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 was down with a head cold that developed into acute bronchitis, for most of this week. That was no fun, and sadly I accomplished very little around the ranch. My darling wife (“Avalanche Lily”) showed great patience with her coughing patient. She is such a blessing!
I’ve started writing the upcoming issue of the SurvivaBlog Old School (SOS) newsletter. This issue’s emphasis will be on cough, cough construction tips and tricks. This is our third issue. It should be mailed to subscribers sometime in March. SOS is a traditional hardcopy mailed newsletter intended as a backup to Internet delivery, in the event of any sort of disruption — whether natural or man-made. Normally, you’ll receive just one issue each year, with some practical information that is not published in the online edition of SurvivalBlog. But if a crisis develops, you might get SOS issues as often as once a month. Subscriptions are simple: $200 for a Lifetime Subscription. (My lifetime, not yours.) I’d prefer that you send your subscription payments via USPS Postal Money Orders payable to “Jim” or well-concealed cash, for your privacy. Please use this address, and also put the same address in the upper left-hand corner of your envelope. (Again, for your privacy.):
SOS Newsletter
P.O. Box 303
Moyie Springs, Idaho 83845
Lambing season has begun at the Rawles Ranch. Lily will give you all the details, in her part of the report…
Avalanche Lily Reports:
Dear Readers,
Hey, Hey, winter returned this week! We received six inches of snow and colder temperatures. It is so beautiful! I love it when it is crisp and cold and white out. I love the four seasons!
We still had the Grandsons, all four of them until Thursday of this week, so we took advantage of the snow and went sledding two days in a row. Such a fun blast that was!
Since I had the Grandsons all week, actually the three youngest for fifteen days until Thursday, when the oldest joined us, so not much “prepping” took place. We did the homeschooling math, poem memorization, and worked more on Proverbs 4. They now have the whole of Proverbs 4 just about memorized verbatim. I also added Psalm 91 and Psalm 133 to their repertoire. I will work with them on those on the phone for the next few weeks. We went birding a few more times at a local slough, but we are having a hard time identifying some of the ducks. Some of what we see in the water do not appear to be in the books. GRRR! One of the birds has a white stripe going over the top of the head and the beak appears white, it has black, brown and some red and more white…but no crest. I almost think it would be a coot, but Coots are black. Is it an immature bird of some species? Or is it a sea bird migrating through here on it’s way to the far north and it’s just not included in our Audubon guide and Peterson’s.
UPDATE: After further in-depth study of our numerous bird books, on Friday evening, I have concluded that we probably were seeing American Widgeons which is a new bird to add to our Life Lists.
I also worked on studying the book The Gospel in the Stars with them a bit. I think we will spend spring break concentrating on that project. One afternoon, before the snow came, we hiked around the edge of the National Forest. The kids went up a steep hill that had a rockfall along a powerline on the edge of the forest. They began rolling large rocks down the slope. Some rocks broke/cleaved into sharp edges, so we sharpened them with other rocks and made spear points and arrowheads. We were going to attach them to sticks, but got on with other projects. Maybe we’ll finish this project also during spring break.
Our Son and Daughter-in-law have put their house on the market and will move into their new home this weekend. These are very busy and exciting days for them.
Poor Jim spent the week in bed, but I brought him healthy meals, teas, and veggie smoothies on a regular basis, and made sure he inhaled steam at least once a day. He took Ivermectin just in case. But still, after eight days, the cough is pretty bad. We are praying for a full recovery this coming week.
Two of my senior ewes from the Meat and Fiber Flock have lambed thus far, last weekend. One birthed twin rams and the other twinned, a ewe and a ram. One of my dairy ewes looks as though she is bagging up. We shall see, since I wasn’t expecting her to lamb until May…Soon I’ll be miking sheep again…Maybe in about three weeks. I like to get my babies well established before giving them competition and causing more stress on the moms. Last Saturday morning very early at 6AM, while the grandsons were still sleeping, I quickly cleaned out the sheep shed, because I suspected that one ewe would lamb soon and I was right — lambing started the very next day. I don’t like working on Saturday, but this time, I thought it was an act of mercy for them to have a clean home for lambing. I’m so glad that I did clean their shed out.
Since the boys occupied the guest bedroom, my seedling plants only had the grow lights on for about two to four hours a day while we were doing school, stuff. Otherwise. the boys were in and out of that room all day, so we kept those harsh lights off, then. And since the door to that room was always open, the cats took full advantage and went into that room and used my two onion trays as their litter box. GRRR! So this week I need to start my onions over again. My tomato seedlings don’t look as healthy as before. Hopefully, they will recover shortly with 12-hour-per-day non-stop access to the grow lights from here on out, until Spring break. ;-).
I spent Friday cleaning up the house after the boys left and writing this post. It is very quiet around here without them. They bring so much life and energy into our home. Our pup and three cats also love the boys and all of their activity. Out cats M and M were constantly present and accounted for throughout all the day’s they were here and joined in most activities: game time, bath time for the youngest all the animals had to come into the bathroom and see what was happening to the “poor” child. Male “M’ kitty even stood up on the edge of the tub to get a good look at what was happening in there. That was so funny. The rest of the brothers laughed with me when they observed how curious the dog and cats were about their brother’s bath time.
At the boys’ bedtime story time, the cats were up on the bed too. The cats loved being held by the boys and often when they were studying or eating or reading the cats would go snuggle with them. They also loved it when the boys would throw their toy mice for them and drag a string for them, etc. Female M in the past always shied away from them, but this visit she wanted to sleep with them when they were reading quietly. Our old princess kitty also snuggled with them. The female cats really surprised me this time. I guess the boys have been here enough times now and they have matured enough that the cats feel really comfortable with them. The animals seemed pretty bored and depressed on Friday without the boys being here. 🙁
The boys did stretching and Isometrics with us this week. There was also our hiking, walks around the ranch, and our sledding. That was our exercise for this week.
Two years ago, I bought some Whitewoods, Backcountry extra-wide “Snowshoe” type downhill skis for skiing in the back country. They are shorter than regular downhill skis, fairly wide and have plastic tread underneath to grip the snow for “snowshoeing/hiking’ but can ski like downhill skis. I tried them once when I first bought them, which was in March after a heavy wet snowfall. They performed terribly with the edges getting caught in the heavy wet snow and being too slick. I nearly got hurt, then. We had fairly good snow conditions last winter, but I had strained my knee ligaments downhill skiing with the grandsons, so I never tried them that winter.
On Friday afternoon, the temperatures were about thirty degrees Fahrenheit. We had lots of white fluffy dry snow. I took the Whitewoods skis out to give them another try. They fit on regular winter boots, I wore my brand new Muck boots with them. They fit the skis really well and were sturdy enough, but they gave me heal blisters. However, despite the blisters forming toward the end, I persevered and I “Cross-country skied” up the local National Forest road for two miles, with an elevation gain of about eight hundred feet, in an hour and five minutes to the parking lot at the top of the road and skied back down the two miles in just thirty-five minutes. The skis are not the fastest things in the world, but they handle great on fluffy snow with a good turning radius, not that I needed to do any turns. The road is not steep enough for that. I really enjoyed myself. The pup went with me.
Jim is still sick, but he’s not a skier, and neither is Miss Violet. I, generally don’t want to be in the Forest by myself, but since I don’t have anyone who wants to ski with me, and because I enjoy it so much, I’m going to do it alone with the dog — and a Glock Model 30. Sometimes you just have to do what you want to do even if it means going alone. I want to do this again, with a different pair of boots, but very unfortunately, I think this may be the only day with this type of perfect weather to do this sort of skiing. Rain is in the forecast for Sunday! GRRR! I’m glad I went. Around here in the winter time you have to do the winter sports (ski, skate, sled) on the days that the conditions are perfect because perfect conditions don’t last here more than a few days.
I continued reading the book of Genesis to the boys. We did some review but continued up to Chapter 15, when Abraham enters the narrative. We also read through the Conquering of the City of Jericho by Joshua. We read all scriptures concerning Melchizedek: Psalm 110 and the chapter in the book of Hebrews, and other interesting stuff that ties Genesis in with the other parts of the Bible. Fascinating Stuff!
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.