What I Did To Prep This Week: May 3rd – 9th 2020
Hello Pack, hope you all have had a productive week of prepping and stayed healthy and safe. The weather in my part of Ohio was three seasons rolled into one.
Ohio weather is always crazy but this is getting ridiculous. We had one day of summer, a few of spring, and then witner reappeared. I am beyond tired of covering our fruit trees at this point.
We spent a lot of time on annual livestock health checks and worming this week. I mix diatomaceous earth in with the feed of all of our livestock on a regular basis and worm just twice a year with conventinal wormer.
Our 20 year old mini donkey, Sadie, is not doing so hot at the moment. I am going to start giving her coconut oil with her grain to help her keep weight on.
She and the other two mini donkeys have been earning their keep preventing coyotes from venturing close to the barnyard – which makes the two new goat kids quite happy.
The six little chicks that I introduced into the coop and run have adjusted quite well, and will start free ranging on Sunday.
Our ducks always seem a bit smarter than the chickens when it comes to free range training. I may be chasing chicks and cursing at dusk on Sunday evening, but maybe these little cuties will surprise me.
Egg laying has been on the upswing still. I am going to dehydrate six dozen eggs this weekend and put them up with our shelf stable home canned and dehydrated goods in a pantry.
If you have never dehydrated and eaten eggs yourself, you might be surprised with how amazing they taste.
You truly cannot tell the difference. Dehydrating your own eggs is far cheaper than buying commercially manufactured freeze dried eggs, that’s for sure.
I have a flat of tomato plants under the grow lights in the house right now trying to save them. It was not supposed to get down to freezing Thursday night so I left them sitting comfortable in the bed of my pickup truck. I should have gone with my instincts and not what the weather man said.
Tomorrow (which will be today when you are reading this) I am heading out to our county’s farmers market to pick up my herb order.
I was thrilled that I could not only get 98 percent of the herb plants I wanted locally, but also pay only $2 and $3 a plant for them instead of the sky high prices right now on Burpee, Gurney’s, and a few other places I checked online.
I am nearing the end of my annual soap making project. I have made 20 different types of healing herb soap – including some citronella soap to help keep those pesky mosquitoes away this summer.
Because I use melt and pour base most of the time now instead of messing with lye, the grandkids get to help. We made little letter and number soaps as part of their homeschooling lessons to help teach them spelling and math.
I scored the molds for less than $1 each on that BidFTA.com auction place I have mentioned to y’all before.
I did not win any preps this week, but I did win 9 Christmas and birthday presents to put back – each for 50 to 75 percent off the retail price. In my mind, that is still prepping because the money I saved can be spent for more self-reliance stockpiling.
My one pound block of raw shea butter and more beeswax arrived on the doorstep this week. So I am now stocked with the extra supplies I need to make more all natural healing salves once I can forage or grow the rest of the natural ingredients I need to make them.
Jewelwed and plaintain salve is my go to all natural neosporin alternative. The jewelweed bushes are not quite ready, but this year I am getting smart and picking all the plantain I need and dryng it before my horses beat me to it.
This Weeks’ Questions
- How are your gardens growing?
- What homemade healing “products” do you make or would like to make?
- How has the government shutdown affected your life and future prepping plans this week?
- What did you do to prep this week?