It’s Day 240 of The First Ohio Shutdown and Day 176 of Mardi Gras for Marxists.
Deb and I are well this autumn Wednesday.
The people buying her father’s house did their final pre-closing walkthrough this morning, which for a seller is always a fingers-crossed moment. Well, all of her hard work paid off in a sweet message conveyed through the realtor — “The house looks amazing. We’re truly grateful for you.”
That’s a huge weight from her shoulders. Closing is Friday morning.
At the top of my to-do list this week, for reasons that’ll become clear later, was removing several good-sized branches overhanging the driveway at Second Chance Ranch. It’s been damned windy since Sunday, though, so I had to wait for today’s gentler breezes to tackle the job.
I’m a homeowner, not a woodsman or an arborist. So this isn’t something I do — but it is something I’ve done. As I pulled out the tools today, my thoughts drifted back 37 years to my time in southern New England.
I lived in an old farmhouse heated entirely with wood. I personally felled, hauled, bucked, split — with a 12-pound maul, not a powered splitter — and stacked every bit of wood it took to keep the place warm all winter. That amounted to six cords a year, give or take, for four years, and I did it all myself.
Looking back on it now, I did the sort of thing every American man ought to do at some point in his life. In terms of skills, self-reliance and work ethic, the experience has served me well. The work itself left me with broken parts that’ll never heal, but that’s what real work does.
Today I backed my truck next to the maple tree, dropped the tailgate and climbed up into the bed. With temps in the mid-30s this morning, my humble, homeowner-grade chainsaw complained a bit but eventually warmed up. I began with the familiar task of making an undercut on the first branch, and we were off and running.
The whole job didn’t take long. Deb stayed below, pulling the limbs away as I finished my cuts. Back on the ground, I used the saw to process the downed wood into manageable bits, which we loaded into the truck bed. After two trips to the brushpile out back, we were done — the only signs of our work were a few fresh cuts on the trunk of the maple and 14 feet of clearance over the driveway.
Simple tasks like this bring me joy. Growing my own food. Foraging for edibles. Breaking trail in unfamiliar woods. Getting an old engine running again. Bringing a rusty, discarded hunting knife back to life. Replacing a broken tool handle.
Either you get it or you don’t.
I won’t belabor it today, not at length, but there’s no denying that as a nation we’re in a very dangerous place. And while I guess it’s possible to ignore or avoid what’s going on, I think that’d be unwise — because, as we’ve learned (or should have by now), what we allow will continue.
Governors, county executives and mayors nationwide are, in the form of “orders” masquerading as laws, invading the homes of private citizens. They’re attempting to dictate how individual Americans observe the Thanksgiving holiday — hell, some think they can prohibit private observances entirely, promising to enforce their “orders” at the point of a gun.
The threats, the scolding, the shaming, the decrees… this is not America.
What we’re seeing is a coordinated effort to disrupt American traditions, and thus re-shape American culture. They tried to blow up Easter, Passover, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, even Halloween. But Thanksgiving would be The Big Prize, if they can pull it off, because at the heart of Thanksgiving is family — the foundation of American culture and traditions.
They’re coming for Christmas, too. You ok with that?
Yeah, sure, I’m a conspiracy nut — a conspiracy nut who remembers when the wife of the 44th president said,
“…We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.”
This manufactured “pandemic” provides but a convenient excuse, a golden opportunity, “a good crisis” that can’t “go to waste.”
They’re coming for your traditions. They’re coming for your family. They’re coming for you.
You sure you’re ok with this?
I’ll do what I believe is right for myself and my own health. Beyond that personal commitment, however, I’ll be damned if I’ll comply with unlawful fiats that assault the Liberty I was born with — in fact, I intend to go out of my way to defy them.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #OhioAgainstDeWine #DefyDeWine
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