Sig's Christmas Letter (Cumberland Saga)

To my Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ

From Bishop Siegfried of the Copperhead Cove Church of the Danubian Swabians under our Patron Michael the Archangel

Sig wrote in a cramped hand using an archaic form of German that would make a modern, educated German wince. Copies were photocopied and mailed via US Postal Service to all known members of the church regardless of where they lived.

I pray that the grace of our Lord Jesus continues to bless you on the eve of His birth in this year 2024. And I pray the our Patron Michael the Archangel has protected you from the evils that roam our fallen earth.

Once again we face the tempests of the evil one. We suffered in 1939 and 1945, 1989 and 2000 and 2009. If history rhymes, then some of you will decide that coming back to Copperhead Cove is in the best interest of you and your family.

I must inform you that if you arrive empty-handed we WILL take you in but you will be tempting those of us who are already here with the sins of anger and envy. I ask that you not come empty-handed.

And if we can learned anything from history it is that the evil-one can over-take us like a wave breaking on the beach. As people who God gave a brain, it may prove prudent to send your contributions ahead of your arrival.

After consulting with our Sister Sarah and Elder Roger, we are doubling the size of the land we have in agriculture. As you know from your previous time here, freshly broken woodland is difficult to bring under the plow. Therefore, we decided to put MOST of it into pasture while the tree roots rotted.

I ask you to look into your hearts and into your budgets. Those of us still at Copperhead Cove are willing to be the work-hardened hands and strong-backs of Christ but we need tools to work with. We need funds for animals-of-the-field to populate our newly cleared lands. We need funds for hay to feed them until the grasses cover that new ground.

Our Sisters Sarah and Sister Shannon found a dairy farmer who is willing to sell bred, “cull” cows for $3000 each. Sarah estimates that we need three but five would give us some breathing room. 

Sister Shannon reached out and also found a cattleman who has two and three year old round-bales of hay that have been outside. He is willing to part with them for $100 each.

They also found a shepherd who is willing to part with five cull ewes for $500 each. They are Romney-cross ewes and are over six years old but they have been bred to a Columbia ram and due to lamb in April. I know that Sister Gretel is very gifted in spinning and weaving. We welcome any advice she can share. 

Even though those prices seem insane, remember the times we live in. Even a cull-cow is worth a lot of money as meat. And in the case of the hay, the purchase is as much for the seeds in the hay as it is for the feed value. We have 15 acres of cleared woodland to seed to pasture. 

Other needs include 20" chains and bars for our Husky 450. Clearing 15 acres of woods took its toll. Also, 30" bow-saw blades.

There is still time to prepare if we pray and listen to God’s word.

And for those who have personally answered the call of the Archangel Michael in the past, I ask you to prepare by reading Psalm 55, verse 6, Psalm 76 verse 2 and Rev Chapter 9 daily.

Passings

Brother Gustov and Sister Emilia went to the Lord this spring. Gustov from a tractor accident. Emilia from causes known only to God. Please pray for their immortal souls. God created all things, seen and unseen. We pray that he will extend mercy to them in their times of trial as he did in their time here on earth.

We have a new resident in Copperhead Cove. His name is Blain. He works for Sister Sarah and he is undoubtedly an angel sent by God in our time of need.

He neither gossips nor shirks. He came to us with little more than the shirt on his back. Should any of you join us, be mindful of Luke 22:38.

Hand to the plow

Bishop Remus (who you remember was my father) was still alive in 2009. One of the things he told me was “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 9). Many of the issues we had in 2000 and 2009 were from people who, like Lot’s wife, were of two minds. As my nephew Lliam said, "Lot's wife made the mistake of thinking she could keep one foot on the dock while the other was in the kayak."

This is very painful to write. If you have a child who is of-age and does not want to be in Copperhead Cove, and you feel called by God to be here: LEAVE THEM. Do not bring them.

If you have a wife or husband and they are not totally committed to turning their backs on the secular society for-the-duration and you feel called by God to be at Copperhead Cove: LEAVE THEM or stay where you are.

No man knows the day or hour. This may be a false alarm like 2000 or 2009. Or it may be like 1939 or 1945. Our merciful God does not give us the burden of knowing what the future holds for us.

Faith without works

Faith without works is Faith that is dead.

The Bible tells us to act upon our Faith otherwise it is just talk. God called the Israel out of Egypt and later out of Babylon. Many did not leave. They failed.

I ask you to pray, to read the Bible and to look into your hearts. We enter hard times and we need men and women with their spines stiffened by God; men and women committed to doing what is right especially when it is hard.

Know that my prayers, and the prayers of all of us in Copperhead Cove, are with you.

 

Your Brother in the One True God, He who IS

Bishop Siefried

Copperhead Cove, Tennessee

Fake News Friday: Homes found for militant Palestinians

 

The regional government of Kidal, Mali tentatively agreed to take militant Palestinians expelled from the United States.

The offer comes with relatively few conditions. They demand a $5000 "processing fee" for each refugee (Payable in $100 US bills) and a new Toyota Hi-Lux for every five that they accept. They also request one pick and one shovel per refugee and one spare handle per tool.

The Kidal city government specified that they can only accept ten refugees per week due to assimilation bottlenecks.

Nutrition by-the-numbers

Three economists with twelve Ivy-League University degrees between them went hunting Cape Buffalo in Botswana one fine day. An enormous bull charged the group.

Two of the economists raised their .460 Weatherby Magnums and fired, one missing to the right of the animal and the other missing to the left.

"Cheers, gentlemen! We got him" crowed the third economist seconds before the bull gored the thee of them to a frothy, pink paste.

Many useful statistical concepts die an ugly death on the shoals of multi-modal processes.

One of those multi-modal processes involves the caloric requirements of human adults.

Source

 In 2015, a 5th% US woman weighed about 110 pounds. A 95th% man weighed about 285 pounds or about 2.6 times more than the 5th% woman. The amount of energy required for "maintenance" is closely related to body-weight.

Source

Along another axis, a sedentary woman of sixty might walk 800 steps in a typical day while an active man of the same age might walk 15,000 steps.

In one study of Amish farmers in Ontario, a male was recorded having 51,514 steps in one day (the equivalent of 26 miles of walking). When the researchers asked him what he had done on that day he told them he had been plowing behind his horses.

Think about this for a second. He was guiding a plow through damp ground and redirecting it after it hits clods, clumps of grass or rocks. He was walking on soft, slippery, ground while wearing clod-hoppers, ground that had no "spring" to it so his foot sank into it with each step. And he walked 26 freaking miles in a day.

Or think of it this way, a 16" wide furrow must be 262 miles long for it to cover 40 acres. If the farmer plows that field with a single-bottom, walk-behind, 16" plow over 10 days, that means he AVERAGED 26 miles per day.

Boats on canals were typically drawn by horses or mules before IC motors were common. Horses would not fit in the tunnels. The boats were propelled through those tunnels via human power. It was called "Legging it". It was not a glamorous job. Hat-tip to Lucas Machias for the photo.

If you look at older Industrial Engineering data (1930 vintage) they had a job classification called "Shunters". A "Shunter" was a human fork-truck. He manually moved material from storage areas to the production area and back, typically in steel-wheeled carts over wooden-block floors. His Calorie-burn was 500 Calories per hour. Men shoveling coal or working as lumberjacks have similar energy demands.

Now compare that to the idealized-to-the-point-of-useless number of 2000 Calories per day that we often see.

Two-thousand Calories a day is sufficient to keep MOST people from dying in a concentration camp from lack of calories as long as they spend 95% of their waking hours sitting motionlessly...about like most office workers.

That 2000 Calories includes roughly 65 grams of fat (about 2.5 ounces or two McDonald McDoubles and a large fries), the same amount of protein and about 300 grams of carbs. This is perfectly appropriate for a 150 pound woman who parks 50 yards away from her desk or works from home and who stares at a computer all day and vacuums the floors of her apartment once-a-week.

4500 Calories a day looks entirely different. The major difference is that the 30% calories from fat gets thrown out the window. It really needs to be 40% or more calories from fat or you just cannot get enough food down-the-hatch.

He needs at least 200 grams of fat, 140 grams of protein and 550 grams of carbs.

In English units, that is almost a half-pound of fats/oils and over a pound of carbs.

On a per-year basis, that is 160 pounds of fat/oils. That is 22 gallons of melted lard.

Carbs

Larry Dean Olsen, dean of low-tech survival techniques in American is credited with saying that it is impossible for modern men to survive in the wilderness without some animal-based foods.

Humans have "plastic" bodies. We adapt to the stresses of our environment. We are MUCH more plastic when we are younger and much LESS plastic after we hit adulthood.

That is why somebody who spends their childhood at high elevation has more efficient lungs and vascular system.

Cavemen probably had enormous "beer bellies" because they were eating huge volumes of foods with low calorie densities. Foods like ground-up Acer negundo and Rumex and Polygonum and Setaria seeds are almost 50% fiber and they were as good-as-it-got for vegetable based foods except for some nuts and acorns.

Modern humans who grew-up consuming Hot Pockets, Tombstone pizzas and McD value meals do not have the volumetric capacity in their digestive systems to survive on prehistoric uber-high-fiber, very-low-fat diets. An analogy would be to compare a high-output motorcycle engine's displacement (small) to a steam-engine's (enormous). Apples and orangutans.

It is questionable if modern humans can consume 4500 Calories a day of pure carbs. That is three-and-a-half pounds of tortilla wraps (with no filling) or more than two, 24 ounce loaves of white-bread or ten pounds of potatoes.

You can make it as complicated as you want. Or as simple.

The bottom line is that if you are going to ask modern men to  burn 4500 Calories a day (on average) then you better find a way to supply them with 200-to-300 grams of fat per day.

Dairy/butter

Data from New Zealand where seasonal, pasture-based dairy is practiced.

In an austere environment, dairy is seasonal. In Michigan it can start in late-April as the grass just starts to grow and "dried off" in November. The cow will coast along on low-quality forage/hay and still pick-up body-weight until it drops her calf and when she will need large volumes of high-quality food again. That means there will be a gap in fat production from late-Fall until mid-Spring.

When she IS producing milk, even a mediocre dairy-cow (or even a beef/dairy cross) has the ability to produce 50 pounds of butter-fat per month. In the Copperhead Cove story, Sarah had a 1/3 share in the cow which was fine when it was just her, Lliam and Mary. Adding Blain to the dining-room table threw it out of balance especially since the cow was nearing the end of her lactation-cycle.

Wild sources of fats

Very few wild animals are high in fat. In late-Fall, the exceptions might include raccoons, waterfowl, salmon and carp. Domestic animals can include slaughter cattle, cull-sheep, hogs and geese.

Nuts like walnuts, hickory, hazelnuts, (and further south) pecans are high in fats.

Oil producing seeds like soybeans, canola and sunflowers (and others) merit discussion. Objections about the health consequences of those kinds of oils are dwarfed by the impact of not-enough-calories-to-maintain-98.6F-body-temperature.

Only the mediocre are always at their best

Lifting notes:

Not a great day at the gym. Sets of 6-6-5 at 190 pounds. I felt weak. I may have been dehydrated or a tad under-the-weather.

In a what-the-hell moment, I added ten pounds to bring the total up to 200. I did one repetition and then called it a day. The weight room went from two of us to six in the blink-of-an-eye and it was feeling crowded.

I have a set of lifting straps coming after Christmas. I consulted with Belladonna and she was OK with me trying the Figure-8 style straps. The major advantage is that getting the second hand strapped to the bar might be less "fiddly" with Figure-8 straps than with the other alternatives. The downside is that they are "sized". Reading the comments, if you get a set that are too big you can tighten them up with one-or-two twists.

Facts can be stubborn things

 

 

From the Daily Mail

Growth^2

I was at a family function today and one of my nieces, who I rarely get to see, was there.

"N" is very involved in theater. It is the well-spring of her energy. She is now approximately 30 and ventured into directing.

She was sharing that she really had to work at "delegating". Her previous venture into the management side of theatrical productions had not been a great experience.

She has the acuity of wit to realize that some of the failings had been due to her not knowing what she did not know. Upon further reflection, she realized that core to many of the "failures" had been her lack of sophistication about "delegating".

This time around, she is being very deliberate and intentional about delegating.

...no surprises yet...

...and then she said "I have people helping me with this production who are taking on too much responsibility and not delegating. I can see myself in them. I am taking them aside and telling them, in private, that THEY need to delegate or the entire venture will fail."

Growth^2

I am impressed. And I would be impressed even if she was not my niece.

I think we sometimes underestimate the younger generations.

A shout-out to all of my buddies who sent me seed-nuts!!!

Once again my name is engraved in the Hall of Heroes.

Mrs ERJ is VERY impressed with the quality of my friends.

I have been receiving packages of seeds from Kentucky and Arizona and other places. I spent this morning packing them in moist potting soil so I can "stratify" them. Many seeds need a period of cool-to-cold and dampness to satisfy their dormancy requirement.

Keeping all of the different strains of nuts and precise parentage of various acorns and hickory nuts is tedious but worth doing. They are going into individually labeled, heavy-duty ziplock bags and thence into a heavy-duty, 30 gallon tub that will get covered to deter squirrels and other rodents.

And then I wait.

My benefactors were extraordinarily generous in their amounts. I may have saved one-or-two nuts of a few select populations to WOW! the lovely Mrs ERJ. 

She adores pecans and I am enjoying the benefits of being her "connection".