Newsletter #278 2024 Oct 04 Friday

Pup care has constrained my schedule, yet as I look back, a lot has been accomplished.

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My favorite view of the house; built ca. 1972, and not very well to be honest, but it’s home

Primal Woods

Again, this week’s activities, the scheduling at least, was driven by the need to stay home for pup care, and not one, but two vet visits since I last wrote.

Sawmill Services

As forecasted last week, I’ll milled for Matt in Coloma last weekend. The job was resawing 11 oak timbers from and old barn; 3 or 4 8x8’s, and the rest 10x10’s, all most hand-hewn (with and adze), although some showed circular saw marks. The barn they were salvaged from was 125 years old.

The last time I milled for Matt, five years ago now, we pulled 1,357 board feet from just 6 logs; that’s got to be some sort of record! This time we will be re-sawing some old barn timbers.

Above is a picture of one of the 10x10’s on the mill. The work was to take 2.5 inches off of two opposite sides on the 8x8’s, and all four sides on the 10x10’s.

Eleven timbers; we damaged four blades in the process, mostly hitting nails in the 8x8’s. That’s about par for the course, maybe a bit under par due to good preparation by Matt and company, when milling old timbers. As you might imagine, both vertical posts and horizontal beams in a timber-framed barn were good places to hang “stuff” from nails. And over the course of 125 years that can add up to a lot of nails.

I have to say though, when you hit a nail that is square in its cross-section, indicating it was hand made by a blacksmith, it’s hard to be upset about it. Stories I’ve heard indicate that settlers, when moving on, would sometimes burn the house down just to get the nails; they were that valuable.

Pure Maple Syrup

Kenton helped on the Homestead this week, doing a great job on cleaning up the barn (a bit on that later), but next week we will be doing the fall cleaning of the Pure Maple Syrup evaporator. It’s a big job, and really only possible with a second pair of hands. Cleaning the evaporator in late January or early February is much less enjoyable.

Homestead Rebel Farm

As mentioned, Kenton cleaned up the barn this week. Part of that work was pitching what was left of ox manure pack from last winter, into the trailer for composting.

I hauled the trailer down to the compost piles. Yet this weekend I will pitch the manure pack into the right-hand compost bin; the left hand bin, which is already composted, will go on the the five raised garden beds when Geri closes out her garden of the winter. The nutrients will leach into the raised beds over the winter, and the garden will go gangbusters next spring.

The big pigs (November food) are, well, big. Pictured below the three black pigs at the waterer this morning.

There is no discernible size difference between the white and black pigs now, though the white pigs were twice as big when I picked them up.

Above are the white pigs at the feeder; there’s probably just enough feed in there to get me to Monday, so I’ll probably pick feed up tomorrow, Saturday. The eight pigs now are going through 250 lbs of feed in about 5 days; that amounts to an average of about 6 lbs of feed per pig per day, with about 200 lbs (80%, 8 lbs/day) of that going to the five November pigs, and 50 lbs (3.3 lbs/day) going to the three smaller (for now) January pigs.

I’ve organized the installation of two tubes (think drainage pipes, or culverts, running under a roadway), one to the NW of the High Tunnel, one to the NE. Soil will be piled and compacted to at least a food deep on top of the tubes, the intention of which is to provide high-and-dry access to both ends of the High Tunnel during the wet seasons of the year. This will be a major improvement, as I’ve been stuck with the tractor more than once in both locations. At the NW location I had to take down several standing dead trees (hence the firewood pile) to provide easy access for the excavator that will be doing the work.

Finally, it only took me two years, I was able to fill the oxen’s water tote from the barn well pump. Yahooooo!!! No more hauling the Water Wagon behind the tractor to and from the house; a significant savings in time and trouble.

And finally, Boris and Elmer are doing well.

We took the Australian Shepherd pups in for a wellness check last Saturday, they were both given parvovirus/adenovirus/distemper vaccination, and a chewable de-wormer.

Tilly, chews on everything, including Toby & me; Lulu in the background

On Tuesday I noticed that Toby was lethargic, not his usual self, and on Wednesday setup another vet appointment for Thursday. They did blood tests and determined that his white blood cell count was normal (no infection) but that his red blood cell count was low (anemic). He also had a temperature of 104°F. The vet determined that a too-heavy roundworm load was the problem. He was prescribed oral medications to keep the inflammation/temperature down, and to rid him of the worms; today is day two of a three-day course of meds administered orally by me. Within 12 hours of the first dose he was mostly back to being himself, and that improvement continues today.

Toby in one of his favorite places; under some tall grasses just off the back porch

Damn fine lookin’ pups, if I do say so myself.

Farmhouse

It’s a girls’ weekend at the Farmhouse; Geri and her friend Lisa from FL are enjoying some time together before their high school reunion this weekend. I’ve been invited up occasionally, ha!, for desert or coffee. Otherwise they’ve had ample time to talk about me behind my back, which is probably for the best!

Here is a truth though; girls need some girl time, and guys need some guy time.

News

I’m not sure what to make of this just yet…

Dependency of the citizenry; maybe it’s not by design, maybe, but it is nonetheless an effect of government actions to “keep you safe,” from yourselves of course.

And I put up a post earlier this week regarding the unemployment measure, and the “civilian labor force…” The most widely published number regarding unemployment is a sick joke, the real number is a least twice that; I explain why.

Books

I finished Durable Trades: Family-Centered Economies That Have Stood the Test of Time, and The Family Economy: Discovering the Family as It Was Designed to Work.

Groves wrote them in the order I listed them above, but I would recommend reading The Family Economy first, and it’s only about 60 pages, so it’s quick. If We the People are going to regain control of our country, it’s going to start with family. Unfortunately I’ve not set a good example in my previous life; I’m trying hard to stay on a different course now.

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All the best, and may God bless you and yours,

John & Geri

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