. I am so excited. I just have to milk my sheep and make my own.
I have also separated out from their lambs a few more of my mother sheep once so far, and milked them just in the morning, just a little, so I can have at least 18 ounces of milk each morning. I won’t strip them out since they have very hungry lambs. They have very small teats and udders compared to cows which makes it not the easiest animal to milk, but I love their milk even more. The challenge is worth it. Since the grandsons were here this week, we turned all the milk into yogurt and made breakfast smoothies with it. But next week, when it’s just us three here, I will additionally be making butter and cheese.
Jim helped me get this first mama milking by holding her while I milked her. She has very small teats which makes milking them a bit more of a challenge. And their udders are shaped differently than a cow’s udder. So it took some time for me to figure out the best way to milk a sheep. By the fourth milking the ewe knew the routine and cooperated with me. In fact she will now separate herself out from the herd in the evening when they come into the shed for the night, because she knows she gets special alfalfa treatment. She doesn’t have to compete for alfalfa and beet pellets that I give her.
Our oldest grandson took over the guarding position for Jim while I milked her a few times. But by the end of the week, I can milk her alone without any help. I just give her grain and kinda lean against her against the wall. But she is also letting me just sit on the floor next to her and milk her. And even though Jim has fixed the milking stand I have not tried to use it yet. Maybe next week. Actually, the last four milkings, I am using it but not in the conventional way that it is intended. It’s in the middle of the wall. Thus it leaves a two and half foot gap between the stand and the corner of the shed. I have been putting the alfalfa in that space and then put the ewe in there and block her escape with my body. So the stand and the corner serve as a small “stall” that keep her contained while I milk her.
Back to the group of mom sheep. When I went to milk the other moms, only once so far by the time I’m writing this, Jim had to help again, because none of them have been milked before. They are wild in many ways. (They are from a small wool breed that is notoriously skittish.) But they too will get used to the idea in the next few days of milking them. I discovered that one of my moms has a dead half of her udder. And she has twins. The operational half was rather huge when I discovered the issue. After discovering the issue, I only milked her about four squeezes before quitting to let her twins have her. She gets a reprieve from any milking, since she has twins nursing on only one side. I have one other ewe who has lambs that missed the first separation and so was not milked by me. I will find out the status of her udder this coming week.
This week, all of us, Miss Violet, Jim, the boys and I, collected sap from our four birch trees. (“Birch Water.”) I have been boiling it down outside on our cement pad where Jim built a waist-high campfire type grill, with a 20″ x 30″ grate. The boys have been building the fires and helping me keep them going. So far we boiled down one six-gallon batch to about six ounces of Birch Syrup. We have also boiled down another batch to three quarters of a gallon and have refrigerated it to finish boiling it down later, or I may turn it into a beverage of some kind. We bought four more Made-in-India stainless pails that arrived at the end of the week. Next week, I will tap another two birch trees to get more sap. We have also been adding sap to our water and juices for the extra nutrients. We like the freshness of the sap. There is little to no taste, but it has a very slight bite to it.
As Jim mentioned, we’ve had the grandsons visit again this week, during their spring break from homeschooling and their homeschooling coop classes. We have had a lot of fun with them. This week we went for a hike up to a little lake that we know about, to look for crawdads. But they have not yet appeared from their winter hibernation. However the boys enjoyed flipping the rocks and finding the Mayfly, and Damsel fly larvae and catching Waterstriders. While the three older boys flipped rocks, grandpa and the youngest took a nap on the shoreline together. It was so sweet to see the baby — who just recently turned three — napping on Grandpa’s chest, on the beach. On that hike, I saw my first ever Yellow Bells/Fritillary flowers. That was super cool for me. They are an edible plant.
Back at the ranch, while I was cooking, they boys spent a lot of time walking around our Redneck swimming pool and catching the giant water beetles that inhabit the pool when we are not changing out the water regularly. They helped me feed the chickens, sheep, horses, and cows. They love climbing up into the hay and playing hide and seek in the barn. Grandpa gives them driving lessons in our electric quad. They did some archery practice. They also took turns on our zip-line. The three older boys and Miss Violet played a lot of cards and board games together. Two of the boys really love to paint nature scenes, flowers, insects, etc. So they did a lot of painting this week.
The three older boys, Miss Violet, and I went for a hike to a nearby meadow off the ranch to see what other flowers may be blooming. We saw the first Trilliums. This area does not appear to have Fritillaries. While there the second grandson asked about Bear Grass, so we sat down in the meadow and I took Kershaw’s book out from my backpack and we read up on them. It turns out the roots of Bear grass are edible and are best if boiled or roasted. Bear Grass has also been used to make ropes and baskets. Then we had a snack of Apples and Pistachios and we split a store-bought Larabar between the five of us. When we got home I roasted Cashews and made our own homemade Larabars. I actually made two batches.
As always, I cook up a storm when the boys are here, Since it was the week of Unleavened bread (which we observe), I made Einkorn, Garlic, Rosemary crackers to eat with soups. Additionally, we made maple syrup crepes. We ate lamb steaks, and lamb roast, and chicken soup, Quiche, and Pasta with meat, using Einkorn Rotini noodles.
The third grandson who is almost six and has the ability to observe and state the obvious, mentioned that the floor was really dirty one day. I was making breakfast at the time. I asked him if he would prefer to eat or have a clean house? The second born looked at me and said, “both”. So I said, “Well, then we all have to work together to achieve both objectives, especially if you want me to have time to do fun stuff with you, too.” ;-). So that morning, After I made breakfast and we ate, I had them help me with dishes and then I swept and did a quick floor washing. Then we had our daily Bible study. Then we made lunch, after we went for a hike. It really is more pleasant to be in a clean and orderly home.
This week as a whole family we read through the first 12 chapters of Exodus together. Jim and I showed the boys how Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and giving of the Holy Spirit fullfills the first four Feasts/Appointed times of the Scriptures: the Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. Additionally, at bedtime, I have been singing some wonderful Messianic songs in Hebrew to the boys. I want them to learn them and have them in their hearts. Seh Ha Elohim, Ki Ko Ahav, Mi Kamocha, Agnes Dei, Kadosh.
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.