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 a typical late May week at the ranch. We took the time for some hiking. Gardening took up most of the rest of our available time, and Lily will fill you in on that. I cut and hauled nearly a cord of firewood. I had to repair yet another gate that our bull tried to wreck. That boy really throws his weight around!
I did a couple of half-day trips, doing some ammo purchasing for one of my consulting clients who lives within a couple of hours’ driving distance.
On Wednesday the 31st, I touched off our burn barrel for the first time in several weeks. I had to dispose of a laying hen that had mysteriously dropped dead. She was one of about 25 hens in our flock. While I was at it, I burned a rubber AR arm brace. That came off my last arm-braced AR pistol. (I had gifted, traded, or sold all of my others, in anticipation of the ATF’s new ban.) Burning it generated a surprisingly thick stream of black smoke that smelled horrible. That brace was an all-rubber first-generation “ATF Approved” SIG brace. I even have a copy of the ATF’s approval letter for that specific model. It is a sad state of affairs when bureaucrats redefine something previously “legally approved” as a felony to possess! I’m a member of the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), so I might be exempted under the Fifth Circuit Court’s injunction ruling, but I figured it was better to torch a $90 brace, rather than risk having the ATF come and shoot my dog, stomp my cats, and throw me in jail. All that I kept was the brace’s velcro strap. So, in essence, I now own a $90 piece of Velcro. What a disgusting turn of events! This is what it feels like to live under the capricious rule of a tyrannical state. My contempt-o-meter is pegging!
The mosquito numbers have recently spiked, so we resorted to putting up the mosquito net over our beds. That is helping a lot. But we are still having trouble sleeping because there are so many hours of daylight at our latitude, this time of year. And it is still three weeks to the solstice! On June 21st, we expect just over four hours of full darkness.
Now, Lily’s report…Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”