Homesteader Life

In the past I’ve taken a lot of flack from “conservatives” for pointing out that Austrian Economic Theory is a form idolatry. The center of the austrian world is “The Market”, it governs all things and has its own system of “Laws”. It is incompatble with biblical Christianity, which says that Christ is the King and center of the universe and that God’s Law is the standard which governs men. My friend Rick has come across this little tidbit that exposes the austrian school for what it is, Market Worship. Be sure to check this out, Capitalism the Creator.

It sure seemed like spring would never get here this year, but it is now in full swing. The milks cows have been grazing for a few weeks and the dry cows are now out on their own pasture so the milkers don’t have to compete with them. All the calves, except the ones on milk, are now on the calf pasture so the barns are empty except at milking time. Grass was late and the hay supply was down to the wire, so I’m happy to see everyone out and eating of the fat of land again. I wanted to be further along on the garden than I am, but I had equipment break down and it took a while to get it figured out. The gardens are making progress now anyway. Today I planted some sugar snap peas, spinich and swiss chard and gat a lot of tilling done. If you remember, last year I did some heavy liming and heavy compost on about half of the big garden. Wow, what a diference that lime made. That half tilled up like a breeze and drainage is unbelieveble. I was out on it within 12 hours of some very heavy rain. The other half tilled up like a patch concrete compared to the heavy limed half. It will probably take twice as many passes before it is good enough to plant anything. I’ll be hitting the second half with lime before the season gets to far. If it dosen’t rain tonight I’ll try plant a few more early season things tomorrow. Turkeys have been gobbling every morning but I’ve not made a trip out to talk to any. Spring season gets neglected around here, can only hunt till noon and I’m pretty busy this time of year. Heard the coyotes yipin’ it up this evening. Fighting over something, they were. Found a fox den the other day not far from the house. I’ll try to get some pictures of the babies when they come out. They are always cute little buggers to watch. John and Noah have been out practicing with their bows in the evenings and that is always fun to watch too. They are getting to be pretty good shots with their air rifles too, Johnny is probably a better shot than his dad. Well, my back is sore and I’m tired. I’m going to finish off this honey porter that a friend gave me and hit the hay.

I promised I’d tell about my trip to visit the folks in Rayville, so here it goes. I flew out by myself, it was like an episode of “the Clampets go to the airport”. On the flight out they treated me pretty good, played the “dumb hick card” and they didn’t strip search me or nothing like that. The flight home was a little different. As I was getting on the plane, I was ambushed by 4 TSA goons that gave me the once over before they would let me board the plane. I think it was a case of “beard profiling” but I can’t prove it. Anyhow, I made it there and home safe and sound. Except for the fact that I can’t hear anything for about a day and a half after flying. It makes my head implode and clogs up my ears. I landed in Kansas City and Pastor McConnell and Jeff Klute picked me up. I could tell right away that I was going to enjoy my time out there. The conversation and fellowship was great right from the second I climbed in there car. I had the blessing of getting to spend time with all of the members CRC Rayville. What a wonderful group of people they are. I have never before ever had the experience of meeting so many like minded believers. All of the men I spent time with truly want to live out the gospel and apply the bible to every area of life. They have a vision for the future that is bold and inspiring. I had the privilage of staying with “Rayvillian” who has commented on this blog before and over the years has become a dear friend of mine, even though we had never met in the flesh. Thanks for the hospitality, brother. I was blessed to spend time with Art and Joyce and their beautiful children. Art and I even got to do some skinnin’ and dressin’ practice one morning after breakfast. Made me feel at home! I spent much time with Pastor Tom and his wife Carmon and daughter Susan. I had the blessing of eating some fine Peruvan cooking at there place. I also had great fellowship with Jeff Klute and toured his shop and learned a lot there. I met Jim Ketchum and mother Jan, the resident poet. Jim was feeling under the weather and we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, but what time we did was edifing and I look forward to getting to know him better some day. It is hard to put all that went on there into words and I’m sure I’ve left something out. Its hard to describe the kind of love and faithfulness that you experience around these folks. I very much enjoyed the midweek service I attended, they were working through the scripture proofs to their membership covenant. I learned a lot about how God wants us to interact with each other and deal with offenses between the brethern. Of course one of the highlights of a trip to Rayville is Sam and Sadie. What wonderful beasts of burden they are. I even got my turn at driving them and that was a great experience. I’m still talking about today! I hope I didn’t leave anything out, it was a busy 4 days. I want to publicly thank each and every one of you for the meals, fellowship and hospitality. I feel like I made some very special friends while out there. I would ask that everyone keep these folks and the work in Rayville in your prayers.

Pastor McConnell getting ready hitch up Sam and Sadie.

Be sure to read Pastor McConnell’s latest, The USS Pagan Dominion, the ship of fools. He invites comments and discussion Here.

I have mentioned before that I think most Christians understand that America has some sort of Christian heritage. The problem is they seldom understand what that heritage really is and think that the pluralist elightenment vision of 1787 is “our” heritage and embrace it as though it were biblical. For the most part, Christian Americans don’t understand Christ’s office of a King very well. They don’t understand with any theological clearity the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ. The first settlers of this country did, however. They were calvinists, theocrats and postmillenialists. Their theological beliefs about God and our relationship to Him guided everything they did. They left us with a lot of capital, and our people have survived of it for many years. Instead of building on it, our forefathers squandered and spent it all. What went wrong with America? Simple answer, we forgot who the God of our fathers was. We abandoned our heritage and adopted a theology that rejects the absolutes of God’s Law-Word. We traded a God that was in control of everything for one that waits and hopes that people will “let him in”. We rejected a vision of victory for the Church and adopted a vision of defeat. I know what I have written will offend some readers, but I must write what I believe to be true. The time for sitting on the sidelines is over. The time for God’s people to rediscover the truths of a covenantal understanding of the bible is now. We have a lot of work to do.

We went all week without a fire, boy that was nice. It did get a little chilly at night but I was determined to leave the fire out! Well, tonight I had light her back up. They are calling for snow on the Lord’s day, I don’t think spring will ever come to Mt Hunger. The grass just started to green a little today, the peepers started a couple nights ago. The year that I really needed an early spring and it is later than ever. We really need some warm temps to get the grass growing around here. Hay is getting mighty hard to come by. I’m convinced that one of the biggest mistakes dairy farms made was relying on purchased grains. Even in northeast as recently as when my dad was a boy, dairies grew the grain they needed. It was oats and ear corn. Now someone will say, “The cows didn’t give much milk then either.” True enough, but without overproduction they received a fair price for the milk and made more money than we do now. The American hunger for extreme production has killed any chance to make a decent living milking cows. Sure, when cows were only fed oats and ground ear corn they gave a smaller amount of milk. Who cares, if farmers had an ounce of common sense they would have seen that it was better for them and the land in the long run. It was all grown on the farm, a more self contained sustainable farm were folks paid the bills and had a profit afterwards. The problem with trying it today is the milk prices. As long as everyone else continues to make every pound of milk they can the rest of us are out of luck. As far as organic milk, you almost have to grow your own grain to make it. If conventional farmers think its bad, try paying what organic grain brings these days. Organic milk prices need to be a lot higher than they are or there won’t be any of them left in couple years either. Now is the time someone who has never milked cows for a living in northern Broome county to tell me I shouldn’t feed cows grain. Well, I haven’t been feeding any because I can’t afford to. If you think thats the answer then you ought to find something new to be a self proclaimed “expert” about. In the north east you can get by for a good part of the grazing season without any grain. You watch body condition and feed some corn when you need to. Feeding a little corn if a cow needs energy is not a sin folks. In the winter when cows eat hay, unless its really good hay they need some grain. In this part of the country our good hay is not very good. We live in an area that gets very little sunlight and grass hay that would test 18% anywhere else will only test 11 or 12% here. You see, every farm is different and every area is different. A bit of advise, never listen to anyone unless they live near you. Experts always have the answer and act like it will work everywhere. Well, enough of this. On another note, we finished the syrup up. Sap was extra sweet this year. I think it was more like 30:1 instead of the normal 40:1 to boil down. Smelling that sweet steam and watching the flames dancing away in the arch was good therapy for the long winter blues. Brought back memories of my younger days and our sugar camp. I don’t think I slept for the whole month of March back then! We kept the old girl cooking all night long in those days. We had a really nice sugarshack way back in the woods, it was like another world back there. Every night after milking we would head back there and work away until milking time the next morning. We would cook up a big pot of beans and enjoy an ice cold genny cream ale, while the sap cooked away. We sat around the fire spinning tales and joking around and sampling a little syrup now and then. We bottled many a quart jug in those days and sold them local. Even the local gunshop sold our syrup and the owner “Augy” would insist that customers bought some from us. Those were good days. I guess the only other news is that I’ve done something a bit out of character, I bought a plane ticket the other day! I’m taking a few days off and going down to visit the saints in Rayville Mo. I must admit I’m getting a little excited about the trip and can’t wait to see first hand what is going on down there. Well, time to go put another log on the fire. Till next time…..

Its a chilly night on Mt Hunger but not as windy as it was last night. Its in the 20s and last night the winds were 50 mph, the wood stove is extra hungry. Just me and “Goldy the Cat” on the hill this week. Leah and the boys went with my MIL to Maryland to visit her sister. I’m pretty bored. After living with 3 boys and a pregnant wife, its kind of quiet around here with only a cat. I think I’ll probably boil some more sap tomorrow, its supposed to get up to 50 so by the end of the day I’ll have enough fire up the evaporator again. We’ve had a few calves born since I last posted here. One of the heifers was a real snot but this morning I was able milk her without any ropes. I’m glad, makes milking more pleasant for both of us! The other two heifers were little angels, never so much as lifted a foot. Thats the way it goes with Jerseys. I really hope it warms up soon, grass is never going to start up around here with nights as cold as they have been. I’m ready for spring and so are the girls. I’ll end the rambling post with a Little John story I got a got a kick out of……..

John says to me the other day, “Paper money isn’t real money…right Dad.” I told him he was correct, only gold and silver coins are real money. “So why do people use fake money?” the boy asks. “Well son, people don’t know its not real and as long as they think it is real they will use for trading. Thats why we use it, as long as there are people dumb enough to take it in exchange for things we need then we can use it.” John asks “Why don’t we just tell the people that its fake, shouldn’t they know they don’t have any real money?” He continues, “Then once people know that paper isn’t money we could all use real money.” I told him I’ve been telling people about it most of my life, but nobody listens. Then I explained how that now that I have 3 sons who will be able to help educate people about it, over time we might make some headway. John says “Dad, I got an idea! I’ll just keep telling people. I mean if I tell someone and they don’t believe me, I’ll just tell them again and again and again. After a while they will say “Ok, OK, Johnny, I believe you now just leave me alone”. If you keep telling people something they will believe you just to get you to leave them alone.”

So there you have it. Little Johns plan to stop the Federal Reserve.

A few years ago I tried Neptune’s Harvest Liquid Fish on some plants that were growing in poor soil and was really impressed with it. While we all strive to use as few inputs as possible, when you need extra nutrients for a crop, fish is my favorite “store bought” fertilizer. I happened to check out the specials at Millers, which I do every so often, and noticed they are having a sale on all the Neptune’s Harvest fish and seaweed liquids. Its a pretty good deal, about $12 a gallon savings. You can check it Here. If you live in the north east I highly recommend Millers Nurseries for fruit trees. We have always been satisfied with their trees and they have a good selection of old time apples.

Growing up I knew nothing about Patrick the evangelist to Ireland. It was not until recently that I came across his confession and wanted to learn more about him. After coming to the reformed faith out of a baptistic past, I soon found the value in learning about the great saints of the past. These are the men who’s shoulders we stand on. I read the Fathers and other important and godly men of the past, but not until Little John asked me a year ago “who St Patrick was?” did I know anything about him. I thought he might have something to do with green beer, but I couldn’t answer the boy’s question. I started reading up on him and was stunned and ashamed that I did not know anything about this giant of the faith. Patrick brought the gospel of Jesus Christ to Ireland and Ireland has not forgotten. His confession is well worth reading and it starts like so…

I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly despised by many. My father was Calpornius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest, of the village Bannavem Taburniæ; he had a country seat nearby, and there I was taken captive.

I was then about sixteen years of age. I did not know the true God. I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people—and deservedly so, because we turned away from God, and did not keep His commandments, and did not obey our priests, who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought over us the wrath of his anger and scattered us among many nations, even unto the utmost part of the earth, where now my littleness is placed among strangers.

And there the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance, and watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil, and guarded me, and comforted me as would a father his son.

Hence I cannot be silent—nor, indeed, is it expedient—about the great benefits and the great grace which the lord has deigned to bestow upon me in the land of my captivity; for this we can give to God in return after having been chastened by Him, to exalt and praise His wonders before every nation that is anywhere under the heaven.

You can read it all HERE

Here’s my plan for farming in the “post oil age”.