Writing a newsletter is something like spending the night keeping watch on a defensive perimeter. You hear something out there and shoot into the dark, but seldom find out whether you hit anything or not. Very few people ever write or comment.

"On Losing Heart" in our July issue must have hit a bunch of bull’s eyes, judging from the number of letters and comments I’ve received. Here are some:

"`On Losing Heart’ made my day. You express a philosophy to live for.’" -- A.R., Colorado

"When I find myself down or tempted by the society that surrounds us, out comes an article like `Losing Heart’ to give me renewed spirit and hope, and to realise I’m not alone in my feelings." MG, Tennessee

"Thank you so much for ‘Losing Heart.’ You touched on the questions I have been wrestling with; your wisdom and counsel is much appreciated." -- DB, North Carolina.

On the other hand, a subscriber from Georgia found Bob Parsons’ cartoon last month "blasphemous." I don’t tell Bob what cartoons to draw, and I’m not sure I’ve ever rejected one. I did not find last month’s blasphemous. The cartoon didn’t caricature Christ, but rather the ridiculous idea of trigger locks, a proposition as silly as lighting lamps and then putting them under baskets.

Bob Parsons almost always forces us to look at the teaching of Scripture in the context of our own day. That technique shocks us into recognising the truth, and often it is very painful. Blasphemy, however, was not his purpose.

NO WHERE ELSE TO GO

I don’t have any other place to put this, so I’m sticking it here.

As I was editing the Bob Chapman interview I came across the word "looting." That sent my mind back to an interview I did with Edwin Vieira back in 1984 [sic]. He used that word back then, and spoke a lot about the Insiders’ intention to divide the world up into three regional currency zones based on the dollar (western hemisphere), the yen (Asia), and Europe (the Euro didn’t exist then, so it was the deutsche Mark). Edwin said the central bankers had perfected their system of looting at the national level and were ready to raise it to the international level.

I phoned Edwin to remind him of that, and asked where he had gotten those ideas. He cited a book he had read (among many others, I’m sure) written in the ‘40s, before WWII ended.

The Insiders think a long ways ahead. Read what they write, and you’ll glean some idea what sort of future they are plotting for us. For the past 100 years or so there have been two strains of Insider thought. First, the "UN method," world government imposed from the top down. Second is "patient gradualism," promoting regional consolidation through politics and economics. That’s the pattern of the European Union, now being applied in this hemisphere through "dollarisation" and in Asia by bringing the Chinese in on everything (hence the big push for permanent normal trading status in the US congress).

Still, I can only go so far with conspiracy theories. Certainly oligarchies exist, and certainly they enjoy enormous power and influence, but they don’t function outside the providence of God. "Even the wrath of man shall praise Thee," the psalm says. In the teeth of all these schemers, God is still at work in these days, building the kingdom of Christ. That is the only constant, and the only power.

NEARLY BLEW US AWAY

On July 20 Susan and I were just getting ready to drive to the post office about 3:45. There was a storm blowing up, and the truck was parked facing east, in the lee of Justin’s house (It’s an "L" with the upright on the west and the tongue on the south, pointing backwards). Our weather comes from the east.

All at once Susan said to me, "We can’t leave. The weather’s too bad."

I looked to my right, where The Ponderosa (Lib’s trailer) sits about 400 yards away. There was a terrific wind blowing, but not like a tornado. It was a perfect wall of wind (we later found out it was blowing 60 mph!)

Johnny had a chain link dog pen outside, with a tarp on top. This was 12 feet square and eight feet high. As I watch, the wind picked it straight up, and carried it high enough to clear the barbed wire fence, then on another 100 – 150 feet. About that time tufts of pink began flying through the air. The wind had peeled back the Ponderosa’s tin roof and was blowing away the insulation.

That storm marked the first time the wind ever blew the glasses clean off my face. The wind was unbelievably powerful, but there wasn’t much rain. It passed fairly quickly, so Justin and I hurried to get a ladder and some tarps to cover the hole in the Ponderosa’s roof. (A somewhat frantic Susan wanted us to get up there while it was still raining! I do have a point where I say no. That was it.)

A roofer I am not, but little by little we hoisted up everything we needed – tarps and boards to weigh them down. Justin and I had been up there 20 or 30 minutes when I noticed lightning in the distance. Fairly rapidly my mind made the connection between the lightning and my position on the roof, about 25 feet higher than the next highest object. Next lightning flash hit nearer. About this time Justin and I were fairly flying through our work. The wind was enough. I wasn’t about to test the lightning, too.

PIG POLICE

The Amishman who was fixing our horse drawn mower finally wrote that it was ready. Justin and I drove over there and picked it up, and Eli had done a great job. He installed all new cutting teeth, timed the mower, shortened the Pittman stick, put on a new sickle and guide, and I don’t know what all else. Justin and I couldn’t wait try it out the next morning, so we made arrangements to get up and out early.

I left the Shoe (our house) before seven. It was one of those glorious, close days where fog hugs all the world, but you can tell that any minute the sun will appear to burn it off. The light doesn’t come from any particular direction, but seems to glow out of the air itself.

I got over to the Top (the farm where Justin lives) as Justin was coming out the door. I couldn’t see Boaz and Jachin, our Percheron horses, anywhere. Their pasture rolls quite a bit, so sometimes the ground hides them. We started whistling and pretty soon they came up. They’re suckers for corn, and so deduced that was the only reason we could be standing there. Jachin came at a run.

Surprise, surprise, no corn. Great thing they don’t hold our dirty tricks against us. They are gentle enough that we could lead them across the road and to the barn just holding them under the chin with our hands. I left Jachin in the bay of the barn and went back to my truck for a bucket of scraps for the pigs. That previous night we had a birthday supper and party for my son Worth, so I had full pig bucket.

Here you have "think" like a pig for a moment. What Bach, Shakespeare, good friends, Schlitz, the Mona Lisa, MTV, social climbing and crack cocaine represent to humans is, for pigs, all wrapped up in one word: food.

So you can understand that Princess, our sow, got a little excited when she saw me holding the magic white bucket. Her mind and taste buds were running wild at the thought of moulded bread heels, egg shells, salad trimmings, plate leavings, sour milk, bacon grease, and leftover rice and gumbo, all sauced with coffee grounds. She just couldn’t think about anything else.

That’s why she stepped over the electric fence.

It surprised her as much as me. See, an electric fence pulses. It also requires that the shockee make good contact with the ground. When the weather and ground are very dry, and when the shockee times it perfectly, the fence may not deliver and immediate shock.

And the top wire of the electric fence is only about 15 inches off the ground. Our boar Houdini and Princess previously having shown no inclination to get near the electric fence, much less make a break, we had constructed it mainly for the lower-to-the-ground piglets. So, seduced by the pig bucket, Princess just stepped over the fence.

Now to my great disgust and rising anger, the day is passing and I am sidetracked chasing a pig. Not just a pig, but a practised peripatetic pig. Molly, Johnny Bain’s Golden Retriever, was there, and usually she’s a competent pig herder. That day she wasn’t even sure she was a dog. Justin was stuck in the barn with the horses. No help there.

Princess had a good time running me around the trailer at first. To divert the swinish mob behind me, I poured the scraps in the trough. Then I opened the gate in the electric fence. No good. She wouldn’t get near it, not even with all those slobbering hogs behind me devouring her share of the scraps. Pig psychology failed.

About that time she remembered her "salad days", munching dry dog food in the carport across the road. Thither she trotted a beeline, with me in hot pursuit, shovel in hand. The shovel I had acquired as a Pig Persuader. If I had gotten close enough to apply it, I would have had to use it as a Pig Planter.

All right, we ran three times around the house, once clockwise, twice counter-clockwise, before she grunted "Uncle!" and ran back across the road. No sooner did she get near the pen than Jachin emerged from the barn. Cannily sizing up the situation, he appointed himself Pig Policeman, and started chasing Princess. That drew off Justin, who had to get Jachin back into the barn. Princess withdrew to the hill across the pond where she could graze in peace. I cast her one disgusted look and returned to the barn and the horses. If I couldn’t lure her, I sure wasn’t going to waste any more time chasing her.

We hitched up the horses and then – in memory of their escapade when they ran away with Justin and the Hochstettler wagon (see 6/2000 Moneychanger) --we sweated them in the fenced paddock. "Sweating" is working them as a team but without any load. Object is to get them hot enough to work the smart aleck out of them. Then we hitched them to the mower and for the first time since we bought the mower we successfully completed a job without a breakdown.

However, it took us till 10:30, and by then the sun was hot. Don’t bother telling me that we were only riding on the mower while the horses were pulling it. I know that, but I was soaked with sweat and worn slap out. The rest of the day in the office was still staring Justin and me in the face. We survived, but by 6:00 I was ready to go home, tired and angry and irritable. Then as I was pulling out of the driveway, my eyes happened to light on the pigpen, and it dawned on me that no one had taken the pigs their evening libation. I was the only candidate for that job.

(The old timers used to "slop" hogs with swill made from "shorts," broken scraps of wheat thrown out in milling. They filled a barrel with a hundred pounds of shorts and water. Every day when they took out a bucket, they added back another bucket of water, until the mixture got too thin. Then you had to add another 100 pounds of shorts.

(Several weeks ago, as I was pondering these piglets, it had occurred to me that I had a cheap and plentiful source of grain nearby that we had already paid for, namely, the two tons of rice we bought for Y2K. At first Susan and I thought about boiling them a couple of gallons of rice every day, but then we tried soaking some rice for 24 hours. We fed rice, water, and all to the pigs. The experiment had been an unqualified success. In fact, the pigs gave us the swinish equivalent of applause, i.e., blowing contented bubbles through their snouts while they scrounge the bottom of the trough for kernels of rice.

I drove the truck over into the pasture next to the barn, where the pigs are penned. A burst of porcine excitement broke out. When you’re carrying five gallons of rice and water in your bucket, it’s easy to be the most popular man in pigland. (Never despise life’s small victories. Admiration, even from pigs, is still admiration.)

Amazement! There in the pen, staring at me expectantly as if nothing had ever happened, stood Princess.

Now since memory runneth not to the contrary, no pig has ever broken back into a pigpen.

I’m telling you, we’re not just raising pigs, we’re making history.

SUSAN’S P.S.