Newsletter #256 2024 Apr 26 Friday
Spring work continues; milling inquiries coming in and a big job on the calendar for next week. More fencing work is scheduled for the weekend.
This will be the final prompt, promise: 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
Top to bottom: Granberg Mk III milling attachment and associated hardware; Husqvarna’s biggest chainsaw powerhead, the 3120xp (8.6 hp); and at bottom the 56 inch bar that works with the Granberg milling attachment. I’ve got a job using the chainsaw mill next week, so preparations are in progress.
Homestead Rebel Farm
Layers
I moved the pullets into the Chicken Coop this afternoon, sequestered from the laying hens and roosters in a dog crate. I’ll leave them in the crate until the food and/or water are consumed, then I will release them into the coop.
The Golden Laced Wyandotte pullets are good to go for a few days.
Pigs
No news on the pigs, but we’ll pick them up within the next two weeks.
Oxen
The vet came by this week, gave Elmer and Boris (pictured") their spring de-worming shots, and pronounced them in good health.
The vet reckoned that they had each put on more than the 400 lbs expected; she last saw them in mid-October of last year.. Elmer probably weighs a couple hundred more pounds than Boris, but I’d bet they are each in the 2,000 lb range, and might peak at 2,300-2,400 lbs within the next 2-3 years.
You’ll see Elmer at upper left, Boris in the foreground, both resting and chewing their cud; a good sign that they are comfortable with me and the situation.
More spring flowers, the Eastern Redbud:
The flowers can be eaten fresh or fried.
In some parts of southern Appalachia, green twigs from the eastern redbud are used as seasoning for wild game such as venison and opossum. Because of this, in these mountain areas the eastern redbud is sometimes known as the spicewood tree.
Native Americans consume redbud flowers raw or boiled, and eat roasted seeds. Analysis of nutritional components in edible parts of eastern redbud reported that the flower extract contains anthocyanins, green developing seeds contained proanthocyanidin, and linolenic, α-linolenic, oleic and palmitic acids are present in seeds.
The native Americans used virtually every plant for something or the other.
Farmhouse
The plan for restoring lake access from the Farmhouse is still May 4th, then we’re on to dock-building. It will be all done for your June stay!
News
The only “news” is that there is nothing new under the sun. The two Notes below are from Frédéric Bastiat’s book, The Law, 1850. Bastiat was literally on his death bed as he wrote; he died of tuberculosis the same year.
Books
I didn’t give up on The Devil’s Chessboard, but I am giving it a rest, or better said, I’m giving myself a brief respite from the horror show that was, is, and will be the CIA. Instead I picked up the book The Law, the source of the Notes above, by Bastiat. It’s only about a hundred pages, so it shouldn’t take long. But even so, and only a third of the way through, I have drawn some conclusions.
The Law and Charity (see free online full text of The Law)
You say: "There are persons who have no money," and you turn to the law. But the law is not a breast that fills itself with milk. Nor are the lacteal veins of the law supplied with milk from a source outside the society. Nothing can enter the public treasury for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in. If every person draws from the treasury the amount that he has put in it, it is true that the law then plunders nobody. But this procedure does nothing for the persons who have no money. It does not promote equality of income. The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.
With this in mind, examine the protective tariffs, subsidies, guaranteed profits, guaranteed jobs, relief and welfare schemes, public education, progressive taxation, free credit, and public works. You will find that they are always based on legal plunder, organized injustice.
Two thirds of all federal spending is now consumed by the welfare state. In fact, the welfare state and interest on the debt consume the entirety of tax receipts. And this spending divides us. All money for discretionary spending, including defense (the military-congressional-industrial complex), must be borrowed. So, a conclusion I have reached is that we are now a socialist country. Based the math alone, it can hardly be argued that we are not. And, it will be the end of us, it’s only a matter of time, and probably not much of that. For the math you can see my post:
You Shall Know Them By Their Fruits
I did put up a new post this week, which coincidentally addressed poverty. Of course the "War on Poverty” (a big part of the welfare state) began back in the 60’s under Johnson (the Great Society); 60 years and $22 trillion later there has been no measurable impact on the poverty rate. None. Of course instead of stopping the insanity we continue to pump taxpayer money into the black hole to no beneficial effect; the ill-effects are many. This post though is about how we pick those who are given the money (property) taken (i.e. lawfully stolen) from the others.
Poverty in the United States
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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