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:

This past week was all about hay hauling. In all, we picked up 22 tons of baled grass hay from a neighbor’s field, hauled it home, and stacked it in our barn. That was nearly 600 bales. Thankfully, this year we were able to hire help for about half of the labor for this annual project.  At my age, my back cannot handle that much work in just a week.

I added several new guns to the Elk Creek Company online catalog. I still have a few more without photographs that I hope to add in the next few weeks.

Now, Lily’s part of the report…

Avalanche Lily Reports:

Dear Readers,
We had a very hot week this week in our part of the American Redoubt.  We live in the mountains so the hottest temp that I actually saw at our ranch was 97 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade of our porch where I keep the thermometer.  Down in town at a lower elevation and with lots of pavement it registered in the low hundreds.

This past Saturday night we drained our redneck swimming pool to clean it out again. It was full of algae and more leaves and sand and critters, two large frogs had taken up residence in it. I had cleaned it back in April, but had not done much of anything more with it since we had a very cool spring and early summer.  We did not continue to add bleach to it for the reason that our animals also like to drink out of it.  If we are not using it, then I don’t want them to have to drink too much chlorine.  Our dog loves to go in that pool daily to cool off and to drink water. Furthermore, when we plan to drain it I don’t want to bleach it just before draining because that releases bleach into our ecosystem and I wanted to rescue the frogs once they were at the bottom of the pool. The bleach would kill them.

I awoke at five thirty AM on Sunday.  The pool had completely drained by then. After animal chores I began the scrubbing process to clean out the pool of all of its algae.  I wanted to get to it before the sun rose and dried it the sides.  I woke up Miss Violet and got her out there to help me. I told her: “If ya wanna swim you must help put in the effort” to get the pool ready for clean water.  We have a sump hole in the bottom of the pool where all of the gunk goes which makes it easier to scoop the last of it out into a bucket and to dump it.  Then I wipe out all of the sand and goop that I cannot scoop out. We run the hose and flush the bottom of the pool about three times to get the last of the gunk out. I caught the frogs and marched them out to the meadow’s natural pond and released them there.

Then, when the walls were all clean and the last of the water with algae was drained and clean we began refilling the pool with water.  Because I was also watering the gardens, our water pressure was low.  So it took about forty-eight hours to completely refill our pool again. We add two gallons of double-strength chlorine as it is filling to kill the few bits of algae that remain.  Then we wait a few days to swim for two main reasons: One, to let the chlorine dissipate some and, two to allow the pool to warm up.  Our tap water runs about 55 degrees year-round.  Our ranch sits upon an underground river just about ten to twenty feet below us depending on the time of the year.  It is so refreshing to drink in the hot summer.

At the same time that we were scrubbing the pool, we took some time to wet down the wool rug on a cement pad outside the house.  Miss Violet sprayed it for me, Then I applied the soaps: commercial liquid laundry, washing soda, Borax and some oxi-clean powder.  I scrubbed it all in with a scrub brush, then let it sit for a while.  While it sat we continued working on the pool.  In between scrubbing the pool with the rose running, the bottom of the pool would refill and I would have to pump the water back out again, I would drag the hose over to the rug and spray it down and then squeegee the dirty water off the rug and then repeat the process.  Then return to the pool and resume scrubbing and rinsing it.  We finished the pool project at about 12:30 PM.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon rinsing and squeegee-ing the rug.  There was a lot more dirt in it this year — mostly because of our dog laying on it. I finished cleaning it on Monday after the pool was partially filled.  The pool finished filling by Tuesday afternoon.

We put the rug up on eight inverted five gallon buckets to dry out.  We let it dry outside in the heat for four days.  By Friday we brought it back into the house.

I started deep cleaning the pantry hallway.  I vaccumed and washed the floor and started to go through some of the foods on our wire wracks.  There was a horrible smell coming from there and it took me a while to find it.  Jim actually found it before I did. It was from some inexpensive cans of tuna that we had bought just two weeks ago for snacks for the cats.  A number of them had exploded and leaked their contents onto our wooden boot shelves. I have been hearing reports of problems with canned goods quickly going bad after being purchased.  Now we have experienced this for ourselves. Please check the dates and keep an eye on your canned foods.  Anyhow, I scrubbed the shelf area under which the cans had been stored and sprayed it with an enzymatic spray.

I had a tooth pulled later in the week which seriously put a damper on all of my other usual activities.  It was the very rear-most molar. It had a large cavity below the gumline that developed during menopause and during the days when I was struggling with food issues and getting my diet right.  I was sitting on it for a year after it was discovered because I really didn’t want to lose the tooth and I also didn’t want a root canal and those chemicals in my body.  But, finally, I had to do something about it, before it developed into a serious issue. This was the week to deal with it. I really wish that It could have been healed by our Father in heaven.  I did try various methods to try to heal it. But I am glad the stress of my indecisiveness is finally over even though I am still very sad to have lost an important molar tooth. It was really weighing on my mind and messing with my joy of the summer.  Now, to heal up quick!

As Jim mentioned four mornings this week we arose very early to bring in our hay before the day became too hot.  I drove the pickup in the field as Jim and the helper young men loaded it into our horse trailer.  Miss Violet helped too by flipping the bales from their sides to their flats so that it was quicker for the men to pick them up by their twine.

I read Psalms this week, Isaiah, and second John. And iI spent a lot of time in prayer and intercession.

And that was my week.

May You All Remain Safe, Blessed, and Hidden in Christ Jesus,

– Avalanche Lily, Rawles

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As always, please share and send e-mails of your own successes and hard-earned wisdom and we will post them in the “Snippets” column this coming week.  We want to hear from you.