Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

"What we are witnessing may be the greatest destruction of financial  
wealth that the world has ever seen -- paper losses measured in the  
trillions of dollars. Corporate wealth. Oil wealth. Real estate  
wealth. Bank wealth. Private-equity wealth. Hedge fund wealth. Pension  
wealth. . . .
"What is really going on, at the most fundamental level, is that the  
United States is in the process of being forced by its foreign  
creditors to begin living within its means."

David Leonhardt writes in his New York Times column: "The Bush  
administration, the Fed and Congress, meanwhile, continue to focus on  
the immediate crises, with little attention to the underlying reasons  
that the economy has gotten into this mess -- a stagnation of incomes,  
an explosion of debt and a decidedly outdated, and limp, approach to  
government oversight."

Joseph Stiglitz writes for the Guardian: "Houses of cards, chickens  
coming home to roost - pick your cliche. The new low in the financial  
crisis, which has prompted comparisons with the 1929 Wall Street  
crash, is the fruit of a pattern of dishonesty on the part of  
financial institutions, and incompetence on the part of policymakers."

. . . At thinkprogress.org, Ali Frickwatched MSNBC host Chris Matthews  
take on Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) last night:

"Noting that a 'normal president' would be more visible during such a  
crisis, Matthews compared Bush's response to the current financial  
turmoil to his handling of Hurricane Katrina:

"MATTHEWS: 'I'm just asking you where's the President of the United  
States tonight? You got Paulson out there. Where's the President? He's  
pulling one of these Katrinas again. Where is he? The country's  
worried like hell when you lose this amount of value in the wealth of  
this country in a matter of days. You'd think the President would come  
on television and explain the situation to the American people. I'm  
just asking where he is. That's all I'm asking.'

"CANTOR: 'Chris, you'll have to ask -- I don't know where he is. I  
assume he's in the White House.'"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/09/18/BL2008091801645_4.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Meanwhile, as James is oft to remind, homesteaders have the year's  
harvest in the cellar.
> From waltonrp AT gmail.com  Thu Sep 18 17:27:35 2008
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Subject: [Homestead] Got pigs
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I'm back in pigs, picked up two little red buggers today. I like
having pigs. They eat all the scraps, failed cheese batches, old milk,
whey, etc. They are also a friendly homestead animal. Good investment
in the current economy. Planning to butcher one around Thanksgiving
and the other around Christmas. I'm just not letting them get bigger
than what will fit in a 50 gallon barrel when I need to scrape them! I
learned that lesson last year.

Now, I need to castrate. I've just held the legs while grandaddy did
it years ago. I have iodine and razor blades. I got these steps off a
web page:

1.      Hold the piglet by both hind legs with its head down.
2.      Using the thumb, push up on both testicles.
3.      Make an incision through the skin of the scrotum over each
testicle in the direction of the tail.
4.      Be sure the incisions are made low on the scrotal sac to allow for
fluid drainage.
5.      It does not matter if you cut through the white membrane of each
testicle or not.
6.      Pop the testicles through each incision and pull on them slightly.
7.      Pull each testicle out while pressing your thumb against the
piglet's pelvis.
8.      Thumb pressure on the pelvis is important to ensure that the
testicular cords break off at the point of your thumb
rather than deep inside the body, which may promote development of a hernia.
9.      If necessary the testicle may be cut free of the cord using a
scraping motion.
10.     Cut away any cord or connective tissue protruding from the
incision and spray the wound with antiseptic.

Anyone care to give me any additional tips?

Rob - Va