The canners have been running today, beans and pickled beets, and tonight there is a kettle of tomato sauce simmering away on the stove. When I took the last bucket of canning scraps out to the hog the sun was setting bellow the next hill. Crimson red and bigger than life, few things are as pretty as sunset on Mt Hunger. In the distance the coyotes were making their songs and the night bugs and frogs were adding to the harmony. All the wild critters singing praise to the Lord. The old familiar chill is back in the air these nights. Been down as low 40 on the hilltops and dipped down into the high 30’s in the valley. Flannel shirts are back in style for morning milkings. We’re still doing hay, been a tough haymaking year. Won’t be long now and it will be hog butcherin’ time and time to harvest a few whitetails to help stretch out the beef for the long cold winter ahead. Hard to believe its that time of year again. I’ve really got to get at the firewood, I’ll feel better when the woodpile is stacked tall and the cupboards are stocked full of canned goods and dry goods. Soon traps will need to be repaired and dyed and lines mapped out in my head. Might hit the beaver again this year, don’t know. They say coon and fox will bring decent money this year and every penny helps. I’ve said before that this life revolves around winter. We give it all we have to survive the winter and spend the whole rest of the year preparing for it. Oh we’ve got a little while before the snow starts blowing, but today it hit me that its not as far off as I’d like it to be.
Now, pointing out something stupid that Baldwin said will get me in trouble with his supporters for sure. Saying something stupid does not disqualify him from being president, but staying in the CONstitution Party after everything he knows happened there the past few years just about destroys any support I could have given him. For those who don’t know, I used to be active in the CP and had high hopes for it. The preamble at the time recognized Jesus Christ as the Ruler of the nations and a good number of people like myself joined up thinking they really meant it. I worked to promote Peroutka (who ran for pres) and actually met him in Ithaca NY. It was during that election year that I first ran into the Mormon Baby Killer wing of the party, the Nevada party. It became clear after a long battle to save the CP from becoming another Pluralist God mocking party that they we were going to lose. After refusing to enforce its own platform and its own rules, a group of states layed it all on the table (NY being one of them) that if they did not disaffiliate the Nevada party and its leadership then we would disaffiliate ourselves. They chose to become the “big tent” party and chose to be Covenant Breakers. They wanted to be a “Christian party” in name but allow fellowship within the party of any crazy cult of or heretic. The “no religious test” clause proved fatal. I have not had anything to do with them since and pray that God breaks them into little pieces with a rod of iron! Peroutka left the party the same time I did. Mr. Baldwin stayed. Thats one reason why I just can’t get up any enthusiasm for his run.
Now why is it that everyone gets so exited about Presidential elections anyway. The agrarians have the answer, Decentralization and localism. We could turn this country upside down if we worked in our Local areas first! We need an army of “lesser magistrates” that could actually force the issue with the Federal Leviathan. When you hear the word Government these days everyone automatically thinks of the Federal Government. Christians should not do this. The Bible teaches us about the many forms of Government, most of which we have great control over. First the individual self government of the Christian, second the family, third the church, and Last the state. If we paid attention to applying the Word (Law) of God in these first three spheres, the the last would be easy. But no, the “modern antinomian statist christian” just wants to ignore the first three and “change the world” with the last. Come on folks, lets stick with God’s plan.
I’ve been bothered a bit by a trend I see. To many people have bought into the idea that they are going to make all sorts of money from small scale farming. On the eve of economic collapse, people are counting on selling “natural food” to rich people at expensive prices. It might work as short term plan but I don’t see the wisdom in thinking it will last. If homesteaders and agrarians are really in it for the long haul they had better be working more on providing for themselves the things they are using all that money to buy. Now this also means that people are going to have to start learning to live with less of the crap the industrialists are peddling to them. This will separate the agrarians from the people who like “the agrarain lifestyle” without the agrarian reality. I’m not trying to discourage anyone, just sound a wake up call. Everyone of us has areas that we need to work on, myself included. I live off of what most people would consider “next to nothing” and I’m still not where I need to be yet. Common sense should tell us to work on weaning ourselves off the industrial tit, but our flesh sees a book that promises we “can earn the same salary as a cityslicker” selling pastured poultry and thats what we chase after. And the sad truth of it is this, the guy that wrote the book is the only person making any money off the deal. Oh, I forgot, the feed mill will make a bunch of money selling you corn too. I’ve been suckered again and again over the years, thinking that you can make money farming. I’m a farmer and I’ll always be a farmer, but over the years I’ve learned that a farm is a place to grow food and children not a place to grow rich. And I must not care that much about the money becouse I’m still scratching out living off this old hill dirt. A Living, thats all I make. If a A Living is anything but Living to you, you ought to find something else to do. If not having health insurance and having holes in your boots and your pants don’t sound appealing to you, don’t even try to leave the city. You’ll be just as miserable here as you are there. You can’t live in both worlds, it just doesn’t work. Yes, you might have to be in both worlds for a time of transition, but don’t get comfy. Its too darn easy to get comfy. The blessings of this life are unimaginable and real blessings for those who are willing to pay the price. That price is to serve the true God and not mammon. The cult of mammon worship has dug its claws in deep into everyone of us who has grown up in pagan America. When we think we’ve finally broke free, this is the time to reexamine ourselves; lest we be fooled. Its a battle for sure, but one we must fight. There are hard times a coming, and thats not the time to start making adjustments. I know that I sure have a long way to go. There are areas that our homestead is still dependent on the system for survival. We tackle them as we see them and I humbly suggest, brothers and sisters, that you do the same.
I’ve been reading the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America’s Testimony again and thought I’d share a few parts of it with you over the next few days. This is from “On the Civil Magistrate” #21.
No civil government which deprives men of of civil or religious liberty, fails to protect human life, or proposes to force men to do violence to the spirit and precepts of the Christian religion or interferes unjustly with private ownership of property, can in such matters expect the submission of its citizens or the blessing of God promised for obedience to Him.
Acts 4:17,19,33; Deut 27:19; Isa 10:1-2; Ex 20:15; Isa 1:23-26; Dan 6:13; Heb 11:23
Pastor Bret McAtee has penned a “New and Modified Declaration of Independence” that I would happily sign! It begins…..
When in the Course of God’s Providence, it becomes necessary for His people to cast off the unrighteous political shackles which have been foisted upon them, and to install again, among the powers of the earth, Governments that are reflective of the Kingship of Christ, thus taking to themselves, for God’s Glory, the separate and equal station to which the Law of God requires of them, a decent respect to the curiosities of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to pursue Reform…..
We who live off the land live by and with the seasons. They are part of our very fabric, you can’t seperate them from our lives. The modernist knows that there are such things as seasons, but they only effect their leisure activities not the whole of life. I’ve noticed over the years that this is one of the biggest differences between us and our “city cousins”. Those who don’t live close to land live in endless drudgery when it comes to work. Same work day in and day out no matter what the season. Here on the farm, where we work at survival and providing the basics of life, every season brings a new task and a variety to life that can’t be found in the concrete jungle. When the blackcaps are ripe we drop everything and pick. Wait to long and they be gone, and they won’t be back till next year. When beans are ready we drop what ever we are doing and pick beans. Once they are picked they are canned, a job which requires the help of every member of the family. When the weather cools down its time to butcher hogs and beef so they can hang and age proper. Its also the time to harvest a fattened whitetail or two. Come early spring its maple sap and the evaporator to fire up. Spring turn out on the pastures is anticipated all winter long. When the sun shines, you make hay. For every task they is proper time, from cutting firewood to planting the potatoes to canning tomatoes. The seasons provide a rhythm to life that is part of God’s created order. To choose a life that ignores these seasons is a choice to deprive yourself of some of the most basic blessings life.
Blueberry season is in full swing. Yesterday, Leah and I and my Mom and Dad and the 3 boys picked for a couple hours. We ended up with about 65 pounds of berries. The folks have been freezing their share and ours have been going into jam and some into the freezer. We’ll have to go picking at least one more time to have a winters worth, we use a lot of blueberries. We need to freeze more and I’d like to make some syrup to help stretch out the maple syrup. Blackcaps are about done. We have a good store of them made into jam. Blackberries are just now getting ripe so we’ll be heading to the woods as soon as we get these blueberries finished up.
If you’ve ever wondered what the best way to eat blueberries is, I’ll tell you my favorite. Its very simple and extremely good. Fill a bowl with blueberries. Sprinkle sugar on them. Pour fresh heavy cream on them (the more cream the better). This is a part of my award winning “Farmers weight loss system”. The secret is lots of heavy cream, butter and pig fat. Then you ballance that out with hard labor. Works for me.
Anyone who has ever milked a cow or two or 30 knows that flies at milking time can make life miserable. The stomping and kicking, milkers flying off or pails getting spilled and the old tail in the face trick turn the happiest job into one of torture. This summer we have less free range hens running the place and we also have more flies this year than we did last year. Being an Organic dairy we have to be mighty picky about what we use to control flies and we ordered some oil based spray from our favorite organic supply house. No Fly is available from Crystal Creek and we started using it on the cows at milking time this week. It works well. I’m pretty happy with it and thought I’d share it with ya’ll. Whats in it? Well, I’ll tell you…
No-Fly
(Oil Base Concentrate)
Inert Ingredients: White Mineral Oil, Vanillin (natural source).
Active Ingredients: Soybean Oil 2%, Essential Oils Of: Cedar 0.80%, Peppermint 0.80%, Cinnamon 0.80%, Geranium 0.80%, Geraniol 0.80%, Lemon Grass 0.30 %, Rosemary 0.25%, Thyme 0.25%, Eugenol 2.0%
