Newsletter #300 2025 Mar 17 Monday
Collecting sap and evaporation came early in the week, hauled out the portable sawmill midweek, and loaded the Solar Kilns late in the week. All that aside the chores, of course.
Primal Woods
Pure Maple Syrup
We are collecting tomorrow afternoon; we froze overnight into this morning, sap is flowing this afternoon, and we should collect a significant quantity.
We could get sap flow Sunday through next Wednesday, but those overnight lows look “iffy” at the moment; we’ll have to wait and see how the forecast develops.
I’m actually looking forward to yoking up the Oxen tomorrow, and I’m lining up help for the collecting.
Sawmill Services
We milled Rob’s logs; it was a long day at the mill, 8:30 am to 7:00 pm, with Rob supervising and lumber handling, and Enzo deftly handling the heavy equipment. Enzo also delivered the lumber for Solar Kiln drying.
I dusted off the F150 for the job, as I’m working on three repairs to the ‘93 F250. We moved very quickly and milled over 1,500 board feet of 9/8 (1-1/8th inch) boards for flooring, plus four 5 inch thick and 6 foot long mantle pieces. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
Homestead Rebel
We’ve had dogs come home with ground squirrels, tree squirrels, Lulu got a racoon, and now Tilly bags a Muskrat; not to mention the two chickens I think fell to this dog or that before they got the message that the layers are off limits. Forget the geese, chickens are now laying the golden eggs, and we are looking to add to our flock.
Other than that excitement, it was the daily chores of feeding and watering the animals.
News and Notes
Today, step into the way-back machine.
I’ve come to believe…it used to be that homes were productive, now they are consumptive; it used to be Home Economics, now it is Consumer Science; I have wool shirts in my closet with the tag “Made by Mom” in the collar, my kids can’t say that; it used to be that parents raised children, now the state raises children; it used to be that wives and mothers fed their families, from scratch, now it’s Big Food and the restaurant industry; it used to be that Dads taught boys how to be men, I didn’t do that. When I say that being a wife and mother are the most difficult and most important jobs in the world, I mean that with all of my being. How we convinced women to give up their God-given power to change the world is beyond me; instead we made “working outside the home” more than staying at home and raising psychologically, spiritually and physically healthy future generations. God knows we are paying dearly for that decision.
In answer to my question below; the state wants us dependent on the state, and Big Business; hell, they even outlawed buying seeds for a time.
The holy grail is GDP, Gross Domestic Product, which is a proxy for the Standard of Living, which is a measure of comfort and ease. The good life some argue. We the People used be tough as shoe leather, now we’re about as tough as pantyhose. I’ve always hated pantyhose.
Single-use plastics; I hate ‘em with a passion. But it doesn’t end there.
Nutrition: Throw the federal government’s nutrition guidelines in the bin; light a match and throw that in after. Go learn how to cook real food from Grandma. Start with eggs pan-fried in lard, if you can find it, or butter, real butter; you won’t regret it.
Books & Such
I finished reading of Raised to Obey, by Agustina Paglayan, a real downer. Now it’s time to write the post on schooling and indoctrination. Another trip in the way-back machine; parents and the Church used to teach children, now we’ve outsourced that too, to the state. What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out.
And I am now reading a book you might not have heard of, especially if you get your news from Facebook; Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, by Sarah Wynn-Williams. It is not a flattering portrayal of either Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg.
Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.
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All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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