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. Note that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in the Comments. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
We finished nearly all of the hay hauling. Our friends only had about 23 tons of grass hay available to sell to us. Picking up the bales in the field saved us some money. This is an example of the old “Dollars-to-sweat ratio” that I’ve often written about. To be fully ready for winter, we’ll need another four tons. We’ll source that from another supplier, later in the summer. But we’ll again do our own hauling.
Now that most of the hay hauling and stacking is done, I’m back to firewood cross-cutting and splitting. I’m also knocking off items from the “Honey-Do” list. Next up will be adding some cattle panels to reinforce the bottom four feet of our main garden fence. That should keep the cows from nosing under the woven wire.
I’ve been very busy with the Elk Creek Company biz. Since the 12th of July, we’ve booked more than double our normal sales. Three of those pre-1899 guns went to a repeat consulting client and were delivered on-site, during our day-long consultation. The majority of the mailorder sales were also to repeat customers. It seems that they appreciate my “eye”, in picking out nice old guns. And of course, sales were helped by the fact that many gun shops are presently nearly sold out of guns and that most gun shows have been canceled. Americans are rightfully anxious to buy guns. I’ve been doing my best to re-stock, but at the rate that things are going, I won’t have much inventory remaining by September. (I launched the biz back in February with more than 90 guns on hand. But now I’m down to just 51.) So if you have an interest in buying a “no-paperwork” pre-1899 cartridge gun, then don’t hesitate to get your order in.
In the next two weeks, we have visits planned with all of our older “up and out” offspring, and our grand-kids. We really savor those visits, regardless of the time of year. But summertime is particularly fun, with plenty of sunshine, watermelon, and swimming. Those visits should be great fun!