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:
Along with our dog, Lily and I took a three-mile ski/hike up into the adjoining National Forest two days ago. This was the first time this year that there was enough snow to ski on. We saw a couple of sets of quite distinctive wolf tracks in the snow. The paw prints made our large dog’s prints look tiny, by comparison. Needless to say, we both pack pistols whenever we are any distance from our ranch house. (Typically, that is our Glock Model 30 .45 ACP pistols, with 13-round Glock Model 21 magazines.)
This past week, I had a “Holy Grail” piece come in from an estate sale purchase, for the Elk Creek Company inventory. It is a very rare pre-1899 production example of a Model 1898 8×57 Mauser sporting rifle. This rifle was crafted by Tiroler Waffenfabrik Peterlongo, a renowned Innsbruck, Austria gunmaker from 1826 through 1898. This is the first time in more than 40 years in the antique gun business that I’ve ever been able to get a very early Model 1898 rifle in captivity. Less than 1/10th of 1% of Model 1898 Mausers are pre-production Federally-exempt antiques, and of those, just a handful were originally made as sporting rifles.
Now, Lily’s part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
This week the weather was seriously cloudy, some rain and snow showers with highs and lows in the low thirties. We have three inches of snow on the ground as of Friday afternoon.
This week we saw several Golden Eagles in trees along a highway near Lake Pend Orielle, while running errands around the Sandpoint area.
This week during the day and in the middle of the night, extremely unusual, our “pup” has been doing a lot of barking. Thursday morning, as was reported by three of our neighbors, in the dark early hours, there were wolves barking and howling around two of their homes. One of the neighbors found paw prints all around his house during daylight hours. Later that day, Jim and I went for a hike. Jim hiked and I Cross-Country skied up in the National Forest. We saw huge canine tracks in the road we were hiking/skiing on. So they passed by that way. Hopefully, they keep moving on away from here.
This week, I relaxed quite a bit after the hectic hosting of the grandsons and the Thanksgiving gathering.
I spent the week mostly just “puttering” around the ranch. I spent a lot of time reorganizing the kitchen and cleaning cupboards, doing laundry from our overnight guests, cooking and eating good foods, reading and watching just a few YouTube videos. It feels really good not to be on the computer much at all these days.
This week, early one morning, I came out to the Great Room and was just about to get my glass of water with ACV, salt, lime, and Elderberry syrup, when I saw the two cats “M” and “M” flush a mouse out from underneath our wood box. It ran under our wood cook stove. I went to the other side of the stove and flushed it out back towards the cats. It went under our kitchen counter behind our “quick access” five-gallon buckets that hold Einkorn wheat berries, Einkorn flour, sugar, and rice. I moved the buckets to flush the mouse out again for the cats. I told them to: “Get it”, “get it!” I grabbed the broom and started to to hit it with it. It ran back to the wood box. I shoved the broom under to woodbox to kill the mouse. Then it ran to a tall, narrow bookcase and went behind the bookcase. Groan. There is a space under the bookcase but the back of that space has wood backing from the bottom shelf down to the floor. And there is a small space behind that and the wall. The mouse went into that spot below the books. But the bottom shelf itself does not have a board behind it, meaning that the books can touch the wall. Additionally, in case of earthquake the bookcase has been bolted to the wall. So there is no moving it.
So then I commenced to remove all the books on the bottom shelf so we could see into the space behind the bookcase down to the floor. Once the books were removed, piled them on the floor in front of the book case, so the three of us could see the mouse. So I grabbed a piece of kindling wood from the kindling bucket we have right next to the bookcase, and I started poking at it. The cats got involved, in front of me, blocking my view so I couldn’t see exactly what was going on, but suddenly they were interested in the sniffing under a haphazardly piled stack of books. Then, a few minutes later they lost interest. So I assumed it got away, and I had missed it. Darn!
I then vacuumed the shelf and began replacing the books. There were a lot of them, several piles, so I started with the ones closest to me. I then finished with the pile that the cats had been interested in. When I lifted the last books, there was the mouse laying there dead, flat as a pancake, but no blood, thankfully. “Huh, how and when did that happen?” I didn’t see the books shift at any time. The cats had come back to me and were looking at the mouse. Well, that is one less mouse in the house. I picked it up by the tail and waved it in front of them, but they didn’t try to go for it. So, I brought it outside and flung it as hard and as far as I could into the woods. Then I went in and went right to the sink and washed my hands. I’m glad we got it, because when my cats get mice, often they escape injured, and hide under the propane stove or under the piano or in some other very hard-to-reach place and die and stink up the house. I HATE THAT!
I cleaned the hen house and the cow stalls. I’m still milking, and freezing all the excess.
Our oldest grandson is memorizing the poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I had not ever memorized that poem, so I asked if I could help him. He said “yes” and his parents said “yes”. So, every day this week one of us would call the other and we’d work on it for about twenty minutes memorizing the poem together. By Friday he had it down cold. He will be reciting the poem this coming Monday at his co-op home school class. I almost have it memorized cold. I need to work on it some more. I will call him on Sunday night to fine tune it one more time before he presents it on Monday. It was fun helping him.
Interestingly, the anniversary date of the first publication of Tennyson’s poem in 1854 will be this coming Tuesday. Jim will be writing about it in the blog Top Note, that day.
A Blog Reader wrote to me and suggested that I read this book called “Collard Greens” by Thomas Ard Sylvest. It is about the author’s growing up experiences, living a subsistence lifestyle on a farm in Louisiana in the 1920s to 1950s. We ordered it a used copy, and I read it this week. I found it to be quite interesting. It is definitely a good read for any SurvivalBlog reader. For some folks, it will be a real eye-opener on what life is like without electricity and running water. Since it is based in the geographical south, I think southern folks will glean more useful information from it than northern folks.
I began reading Noraly Schoenmaker’s book, “Free Ride” this week. I just started it so I will finish it, Lord willing, next week. We love watching her videos as a family. We do not watch them as she puts them out two times a week. We usually wait a week or two or three and then have one or two evenings when we sit down and watch two to three in a row to catch up to her latest solo motorcycle travel adventures around the world. Her YouTube channel is “Itchy Boots”.
A family member celebrated their birthday this week, so that was a sweet time together.
I cross-country skied twice this week. I hope to do more soon.
I finished writing out the book of Hebrews this week and decided to write out Isaiah. I am also reading it in Hebrew as I write it in English. I’m still in Chapter 1.
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.