I recently played a Friday night baseball game in a small town, population 52, for my 35 year-old and older team, representing the town I live near, population 15,759. My town is a long way from the Twin Cities (MN), but it is like a wealthy suburb. The host team had 17 players in uniform, we had nine, though one of our players is more third base coach than a player, this the second time he has played or we would have to concede. At our home games, we might have a half dozen fans in the bleachers, no concessions. At this game, there were probably 100 people watching, probably 30-35 kids, beautiful women in the stands, concessions selling burgers and brats, fries, popcorn etc. Small town baseball as it should be: American men competing, families coming together, a local community event.
We lost 10-0 in the sixth inning. Normally we play seven, but there is a ten-run rule, so as to avoid the game turning into an humiliation ritual. They were very gracious, not rubbing it in. Some of their players have played with some of our players in high school or amateur teams when we were younger. We didn’t play well, but that was fine, it was fun seeing how much fun they and their fans were having. After the game there were 20 kids on the field playing t-ball, having a great time.
Every single person there was white, and it was a beautiful thing. It made me feel like rural Minnesota is alive and well, and thriving in a country that is otherwise not. There is a reason DC and many a liberal think these people are the greatest enemy of DC. Because they are fine, thriving, they don’t need to be told how to be, by the denizens of the Capital of the State or Nation.
Not a one of them, nor anyone who lives regionally, knows I write this substack. I am not anon, but I am locally. I’ve never been anon online, so really, I don’t care if I am doxxed, haha.
It has been an interesting ride, writing this substack. It has been good for me to publish regularly again. This is something like my seventh blog, I’ve been writing online since 2004ish? I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I have boxes of notebooks full of thoughts, ideas, fiction, essays, poems. I thought I might become a university professor once, but I saw the seed of woke in 1999, demonstrable mental illness in students and professors, grievances that would take everything from you and it would never be enough. I opted for learning how to build a house instead, grow my own food, be comfortable traveling alone in the wilderness. I have not regretted that decision at all.
In my spare time I wrote two memoirs, a longish novel, a full length screenplay that finished well in a national contest, but I never published any of that. Didn’t really even try very hard. I don’t know why; Annie Dillard asked rhetorically, “Why choke the world with another book?” It is not like any of it was paradigm shifting. It did not really occur to me then, I might start building an audience, grow as a writer, build into a writing career. But then, I don’t support anymore, some of what I was writing then, so it is probably best I didn’t publish.
Prior to this substack, I had not written much in seven years, while I was in a relationship that was not particularly healthy for me, in hindsight, living in a city that was becoming more woke and technocratic, less agreeable to live in. I sold my house, and started Born on the Fourth of July while I was on the road, living in campgrounds.
Am I a successful substack writer, after two years? If the number of subscribers is the measure, at 973 subs and five paid, I am not. But then, I’m aware of some utterly forgettable writers who have tens of thousands of subscribers, even more than a hundred thousand, with not much more engagement from readers than I get, so that cannot be the measure. Substack does not have a metric for it, but I am pretty sure at least 3,000 people have subscribed, I seem to lose two for every three I gain, at least. That said, I’m confident my 973 subs are some of the most open, awake, aware and alive readers and writers on substack.1
I think I am a better writer than those numbers suggest. I suspect there are three primary reasons I don’t have more subs: first, I am very hard on liberals; second, I write about gardening, and who cares about that fairy s***; third, I write regularly about the esotere and occult studies. There just are not that many people who lean “right” who care about gardening and “neo-paganism,” even as fun as I can be, mocking and eviscerating liberalism, the technocracy, the current regime, woke and trans etc.
To those un-subs, to the liberals I say, sorr-A, not sorry, it is not my fault you can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman. As long as you are ok with men in women’ bathrooms, normalizing pederasty, sterilizing kids, open borders for murderers and rapists, authoritarian censorious government and instigating WWIII, you are not welcome here. (IRL I am kind and friendly with liberals, because they are otherwise very fragile, thoroughly propagandized and mostly oblivious about what their party is actually up to.)
To the gardening haters, may nature bless you, I believe in fairies. I’m pretty sure too your fairy denying self didn’t do anything like this last week, or any time ever.
Have fun when there are food shortages, which are guaranteed to happen at some point, to the people of an empire and civilization in steep decline, anywhere ever.
To those hostile to occult discussions, God bless you, I am sorry if you have been mislead all your life about the study of the self and the nature of reality. There is more than one way to God.
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What a week, last week! Biden sucked most of the energy out of the world with his vacant stare and incomprehensible rendering of the English language, but the SCOTUS handed down some glorious rulings and one infamous one. The best were the Chevron decision and the ruling on the ill treatment of Jan 06 protestors. The worst was one of the worst ever, all the women of the court coming together with Kavanaugh and Roberts to let the Biden admin and spook state continue to work with social media to censor Americans, just in time for the election. Ms Barret wrote the decision, her conservative self is turning out to be quite the authoritarian, along with the three liberal female justices; she also voted in the dissent in Fischer vs United States, like we should continue to put the screws to Jan 06 protestors.
The Loper Bright/Chevron Doctrine ruling was truly glorious. The Tree of Woe wrote a fine piece describing it and the ramifications in detail. One of the reasons I mentioned I was feeling a bit low in my last post, were the footings I set for the deck I am building. After Chevron, I’m thinking about suing the State of Minnesota Dept of Labor and Industry. See, the International Building Code technocrats say the footings have to be 60in instead of 42”, the State differs to the international technocrats, all based on potential frost depth. But this is glacial drift country, a very thin layer of blackish dirt on top of sand and gravel. Sand and gravel does not hold much water, frost heaving is not really a problem. The rule is unscientific, but with the original Chevron ruling in place, courts had to differ to technocrat “expertise,” I get to rage in my powerlessness to do anything about it, and the cost of building goes up.
After Loper Bright, I can sue the government about their unscientific ruling that adds a thousand dollars to the cost of seven footings, and the courts are allowed to review it and potentially overrule the code. If I lost I would be happy to appeal that all the way to SCOTUS, to force the issue about the constitutional separation of powers.2 Even if I don’t sue, there are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Americans who realize now, they can sue the deep state when they could not before, over bullshit rules unaccountable technocrats write they think you have no right to question.
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Biden. There seems some disagreement among dissidents, to what degree the debate was a set-up? Was the media prepared, speak with one voice to drum up political support to get Biden to concede, reminiscent of the one mind of covid narrative; or was their Trump Derangement Syndrome such that they were genuinely shocked - what was otherwise previously obvious to everyone in the world - how steep his decline is? I tend to think, they don’t need orders necessarily, they have risen in the hierarchy, achieved the relative power they have, because they know how to read the signals of right speech. It is all coding with these people, the language of the global woke technocrats public and private, you speak the language or you don’t. You speak with one voice or you are cast out.
What has changed is, most of the world knew Biden was incompetent, but now the whole world knows the whole world knows Biden is barely in control of himself, to say nothing of empire America.
It hardly matters, the extent of any conspiracy, what matters is what a precarious place the regime has put America in, to maintain their power. DC is as distant from the people of America as any green zone occupier. These are the absolute worst people in America. The question is what will they do to maintain their power?
The empire is running on auto-pilot, ruled by technocrats who are only nominally American, hardly beholden to the Constitution, intolerant about being questioned about anything. The regime does not require a competent Executive, we are in a Constitutional Crisis because the President of the United States is not competent to hold the Office of the Executive. The Office of the Executive has been stage managing a senile, dementia laden President of the United States. That makes only two, supposedly functioning branches of government, the Legislative and Judiciary. Not a legitimate federal quorum, so to speak. Constitutional Crisis.
Not that this government or media care about that. Arguably we have been in such a crisis for two years at least. The Biden Administration has been so radical and so damaging to everything they touch, Biden not really ever in charge of anything, one might make the assumption that we have been in a Constitutional Crisis for four years.
It seems to me they have four options with Biden, they can hope for the best and stay with him as their nominee, they can use digital software and corrupt party officials to outright steal the election, they can remove him legitimately with the 25th Amendment, or they can put Biden down peacefully in his sleep and aim for the sympathy vote, lionize him in memoriam like he was America’s Greatest President. His Admin is cynical enough to put him down like an old dog, but the second option, outright theft, is absolutely worst for this country, if most of the world thinks it was rigged. The least worst option for the country is let him lose, re-focus on destroying Trump, rebuild for 2028, but such is their fear that they might have to answer for their treasonous crimes, they might not be capable of the long game, it seems all or nothing about everything with these people.
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Some of my readers might remember, I planted an orchard last year. I haven’t mentioned it much this year. Spring and summer weather in 2023 was like the exact opposite of this year, winter 2023 lasting until the end of May, then very hot and very dry, whereas 2024 we had a prolonged spring, mostly cool and wet through June.3 We’ve had 14.29 inches of precipitation this year, most of that coming in June.
I planted more trees this year, they are thriving compared to the condition of the trees I planted last year were at this time. I have only watered twice this year, early after planting. Plants respond better to rain water than they do well or city water, no question. All the trees have a lot of fresh growth on them this year. The peaches and apricots I planted last year did not fare well though. I planted about a dozen peaches and two apricots, only three peach grafts survived, and only one of those looks even as good as shortly after I planted last year. This is also about as far north as anyone has tried to raise peaches and apricots. There was not any insulating snow cover last winter, either.
One of the better looking, surviving graft peaches. There were actually 6 peaches on it, but I pulled them off to encourage root and branch growth.
Only one of the peaches actually died outright. Most of the peaches and apricots, it was the graft that died not the root base. The Lovell root bases are sprouting vigorously. Many of the peaches, apricots, plums and cherries - stone fruits - grown in America are grown from a peach root base called Lovell. Whether or not the Lovell can survive this far north above ground, we will find out in coming springs. Having a bunch of productive Lovell peach trees would be OK too, it is not a great fresh eating peach, but good for drying and canning. I would also have a steady supply of stones to grow new Lovell trees, and root bases to grow plums, apricots, cherries and different kinds of peaches, from cuttings I take from trees successfully grown here or locally.
The dead peach graft leans left, the Lovell root base sprout is light green leaning right.
Otherwise, there is one apple on one of the apple trees, and one plum. Strawberries, a few sour cherries, some raspberries and service/June berries. It is looking a little more like an orchard.
Squint close and you might see the one apple, lower right.
The trees are just taller than the grasses and wildflowers this very wet spring and early summer.
New growth on a Perry pear I planted this year. Perry, as in pears especially for wine making.
The one plum.
Strawberries.
You can kind of see the alley of strawberry plants through the prairie. I do a good job keeping weeds out of the patch, not so good keeping them away from the patch. This is the second pick, a little less than the first, as the last week has been wet and cool, strawberries preferring wet and hot.
Service/June berries
Raspberries.
Sour cherries.
A very happy Asian Shinko pear. Few in America have had an Asian pear right from a tree; store-bought are no comparison. I had one Shinto variety in my city food forest. It was my favorite fruit tree after the peaches.
No bear damage yet, but there have been a lot more sightings of bears in recent years, regionally.
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I turn 51 on July 4th, when Born on the Fourth of July substack turns two. I feel quite good and grateful, for my health especially, that I can still play with the 35yr and older team, even after 25 years not playing baseball (there is a 50 and older team in this town, but that is a lot less competitive.) As a catcher I can still command a game, the pitchers very much appreciate my presence behind the plate. I still have something of a “rocket” to second base. My hitting and base running and basic baseball smarts have not been very great. Obviously I am not the player I once was, but it has been fun playing competitive sports with other men again.
As to the future of this substack, I don’t expect to be a major player necessarily, not unless I start publishing books, or start organizing in some way locally that is successful and interesting. I’m not trying to be a major player. I will continue to write about the collapse of American empire and the West, about self-sufficiency, relocalization, about growing vegetables and fruit trees. I expect to dive deeper into the esotere, to help give context to the changes society is going through, to help my readers manage.
Thank you very much for reading. It is an honor to write for you, to be a leader that way. I wish you and yours all that is good, true and beautiful. For you, to believe in yourself, to follow your instincts and intuition, to achieve the life you want for yourself, to find the freedom that is your birthright.
Blessings this Independence Day.
When I started writing this post, I had 972 subscribers. The second day I had to change it to 971, but later that day I was able to change it back to 972, lol, kek. Then right after I scheduled this to be published, 973!
From the Tree of Woe post about the Chevron ruling: “Chevron was only overturned because it was in contradiction to the APA [Administrative Procedure Act]. But the APA is just a Congressional statute. If the Democrats were to re-take the Senate and the House, they could simply amend the APA to bring back the Chevron Doctrine. Then SCOTUS would have to decide whether such a revised APA was an unconstitutional violation of powers, which it avoided doing this time around.
“Had SCOTUS accepted Justice Thomas’s reasoning and ruled that the Chevron Doctrine was unconstitutional, that would have made Loper Bright much more secure. But it didn’t. So as it stands, we’ve simply moved the battlefield over Chevron from the Courts to the Congress.”
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring piece, arguing the constitutional principal, as a benchmark should this case have to be revisited.
In Minnesota the weather has been quite chaotic year to year since 2012, roughly. That is the year I started noticing too a distinct decline in pollinators. I am here in part to remind you, much of the chaos in the weather is like a mirror for the chaos in society, globally. Much of the madness of the West especially but not exclusively, is about how thoroughly we have separated ourselves from the rhythms of the earth. That is a fundamental human problem these days. If we want to return order to society we would do well to make right our relationship to the earth. I am not particularly optimistic about society doing that, but that is much what this substack is (theoretically) about, how to go about that at the personal and local level.
I'm 12 miles in a 18 mile canoe trip, through 12 lakes. Thanks everybody!
Thank you William. I am glad you are writing. I enjoy your writing, your humor/satire. I love the pictures of your garden. It makes me happy to hear that other, over 40 people are taking care of themselves, unlike most of America.
A few years ago I planted four service berries on the street side of my fence for the birds. I love to hear the cedar wax wings in the trees. I enjoy eating a few myself. One of the four is already about 15 feet tall. I also planted a lot of native plants with the trees. The bird life in my yard, here in Gresham, a suburb of Portland, has increased significantly. It is wonderful to wake to their singing.
Happy Birthday William!