Newsletter #241 2024 Jan 12 Friday
Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal, or Inappropriate
Primal Woods and Homestead Rebel Farm
This is the second Newsletter to be published on Substack; all Newsletters in the foreseeable future will be published on Substack, so if you want to continue to be notified of Newsletters please sign up for a free subscription.
News From This Week
Some years ago Joel Salatin wrote a book titled Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal. Salatin brings his usual good humor to the subject. While Google and YouTube assist law enforcement, they are not law enforcement per se. Still, they have a massive impact on what is allowable, or not, in the “public square.” As the “Twitter files” proved, they collaborate frequently and regularly with the regime in the censorship of its enemies.
I’m guessing this isn’t related to the government, but it is certainly related to our culture. Remember when Mom used to part out a chicken in the kitchen? I do. Being able to buy thighs, or breasts, skin-on, on skinless, is a relatively new development it seems to me. The skin was always on, offal in a bag in the body cavity (heart, liver, gizzard, and neck), and the chicken whole, until Mom got hold of it. Now, according to YouTube’s “community guidelines,” unless you’re old enough to get blown up protecting the empire, you’re not old enough to watch a chicken being processed. To my knowledge there has never been a complaint about any of my chicken-related videos, but somehow the “community” has decided that they are not “suitable for younger audiences.” Everything I know about cooking, which I’ll claim is not insignificant, I learned in the kitchen, from my Mom, when I was just a pup, I’m talking pre-teen for most part. Apparently those days are behind us. And we are all weaker for it. Not coincidentally, this is why I haven’t published on YouTube in several years.
Moving on…
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.
<The> complaint details the actions of a man stuffing his pockets from the non-profit to overflowing with both fists. “In the last five years, LaPierre and his family have visited the Bahamas by private air charter on at least eight occasions, at a cost of more than $500,000 to the NRA.”
The air charters are simply the most glaring. From bespoke suits to his wife’s hairdresser, no charge was too personal not to be shouldered by the membership.
I think it is interesting to note that Letitia James, the prosecutor, is herself corrupt. Her election as New York’s Attorney General was built on a “get Trump” foundation almost exclusively. How that helps New Yorkers I’m not quite sure. But corruption should be expected actually, and the Founders accounted for the expectation in the design of our republic.
In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.
Corruption does not discriminate; it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you sit on, or even if you are in the middle. The italics in the quote are mine. I am disappointed by LaPierre of course, but not surprised, sadly; he has hurt the NRA, and the cause. Suffice it to say, Lord Acton got it right.
Enough Of The “Good” News
For better or worse, that’s how my mind works. But what’s going on with Primal Woods and Homestead Rebel Farm?
Farming, in America
I wrote a Substack post a bit ago, titled Structural Integrity and a Fruitful Life; I suppose it could have been just as well-titled as “2023 Was a Very Challenging Year.” The short story is that I wasn’t up to what I took on; see the post for all of the gory detail. There were numerous issues, which collectively became overwhelming.
Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Luke 10:2 KJV
Farming was a family affair, still is with the Amish, but the “English” farm economy has been gutted, as is detailed in The Unsettling of America, by Wendell Berry, first published in 1977. In his afterword to the 1996 edition he writes;
…I argue that industrial agriculture, and the assumptions on which it rests are wrong, root and branch; I argue that this kind of agriculture grows out of the worst of human history and the worst of human nature. From my own point of view, the happiest fate of my labors would have been disproof. I would have been much relieved if somebody had proved me wrong, or if events had shown that I need not have worried. For this book certainly was written out of worry. It was written, in fact, out of the belief that we are living under the rule of an ideology that was destroying the land, our communities, and our culture — as we still are.
Wendell Berry, 1996, Afterword to the 3rd Edition
The work of destroying agrarian culture in the United States is substantially complete; the Census Bureau stopped counting in 1997, and the USDA hasn’t published a census of farmers for over 15 years. Doing what we are trying to do single-handedly is exceedingly difficult, especially given the lack of infrastructure we inherited.
On this same subject…Russel Brand recently interviewed Vandana Shiva, in a Rumble video titled “‘They Want To WIPE OUT Farmers!’ Vandana Shiva On Protests & Globalist Takeover - STAY FREE #278.”
But if I’ve learned one thing in the past decade it is this; persistence is of the utmost importance. We will persist, one way or the other, in one place or the other, it’s a calling.
Winter Is Here, Better Late Than Never
I’ll be busy today, preparing for the forecasted 8.4 inches today, plus another 13.7 inches through Tuesday, and another 8 inches in the remainder of the 10-day forecast. Thirty inches total, if the weather-guessers get it right. The oxen will go in the barn midday, after having been fed and watered outside this morning. Winds are out of the east which is very unusual, until late tonight. And bitter cold for this neck of the woods; those single-digit lows Sunday and Monday night come infrequently.
I’ll be out shortly to lay in enough firewood for at least a couple of days; that way Geri and I will have more time to enjoy her birthday weekend! We had plans to go out, but given the forecast we’ve decided hole up and stay off the roads.
Farmhouse Airbnb
We have a draft design for the studio apartment in the walk-out basement of the Farmhouse. The next step is the demolition of flooring, paneling, ceiling tiles, etc. I’m hoping to have that done before the Pure Maple Syrup season opens in February. We want to have construction completed by April 1st, but we’ll see.
Pure Maple Syrup
Cleaning of the evaporator regulators (float boxes) and associated piping and seals was completed this week. Reassembly of the evaporator is next up. By the way, if you are looking for a Farm Stay during Pure Maple Syrup season, somewhere in the middle of the Feb 14 to Mar 31 date range would be your best opportunity.
As mentioned last week, given the impact of inflation, aka programmed devaluation of the dollar, prices will likely go up when the 2024 season opens.
The Homestead Rebel Substack
A sincere thank you to all of those who have signed up for a free subscription on the Substack. I was working on a new post regarding “de-dollarization,” but I saw a headline this morning and am changing course; “Army Sees Sharp Decline in White Recruits.” This is another of those things that should surprise no one, and certainly there is more than one cause. As you might expect I have an opinion; the working title of my new post is “The Fall of Man(hood).” I’ve been involved with a group of men at church as we work through a program called “A Year With Men;” the objective for me is to further reverse my own fall. I have an iron in this fire so to speak, and I think I know something, maybe even more than most, about why the number of white recruits is falling. Stay tuned for that post, which should be coming before the next Newsletter.
The Christmas decor is down and stored again in the attic. That’s a bit earlier than usual for us I think. In some really good news, we talked with two of our former 2023 interns; James and Jack. James this week left for Ghana and a 6-month teaching job, followed by some world travels. Jack graduated from Hillsdale (Congrats Jack!) in December, and we hope to see him soon as he makes his way back to Michigan after visiting family in the Midwest.
And I’ve got one for the “stupid is as stupid does” file today; I locked my keys in the F150 yesterday. I gave it a good “college try,” unfortunately college did not train me to break into trucks. I gave in and called a locksmith; he charged me a less-than-fair $60 to bail me out of the situation. Cheap at twice the price. If you are in this neck of the woods, put Darren from Rice’s Locksmith Service in your digital Rolodex.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
Always solid information! I see these post turning into a book one day:)
Thanks Baby. Maybe a book; seems a long way off at this point!