Newsletter #251 2024 Mar 22 Friday
Fellowship is the word for this week
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
A week ago tomorrow, 13 men showed up to help us with fencing a new paddock for the oxen. What would have taken me weeks, if it got done at all, was completed in four hours. But it goes way, way beyond that; these men have had a profound impact on my life in recent years.
Proverbs 27:17
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.
Primal Woods
Pure Maple Syrup
The Vanilla Bean Infused Pure Maple Syrup is not yet on the shelves; I’ve got to get a small distinctive label beforehand. It can’t happen soon enough, and Geri is working the issue.
Homestead Rebel Farm
Layers
The Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks are really growing; compare in your mind to the puff-balls they resembled just last week! And, still no losses to date, we have an even dozen.
Pigs
The March 22 date went by the wayside; I still have a few folks I’m waiting on for a decision. If you are one of those, please send an email to john@primalwoods.com, call me at 269-487-6365, stop by, or send up the smoke signal!
Oxen
The oxen got some new pasture to wander on since I last wrote. This video is an overview of their new digs.
Farm Build-out
I was expecting 6-8 guys to show up, the actual number was 13. You might remember the sketch from last week:
Things turned out a bit differently; simpler, and better.
Note that inside my red crayon, the on-the-fly re-design is much simpler, and required less material; therefore we had enough of the 12.5 ga. aluminum wire to provide two strands all the way around.
We did add one gate to the west side, but in total we are still less three gates from the original design. Gotta love it when the plan comes together.
We started with a hearty breakfast for the crew in the Farmhouse.
And then we got to work.
The guys brought equipment, including a chainsaw (Don), and a brush cutter (Ron), which proved extremely useful and effective. I’ll do a complete post on this effort once I have all of the pictures in-hand.
News
Seriously, I haven’t read a shred of news this week, which might explain why I’ve slept so well!
Books
I took a little break this week from Giants In The Earth, about 4/5ths of the way through. But, I picked up The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, by David Talbot. While it is history, it reads like a novel. And let me say this; I’ve realized that if a person reads enough history, I’m talking about learning inside a self-developed curriculum, not what you learned in secondary school or at university, he will know that the fall we are living through has occurred many, many times throughout history. We are not so “exceptional” as we like to believe. The corruption, the evil we see, are not exceptions to the rule, they are the rule.
I did add a book to the queue; War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. I can hardly wait to get to this monster, and it should keep me busy for a good long while.
From the back cover:
Asprey’s masterpiece on guerrilla warfare will become the bible both for the insurgent and the counterinsurgent warrior. Every leader should read this art of unconventional fighting and have it in his professional library, for the Cold War’s end will usher in a new wave of guerrilla warfare not seen since the fifteenth century.
War in the Shadows is the most comprehensive study of guerrilla warfare ever written.
— Col. David H. Hackworth (U.S. Army, Ret."), author of About Face and Brave Men
For anyone who has read About Face, Hackworth’s opinion alone is enough said in support of War in the Shadows. And I’ll say that for anyone who has been in the military, is considering the military, or has any interest whatsoever in how the military actually dis-functions, About Face is required reading. Just sayin’, it rings true.
Thanks again to Bill Buppert at Chasing Ghosts for the book recommendation.
Online Presence
Lisa tells me that we are in the “final steps” of the website transition, and as expected I will be the holdup! Okay…I’ll make a commitment; the work will be done by the time you read this Newsletter next week.
A gift from Geri this morning…
You think you want “the good life.”
You think to yourself, “If only I could escape all these mind-numbing problems assaulting me, then I’d have it made.”
Then you could get on with your real life . . .
You could enjoy the life of leisure and travel and “freedom” that you’ve longed for. Yet, if you’re a man, the older you get, deep down you come to the stark realization that the “good life” . . . Is actually depressingly maddening.
There comes a point in the life of a man that you become cognizant that men are made for blood.
“What?! How could you say that?!” you shriek.
That may shock to you.
Yet, no matter how much we shirk or refuse . . .
No matter how much it troubles us . . .
No matter how much it terrifies us . . .
The men you know are draw to the stench of the battlefield.
You want to believe that the best use of our civilian lives is to put our feet up . . . To luxuriate in yet another Hulu or Netflix binge.
Yet our grandfathers didn’t stain the sands of France and the islands of Japan so that you and I could grow fat on the couch. They fought wars of destruction so that we could fight wars of creation . . . Wars that are perfectly suited to our personal passions, compulsions and aspirations.
I am not speaking of literal wars (though we must and will always face that possibility), I am speaking about engaging all your projects with the directness, the courage and the intensity of a warrior.
You may still believe you can side-step the fighting life. You’ve been told this for the last fifty years.
Yet, like it or not, you are made for war. Denying that fact leads not to peace, but to uselessness.
Refusing to engage the enemy outside your door, you become your own enemy. Your life-force is drained by the internal conflict of worry, doubt, double guessing and fear.
When you refuse the war without, you release the war within.
Turn and face the enemy. Pick the worthiest battle . . . and start swinging. Unleash your own special brand of mayhem.
While other men deny our nature, desperate to climb back into the womb, be the man who choses blood. Choose your war and walk into it . . . with sword in hand, dirt on your face and the smattering of blood on your chin.
While other men walk into the day avoidant and cowed, be the man who walks into the carcass. Choose the life that makes your heart pound, your hands shake and your belly flutter.
Let the battles of creation rage.
As I’ve often said, we tend to conflate an “easy life” and a “good life;” in actuality, the two are very nearly complete opposites.
To top the week off, I had the opportunity to spend 8 waking hours with an old and very dear friend; as dear friends do, we spent the entire time talking, about the important things. It is truly a wonderful life.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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