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, we took a family trip in our pickup with our horse trailer to deliver four dairy/wool sheep to a buyer in the beautiful Mission Valley of Northwestern Montana. It was a long drive, but very scenic. And, it felt good to be delivering them to a Christian homeschooling family.
I slaughtered and butchered another sheep this week. This time it was an excess two-year-old ram. Much of that mutton will be used to feed our dog.
Today, I’m attending the Lewiston, Idaho, Gun Show. As usual, I’m looking for pre-1899 gun inventory.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week we received another three inches of rain. According to the US Drought Monitor, our part of the Redoubt region is still in a moderate drought condition. I’m starting to question its truthfulness in reporting the actual data on the ground. From my rain gauge, since October 1st, we have received 13.25 inches of rain. We are supposed to get an average of about 40 inches of liquid precipitation per year. Well, according to my calculations up to Wednesday, maybe we are still in drought, from previous year’s lack, (I have only kept track of rainfall for this year not any other time.) because, we have received approximately 31.345 inches of liquid precipitation, leaving us a deficit of the yearly average of 8.66 inches. But we have until December 31st, to receive that for this year. If this current weather pattern continues, we will easily get to that level. Thus ending our drought condition.
We have Canada Geese and Tundra Swans coming through and resting in our area while on their migration to the south. Some groups of them stay for the winter in our area, if we don’t freeze up for too long. If and when we freeze, I believe they go hang out in Lake Pend Oreille, which doesn’t usually completely freeze over.
As Jim mentioned above, this week, we sold some of our Dairy sheep flock to a young family. I’m very happy for this family and for my sheep to be with them.
The next day, I cleaned the hen house, the cow stalls, the loafing yard, the front of the hay barn, the Dairy Sheep separation pen, and part of their main pallet shelter.
While I cleaned those areas with Miss Violet’s help in the morning, and later in the day, our young neighbor’s help, Jim butchered our last adult Dairy ram from last year’s breeding. Now our Dairy flock is down to a reasonable number until next spring when they start lambing once again.
Sadness for me. I was watching when Jim went into his pen to lead him out to the barn. The ram was real happy to see Jim and went right up to him. Jim pet his head and talked to him and he wagged his tail. 🙁 Then I brought the grain and we led him to the barn to be slaughtered. I hightailed it back to the house, while the ram happily ate his grain and met his maker. It is Jim’s job as my husband to do the life-taking. And I’m not going to watch this aspect of our farm life. Of course the ram didn’t have a clue as to what was coming. As a lamb is led to the slaughter…
I used to have a very hard time with this sort of thing. I still kind of do. But this is the reality of farm life and self-sufficiency. What must be done must be done. This ram had a good well-fed life. He did his breeding job and lived far many more months than most of his cohorts.
We spent the next two days rendering the fat for our use, and cutting up the meat for our use and for our dog’s use. I partially fleshed out his hide, and then salted it.
I washed the egg-tanned sheep fleece on Friday. It will dry slowly on the porch until Sunday, when I will bring it into the house to dry it faster and stretch it and work it so it will be soft and supple.
One of our neighbors shot a buck deer this week and gave me its hide. I started fleshing that out, too, then salted it. I hope to get back to working on both of them again, very soon. But for the rest of this week and all of next week, my focus must be on cleaning our house, decorating, and cooking and baking a ton of food and entertaining the grandsons for three days before Thanksgiving and then entertaining the rest of the family through next weekend.
I have to say, I have a whole new respect for our ancestors and the native Americans that had to work so hard to feed and clothe themselves. Now that I am doing it, I understand what they had to do and how hard they worked. Complete. Deep. RESPECT!
I made butter from my cow’s cream this week. I gave the skimmed milk to our “Pup”.
I’m caring for our neighbor’s small critters, chickies, kitties, and bunnies for two weeks while they travel out of state for Thanksgiving.
Wednesday night, I began preparing the house for our family’s Thanksgiving celebration. Our Persian rug was very dirty from our “Pup” lying on it when wet and dirty from the barnyard. Plus, when we put it away last summer it was already dirty and I forgot to give it its annual hosing down and scrubbing on a hot summer day. So it was in bad shape. I hand scrubbed it, this week, with a washcloth and water mixed with vinegar and Castile liquid soap. Then I vacuumed up all the bunches of animal hair that the washcloth balled up and the bigger chunks of dirt not picked up from the washcloth. No, I did not vacuum first. I just wanted to get on with the job. Then I washed it a second time going over some particularly stained or dirty spots. Then I blended some dried apple mint leaves with baking soda and sprinkled it on the rug, and let it sit overnight. I went to bed at 2:30 AM. Later in the morning, right after waking up, I vacuumed it. The rug looks and smells great again!
I washed/dusted some surfaces in the Great Room. I still need to wipe down the ceiling fans and the top of the fridge and cabinets. I also need to dust and vacuum our books on the book cases and do a quick reorg. of them. The oven needs to be scrubbed out.
I put up the tiny battery-operated decorator LED lights over four windows in the Great Room and behind our wood cook stove.
I baked Maple sugar cookies and three loaves of Almond flavored Serviceberry quick bread. Wow both are so yummy. We are rationing the cookies, and we ate one loaf of the bread, and I froze the other two for when the family is here. Lots more baking needs to be done next week.
Last summer I sewed kitchen sink window curtains with a material with a white background with brown pine cones, green pine needles with gold highlights. It was so pretty that I bought more of that material for the Dining table area window, but never got around making those curtains. This week, I finally sewed them. I also put our white blackout curtains back up in the picture window and the sliding glass doors. I took them down for the summer for a lighter airy look in the great room. Now it looks and feels much cozier in the Great Room.
We went shopping for some holiday decorations. We do not celebrate Christmas but I do like certain winter-themed decorations. The LED lights were clear white snowflakes and plain clear white bulbs. I bought four really inexpensive plastic white cubed houses with snowflakes, battery-operated pseudo-candles to put on our windowsills and on the piano to add more light and ambiance. I like them.
Our new up-river neighbors gifted us a beautiful thick leather strap with three sleigh bells and a large brass ring. I bought a hook for it and hung it on our upper corner cabinet door in our kitchen, since that is a central location where all can see it. We don’t have a main outside door to our home where guests come to. We have the garden door that goes out into the fenced Main garden and a sliding glass door that goes out into our near house meadow, and the garage door where no guests enter. So the kitchen cabinet it was…
I wrote out the rest of Chapter 9, and 10 and up to Chapter 11:20 of the Book of Hebrews this week. “Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report”….Hebrews 11:1-2
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.