Newsletter #261 2024 May 31 Friday
"Freed" the pigs in the woods this week; all went well, now they have the run of a large wooded area. Cleanup of the Sugar House and Barn ongoing, plus Farmhouse work continues.
Primal Woods
There is just not enough time in the day! The good news is, aside from feeding and watering, the pigs should be good to go until late October. They are all looking well, and are no doubt much happier when free to roam about in the woods. We are up against a major deadline for getting the Farmhouse as near-perfect as it can be; the deadline is Friday morning, June 7. As a result, the Farmhouse work has required a lot of time and effort.
Sawmill Services
One sawmill job will be in the books by the time you are reading this, but I won’t have time to include it in this Newsletter. A second job is being rescheduled due to weather, but we should still be able to manage it in June.
Let’s have a look again at progress in the solar kilns; it has been wet and overcast, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Here are the charts:
You will see this same impact on Solar Power generation below; it was rainy, cool and overcast all day on the 27th, which caused the RH in the kilns to rise, and the temperature to fall.
This will be true of both Solar Kilns, but we back-tracked in Kiln #1 with respect to the Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC), which is a direct reflection of the high RH and low T.
Ditto for Kiln #2.
Weather impacts everything. It used to be the drive to work, or home, might be a pain, or even ill-advised on the worst days. Here, and now, everything is weather-dependent.
Homestead Rebel Farm
We had one day, the 28th, when we needed to import power from the grid this week; 3.4kWh. As mentioned in the discussion of the Solar Kiln performance, it was a combination of 24 hours plus of overcast, cool temperatures and rain, combined with doing the laundry, using the dishwasher, the sauna, etc.
This import from the grid was the result of a horrendous Solar Power generation day on the 27th.
The batteries State Of Charge (SOC) dropped all day the 27th.
Hence, we were tapping the grid all morning on the 28th. And I had to make another call to Sol-Ark regarding setup; the batteries went down to 4% SOC overnight and into the 28th; they shouldn’t go below 20%. I had Sol-Ark tech support make some changes to the system setup; we’ll see how it goes.
Last week I mentioned that I am seriously considering the Generac® 7,500-Watt (LP) 6,000-Watt (NG) Home Standby Generator as a replacement for the grid. I’ve done the math. Financially it doesn’t pencil out. My expectations were totally off-base. The story will be documented on Substack in a near-future post, but based on what I’m seeing I don’t think more battery storage and/or more propane power generation is advisable. Behavior change is the best solution, and it costs nothing but a little inconvenience. Simple. Not necessarily easy though, after being spoiled by the ready availability of grid power for one’s entire life.
Pigs
I ended up moving the pigs on Wednesday. The video below is about 7.5 minutes; it’s mostly but not entirely about the pigs. Let me know what you think, I’m trying out a new video editing software.
Oxen
I’ve made no progress on fencing, or the wagon tongue. The first step will probably be a solution I dreamed up for getting the oxen to do more mowing off-pasture. It’s a relatively inexpensive option, and I hope, effective. More on that, God willing, next week.
Farmhouse
Another near-term item on the never ending to-do list; anchor the floating dock with concrete anchors made in 5 gallon buckets. This weekend seems like a good time to take that on.
The big deadline we are working towards is the “experience” for several men that I have mentioned the last couple of weeks. We will definitely be publicizing this later, and of course improving on it as we go. A lot of time will be spent here on the farm, on the lake, and in the Farmhouse; Geri is catering all of the meals, with help from Emily. For one half day we will be getting some professional firearms instruction; that in and of itself is a big draw for a lot of men, myself included.
News
Obviously some news broke late in the day on Thursday; I’ll let the dust settle on that before commenting. I will say, yet another precedent has been set, which ultimately weakens what was the republic; not the first, but the first recently, was lowering the bar for “advice and consent” regarding federal judges to a simple majority; there is now a move underway to eliminate the filibuster; and finally what we are witnessing now, lawfare against an ex- and possibly future president. The design of our system of government was intended to slow its corruption by requiring consensus on a large scale; that design is being systematically dismantled, with the intended result being a pure democracy, aka, mob rule.
Books
I’m still working on Sacred Marriage. It’s good, but I’ll wait until I finish to comment more extensively.
But of course, even while also getting back to Devil’s Chessboard, I picked up the book Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, by John Taylor Gatto. The Amish were wise beyond measure to opt-out of the English schools in the 60’s. I have to say, some of these “red pills” are really, really hard to choke down; both of these books are very difficult to swallow. Needless to say perhaps, the worst President in the history of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, had a hand in the schools fiasco. Calling Wilson a racist, “progressive,” socialist pig, while true, is very unfair to the pig; Wilson’s legacy is invariably ugly.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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