Newsletter #292 2025 Jan 20 Monday
A big day, for an obvious reason, the peaceful transition of power to the 47th President of the United States.
I want to start out by saying, Be Prepared. It’s cold out there, don’t drive around in your jammies as if nothing bad could happen. At the least you should have in the vehicle a blanket, clothing suitable to the weather outside the car, water, and a couple of what I’ll call “meal replacement” bars. ‘Nuf said, I hope. Stay safe my friends.
Primal Woods
Pure Maple Syrup
Seeing the cold snap in the forecast, on Saturday we took the Oxen for a spin with the Sap Wagon in tow; that was a first. Pictured is Emma brushing down Elmer after the work; she’ll have something for “show & tell” at school on Monday, assuming that’s still a thing.
My next-door neighbor and Emma’s father, Sean, was a big help. The 11 ft long tongue worked perfectly; the fit is just right. Keeping the chain in the “bitch ring” is no problem, as it’s under some tension; keeping the tongue in the circular ring for braking and steering, required securing the cap on the end of the tongue to the ring, which I am doing in the picture above.
Here is a 6 minute video of the preparations of the Sap Wagon for pulling behind the Oxen, and an introduction to the yoke, and the bitch ring.
So. We are a step closer. I need to try to get out at least weekly with the Oxen; they are not well trained, and I can’t be fighting them through the woods for 4 or 5 hours, which is what collecting sap will require.
Sawmill Services
We are still on hold which what I hope will be the first milling job of 2025, the Bob K milling; we will look at the 10-day forecast in the back half of this week, and see if we can find a suitable date.
Homestead Rebel Farm
I didn’t want to have to be out in the woods in near-zero temps collecting firewood, so I hope I laid in enough firewood rounds to get us through Monday and Tuesday. Actually, so long as you are working, moving, and generating body heat, staying warm is not a problem, except for the hands. The hands though, are a big deal, as I need them to do each and every thing. I’ve noticed when hunting, staying warm sitting still, like when in a tree stand, is damn near impossible if the temperature is less than 25︒F. Also, being well fed is key to staying warm, and not only with the human animal.
Pigs
Due to the weather, we put off Pigs processing for a week. The chief reason is that I’m worried about getting up the driveway with two tons of dead weight (stock trailer & pigs) hooked to the back of the truck. Discretion is the better part of valor. So, we are now on for Monday the 27th. Another week of keeping them fed and watered in the sub-freezing temps. The three pigs are drinking about 10 gallons of water per day.
Oxen
The oxen are going through about 40 gallons of water per day, which I’m carrying in 5 gallon buckets, as for the pigs. And, to keep their heat-generating digestive system fueled, I am making sure to give them more than enough hay.
Farmhouse
For you ice-fishermen out there, and women, this would be a great time at the Farmhouse. The ice on the lake is solid, and has been for over a week now, and looking at the 10-day it will be solid for some time. The lake has all of the sunfish family; large mouth bass, perch, crappie, bluegill, pumpkin seed, etc. It’s good fishing!
News
I’ll just hit the high points, or the low points as the case may be. Scratch that. I’m only going to focus on the good. The 47th POTUS has been inaugurated. And I thank God for it. Believe it or not, I think this was the first time I ever watched or listened to an inauguration. And to my ears, the inaugural address was sweet, sweet music. One thing I didn’t hear enough about was MAHealthyA; but hey, there’s only so much time in the day.
Having said that. It is our duty to stay vigilant. Power corrupts; it’s a law of human nature. It is our work as We the People, and the work of the several states, to hold the federal government to its duties as prescribed in the Constitution, and to the faithful and lawful execution of those duties.
Speaking of which, here is President Biden’s parting gift to We the People. Too many will not be held to account.
Books & Such
I finished Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. And another hero bites the dust, Winston Churchill. Aside from the diplomatic blunders of epic proportions, in which Churchill played a large part, two events grabbed my attention, and not in a good way.
The first was the “starvation blockade;” this was 1914-1919, WW I.
The starvation blockade of the First Lord <of the Admiralty> Winston Churchill, writes historian Ralph Raico, “was probably the most effective weapon employed on either side of the conflict…About 750,000 German civilians succumbed to hunger and diseases caused by malnutrition.”
As to the purpose of the hunger blockade, Churchill was direct: “to starve the whole population—men, women and children, old and young, wounded and sound—into submission.
Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, 1st Edition, pp. 390-391
Of course the blockade was also “a violation of international law and a transgression against human rights;” in other words, a war crime.
The second event was the firebombing of Dresden, 1945, February 13-15; again, the target was the civilian population.
On the first night of the raid, 770 Lancasters <bombers> arrived over Dresden…In two waves three hours apart, 650,000 incendiary bombs rained down on Dresden’s narrow streets…together with another 1,474 tons of high explosives…The fires burned for seven days.
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut, who as one of twenty-six thousand Allied prisoners of war in Dresden helped clean up after the attack, remembers tunneling into the ruins to find the dead sitting upright in what he would describe in “Slaughterhouse Five” as “corpse mines.”
Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, 1st Edition, pp. 397
There were survivors of course, and this is where we Americans came in.
The morning after the Lancasters struck, five hundred B-17’s arrive over Dresden in two waves with three hundred fighter escorts to strafe fleeing survivors.
Yes, Churchill has been officially scratched off the hero list.
I started and finished America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It, as an audio book, by C. Bradley Thompson. It is a great book, provoking a lot of thought, which again prompted me to also buy a hard copy.
The book reconstructs what amounts to a near-unified system of thought - what Thomas Jefferson called an "American mind" or what author C. Bradley Thompson calls "America's Revolutionary mind." This American mind was, Thompson argues, united in its fealty to a common philosophy that was expressed in the Declaration and launched with the words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident."
What to say…this is one of the best, and perhaps the best book I have ever read on the subject of why, and how, the generations that founded this great nation formed a critical mass of thought regarding the reasons for breaking with Great Britain, and setting out to form a new nation, and a new, written Constitution. I trust the bibliography alone is worth the price of the hard copy.
If you want a brief intro to C. Bradley Thompson, check out this post on substack:
I finished The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy. My comments from last week hold. Written from a Leftist’s point of view, it still manages to report fairly on the subject of The Church Committee and its historic work.
I started The Mystery of John Colter: The Man Who Discovered Yellowstone, last night; it’s too early to opine.
All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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