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 kept busy this week finishing up my firewood cutting for our greenhouse woodstove.
I also packed and mailed out two Elk Creek orders. Recently, I bought more than a dozen pre-1899 guns and blackpowder guns from estate sales, and as time permits, I’m starting to catalog those. There are some really nice ones including some like-new-in-box Ruger Old Army percussion revolvers. Those guns should all be up at the Elk Creek Company website within two weeks. Well, perhaps three weeks.
As I was driving home from town on Thursday afternoon, I caught a glimpse of a fox crossing the county road onto our property. So we will have to be extra vigilant in penning up our chicken flock every night. We have no shortage of predators here at the Rawles Ranch, including owls, hawks, eagles, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, and bobcats. Occasionally, we are also visited by lynx, mountain lions, foxes, otters, ermine, weasels, and bears (both black bears and grizzlies). We’ve never seen badgers, which are in our region, but one winter, just once, Lily saw wolverine tracks in the snow passing through our South pasture. Both wolverines and badgers are notoriously troublesome with livestock.
I constructed two sets of 21-compartment “mineral buffet” feeders for our separate sheep flocks, using generic U-Line blue plastic parts bins. Lily will give you the details on those feeders, in her part of the report.
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
We had another very hot and dry week here at the ranch. Temperatures went up into the low nineties for temperature highs and lows of about 46 degrees Fahrenheit. We had some clouds on Wednesday and Thursday. Our extended forecast calls for hot weather for the next ten or so days. Summer is being extended for us here in the Inland Pacific Northwest.
This week, I worked on harvesting the Walla Walla and Red onions.
I harvested more Zucchini. I chopped and froze two gallons’ worth. I shredded two quarts worth, and Miss Violet and I made four Einkorn flour Zucchini breads without eggs. They were fantastic!
I made sourdough bread this week. It is so yummy.
I harvested a gallon’s worth of broccoli that I blanched and froze.
I continued to weed and thin carrots. I have three double row, rows of carrots that are thirty feet long. It is very time-consuming to weed and thin them, and it is not a favorite job of mine, hence the reason why I keep mentioning them. But I am slowly getting them done.
I harvested most of the cabbage. I did not have a big crop of these this year. I shredded them and made sauerkraut and coleslaw.
I pruned most of the spent canes of my Golden Raspberries. A few were still producing, so I left those for a while longer.
This week we finally focused on getting the minerals set up for both flocks of sheep. Jim power-screwed three rows of seven small plastic containers onto the wall of the Meat and Fiber flock’s sheep shed and screwed 21 containers onto a half-sheet of plywood that was mounted inside of the covered wire shelter of the dairy flock where I put in twenty-one different minerals for my sheep’s free choice choosing.
It was very interesting to see what my meat and fiber flock thought of them. I sat around to watch them check it out. They immediately helped themselves to the vitamins, magnesium, salt, and Phosphorus. The Dairy flock devoured the Vitamins A, D, E and also ate the calcium and some others. I refilled the Vitamin A, D, and E container and they haven’t touched it since. So that proves that they take what they need, and when their body is satisfied, they stop. I’m glad that they have access and free choice of important minerals. I shall watch to see how much they partake in these minerals and see how their health improves.
I cleaned the Dairy sheep shed and pen and the hen house. I will have to clean the Meat and Dairy flocks’ pen and the cow shed next week.
We have quite a number of chickens that free range during the day and come in at night. I do not usually count them at night to see if all are present. This week as Jim was down in the orchard, he saw one of our hens with about a half a dozen newly hatched chicks running around with her. That is a first for us here. That is, that a regular hen has gone broody and stolen away to hatched out some babies. I have not yet seen her. I have another hen that went broody in the hen house this past week. I decided to let her set to see if she will succeed.
After Jim returned to the house and informed me of seeing the fox, I immediately took our pup out and patrolled our north fence line area to scare it off. I didn’t see it, but at one section of the fence line our pup was very interested in smelling something on the ground. We walked the fence line and then walked over to the area of the the hen house and the animal corrals, then into the house meadow, and out into the Open meadow. The Dairy sheep and cows were out in the Open meadow. There was no sign of the critter anywhere, nor were the animals excited in any way. So that evening when the hens came in I counted them and got a solid number. So now I will know if any are missing in the future. Okay, so, for the next few days I will not let the chickens out of their run; Just in case.
I made sheep yogurt cheese, Labneh. I seasoned it with Thyme, Basil, Oregano and Mint. It was quite good. I also made two half-gallon batches of yogurt, and froze a half-gallon of fresh sheep milk for future use.
We went hiking up a steep trail into the National Forest for some exercise. I swam numerous times and rode my bike a few times.
A recommended video: Whitney Webb: The Hidden Systems Keeping Americans Enslaved.
I am reading 2 Kings.
Jesus Christ the Son of God from Nazareth is Lord!
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.