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:
Sheep shearing day! This week, we had a sheep shearer out to the ranch, and he sheared and hoof-trimmed all of our adult sheep. (We have two small flocks with less than 20 adults, and a roughly equal number of lambs.) He was a real pro, did a great job, with the least number of nicks that I’ve ever seen. (Pictured above is sheep shearing season at my great-grandfather John Wallach’s ranch in Bell Valley, Mendocino County, California, in the 1890s. John Wallach can be seen near the far left, with the moustache.)
I did some more firewood cutting this week. I’m now almost done with my annual wood quota, just in time for haying season. Thankfully, all of the wood cutting and splitting exercise gets my muscles in shape for the upcoming hay bale bucking/stacking.
We began to drain and scrub our Redneck Pool. It will feel great to see it looking clean and spiffy. That annual pool cleaning project should be done by Tuesday. We’ll then be ready for hot weather and grandkids’ visits!
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week was quite hot with afternoon highs of about 91 degrees for three days in a row. The heat definitely puts a kibosh on outdoor activity after the noon hour. The heat and the mosquitoes are definitely slowing us down a bit.
This week, our more than a dozen adult sheep were sheared by the somewhat local shearer. They, especially the meat and fiber flock, are sooo super cute since they lost that heavy wool coat. It was a very timely shearing, since it was so hot the past few days. We can see that they feel so much better.
I have scheduled a private class to learn how to wash, card, and spin our wool fleeces. I am very much looking forward to it.
One evening, as I was doing the evening chores, I paused to observe an interaction between the bull and his son. The two of them were butting heads together. It was so neat to see how daddy was being so careful and gentle while butting his son. Likewise a few days later, while milking the sheep of my meat/fiber flock, I observed a three month old ramlet go after his father. The Senior ram lowered his head and let his ramlet butt him. I could see in the eyes of the ram that he knew it was a young challenger and took it with gentleness. It was so cute. I have two older rams. The senior ram and his yearling ram son. Those two go at it quite hard, though not for blood. I have to say that I love seeing the father animals with their offspring.
Another observation I noticed this week was the intense pairing of my bull and senior cow. They act like a totally in love married couple. That bull is always at her side. They lie down right next to each other with barely any space between them while chewing their cud. The bull is always within ten feet of her while grazing.He is ever attentive to her.
This week I did a lot of mowing of the orchard to feed the grass to the sheep and heifer. I also mowed along the local road to keep the fire danger down, for aesthetics, and for exercise. We mowed our house meadow to knock down the weeds. Hopefully the grasses dropped enough seed before I mowed. Jim took a turn mowing the House meadow. It is not finished yet. We will continue mowing it this next week.
We are spending time rotating the hoses around the fruit trees, garden, and mounds of squashes. Our fruit trees fruit production looks very promising this year…
I pulled up two Wheel barrows worth of Knapweed from the House meadow and behind our shop. We have other areas of Knapweed to tackle, yet.
As you can see in the previous paragraphs, we had a lot of animal observations this week. Here are a few more: I saw a Bald Eagle eating a Canadian Goose out in the Outer meadows one evening. Miss H and I went out to investigate it, treading through the foot-deep water. I carried this time, to scare it off. if need be. We saw that only a small part of the carcass was left. I saw another goose observing the eagle eating the goose and assumed that maybe it was the goose’s mate. Kinda sad.
Another evening, I went out to do the chores with “H”, our “pup”. I was feeding the bummer lambs their evening “top off”. Suddenly, “H” ran around the back side of the sheep pen, and the smell of very strong skunk odor hit my nose. I yelled: “What did you get into?”. She immediately dropped her head in shame and beelined for the house. I went out of the sheep pen, not happy at all. I had to go into the open barn to get the grain ration for the sheep. I went into the barn bay and it was full force with the smell of skunk. She had messed with a skunk in the open barn. OOHEEY, I was not happy about that. You would think that she would learn that they are not kitties to be played with, and that being sprayed by them means the dreaded bath. Why do we have to deal with skunks every JUNE? I finished the chores, then put a leash on the Pup and scrubbed her down with the hose, with Dawn dishwashing soap and baking soda, and rinsed her. Then, poured vinegar on a lot of her fur and rinsed her. I washed her face with a washcloth. I rinsed her with our hose for a bit, but the water is so cold, that I finished rinsing her in our shower with warm water. Did I ever tell you how much I HATE skunks? I hate skunks.
I finished writing out Chapter 12 and started Chapter 13 of Matthew. I read the book of First Corinthians.
Pray for the salvation of the unwitting victims, Israelis and the Persians, and all in the Middle East and in Asia, of these orchestrated conflicts of governments meant for depopulation of the world. This new war, will most likely continue tit for tat for the next two years and then could culminate with a nuclear exchange. We are in the Last days and are in the window of Jesus’ return. Jacob’s Trouble is during the last 3.5 years of the Tribulation. We are almost into it. Digital ID and cryptocurrency equal the Mark of the Beast and will be fully implemented this Fall. Pray and prep like crazy. The Black horse of Famine is riding.
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.