Newsletter #255 2024 Apr 19 Friday
Well-laid plans...not at all sure that I can make it all happen
For those of you new to Substack, which is most of you I think; if you click on the title of the post in your email, it will take you to the post on Substack. Poke around on the Homestead Rebel page to get familiar with how things work. Do a search for some topic on your mind in the larger Substack universe and see what comes up; there is some great writing on the platform, and most content creators provide a lot of free content.
Primal Woods
Sawmill Services
I finished up the milling for George on Thursday. And managed to single-handedly get the slabs into the kiln! Both kilns are not full, the 4/4 boards in one, and 8/4 boards in the other. It’s not exactly kiln drying season just yet, so this will take awhile, especially for the 8/4 boards; the 8/4 might take until the end of May.
On last Wednesday I completed milling of the 4/4 boards for George; 600 board feet, these will certainly be done before the 8/4 boards, and probably weeks before the 8/4 boards.
Homestead Rebel Farm
As planned I shut down the Outdoor Wood Boiler on April 15th. I’m very thankful that the boiler ran flawlessly all winter. I turned off the control panel, the main water circulating pump, the two zone-thermostats in the house, and capped the stack. Still to do: clean the the firebox and “reaction chamber,” and test and treat the water to prevent corrosion.
Layers
I’ve got to start thinking about when to introduce the pullets to the coop; it’s not more than a week or 10 days out. I transitioned them from chick feed to layer feed this week.
Pigs
I spoke with Ervin, and he estimates that they will be ready for pickup the first week of May, and my plan is for May 3rd; that means I need to lay in the feed and install the fencing soon. Planning ahead, we’re looking at Oct 27th for butchering.
Oxen
I plan on getting out with the oxen and the stone boat in tow tomorrow; it’s been too long, at least 10 days, since we last worked together. The weather, and rain in particular, has not cooperated.
More spring ephemerals:
Pictured above are the White trillium (flowering) and the Mayapple; the Mayapples open and close like an umbrella, with the sunrise and set, beneath the leaves will form a small apple-shaped fruit, hence the name.
The Serviceberry is a multi-stemmed fruit tree, which can grow to 25 feet in height. The fruit is edible, and will be eaten by birds if not by us. Planted in 2016 we have yet to see fruit, but I am hopeful for this year being the first. We have two of these, one in the front yard, the other in back; both seem to be thriving.
Farmhouse
The plan for restoring lake access from the Farmhouse is still May 4th; the pigs should be on-site the day before. We’re are targeting May 31st for having the new dock in the water. All of the spring ephemerals are quite a sight; and they are gone by the time the Sugar Maple/Beech canopy closes.
News
Books
More from The Devil’s Chessboard:
Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on March 12, 1956, Jesus de Galindez <an exile from the Dominican Republic and FBI informant>, a lecturer in Spanish and government at Columbia University, finished leading a graduate seminar at Hamilton Hall and headed home. One of this students offered to drive him to the Columbus Circle subway station so he could take a downtown train to his Greenwich Village apartment. He was never seen again by friends or colleagues.
But it was not Trujillo <dictator of the Dominican Republic> thugs who were responsible for Galindez’s disappearance…<it> was a sophisticated operation run by Robert A Maheu and Associates, a private detective firm staffed by former CIA and FBI employees that the intelligence agency <CIA> used as a “cut-out” to do dirty work on U.S. soil, where the CIA was forbidden by law to operate.
…he was loaded into a Beech airplane…to the Dominican Republic <and Trujillo>…
Galindez was taken to a torture chamber in the capital city…he was slowly lowered into a tub of boiling water. What remained of him was thrown to the sharks, a favorite disposal method of the dictator.
…the first flagrant example of what would become known during the War on Terror…as “extraordinary rendition”—the secret CIA practice of kidnapping enemies of Washington and turning them over to the merciless security machinery in undisclosed foreign locations.
A practice which continues to this day.
Online Presence
If you made it through the News and book report, congratulations, and the new website is UP!!! The Shop should be much easier and more reliable in its navigation and checkout processes. Please have a look! I’m not expecting that you’ll encounter any difficulty, but if you do, please let me know.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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Serviceberries are cool! We rarely see them in the woods in Tennessee where I live. You often hear it called sarvisberry here.
I just planted a couple of serviceberry bushes last week for work!