To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make long-term and short-term plans. Steadily, we work on meeting our prepping goals. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities. They also share their planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, property improvements, 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 the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready! This week’s focus is on beginning to prepare for fall.
JWR
Dear SurvivalBlog Readers,
This week was fairly quiet. The children did a lot of horseback riding around the Ranch and once up into the adjoining National Forest. However, they weren’t long in the forest because the horses were on extra high alert and kept staring into the woods and snorting and making their nervous “whoosh” sounds. We concluded that there must be a predator somewhere just off the road in the forest, and even though we were fully armed, decided to not tempt fate. We erred on the side of caution and went back home. The family continues to do a lot of mountain bike riding around the ranch. (On of our bikes is a Montague paratrooper folder.)
It was a bit cool here this week, so we didn’t swim.
We have baby blueberry bushes which only produced a few berries this year. So we went to a U-pick blueberry farm and picked about 20 pounds of blueberries. These we froze. We intend to return the Blueberry farm in two weeks to pick some more.
Jim’s Projects
Jim (“JWR”) was busy with hay stacking and wood splitting this week. Not much else in the way of prepping. But it was great exercise. He has some travel planned for this coming week, which will be good timing–to rest his sore muscles.
HJL
The Latimer Homestead continued its focus on the harvest but also took time to plant for fall and winter produce as well. This week it was fun to be able to share some of the blessings from our harvest with others who were much appreciative. We also enjoyed putting up some dill pickles, made almost completely from ingredients off our little farm, grape leaves included.
The days are getting cooler, and it is clear that we need to get as much produce, wood, and preparations put away for the coming winter and year ahead, so we are all motivated to get our work and projects done. There is much to do and family time to look forward to as we sit around a bountiful table and give thanks.
My Nesco dehydrator has only four trays, but it has been busy the past couple of weeks, with lots of frozen vegetables from the Commissary. I even dehydrated some Spaghetti Os, and Bush’s Baked Beans. I am going to make some hard tack this evening, so it has been a good time lately.
It has not been the best of times for me this past week. I cannot concentrate at work as my wife was diagnosed with a ruptured colon. We’re not sure of the cause but the result is keeping her down. Surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. She was in Florida last weekend trying to enjoy the beach and could not due to the pain and fever she was having. As soon as she got back home Monday she went to the doctor for blood work and antibiotics. Tuesday she had a CT scan and Wednesday she was talking to a surgeon. Friday she did the per-register at the hospital
Today we’ve been sitting around doing nothing much. This morning though I did repair a roof hole in our metal building that looks a lot like the building in the picture about the Faraday cage. I had a dead oak limb approx 4.5 inches in diameter fall about twenty feet and hit end first on one of the roof panels. It split completely across. I’d never seen anything like this before. I had a panel piece about 3×3 that I patched the hole with. Some metal roofing screws, silicone and hope for no leaks is all I could do at this point in time.
Sending prayers for your wife sir.
Ditto !
Not sure if I can say this, but I much prefer this segment to another similar blog where the webmaster uses this recurring weekly post to complain and beg his readers for money, going so far as to whine that he now has to work a “regular job” because his blog isn’t making enough money.
What is a good method in drying hot peppers? I have a good crop and in another month, Lord willing, it should really be full.
Thanks
@Skip
So far, my experiments have just yielded a few viable options for my tastes. You can:
So far, of all the methods, the ristra method produces the best results, but is limited to fully ripe chilies and only works in relatively low humidity. If you like green chilies, you will have to use freezing or canning.
Freeze drying doesn’t work too well because the oil is too volatile. You can smell the capsicum in the waste water and your hot chilies now taste like bell peppers.
Well as a CPA I’ve been on contract and until November. Doing an open enrollment project for a hospital. Luckily I’ve been released to work remote till go live so we plan on being up to the redoubt property grading and installing septic tank, water well dug and storage tank coupled with hot water tank and plumbing and underground propain tank. We chose under ground for ballistics reasons so no one could readily explode it in a pinch. Having said that this project has been three years and in installments due to all done in cash. No Bank or family loans pure 100% ownership even the many acres of land purchase. So this was the week my wife cut my hair and for free. No $100 solans more savings for our future. God bless.
Either a big cat in the woods stalking you or what the Native Americans called among other things Sasquatch. Stay alert either way.
I always like the Montague folding bikes. Well made and pretty to boot