Newsletter #305 2025 Apr 21 Monday
Work on the F250, a milling job with Paul and Nick, and progress on the drinking water system for the Oxen pasture. And more spring flowers!
Primal Woods
Top left to right; Asian pear flowers just about to open, plum flowers, and Loring peach flowers. Bottom left to right; Sugar Maple flowers, and I am not quite sure what, it is not a wildflower to my knowledge, but comes up on the edge of the woods in places, through the grass in others, and in the flower beds.
Pure Maple Syrup
The middle Tart Cherry label it is, by popular demand. We expect to have labels in hand on Wednesday; Tart Cherry will be in the Shop by Friday.
I have 80 buckets yet to collect, clean, dry and store; that’s on the agenda for this week. The goal is to also have Blueberry back on the shelves; I will keep you posted.
Sawmill Services
A full day job with Paul, and his son Nick, milling benches for Marion Magnolia Farms, a truly gorgeous wedding venue designed and operated by Brittany, Nick’s wife.
If you need a place for up to 300 attendees, your wedding can be accommodated, and you will be served by some truly great people. All of those tables and chairs are handmade by local artisans.
The benches are between 15 inches by 15 inches and 17 inches by 17 inches in cross section; lengths ranged from just over 5 feet to 11 feet. We milled 13 benches, and I will be back on-site next week to mill at least 17 more. They each weigh a thousand pounds or more, so no one will be walking off with them.
We also milled timbers for a new cross, as the one pictured above, of old barn timbers, finally gave up to the weather. The new one is 19 feet tall, about 4 feet of which will be in the ground, and the cross piece was milled at 11 feet long, but will likely be shortened a bit. Nick made a time-lapse video of the vertical timber being milled; he wanted some live edge on the corners, so that took a little time to get it just right.
Back to the Glow Plugs in the F250 … something is wrong; I installed new everything from the GP controller to the harness to the plugs themselves … no go. I followed the factory manual and made sure all inputs to the controller are as factory specified, and the old controller gives the same symptoms as the new controller (I swapped out the new controller for the old, this morning, no joy, same symptoms), so I’m ruling out the truck electrical system and the controller, which only leaves the harness and plugs. Next I will check all of the new glow plugs, then if necessary the new harness. Frustrating, to say the least.
Homestead Rebel
Oxen
It was about the pasture behind the barn this week, where the Oxen live.
Get Those Pig and Chicken Orders In!
We are up to 6 pigs, thank you all for your orders! I am comfortable with at least 8 pigs, so if you are still thinking about it, you have until Tuesday the 29th of April to make up your mind. I am picking up the pigs on May 1st, and I have a milling job the day before, so the 29th is the absolute latest. Earlier is better, please.
News and Notes
There was a time, still is maybe, when to question the “party line” regarding 9/11 was to be labeled a conspiracy theorist. Curt Weldon “served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2007, representing the 7th district of Pennsylvania. He was defeated in November 2006 for reelection by Joe Sestak. Weldon was vice-chair of the Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee.” He was in line to be the next Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, when he started asking too many questions about 9/11. He tells the story of his ouster, and comes clean 24 years later in this interview with Tucker.
Suddenly the whole-house solar system seems to be, while perhaps not a great investment, a solid insurance policy. No foreign enemy is just going to drop in on us; the days of amphibious landings are over, as are those of massive air drops. There is no better way to soften us up than to turn off the juice…and just wait.
Finally, thank God, it looks like the Food Pyramid (aka My Plate), is being thrown in the ash bin of history, where it belongs.
It will take a miracle, and I am hopeful we will see just that.
And I almost forgot, I put up a video in a post earlier this week, I will drop it in here, too. The Bible details the WEF’s plan for “you will own nothing and be happy” all the way back in the book of Genesis. It took me this long to make the connection.
Now, how about something beautiful?!
Books & Such
I have left The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. But in a way, I am going back to where super-empowerment of the intelligence agencies began.
Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World. Of course nukes were new, and Eisenhower was the first peace-time president to have to deal with other great powers, specifically the Soviet Union, also equipped with nukes. It was a new world to be sure. And Ike hated war, for obvious reasons, and wanted to avoid it at all costs. Unfortunately one of those costs was the advent of never-ending covert wars waged by the CIA.
In his farewell address Ike warned us about the “military-industrial complex,” he warned us about the technocracy, both of which we have since been dealing with; what he did not warn us about was the intelligence communities turning inward. We have been told time and again that the United States “is an idea.” Apparently it is not a good enough idea to stand on its own, because we are now spending a trillion dollars per year on defense, which is not defense at all; our military and the intelligence community have been used offensively, abroad and at home, to protect “the idea” from all comers for the last 80 years.
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All the best, and may God bless you and yours,
John & Geri
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