To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make 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 this column, in the Odds ‘n Sods Column, and in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
I did my best to get caught up on projects around the ranch this week. I also made several antique gun purchases from estates. As always, I have to scramble to keep guns in inventory. Sales have been brisk at Elk Creek Company, so I’ve also been busy packing orders. We’re now down to just 17 antique handguns, 16, percussion replicas, 14 rifles, and four shotguns. I did add another Mauser cavalry carbine that just arrived. Our month-long Patton’s Birthday sale ends on December 11th, so if you want to place an order, then do so, soon.
One of the projects for the new chicken coop was laying step-stones in front of the door. Lily and I went to the far end of our property and gathered three large flat stones that were roughly 20 inches square and 6 inches thick. I estimated that they were just over 100 pounds apiece. We hefted them into the back of our truck for the short ride back to the coop. After rolling them off the truck, I laid down a base of gravel and set the stones in place. The leveling process just took a couple of minutes. We also brought one other stone that was 30 inches long, three inches thick, and a foot wide. I positioned this one as a ramp, just outside the chicken door at the back of the coop–inside the fenced chicken run–so that the chickens won’t have to hop up or hop down, at the coop’s sliding Guillotine door entry.
Deer and elk season has just ended, leaving me empty-handed. I was so busy with out-of-state travel, and then “catch up” that I didn’t get the chance to get out and hunt. So I suppose that we’ll slaughter and butcher one of our steers sooner rather than later. It is nice to have plenty of beef available, on the hoof.
Our new sheep have settled in. I’m sure that Lily will have more to report, on that…
