Newsletter #254 2024 Apr 12 Friday
Another great week; this time milling in sawmill services
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Primal Woods
Sawmill Services
The Rancher 460 serves double-duty, in the Sawmill Services business and on the Homestead. We were making a fire behind the house, Geri wanted me to buy firewood as I recall. This was right after we had acquired the property. I said “never, we’re living in 60 acres of woods!,” or words to that effect. The Rancher is probably going on 10 years old now and gets purt near daily use; it was the first piece of equipment I bought after we arrived on the property. I last replaced the bar four years ago. So, new bar, and four new chains; good to go.
Let me say this though before moving on; go cheap on the bar and chain, and you will pay for it. Tractor Supply chains and bars just don’t hold up like the Oregon, so it’s back to the good stuff, which will save me both time and money in the long run.
I started milling George’s lumber on eclipse day, Monday; I was doing everything myself, log handling, lumber handling, stickering and stacking in the kiln. It took as least twice as long, but it was a beautiful day reaching a high of about 70°F and sunny, so I enjoyed the weather.
On Wednesday I completed milling of the 4/4 boards for George; 600 board feet. I started the solar fans; they run directly off of electricity generated by the panels, with no batteries or switches involved. It’s a really nice setup.
As the fans circulate the air, the tarps force the bulk of the air flow through the stack, instead of it flowing over the top or around the sides of stack. Into the second kiln will go the 8/4 boards; early next week.
Homestead Rebel Farm
The new bar and chain worked great; it seems like a brand new chainsaw. This is going to be a big help as I put up five or six cords of wood for next winter. With that high of 70°F Monday I reckon I’ll be shutting down the Outdoor Wood Boiler soon; our coldest day in the 10-day forecast looks to have a high of 48°F with an overnight low to follow of 39°F, t-shirt weather. April 15th looks good to be turning off the heat.
All of that firewood above is from dead Ash trees, the result of the devastating Emerald Ash Borer. Soon we will have no Ash. Which should remind us that there is no such thing as “free trade;” it’s another of the many oxymorons we’ve come to believe. Starting perhaps with small pox brought over by Europeans;
In the Americas, mortality rates were higher due to the virgin soil phenomenon, in which indigenous populations were at a higher risk of being affected by epidemics because there had been no previous contact with the disease, preventing them from gaining some form of immunity. Estimates of mortality rates resulting from smallpox epidemics range between 38.5% for the Aztecs, 50% for the Piegan, Huron, Catawba, Cherokee, and Iroquois, 66% for the Omaha and Blackfeet, 90% for the Mandan, and 100% for the Taino. Smallpox epidemics affected the demography of the stricken populations for 100 to 150 years after the initial first infection.
to the Chestnut blight (it killed an estimated 4 Billion trees), to Dutch Elm disease;
Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by ascomycete microfungi. Three species are now recognized:
Ophiostoma ulmi, which afflicted Europe from 1910, reaching North America on imported timber in 1928.
Ophiostoma himal-ulmi, a species endemic to the western Himalaya.
Ophiostoma novo-ulmi, an extremely virulent species from Japan which was first described in Europe and North America in the 1940s and has devastated elms in both continents since the late 1960s.
which denuded of Elms my birthplace, Sioux City, Iowa, to the Emerald Ash Borer;
The emerald ash borer (EAB), an invasive wood-boring beetle from Asia, is responsible for the death and decline of tens of millions of ash trees in North America.
For all practical purposes the true cost of “free trade” is incalculable in human, social, cultural and/or ecological terms. Just sayin’.
I wrote about the troubles I have with free trade in two posts, the first of which was:
But on a positive note; the trees are flowering, which is a sign of good fruit crop; and no freezing temps in the 10-day.
The difference between hardwood trees and softwood trees is not the wood; hardwood trees flower, and softwood trees reproduce by cones (conifers), that’s the difference.
We’ve not harvested or even seen yet any plums. It’s been 8 years this year, we can still hope!
The Asian pears are awesome, and I’m sure we’ll get more this year.
Farmhouse
We are planning to restore lake access from the Farmhouse on May 4th. That will be followed by the build and installation of a new dock before the end of May. There are a lot of blown-down trees behind the Farmhouse due to a windstorm a couple of years ago, so this work will also generate a lot of firewood.
We will add pigs to the farm that same first week or second week of May. Also in May, chickens will be on pasture near the Farmhouse.
Spring is a great time to visit. Help us in our work, or not, it’s up to you. Perhaps you’re just ready for a break from the “real” world. No better place.
Layers
The Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks seem to be fully feathered out; Sunday or Monday we’ll get them out of the brooder at least for a little while, and onto grass under sunny skies.
One of the chicks actually jumped out of the brooder this week, requiring retrieval. So, I threw some chicken wire over the top to prevent recurrence.
Pigs
Like I said above, we will bring the pigs home sometime in the first half of May. I’ll have to bring feed in and setup the feeder, waterer and fencing, but we are going with the same setup as last year, so it’s a no-brainer.
Oxen
We picked the oxen up on October 15th of last year, 2023, and delivered them to the Homestead on October 17th, after two days of training at Tillers International.
You can clearly distinguish pretty much every bone in Boris’s body, but the ribs in particular. I had the vet out the same week, and she reckoned that Boris and Elmer were about 400 lbs underweight, each. Hence, we went through a lot more hay in the early days than I planned for; I had to bring in 5 additional round bales, 4,250 lbs more hay than expected.
And Boris about 6 months later. He has definitely filled out! I worked Boris and Elmer again this past Saturday, and no heavy breathing on Boris’s part; I think I may have had the yoke bow a little too tight, perhaps putting some pressure on his wind pipe. Whatever the reason, he did just fine on Saturday.
I’ve got about 2 weeks of hay left; hopefully that gets us to green grass on pasture.
News
A great interview of Mike Rowe by Tucker Carlson; both Geri and I have a lot of time for Mike Rowe.
“Mike Rowe Tells Tucker Americans ‘Starting To Get The Message’ On College Education”
And here’s one that might ring of few bells; Ronald Reagan speaking at Hillsdale College in 1977, before he became President.
What Ever Happened to Free Enterprise: Ludwig Von Mises Memorial Lecture at Hillsdale College
The talk includes lots of humor of course; Reagan had a way of putting things, easy for us common folk to get the message. In summary, the more things change the more they stay the same, only worse. It’s worth a listen. He lays the problem at our feet, which I also did 45+ years later in my post:
We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us
My head is like a bowl of spaghetti. If I am to then have some sort of “serious” conversation on a subject I need to organize my thoughts. It’s kind of like straightening out the wet spaghetti noodles, drying them, separating the broken from the whole, and putting them back in the box. Something like that. Which I’m going to do here in this case, in pre…
And in some rare good news, These 19 Republicans voted to block the spy powers bill, FISA (Foreign Intelligence Spying Act). Most democrats voted against, but it took some Republicans “crossing over’ to procedurally stop the bill…for now. If your representative was not a Democrat or one of the 19, like mine was not, send them a note, as I did this morning first thing. If we still believe the People matter and can force change, we need to be in regular communication with our representatives; I’ve not been good at that.
Books
More from The Devil’s Chessboard:
<Allen> Dulles would look back on the <1953> coup in Iran as one of the two greatest triumphs of his CIA career, along with the regime change he engineered in Guatemala the following year.
We all know how Iran has worked out for the U.S. It hasn’t. And that’s par for the course. I distinctly remember Boot Camp in San Diego in ‘78; Iranians were also in training, goose-stepping around the parade grounds, separated only by a little chain link from us. The Shah of Iran, our sock puppet, would fall the next year, my first year at the Naval Academy.
The story of the Guatemala coup is particularly heart-wrenching. Evil doings; I don’t know what else can be said about it.
And lest we forget, we sponsored coups in Ukraine in 2004 and again in 2014; the latter gave rise to, i.e. started, a civil war between the west and east of Ukraine, which the Russians are now finishing. Contrary to what the news media will tell you, Putin didn’t simply wake up one morning, have a brain fart, and decide to attack Ukraine. We started it. The documentary Ukraine on Fire will give you a little look behind the curtain. Like I said, par for the course.
According to the wiki on the subject of regime change, since Guatemala in ‘54 we’ve been involved in 41 regime changes around the world. Just doing some quick math in my head, that’s a coup every 21 months for the last 70 years; we’ve been busy. And before ‘53 the list is also quite “impressive.” If you wonder why we are called devils, or the Great Satan, now you have at least part of the answer. I’m sorry to say, we walked down off the moral high ground long, long ago.
Whenever I look at this issue of regime change it gets me to thinking; violence to bring about regime change is welcome everywhere so long as we are the sponsors and bring the violence. Except here in the good ‘ole U.S. of A. for some reason. Our hypocrisy is unrivaled. The power elite (corporate, political, and military) are trying mightily to convince us that we still live in a democratic republic. The more I read though, the less certain I am; in fact I’d say I’ve crossed the line into moderately uncertain.
Online Presence
We have run numerous test orders, and that process is working well. The only problems remaining are 1) that for some unknown reason Shopify and UPS still don’t want to play together, and 2) ensuring that the appropriate sales taxes are collected. But, Lisa and I are committed to launching next Tuesday; I’ll send out a note reminding everyone at that time.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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My wife and I are looking to add pigs this year too!