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:
We had mostly clear, chilly weather this week. This gave me the chance to wrap up a few outdoor projects, including some fall rototilling. I also discovered a serious glitch with our snowplow. Changing the hydraulic fluid and filter didn’t solve the problem so I chained the plow in the up-most position, and drove it to Spokane, Washington for repair at a specialty shop. That was a 7-hour round trip. And once the repair is completed, it will be another 7-hour trip, to retrieve it. This illustrates one of the drawbacks of living way out in the hinterboonies!
Another one of our vehicles was driven into town for a snow tire switch. (The Les Schwab chain kindly does free seasonal switches, if your tires are already on rims.) Two other vehicles were put in “storage” mode, with our insurance company, until April. There is no point in paying for insurance on vehicles that are just parked in our shop for the snow season.
And another one of our vehicles had a leaking power steering box. So that entailed another round-trip to town, for a repair. I need to spend less time on the road, and more time on my projects here at the ranch!
For the past few weeks, I’ve been quite busy with consulting calls. Clearly, the calamitous world events are prompting folks to get prepared. Quite a few of my clients are making long-distance moves, re-balancing their investment portfolios, and seriously stocking up. There is also a lot of well-justified angst over Team Biden’s plan to make most private gun show gun sales require FFL paperwork. So, many clients have had questions on where and how to round out their firearms batteries — whilst leaving little or no paper trail. Some of the quantities that they’ve been discussing are substantial. So I believe that 2023 and 2024 will be record years for gun sales — particularly the quiet purchase of used guns, from private parties. And it is abundantly clear that ammunition is flying off of the shelves — especially the modern military calibers.
Now, on to Lily’s report…Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”