Hardscrabble Farmer’s transformation. We can become whoever we choose to be.
When I joined the Army in the last years of the Carter administration I didn’t even have my own pair of shoes. True story. i don’t remember the exact dollar figure, but the monthly take home pay was about $400. I became a paratrooper because that meant an extra $80 per month.
By the time I got out in my early 20′s I already owned my first house and a small truck I paid for cash. I started doing HUD house remodels in the worst parts of town for the worst kinds of people working longer hours than I did as an infantryman, but I kept at it. By the time I was in my late 20′s I was building multi-million dollar bus washes for SEPTA, Wawa markets in under 90 days, Ford dealerships and that kind of thing. There was no nepotism, no bankrolling rich uncle, just hard work, long hours and determination. I was also alone- no wife, no kids, no dog, no fancy car, no wild parties. Then, by accident I drifted into stand up comedy as a hobby- open mic nights, that kind of thing. Before long I was doing road gigs and after a year I was full time at clubs and colleges all over the country as they say. I lived an even more spartan existence then, living out of the trunk of my car. Every night I wasn’t given a hotel room by the venue, I camped in State parks, in empty fields, wherever I found myself. Somewhere along the way I picked up a dog, then a girlfriend who I later married and at the peak of my career our first child came along and I quit and started all over again.
Not long after 9/11 I had become a typical pillar of the community type in my hometown. I was active in my church, spent my free time with my family, participated in local politics and had a seemingly perfect life except for one thing- I knew that something was wrong.
I saw what the military did first hand in places like Granada, El Salvador and Panama, but I kept my mouth shut.
I saw what the big government agencies like HUD did with taxpayers money and who they funneled it to, but I kept my mouth shut.
I watched my country transform itself from thousands of small towns and dozens of unique regions into one size fits all corporatized McBox stores from one end of this country to the other, but I kept my mouth shut unless I was on stage and then only for the laughs.
I watched my hometown church, the one my great-great grandfather built being turned into a nanny-nanny feel good social hall where nothing that was said ever really sounded like it meant anything. No one was to be judged, nothing was sacred, everything was forgiven.
I knew my way around the Internet since I had won a Compaq laptop and a lifetime subscription to Prodigy in the first Colorado Comedy Competition in ’94 and so I started to write a series of essays about what I had kept shut up about for so long. I was honest, I wrote what I had seen and what I saw and I used my own name. The articles got around, and soon the media got wind of them and the gates of hell opened beneath me.
If you’ve never been doxed, never had your face on the front page of the newspaper, never been called a nazi and a racist, a homophobe and a misogynist by the NYT let me tell you it’s an experience. People I had known my entire life, folks who sat next to me in the pews at church, other town councilmen, neighbors, but mostly people who didn’t have the first clue about me or my life, how I lived or what I experienced couldn’t STFU about me. There were threats- of course- but worse than those were the shunnings- just like something from the 17th century. I understand the term witch hunt more than you can imagine and believe me it changed my frame.
The shock wears off. New stories come along, we were a little too sympathetic to demonize for long- I was a deacon in the church who spent most of my free time working with a group home of mentally challenged men. I was a decorated combat vet with no criminal record. I had a beautiful wife and family, had made my way in the world on my own for my entire adult life, wrote pieces that for all their politically incorrect observations about the decline of America were at their core not much different from the pieces you call fiction on this website. My great faults were that didn’t walk in lockstep on issues of race and immigration. I thought our foreign entanglements, particularly in the middle east, were a mistake- just like Washington (the man) had warned us. That Iraq was based on a lie, that 9/11 probably was too. That families can’t be “redefined”, that degeneracy was a bad thing for the long term prospects of a stable society, that corruption at the highest levels was endemic to political elites, not certain parties and that our entire economic structure was a sham.
So I left politics on the local level and quit believing it on any level. The press left me alone- since I was a private citizen and since they couldn’t find a single human being I had ever wronged regardless of race or gender orientation- and I returned to obscurity.
But I wanted out.
So we kept working, kept saving, had more children, remained loyal to each other and to those friends and neighbors who had stood beside us and we planned to make our exit from the rat race. I never wanted to be put in the position of depending upon anything else but our own hard work, good relations and basic human decency. I sure as hell wasn’t angry any longer- a good lot that had done for me- and I owed it to my wife and my family to start looking at the world that was a little less Matrix and a lot more Waltons. I researched aquaculture, permaculture, soil studies and water quality tables. I read the entire section on farming and agriculture at our local library and started composting. Our garden expanded and so did our base of knowledge. I began to accumulate old hand tools and seeds, and just as it looked like our plan to exit the rat race was at hand my mother died of cancer. It took only 11 days from diagnosis to deathbed and I watched every single minute. I have always been close to my family and they raised me in a way I hope I have raised my own children, to be honest, to do what is right, to be true to yourself and to rely on your own skills and resources rather than to beg or to live in debt. My mother loved me, no question, but she loved my children even more and when she died she left us everything she had and after we mourned we took that plus everything we had saved through a lifetime of our own efforts and bought the farm, free and clear.
So that’s the story.
It isn’t fiction and neither is anything I have written thus far. It’s my story, my hours, my days, my life in my words. I have no regrets about anything I wrote in the past, make no apologies for any friendships or associations, I owe no explanations for my choices, make no boasts of my accomplishments. I have made as many mistakes as I have wise choices, but I have learned from every single one. What we do now, every day of our lives is to make this world better for our passing through. The old gripes are gone because I know better than to rage against the dying of the light. I’ve read Spengler and I think he was optimistic. People live and die and so do civilizations and if I have learned anything as a farmer its how to spot terminal conditions in living organisms.
When we came here we left a lot behind- the town my family founded over three hundred years ago, the friendships we had built over a lifetime, the home we built ourselves. But other people give up more than that and start over with less. I have become a competent farmer because this is what I want to do with the time I have remaining even if it ends tomorrow, which it could. I have been loyal as a husband because I have a wife who has proven her loyalty to me and it has been a blessing. I am dedicated to the raising of honorable children because they will be here after I am gone and I want people to depend on them the way they depend on me. I am open to discuss anything anyone wants to talk about and to say nothing about anything they want to avoid because I know what it feels like to be made to feel unwelcome and unwanted and I wouldn’t want that for anyone. I can’t keep people who don’t know me from calling me names I don’t call myself, but that doesn’t mean I have to do the same in return. Turning the other cheek isn’t a form of self-punishment, it’s a cure.
So I will continue to comment about the few things I know when I think I can add a perspective about how I live my life. I don’t expect to inspire anyone to do anything they wouldn’t do on their own, but I do mean to encourage them to do what they want because they can. This world may be in collapse, but that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to build something while we’re here. Everyone can make a commitment to produce more than they consume, love more than they hate, live more than they work towards death.
My life is not a work of fiction.
You are a living example of what an honorable man is, Hardscrabble. Very well written story of your adult life, and an inspiration to the rest of us. You should write a book expanding on this post.
HF
If you weren’t already working 18 hours per day, I’d encourage you to write a book. You are a born inspirational story teller.
You forgot to mention you opened for George Carlin, the patron saint of TBP, for two years when you were a comic.
Your insight and comments are a blessing and an inspiration. Even for a miserable old boomer like me. Please don’t stop!
Thank you for sharing this HSF (and I concur with the above), you touch my heart with your writing, your life.
“…had a seemingly perfect life except for one thing- I knew that something was wrong…”
For me this felt like living under a dangling anvil. I’ve always felt that way – I come from a family of pessimists – and over the growth of my career and life it just seemed to grow larger, and become more concrete.
“…This world may be in collapse, but that doesn’t mean we can’t continue to build something while we’re here. Everyone can make a commitment to produce more than they consume, love more than they hate, live more than they work towards death….”
Your words continuously inspire and I feel very privileged to experience them. Thank you.
I knew I liked Hardscrabble for a reason… now I find out he was a fellow Sky Soldier about 10 years before I started throwing my butt out of perfectly good airplanes…
His path isn’t my path, but we’re probably eaten the same dirt, and they do rhyme.
He camped out in State parks. I had enough scraped together to rent a tiny apartment, but my only furniture was a green Army cot I “liberated”, a sturdy cardboard box flipped upsidown as a night stand and an old wind-up alarm clock.
He did the comedy circuit. I went back to University.
He grew disillusioned and kept his mouth shut. Same here.
He was active in his church. Sick of the hypocrisy, I withdrew from mine.
He was denounced as a racist and excoriated for speaking the truth. Same here, but on a much smaller scale.
We both ended up on farms by choice and probably for similar reasons. I acquired ours because I wanted to withdraw from the wider world and was still in “I hate everyone” mode. He bought his outright. We’re still paying ours down.
I’m not as eloquent as he is and yes, I still rage at the dying of the last pale light in the West. It might be a fool’s errand, but I’m trying to create my own little Skellig Michael.
(For those of you who do not know of this place, it was an Irish Monastery on an island about 7 or 8 miles off the coast of Ireland. It was considered so marginal, no invading army ever bothered to conquer it.
It was, however, Western Civilization’s most precious possession.
It is not widely known, but the monks of Skellig Michael worked to collect and preserve the written works of the ancients during the bleakest days of the Dark Ages, when the candle of the West guttered it’s lowest and books were being burned for warmth or for heresy instead of being read. Almost singlehandedly and in secret, for generations they preserved the most important works of antiquity.
And when the West was ready, they gave it all back.)
I don’t presume to be as devout as those men. But I can do my best to try and preserve the best of our civilization. Even try to keep Western Civilization going, albeit in miniature… we might be going down, but I’m going to save some small part of it before we’re all resigned to the history books…
So, keep on keeping on Hardscrabble… you’re respected and appreciated…
Great story thanks for sharing
Thanks for posting & writing this one.
HF,
We celebrated my son’s 3rd birthday yesterday and my resolution after spending an awesome day with him and my wife was to focus more on the good than the bad.
You’re an inspiration, much thanks for sharing.
If there are any clips of your stand-up I would love to hear them.
harry p.
Great story, especially since its the truth. I can sure relate about the ‘shunning’ – I’ve lost a few relationships that don’t fit the others narrative, but no matter, it wasn’t meant to be and besides, I’ve gained a few that are real and unpretentious. Every once in a while its nice to read somebody else’s story and see similarities, and when it comes from a good place, its very reassuring. Keep writing.
George Carlin, “patron saint?”. Admin, nobody ever before claimed that
George was a saint, I’m sure.
But he sure represents the attitudes of the shit throwing monkeys that inhabit our little corner of the internet. And hardscrabble represents what we would aspire to be.
I’ll admit it, at first I really wanted to know who H/S is. Thought about it and decided I really don’t care – I enjoy the writings and while I’m not living my life to be like him or you, I take what I like from these posts and apply it to mine and for that alone I feel amply rewarded and grateful…..so, keep writing H/S!
Hey Hardscrabble… remember this?
Standing on the cables… sweeping fucking rocks… the gig pit… them fuckin’ pullups… doing PLF’s till your bones ached… the swing landing trainer… mockup C130’s (I had berm duty afterwards.. 🙂 )… Ungawa towers… and gawd help you if you got caught wearing a watch…
Hope these pictures fly…
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Is it possible to get a hold of Mr. Hardscrabble Farmer?
Your story is amazing. Inspiring.
I am plotting my own way out, and I could use a bit of advice…
Best,
Publius
@HSF: Thank you for yet another insight filled post. I wish I had you for a neighbor..
MA
Publius
The website for his farm has his contact info.
http://www.newburyfarmer.com/
It is somehow possible to recognize true words, even though they be on the internet. Garrison Keillor is an awful liberal, but a perceptive man still, and one of his lines is that farmers are the most competent people. Sometimes i get out of town and behold the small farms still around, south the River, and wonder, Who are these people and how in hell do they find the time to keep up their lawns?
Much respect, Hardscrabble, but truth be told, i could never picture you as a comedian.
I used to want to escape to the country, but instead have found a garden, now in its eleventh year (eleventh hour?), expanded each season to take up half the back yard of a quarter acre, and it has taken this long to begin to look like i wanted. If 20 years ago someone told me that fresh tomatoes would be the highlight of summer, i would have been consterned or confused, or disappointed … but so it goes. It is not so bad, and it is a point of pride that they are seven feet in the air and visible over the fence.
That’s an interesting and remarkable Horatio Alger story.
It does explain how HF could afford to buy a $1M+ Doomstead in New Hampshire free & clear of mortgage.
Now, onto Farm Economics. What is the Farm-only revenue for the organic meats and veggies produced? What are the expenses? Taxes, maintenance etc.? How much diesel fuel is purchased each year to run the tractors etc? Is all the equipment also owned free and clear of loans?
RE
RE
Why don’t you regale us with your own Doom Economics. How much did you pay for your log mansion on the lake? How much did your Wall Street daddy leave you in the will? How much did mommy leave you when she croaked?
What is your annual income? Still “teaching” children survival skills, like how to order a burger at a diner?
Inquiring minds want to know how you make a living. You aren’t a blood sucking member of the FSA, are you?
I want to emulate your life. So please spell out your economics. As a Doomer, you seem to be evasive about your own financial situation. Why?
You can’t emulate my lifestyle, to do so you would have to have lived my life. Just as to emulate HFs, you would have had to lived his, done well on the comedy circuit etc.
Far as my own financial situation, it is comfortable, I have a job, I have money in the bank and I have no debts. I spend less than I earn. This works financially generally speaking.
RE
What’s your job?
A true doomer with money in the bank???? WTF dude. Don’t you read your own bullshit?
Did you sell your van Gogh?
Do you grow your own food?
How much livestock are you raising?
Do you scorn all self made men who actually work hard and provide for their families?
It’s a Picasso, not a Van Gogh. 😛
I don’t raise food, I fish for it as you well know. I also buy GMO foods at Safeway too.
I don’t scorn HF, he’s doing a great job overall here, but it definitely was expensive to set up.
RE
Admin @ RE, 3:11 pm above
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@SSS
To quote George Carlin, “It’s a Dream because you would have to be asleep to believe it” 😀
RE
People who are born on third base and think they hit a triple annoy me.
I’d rather associate with and try to emulate people who worked hard, struggled, sacrificed, and succeeded due to their own efforts.
I know which person would help a stranger when TSHTF.
The trick here is to try to help people BEFORE TSHTF.
http://SUN4Living.com
When & After TSHTF, helping people will be substantially more difficult.
RE
How many fake names do you have Ralph Emerson?
So your job is selling overpriced doom shit on the internet?
Admin – for fuck sake, remember the story of the scorpion and the frog? You knew what Rae was before you picked him up. He has always been thus.
He starts each article he posts here starts with around 8 links to his websites. He uses TBP for free marketing.
When he used to post here without his own site, he would crap on TBP at every chance, then scream blue murder you were censoring him. And now he freely admits he censors his site by moving comments he does not like to a dead zone so no one will see them
He has always been full of shit.
You have been most benevolent toward him. But he is a total asshole and always will be.
I got about half a dozen RE Anons 🙂
Rogue Economist, Reverse Engineer, Ralph Emerson, Roger Ebert, Retrograde Existentialist, Renewable Energy… 😀
Speaking of SELLING, whose Doom Website is plastered with Ads for Babes, MREs, Gold, Heirloom Seeds….check the right hand menu bar here. LOL.
RE
RE said:
“My point is that to emulate HFs situation, it takes a good deal of money to do so.”
You have to start from a point of honor and integrity. Charging your college tuition to a credit card so you could intentionally default on that debt and force others to pay for it while you reap the benefits is not a position of honor or integrity. Without this starting point it is impossible to emulate, understand or even appreciate HSF’s “situation”.
Hardscrabble has made an amazing change of lifestyle. It seems to suit him very well.
I would be very interested to know how he plans to address the bane of farmers in the coming decades. Specifically, farmers have been ripped asunder by inheritance issues, and the inability of small farms (large farms oft become small farms via inheritance through the generations) to support several generations of families at the same time. I also see as an issue how folks following his system will address costs of educating their kids through college.
These are serious issues that farmers face every day and every generation. Any insight would be most appreciated, as these issues have damaged farmers considerably in recent decades.
All the best, Hardscrabble.
” And now he freely admits he censors his site by moving comments he does not like to a dead zone so no one will see them”LLPOH
You read the Diner Commentary! LOL.
Thank you for your Page Hits. 😀
RE
I am not aware of Admin using any one else’s site to sell goods. rE does it habitually.
I love how RE is proud of what most consider unethical behavior. It is appalling.
Actually, no I do not. You owned up to that shit here. Page hits – what a joke. Faux masturbation for you, RE?
Admin, etc…
I know my situation isn’t the same as HF’s, but I offer it as an example. If it matters… I’ll try to keep it short.
The wife and I lived in a small apartment after I was separated from the military. I was attending UK and studying Mechanical Engineering. Then reality set in: When I graduate, I would have been in my late 30’s. What company in their right mind would hire me, some busted up ex-soldier with just a bachelor’s in M.E.? I would be in my late 30’s, as opposed to some young hotshot in their early 20’s and no baggage. A bachelor’s in M.E., but to make good money, you need to have your P.E., and I’ve seen guys take their P.E. – they take in piles of books on two wheeled hand trucks just to have a shot at passing it. It would take me years to get that far and there’s really no place for an M.E. in Kentucky. We’re agrarian, not industrial. It would mean relocating. Not again, sorry.
So, the wife and I talked and I had a Come to Jesus moment – I already had my service-connected disability and we could use that to leverage someplace to live, far from the shithole we were currently living in (which was okay when we moved there, but half the place went Sect. 8 and then it went to hell). I wasn’t a full-fledged Doomer at this point, but close enough.
We saved what we could for 7 years, but the stupid housing bubble kept everything out of reach. When the bottom fell out of the housing market and it tanked, we waited a few months for it to shake out, then went looking for someplace. It took awhile – several more months – but we found this little farm.
It was an old tobacco farm turned horse farm. It was run down. It was overgrazed. It needed a shitpot full of work. But it was well off the beaten trail, had it’s own dedicated water supply on the property, good ground and had potential. The owners were in arrears and were in the middle of a divorce, so we did okay on the price. About 150K for the farm, the house, the barn and outbuildings – about 10 acres total and the interest rate is ridiculously low.
We worked like dogs for 3 months, rehabbing the house. Every room got a facelift. I personally pulled almost 50 nails out of the walls where previous owners had hung stuff, then instead of removing the nails, they just drove them flush and painted over them. I became adept at plastering, sanding and painting.
The day before we were going to move in, in the deeps of winter, we had a pipe blow. The water flooded the upstairs bathroom, the den below it and then the water drained down into the basement. When I got to the house, the den ceiling had collapsed, the hardwood floors were ruined and there was 6 inches of standing water in the basement…
Another month of repairs – and a lot of copper pipe – later, we moved in. Heating the house was a nightmare. Natural gas was just hitting 4 dollars a gallon and we were going through $1500 in natural gas every 3 months or so. Won’t go into the gory details, but we scraped together enough for a high-efficiency heat pump and dumped the gas burner.
We made a list of the things the farm needed (and some still in need). First was new fencing. The old fencing was so rotten, you could push it over with two fingers. We saved a year, then had all new fencing put in – perimeter, gates and a fence bisecting the property. One of the outbuildings was an old chicken coop. It was wormy, rotten and riddled with termites. We didn’t have a tractor, so I hooked a tow strap up to the Blazer and pulled it down with that. We piled up the old wood in the east field and burned it. Our neighbor across the road owned a bulldozer and was nice enough to ‘doze the old concrete slab.
We bought an old tractor our second year. A 1947 Ford 8N. Paid $2500 for it and even talked the guy into dropping it off here at the farm. He had an old bush hog he let go for another $500. It serves it’s purpose.
One of the pastures – the one directly west of the house – we reclaimed. It was just dirt and weeds, so 4+ years down the road, it’s now a nice field and filled with fruit and nut trees. The holes we originally dug with pioneer tools. The second wave of trees we planted with a ground auger hooked to the old tractor, but cooked the points doing it. Replacing the points took another 200-some dollars.
We usually keep about 50 gallons of fuel on hand at any given time. On the list is a 55 gallon drum of kerosene. That will be about $350 bucks or so, delivered. We keep a small amount of diesel on hand as well – at least 5 gallons.
We currently have a trade agreement with another farmer down the road from us – because the first storm of the Spring this year blew off about half the east side of the barn’s roof, there was no way we could put livestock in it – it’s not structurally sound. So, no livestock this year. Our agreement is that our neighbor down the road can run his cattle on our land and use our water, so long as he looks after the cattle (like, if they get sick or something), mows the fields from time to time and provides us a certain amount of meat from one of the cows when they’re slaughtered. Next year, when the barn is squared away, we’re going to purchase our own stock (the $$$ saved for our own stock this year – about $4500 dollars – will go to pay for the OTHER side of the barn roof, since the insurance company will only pay for one side of the barn roof – the side that was blown away. Honestly, what the hell am I gonna do with HALF of a roof? Might as well have the contractor replace the sheeting on the other side while I got them here…)
When we buy stuff, we usually buy used if we can help it. There’s folks all over here who have little yard sales all the time, and every Friday at 5:30 PM, there’s an auction down in town. Usually farm implements, hand tools, sometimes big stuff like tractors, etc, – all sorts of stuff needed to run a farm. Example: Guy down the road – Cecil – he’s in his 80’s and finally cashing out. Had a yard sale and I scored 4 axes – one standard single bladed felling axe, one double bladed felling axe and two double bladed cruiser axes. The wife scored two hoes – one big, one small, and a Disston manual hedge trimmer. Everything was 5 bucks apiece. They need some TLC, but they’re still serviceable..
When we have to buy, we buy the best we can afford, but pay the least we can get away with. Only buy “new” when you absolutely have to. It helps to have a good book-keeper, and the wife is a book-keeper. No way in hell would we have this farm if she wasn’t such a wiz with accounting… that’s the upside. The downside is that with her in charge of the finances (since I know I stink at finances and I put her in charge of them) is that every time I want to spend any money, I have to go to her, hat in hand…
Other than my service-connected disability, there’s my wife’s income. She works. Won’t say where or for how much, but our combined income is about 60K a year. Then there’s incidentals, like custom work I do for folks or things I make for the re-enactors (Indian Wars, Rev War, Civil War, etc)… I have some skills and I put them to good use. Leatherworking, leather carving, I have a guy who buys handmade candles from me and that’s always good for an extra couple hundred dollars a year, and other things…
On the farm, it’s All Hands On Deck. Everyone has their assigned duties.
Bottom line is you do what you have to do to get by. You need to be as frugal as possible (if you’re not a trust fund baby, that is), make what you can around the house and if it serves no purpose on the farm, then it goes away. Ornamental trees? Sorry. Replace them with fruit or nut trees, white oaks (deer love white oak acorns. Growing a few is a guaranteed way to get them to show up on your property… venison plays a big part in our diet) or maples of some type (squirrels)…
We get by. We’re not rich, but we’re not destitute. We don’t keep much money in the bank because frankly, I don’t trust them one damn bit. We sink a goodly amount into 3 dimensional assets – food, ammo, hardware (bags of nails, screws, etc), tools, spare parts, fuel, all sorts of stuff…
If I can ever get a shop built – a proper shop with a poured concrete floor, surface grinder, J1 Bridgeport mill, a South Bend geared head engine lathe, drill press, etc, I can hang out a shingle and start doing some good work instead of this piecemeal stuff… be a genuine asset to the community. If you’ve got a working example, blueprints or even a photograph of something, then I can make it. Be nice to get elbow deep in chips again…
Anyways, that’s it.. it’s a frugal life, but I think we’ve built a good one here… if we can get a well drilled, a couple windmills up (mechanical aerator for the pond = FISH!!) and a small greenhouse, we’d be all set…
I think that RE makes a valid point, in his own way, even though he’s being a total douche about it.
Here’s the point I takeaway from RE. This may or may not be the point he’s trying to make. The financial picture of a farm/homestead ARE very important. I discussed this issue with HSF when I called him to discuss buying some maple syrup from him.
My current situation is that I’m a rank-and-file W2 earner in a mid-level supervisory position. Just like millions of other Americans. We’ve done some dumb stuff financially in the last few years, and have accumulated a stupid amount of consumer debt. We have a minimal amount in savings. I think that’s pretty typical for most Americans.
So, the question becomes: How do I make the leap from the chains of slavery of having a J-O-B to begin living my dream of a producing farmstead/permaculture school? My wife is terrified of the idea of being poor, which, arguably, we are right now.
How do I outright purchase or get a mortgage on a piece of property in the country and then make the payments if I quit my primary source of income? I’d love to sell fresh oregano & goat cheese made locally & organically, but can that really replace my income and pay for the land?
The numbers DO matter. And, the emotions that tie into the numbers matter, also. I’m at a place in my life where I’m ready to say “Fuck It” and jump in with both feet and make it work through the sweat of my brow. (See post entitled: Most men live lives of quiet desperation.) But that would probably cost me my marriage.
Our current plan is that we’ve cut our budget down to the bare bones, and anything not mandatory goes to debt and savings. THAT in itself caused a huge fight. It’s difficult to implement new patterns of behavior based on existing patterns and again, the emotions that underlie that.
I’m also trying to develop an online business model with the help of a mentor. I don’t know if it will work, exactly, but I’m at a point where I’m willing to try anything.
When I discussed this with HSF, he responded that you have to just do it. You have to just jump off the ledge and make it happen. He also implied that at 43 years old, I should have something saved up for just this occasion. (These are my summary of our conversation, HSF. If I’ve got it wrong what you said to me, you can clarify.) When he said that, I was too ashamed to mention how badly we’ve fucked-up recently, because I KNOW that debt is financial cancer. I know that, and I fucked up anyway. So I DON’T have the means to just jump off the cliff. (Again, my words, not HSF)
So, what do I do? Or, larger: What do any of us do? What ARE the finances of buying and getting a working farm going? If I quit my job and rely on bee honey and fresh beef for sale, how do I have the money to make repairs on the barbed wire fence?
And again, to come back to relationships: I’m at a totally different place than my wife, because I’ve spent an exponential amount more research on the doom than she has. I don’t really give a shit anymore. I’m not lazy and I’m not stupid, and if I’ve got some cows and a garden, I can at least eat. And I can catch catfish, for crying out loud! My wife wants a little firmer plan than that. And I don’t have the resources or the business savvy to lay it all out for her in a way that calms her “security gland” down. This whole talk of venturing out into the unknown scares her shitless.
Now, look: I’ve painted a bunch of this diatribe as a rant against my wife, and that’s not fair. She just needs to know she’ll be taken care of, and I haven’t described my plan in any kind of way that makes her feel safe. Also, there’s the issue that I haven’t lived up to my role as leader of our household, which goes back to the debt and spending issue. So there’s all kinds of complex issues rolling around in the nutshell of the money of the thing.
RE, albeit in a passive-aggressive manner, asks HSF a good question that any of us desiring to make a change can benefit from HSF’s experience: What are the financial decisions to making such a leap? How do we do it? How can I make this work? For me, AND for my family? How soon until I can start generating income from this place? How can I maximize my profits while still giving a fair value?
Money in our world is ultimately a fool’s game, in that, it has no eternal value. But let’s face it, money IS the force that makes this world go ‘round. We have to learn how to work within the parameters of the system. I can’t buy a farm with my good looks.
Very inspiring
Nice read, Billy. You posted yours just as I was typing mine out. Gives me hope.
llpoh said:
“I would be very interested to know how he plans to address the bane of farmers in the coming decades. Specifically, farmers have been ripped asunder by inheritance issues, and the inability of small farms (large farms oft become small farms via inheritance through the generations) to support several generations of families at the same time. I also see as an issue how folks following his system will address costs of educating their kids through college.”
I’m no expert on the subject by any means but would establishing a living/family trust help? My wife and I just finished establishing a living trust. Our goals were pretty simple but it seems to meet all our needs. The 1% use trusts to accomplish more elaborate goals than we have.
Damn ,all you guys including RE are way ahead of me.I don’t know the first thing about farming or how to live off the land.Maybe because I have never owned a big piece of land .I own a house with a lot .That’s it .I can hunt and fish but I have no real survival skills. No real mechanical knowledge. Don’t have enough money to move to another country besides my mom would never leave.Could sell the house and head for the mountains but then what ? Kinda scared of what I might become. I still have my M1a ,my Colt 45.and my body armor.I pray the central bankers can keep this economy from collapsing at least for a few more years . Reading about you guys makes me realize how unprepared I really am.
IS – even with a trust, the issue remains. The asset is a farm. The issues become who controls the asset, how are any profits or resources distributed, etc. The demands on the asset are or can be substantial.
Re the 1 percent, those megatrusts often spin enough money to allow the beneficiaries to live off the trust income, so then the issue becomes how to manage the assets as opposed to how to deal with the fact not enough money is generated to allow the beneficiaries to live.
Recently, what I have been reading is that it is best to leave smallish farms to one child. This causes a lot of bad feelings, but it is considered to have the best chance of keeping the farm intact.
It is a real problem..
Tim – seems to me you may be looking for instant gratification. Clear your debts, then start smallish would be my advice. You may need to keep a job after you get a farm. Perhaps bare land in a cheaper part of the country would be an option. Or perhaps your wife might work. I am not a pimple on a farmer’s ass, but I do understand goals, thrift, etc.
Carrying a mortgage on a small farm is risky business. A million dollar note would be painful and risky. Plus it would not provide good opportunity to put in the great infrastructure that hardscrabble has done.
You are 43. I suggest you set your sights on being ready perhaps at 53. Save, learn, prepare. Some things take time. The past is the past,but some truths are immutable. Rome was not built in a day, and it takes time to achieve certain goals.
BTW – if you and your wife are not on the same page, and that seems likely, you are most probably screwed re this dream. It will be a hard row to hoe, and both husband and wife will need to be ready to hoe like mad. Your wife sounds unwilling. Not everyone is willing.
Billy add horses to the mix and I live like you, got more land but basically the same deal. When my daddy died all he left me was alone, hard work put my place together. Billy I wish we were neighbors I d throw in with you in a heartbeat.
HSFARMER love your work man. If you don’t write a book you will have failed at life, you have a gift.
Confession time -this is for you RE. I don’t know anyone “personally ” as ready as I am. I can flip a switch and live off the grid at a moments notice. Hell I can put my show on the road with a six hour lead time. 40 foot diesel motor home, four horse all aluminum trailer with truck to pull, another truck and van trailer for provisions. I have more water on my farm than you can believe.
I’ve covered all the bases like a man possessed. But in doing so I spent my children’s childhood, no sports , no after school activitys, it was all work and work some more. I know if I could buy back time we would spend more time at the lake and less time prepping. Now sensetti is trying to make up for time lost. Hey RE fuck all this doom bullshit, drink some beer, make love to a woman, spend time staring at the sun, anything. If you don’t you’ll end up like Robin Williams hanging from a belt over a bedroom door.
To Admin The only reason I hang around this site is my internet friends. I know all about what’s coming who’s pulling the levers of power, Middle East oil, petro dollar etc, etc. I’ve shut down my consumption of doom except TBP. We will drink a beer together one day without a doubt.
Now all I want to know is when Stucky will post again, he such a drama queen.
Like we say down south… Fuck all Y’ all.
HSF: Thank you for this piece. Outstanding (as are your other contributions here.
Billy: Hit the hole, pole man, hit the hole.
One mo thang. I’ve never known times hard enough or a mutha fucka big enough to make me jump out of an air-o-plane. Just sayin
Tim,
I’m glad you still have hope. Now you need to build on that.
I can’t tell you what you want, nor can I tell you how to live your life or run your marriage… that is your purview and I have no place in telling you how to run what’s yours…
However, what needs to happen is that you all need to pay down your debt. What saved us is that I looked at our finances, realized that I didn’t have the chops to deal with it and then delegated authority for my wife to run the finances. We then cut up our credit cards, except for one which we used only at the absolute end of need. My wife was Keeper of the Card.
Any superfluous bullshit went away. No cell phone plans. No iCrap. I have a chump burn phone with like 100 minutes on it and I use it for emergencies only. That’s it. If I NEED something, I have to justify the expenditure to The Finance Minister (the wife) who then looks at our finances and then tells me if we have enough wiggle room to purchase what I need. If I WANT something, then there’s gonna be a wait involved… like, months sometimes.
No cutting edge tech, either. My last laptop? Dude, it was held together with DUCT TAPE. It was slow. It was a real piece of shit. The only reason I got rid of it was because the screen itself actually died. I then went out and (with the okay of the Finance Minister) bought some cheap-assed Toshiba that was on Clearance. That was 4 years ago.
My car? A 1987 Blazer. Seriously. Paid cash for it. Mechanically excellent, but looks kind of like a piece of shit. Got 200,000 miles on it and still going strong. Fuckers are like little tanks and those V6’s don’t give up…
Farm truck? 1973 Ford F250 4×4. Paid cash for it. Working truck and very thirsty, so we only use it for the heavy lifting and hauling around the farm, to and from places like Tractor Supply, Southern States, etc..
We also pay off the credit card balance every month, WITHOUT FAIL. On Day 1 of the new month, our balance is zero. The rules governing card use is “Debit card for groceries and gas. MasterCard for farm purchases.” Other than those, anything I want to buy outside the scope of those rules, I have to get the “okay” to make any purchases.
What you all need to have happen is your own personal Come To Jesus moment… sit down and figure out your needs. That’s one list. The “wants” are the other list and completely superfluous. Get rid of useless “nice to have” bullshit and pare down your expenses to the bare minimum. Pay down your debts till you get to a jumping off point…
Remember: It took us 7 years of saving and shit like eating Ramen noodles… at one point, I had gone 5 years without buying a new pair of bluejeans or a new shirt or stuff like that. Kept patching the old ones and wearing them. When they finally gave out for good, I cut them up and used them for cleaning and oiling rags.
It burns my ass to see members of the Free Shit Army living in Section 8 housing and running around with all sorts of bling… gold necklaces and rings and shit. Then they bitch they got no money. DUMP THE GOLD, YOU STUPID FUCK! If it comes down to “can I afford a nice little farm” and a bunch of shiny, useless bling, go for the farm…
One last thing. Buy and read the book “Ten Acres Enough”. Written in 1864 by Edmund Morris – a guy pretty much in your boat. Had a business that was foundering. In hock to the banks. Got tired of the rat race and just pulled the plug – went Galt before going Galt was cool. Some of the information is obviously dated, but in general, if HE can do it, YOU can do it…
It’s a good starting point. There are other books you will discover along your path… I would advise to start working with your hands. Learn how to use hand tools and build your hand strength. Even going to the local Trade School and taking a few classes on stuff like carpentry will pay big dividends later on… study Ag and learn trees and plants, soils and such… it’s all down at the local library and there for the taking…
Sensetti,
Jumping out of perfectly good planes is just one highly questionable thing in a very long line of highly questionable things I have done in my life… like I said before – I am surprised I am still alive.
Wouldn’t mind throwing in with you all neither…
My next door neighbor, Bobby, wants to sell his place. He’s got about a hundred acres, about a third of which is timber and chock full of white-tails and gobblers… REAL good hunting. I know there has to be at least 40 turkeys living back there. One of his fields is rectangular and over 400 yards long and, rare around here, almost perfectly flat. I call it “The Bowling Alley” and actually put range flags along the fence-line. We did a Marvel Mash-Up and made a hide out of hay bales at one end with a lawn chair behind it. Just set your rifle on the hay pointing downrange, drink coffee and wait for Mr. 8-Pointer to show up for breakfast. Keep your zero at 200 yards and you can hold dead nuts on out to 400. Easy meat. I took two does in 10 seconds there once.
He wants 300K for his place and it’s driving me nuts that I don’t have the coin to purchase it. It’s worth it. Would be a great place to run horses – plenty of water and his property actually butts up against the river, so there’s the possibility of a boat landing and catfish…
With beef cattle so high right now, guys with moderate herds are making a killing. Guy who lives across the road – the guy with the bulldozer? – he just sold 70 head of cattle. 70 head of cattle X $1500 a head = $105,000…. THAT’S a payday! He’s also the hardest working guy I know. He’s either going somewhere, just getting back from somewhere or getting ready to go somewhere.
Making a living in the sticks isn’t easy, but it’s very doable. Probably why we ain’t got no fucking Free Shitters out here… you don’t work, you don’t eat.
@ bb
Taking care of your Mama – taking care of any of your kin – is admirable and honorable. We recently made the offer to my own Mama that she should sell that boat anchor of a house for whatever she can get for it – just dump it – take whatever proceeds she gets and then she can move in with us. She took care of everyone and did for everyone else her whole life. Now that Daddy is gone, it’s time for others to do for her. I owe her that much.
Farming ain’t easy – it’s a steep learning curve – but if I can learn how to do it after bumble-fucking around out here, then you can. One thing is that your neighbors are an asset – a reservoir of knowledge. First thing I did was hook up with my neighbors and beg them to teach me what they know about farming. Chances are, they’ll be more than happy to help you…
Billy – your advice/comments to Tim are very sound. By what he said, his biggest obstacle will be to get his wife to buy into the dream Yours did. Mine has always been a real support to me, and never ever wanted to live beyond our means – she was always happy to put off gratification in order to secure a better future. A helpmate is critical in these things.
I would be very surprised if you spent the next 10 years paying down debt and saving your pennies that whatever you manage to save will be worth anything at that time.
This was a strategy that worked during the early and middle years of the Ponzi, it is unlikely to work now.
Individual Farms are goners once TSHTF, they’ll be taken over by the local military/police in any populated zones, which is just about everywhere on the East Coast.
You have to develop cooperative communities in low population zones for any chance after TSHTF.
RE
Hardscrabble has done much of what I hope to do/am doing. The basic difference is that he is running his farm as a commercial enterprise, while I have no such intentions – I intend to be relatively self-sufficient, but do not want the aggravation of running it as a business.
His farm and mine are roughly the same size. I have a couple of million gallons of water in dams on mine- sufficient for any crops/animal raising that I need. We are busy planning the farm out now – water distribution, location of trees for firewood, fruit trees, and cropping areas. Much of this is due to go in next spring.The land has firewood trees already, but I need to get a system in place for continued replacement. We are looking for coppicing trees – ie trees that will regrow from the stump when the tree is harvested.
Re his solar – by the look of it, ours will be similar in size. (I am no doubt far too energy hungry.) Re wind power – I do not have sufficient average wind to make it viable.
The fact is, if grid connection is available, solar power does not currently make great economic sense – quite the contrary. If a person wants to go off grid, the costs skyrocket, and the payback is abysmal, owing largely to the cost of batteries. There is some hope the new Tesla initiatives may address this. Wind power has many drawbacks relative t solar – it is suitable to only relatively high wind areas, to be most effective the turbines need to be mounted well above the tree lines, they require a lot of maintenance, and they are noisy by and large.
Generally, solar is a better option. (But solar does not work at night!) Generally, solar plus batteries is the way to go, in my opinion. Again, it does not make economic sense – but if you want to give the finger to the grid, it does provide that opportunity. Solar panels are good for around 25 years, batteries, if treated properly for around 10 – and they are very expensive to replace.
My home is of a far different design than his. Ours is much more modern in design. The house is very high efficiency. Heat will be from wood and heat pump – the climate is much less severe than where Hardscrabble is – heat pumps would struggle/fail in the extreme cold of NH. Calculations indicate there should be no need for cooling, which will be a very big plus. The home is now well underway, which is very pleasing.
Re costs – the cost of a farm with amenities is/ can be expensive. There is no doubt about it. To be a gentleman farmer with good infrastructure is very expensive indeed (not suggesting that label applies to Hardscrabble, but it does largely to me).
A good solar system with batteries will cost in tens of thousands of dollars, for instance. Land can be expensive, but there are still relative bargains – if the land is relatively undeveloped – but the areas are isolated (maybe a good thing). Hardscrabble’s land + infrastructure would indeed be quite valuable. Well developed land will generally be far more expensive than uncleared/undeveloped land.
The move to rural lifestyle can be done. The question is what set-up will the individual be happy with, and what sacrifices, if any, that he/she is prepared to make. A small cabin and undeveloped land might suit some, while others will want significant infrastructure and a a very comfortable home.
It depends on the person – and their partner.
After reading how prepared Hardscrabble, Thinker, Billy, Sensetti and Llpoh are for the trials and tribulations ahead, I’ve figured out my master plan. Have enough gasoline on hand for my Honda Insight to reach one of their homesteads and then beg them to let me live there. That was easy.
I do seem to have a green thumb. My little raised gardens in the back yard have yielded 6 dozen tomatoes, 2 dozen cucumbers, 2 dozen peppers, lettuce, and some strawberries.
Tonight we have our 2nd firearms training session and buy a handgun.
Billy – $300k for 100 acres is doable for quite a few folks. That is a nice sized spread – more than I want to handle, personally. Timbered would be ok, but I would not do a large cleared place justice – I am never going to work that hard on a farm.
Funny, I had this very conversation with a younger guy at work today. Introduced him to ZeroHedge about nine months ago, he’s swallowed the red pill, and is looking at his options. Wife is already on board, willing to homeschool their two kids. His townhome is under water and he’d love to buy a small farm, so asked me how I’ve managed to pull mine off.
Billy’s advice to Tim is exactly what I told him. He doesn’t have a lot of debt now, other than his mortgage, but also doesn’t have a lot of knowledge about farming. I recommended he pay off his debts, then look for a small-ish place and to keep working while he figured out the whole farming bit. We talked about how he could “rent” his land for pasture in exchange for a side of beef, wife could manage a garden that would feed them and they could live without vacations, new clothes/cars/etc. while they paid down the farm or made investments to create a second income — with the goal of eventually dropping out of the rat race and living off the farm income. I warned him, though, that farming isn’t the easiest thing in the world and if you want to make money doing it (enough to replace a job as a source of income), you need time to figure out what you’re doing.
That’s how I’m doing it, for the time being. Parents did what Billy’s done back in the 60’s — but Dad had farming experience during the Depression. We never had new clothes or shoes, didn’t have television or much in the way of toys (hell, we often didn’t have running water), but we had 50+ acres of woods, a pond and the natural world to play in. When we played; a lot of childhood was working the farm, which was fine, too.
So it’s no big deal now to forgo vacations, wear clothes I’ve owned for 15 years, never eat out and not buy iCrap I don’t want or need. I do pay two mortgages (Chicago condo and my own 45-acre farm) but I pay cash for all my equipment and investments in the farm (high tunnels, 800+ fruit trees, tractors, etc.). I make a good salary and it ALL goes toward building a business that will be my own “Galt Gulch” when / if I need to drop out of the rat race. But I’ve done with a strong knowledge base in the field of fruit production, and someone to help me run it.
Still, you don’t need to do it all at once — start small, see if you can’t rent/lease your land to someone to make some money while you learn from them, live WELL below your means (remember, you have to ‘hedge’ for good years and bad, so learn to subsist on next to nothing) and learn, learn, learn. Farming is the biggest gamble there is, so take risk like you would at a craps table.
Llpoh – Thanks for the compliment. Really. Coming from you, it means a great deal and I don’t take it lightly.
Re: having a supportive wife, you are correct. No way in hell would we have made it this far if my wife wasn’t on board 100%. I don’t usually make it a habit to analyze someone else’s relationship, but it seems that Tim’s wife is used to living at a certain standard – even if that standard is artificial. It’s a difficult thing for someone to get used to living one way, then turn around and be asked to live another way with less nice things.
But she’s gonna have to do it. The way I see it, it’s not just Tim’s dream – it’s their survival at stake. They could keep on living beyond their means, artificially sustaining that lifestyle with more debt and poor Tim being a cubicle troll for the rest of his life until their debt load crushes them, or they could dump everything they can, live as frugally as they can and sock away as much as possible – then take the plunge when they think they’re ready… Whatever Tim chooses to do to support them, his wife absolutely has to be on board with it… I would even encourage her to take part in it.
Perhaps that’s the “in” he needs? Get her involved and enthusiastic about it, not just overload her with Doom and make her feel she’s being carried along with things that are beyond her control…
Either way, they’re both going to have a learning curve. Clearly defined responsibilities. Tim will do “X” and his wife will do “Y” and they can both tag-team “Z”…
One thing my Daddy told me that actually stuck, was “The key to success at life is to find one thing you like doing, then be better than everyone else doing it”. Money also follows talent, no matter where it is. I’ve been told my choice of locations for my shop – literally 100 feet from my front door – is awful. Truly awful. But once word spreads about the quality of the work I do, those who want good work done will find me. (Plus having business cards with a tiny map on the back will help out… 🙂 ).
If Tim and his wife can get their debt down and make a plan – even a 5 year plan – they’d be well on their way. Do their research, find a place off the beaten path with good soil and good water and don’t be afraid to get dirty…
Right quick – I have a friend. Named Sandy. Not his real name, but that’s what I call him. Guy was an investment banker in New York City – the genuine article. One day about a year ago, he writes me this email. Says for me to pull whatever cash we had in the bank and start investing in hard assets – only leave the bare minimum for operations. Whatever scared him, it motivated him to up and quit his job, sell his house and move him and his family over 2000 miles away. Now he lives way up in the mountains of Colorado and works at some podunk bank, has a little house and plenty of guns… and he’s loads happier. Last I heard, he went hunting for the first time and scored a good sized buck. He was ecstatic…