Newsletter #294 2025 Feb 04 Tuesday

Recent days, aside from chores, have been about getting the pigs to butcher yesterday; it took longer than planned, hence my tardiness.

Feb 04, 2025

Tilley has become my truck dog, and a great companion. She gets anxious when I’m not around, and has a bad habit of chewing up books and magazines when she’s anxious! So. She goes with.

Primal Woods

Pure Maple Syrup

I’ve probably missed two or three days of sap flow, but I’m not concerned. Mid-Feb to mid-Mar still seems like a solid forecast for the season.

And the reassembly of the evaporator is 95% complete; it’s basically ready for the Test Boil and sterilization.

Former milling customer and Newsletter reader, Dean G., saw my post about the added sugar and sunflower oil in commercially available tart cherries; he responded with 3 gallon bags full of frozen tart cherries from his own trees. No herbicides. No pesticides. No added and unnecessary ingredients. No problem! The cherries still have the pits in them, and are obviously not dried, so we will take on those steps of the process ourselves. Thanks Dean!

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Homestead Rebel Farm

Pigs

With some help from my friend Mark, we managed to get the Stock Trailer in position this past Saturday; it was a tight fit, maybe an inch of clearance on each side, and without Mark’s eyes and guidance it would have been a much more time-consuming endeavor.

We tied-out the existing fencing to the trailer without difficulty, giving the pigs access.

I pulled the feeder on Sunday; in hind sight I should have done this also on Saturday, the pigs need a couple of days to get used to the idea that food is only available in the trailer. Yesterday morning about 10 am, the two biggest pigs made their way a step up and into the trailer no problem; it took another five hours, off and on, to get the third and smallest pig to go in.

Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.
Proverbs 16:32

My patience was sorely tested.

I mentioned in previous posts that I was concerned about getting the pigs up the north facing hill at the top of the driveway, with trailer that’s probably close to three tons of dead weight behind the truck; concern allayed. The solution cost $60 on Amazon, and I’m pleased with the performance. I like that I don’t have to drive over the chains to mount them, a big advantage if you are already stuck. Mounting took 30 minutes my first time out; I could probably do it in 15 min for two tires now that I have a little experience. And the carrying case is small enough that you could keep it in your trunk all winter while taking up very little space.

Once at the top of the hill, it took about 5 minutes to remove the chains; then we were off to the butcher, about an hour drive to the east and a bit south. Tilley and I made it to our destination just 30 minutes before closing.

Oxen

The oxen are on round bale #15, the last that I have on hand. I’ll be making a trip to George for more yet this week.

Farmhouse

Spring will be here before you know it. I still have a lot of clean-up work of blown down trees to accomplish, but that can wait for a bit.

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News

News is still coming in hot.

I don’t know what it will take for some to give up their belief in government, for some others their worship of government. The state’s own reporting system, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), counts the dead due to the vaccine itself at 19,028 in the U.S. alone, and yet you never hear about it from the state-run media.

Further to the Covid op, this from C. Bradley Thompson; it’s worth a click for the links to supporting information alone.

Here is a third.

And a fourth that is related.

Books & Such

I still have The Mystery of John Colter: The Man Who Discovered Yellowstone on the nightstand; making progress.

And I downloaded a new audio book recommended by Bill Buppert of the Chasing Ghosts podcast; Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself - While the Rest of Us Die. No later than the Eisenhower administration, the higher powers had established that there was no saving the citizenry in the event of nuclear war. And therefore no sense in trying. As the subtitle says, they are only interested in saving themselves. So. We will have saved the governors, but there will be nothing and no one alive to govern. A perfect world for our overlords I suppose.

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

John & Geri

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