Prediction of Apostasy
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
1 Timothy 4:1-2 KJV
Crossing the Red Sea
1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. 3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. And they did so.
Exodus 14:1-4
That’s food for some deep study, given the current goingson. It’s getting late, it seems to me. Some of my first thoughts on the subject are recorded below. I apologize for the road noise; in Whitmer’s 4 years in office MI state spending has gone from $55.8B to $82B (+47%) and we still can’t manage to keep the roads in acceptable condition. I was on my way to a couple of stores to gather materials for fencing work tomorrow.
Primal Woods
Pure Maple Syrup
We have a couple of developments on the Pure Maple Syrup front, and I can share one of the two; we taste-tested the vanilla bean infused Pure Maple Syrup and it is awesome! Now, I only bottled enough to test, which was 8 bottles; I’ll get more in the bottle as soon as possible, and they you’ll see in on the virtual shelf.
Homestead Rebel Farm
Layers
The chicks are growing fast! No losses so far, we still have an even dozen.
The Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks are going through food and water at a normal rate. We keeping the brooder well secured from predators at night, which is key to not losing any. Below is a short video; by short I mean mere seconds.
Pigs
We have a lot of interest, mostly generated by Geri, so I don’t have an exact count of how many we will be raising; I still plan to have them onsite March 22.
Send an email to john@primalwoods.com, call me at 269-487-6365, stop by, or send up a smoke signal!
Oxen
I had some fun this week. I did some work with the Oxen, putting the Stone Boat to use, giving Boris, Elmer, and myself, a workout. Both Boris and I were breathing hard, Elmer acted like he’d just walked across the room. I guess Boris and I have some work to do after lazing about all winter and spring.
During this work I received a sales cold call from “Servo Inc.” It came in on the business line, forwarded to my cell phone, during business hours, so I “whoa’d” the team, stripped off a glove, and answered. I had to ask, “what are you selling?” As the business name would suggest it was all electrical, electronic “stuff” for industrial applications. I said, “let me give you a hint, I’m working a team of Oxen right now.” There was a period of silence on the line, and then to her credit she said, “I get it, I’ll make a note.” And with that we ended the call very politely. Ha!
I was happy with Boris and Elmer. I don’t think they’d been worked much by the previous owner, and we brought them home last October. I did some training of them individually, and in yoke late last year, but we did no actual work; today was the first. I’m fairly confident we’ll get there, as we begin to work more regularly.
I’d estimate that they’ve put on a couple of hundred pounds each over the winter, and they needed every ounce of that; they are definitely not overweight. Their coats are beautiful.
I was worried about them standing still while I loaded the Stone Boat; as it turned out it was no problem, they welcomed the rest.
Farm Build-out
Tomorrow is a big day; some of my men’s group brother are coming over to help with fencing in a new paddock for the oxen; all of the details are in the below sketch, which by the way, is not to scale. I reckon the perimeter of the “new enclosure” is about 870 ft, so with 2 strands of electric fence, we’re talking about 1,740 of wire; I might need to order another roll, but we have more than enough for one strand.
Aside from that potentially short supply of wire, I laid in all of the other materials this morning; the list of those materials is under the “supplies” heading in the sketch. I’ve also organized the tools I have on-hand, the guys too will bring whatever they have that is on the list. We should be good.
This will be the second week in a row that the men’s group has made this sort of effort. Last week there were 8 of us, 7 in the photo and I was behind the camera. It was great half day of work, fellowship and breaking bread
News
I’m still researching this initiative regarding elimination of property tax, and I’ve got some help from one of my men’s group brothers. I am still leaning towards full support. A concern regarding the transfer of more money (and power) to the state, at the expense, figuratively and literally, of the counties and townships was raised, and I am more than sympathetic to that concern; a transfer of control by the state must be explicitly prevented by the legislation.
Again, all of the details are available at the AxMITax website; a summary of the proposed constitutional amendment, and the full text, is available on the Michigan Secretary of State’s website. There is also a very informative video on the AxMITax website Home page.
Regarding the “Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Siting,” issue, our state rep is holding a town meeting.
Geri and I will be in attendance. For more information see the Citizens for Local Choice website.
Books
Let’s see, where am I at; I’m now on page 418 of Giants In The Earth, about 4/5ths of the way through. A preacher has arrived at the settlement, creating some drama, especially for Tönseten; he’s feeling some guilt because of a sin he sees himself as having committed. I don’t see it as a sin, but what do I know.
And, again, still unopened on my nightstand; The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, by David Talbot.
Online Presence
I did complete the publishing on Substack of the Top 25 posts from the Primal Woods blog, and more, and so I was able to check one to-do off the list. We are very, very close to making the new site live; give it a week more.
Tomorrow is going to be a very eventful day. We will start with prayer and breakfast at the Farmhouse, and then get into the fencing. If we just get all the posts in I’ll be happy; if we get one wire up I’ll be elated. It’s a big job, but if we have 6-8 guys working the problem I’m sure we can achieve the first, and I’m only slightly less certain that we can accomplish the latter. Regardless, I will have plenty to report next week.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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Nice to see the pictures of your oxen and stoneboat! I trained a single Ayrshire as an ox several years ago and carved a yoke for him. We lived in northwest Minnesota then.