Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
Historians spend a great deal of time on the subject of cities. Rome, Athens, Constantinople, London, Tokyo, Cairo, New York and Moscow. It is as if the stuff that is most worthwhile is the density of the population, those locations where people lived closely packed together rather than the substance of the people who lived everywhere in between. It would appear that all the significant events and accomplishments of a people throughout history are focused on urban centers and as a result we have convinced ourselves that it is and has always been the cities that define a society.
Our perception of urban living versus rural is often defined by the culture shapers- politicians, academics, corporations and media. Rarely are the populations who inhabit the different regions asked about the impact of those decisions on their quality of life. They accept the paradigm into which they were born or they convince themselves that the alternatives are much worse than what they face living in densely populated urban centers. We seem to readily accept that economic advantages of living in a city far outstrip the opportunities of living in the country, that the benefits of culture- museums and symphonies, for example- are unavailable to anyone who does not live where these attractions are located.
There is an almost equal enthusiasm for certain benefits of urbanity, like diversity, that manifest as many, if not more drawbacks to a good life depending on how the effects of that mix manifests itself in good times and in bad. What one gains in access to a varied selection of cuisines is offset by what one must deal with when communication between diverse groups is not possible due to language or cultural differences. While the former are often cited as beneficial, the latter is never mentioned except where it can be used to shame or ridicule anyone who objects. Under social and economic stresses those features such as clannish or tribal behaviors emerge and create fractures along a number of fault lines.
In reviewing the challenges of a stressed and divided society like America in the 21st century, we must consider which behaviors and choices bear the greatest responsibility for those problems. While experts most often point the finger at those who are resistant to change, as if change itself is always beneficial and stasis is always a negative, it doesn’t mean that they are correct in their estimation. While it is difficult to prove that there is a net benefit to de-urbanization, it is very easy to prove that there are far more negatives associated with increased urbanization.
Let’s star with a few basic facts concerning the variables between the two.
According to the US Census nearly two-thirds of Americans live in an urban environment. That area represents less than one fiftieth of the inhabitable land available for habitation and when we look at the numbers, it becomes far more stark. The population of large cities with over one million inhabitants is over 7,000 per square mile, while in rural areas that figure drops to 35. 200:1 is a variable that presents quite a few challenges, most of which are environmental. Everyone who has ever visited or seen a CAFO where livestock are kept prior to slaughter for fattening can tell you that the single most recognizable factor is the waste.
In rural areas where a single family inhabits the same amount of space that would fit 150 inhabitants in a city, there is adequate drainage and soil to accommodate their waste with little or no effect on the environment. In a city there exists no spare land to accommodate any waste disposal and so virtually all excess waste must be treated at an extremely high cost with an even greater amount of material that must be relocated away from the urban source.
This goes for solid wastes as well as human waste. Urbanized setting cannot dispose of their detritus without reliance on rural areas to distribute those accumulated wastes. Because of the volume produced, there is virtually little chance of any of that being dealt with organically, i.e. allowing for nature to metabolize the wastes, rather they must be buried in landfills creating huge toxic storage issues that will take centuries rather than days to dissipate.
Cities likewise are incapable of producing even a fraction of what they consume. Urban farming accounts for at best 5% of their total needs making them dependent upon their rural counterparts for 95% of their nutritional requirements. Cities, quite simply, cannot feed themselves nor dispose of their own waste while rural areas have close to zero dependence on urban enclaves for either of the two.
Rural areas of the United States of America enjoy a much higher quality of life than urbanized area by a large margin. Crime rates are three times higher in cities, while tax rates are doubled. The income necessary to maintain a standard of living in a city is 35% higher than someone living in a rural area. In terms of pure economics whatever advantage higher salaries provide to urban dwellers, it is offset by a factor of almost 3 to 1 and this is based only on six raw data points; energy, housing, food, medical care, taxes, and public services.
It fails to take into account the radical differences in what urban people must spend on additional factors associated with urban dwelling, like additional security, fees, and medications (urbanites have a 40% higher incidence of anxiety and psychological issues than their rural counterparts as well as an STD rate over five times higher. Overall the quality of life for rural inhabitants scores fifty percent higher than those who live in the city. While none of these are definitive proof that rural life is objectively better- there are people who thrive in high anxiety, isolation and close proximity to strangers at a higher cost, most human beings seem inclined to live in a peaceful setting with higher ratio of income to expenditures.
Proponents of urban living will often point to areas that rural environments do not possess, such as public transportation, diversity (higher percentage of non-natives), and cultural institutions, they do not factor in the costs as opposed to their uses. For example people will tout the fact that the NYC Metropolitan Opera features a valuable resource for those who live in NYC.
The truth is that with their 3,800 seat capacity and 200 performance season, less than 1 in 15 New Yorkers would ever have the chance to attend a single performance even if they wanted to, far less when you subtract season ticket holders and out of town ticket buyers. Just because a resource exists in an area does not mean that it will ever be utilized except by a small fraction of the urban population. And in no way are those from the rural regions unable to travel into the city for expressly those purposes, so such claims of urban advantage are specious at best.
It should also be noted that there are significant demographic aberrations in urban versus rural areas, especially in regards to age. Urban populations are much younger than rural ones and skewed to the advantage of younger females. Anyone who has ever made it to adulthood understands what draws young men to a specific place and that is available young females. As old courtship rights were eroded over the last century, especially in regards to the rise of feminism, and loosened standards in terms of sexual availability cities have acted as a magnet for unattached men and women.
Similarly the numbers of in tact families is equally skewed with far more living in rural areas than their equal aged cohort in the city. Urban divorce rates are twice that of the country and people who live in the country are ten times as likely to live with a multi-generational extended family than in a city. In addition the number of newly arrived immigrants found in cities dwarves the number located in the countryside as well as second and third generation immigrants.
To find someone who speaks the same language, shares the same values, and believes in the same principles you are far more likely to encounter them the further you move from the cities. There are few other considerations that show any of the correlating demographic idiosyncrasies than those demonstrated by the urban/rural divide.
Of course we can try to do what most economists would do in looking at this issue and most of them would point to the productivity and dollar value of each particular region. Cities, they will say, create more dollars per square foot than the rest of the country combined, but they never mention the difference between the source of those dollars. The country produces the ores that become raw materials to fulfill the demands of industry, they produce the overwhelming majority of sustenance, they produce the majority the energy that propels the engine of the economy and the vast majority of the tradesmen that build and maintain the infrastructure.
Cities produce an overwhelming majority of those on various kinds of relief, government employees, attorneys and those who work in the financial service sector, none of which create anything of tangible value. One cannot survive long without nourishment but no lives are dependent on notional trading of derivatives or arcane regulations regarding tort law. Cities are the centers of specialization while the countryside is the seedbed of the generalist. Those who live in the city are five times more likely to call a plumber, electrician or tradesmen to perform basic tasks than a rural resident.
The majority of all US Patents are held by someone who was born and raised in a rural environment and most of the greatest developments of the past two hundred years were the result of people reared on farms; Whitney, Deere, Bell, Edison, Ford, Browning, Eastman, Farnsworth and Howe are but a fraction of the names of those whose roots and generalist approach to life allowed them to create innovative and groundbreaking technologies, while most of what takes place in the cities is a form of refinement of those creations. Specialists have their place, especially in areas like surgery and engineering, but the origin of their fields always have their roots in the soil.
Human beings possess an innate and powerful drive towards concern for their fellow man. In the country if some sees an accident or a fire the first impulse is always to stop and render aid. It is a rare time when someone in need is ignored in a rural community. In the streets of most major cities the population has inured itself to the sight of human suffering and want. They step over the homeless, pretend they don’t notice the piles of human waste or puddles of urine, blithely stare off into space when someone exhibits signs of mental illness or emotional instability and walk away from random acts of violence.
The internet is full of videos of beatdowns, assaults, meltdowns in public places, destruction of businesses, flash mobs and every other form of delinquency but only rarely do these occur in rural settings. It is the desensitized population that makes most of these acts possible despite the fact that the perpetrators are almost always far outnumbered by passerby. Their ability to compartmentalize the vast numbers of human interactions they have every day leaves them numb to their genetic predisposition towards altruism and empathy.
People who lack empathy and concern for their fellow human beings cannot be expected to make decisions that would benefit anyone other than themselves. Part of the demographic slant in elections- the majority of Democratic voters live in urban areas while the majority of Republican voters live in rural areas with income, sex and age playing a distant second, third and fourth in terms of political affiliation. Interestingly enough the more dependent upon others someone is, the more likely they are to live in a city, thus the need to vote for increasing government involvement in their lives.
There are certainly more areas where the distinctions between the urban and the rural can be observed, but perhaps none more important than the disconnect between human beings and their natural environment. Human beings were adapted to live in accordance with the seasons and the environment in which they lived. The very advance of human civilization rested almost entirely upon his ability to create surplus food stores in order to survive in year round settlements. These centers became the hub of both agriculture and the domestication of animal species and from that came every conceivable advance and achievement we have ever made since then.
The development of mathematics, written language, metallurgy, construction, engineering, medicine, all of them were a direct result of living in tune with the observable world of nature. Urban living divorces human populations of everything from the source of their daily nourishment to the elimination of their wastes. They turn on their lights without knowing where the source of that energy comes from, running in the rivers or buried in the coal seams of some distant wooded hillbillyville, they turn on their tap for their water unaware of it’s origins in the distant mountains of flyover country.
They are as dependent as babies on the material resources of the places they make fun of, incapable of feeding themselves or of cleaning up their own mess. They make more waste, use more resources, produce fewer necessities, consume more luxuries, have greater disparities between the economic classes, fewer intact families, experience far more crime and pay a higher price to adjudicate it, then ship off their offenders to prisons in the hinterlands where the rubes are hired as custodians to the human effluent of the cities.
You can hear sirens 24/7 but you cannot see the stars at night. There is no such thing as silence, privacy is almost nil, personal space is reduced, self-reliance almost unknown. In most cities you do not have the right to arm yourself for defense against the criminal population that far exceeds that of the rural regions. Virtually every transaction in the city is economic with very few people doing business outside of their own very small circles. For all of their cosmopolitan posturing their social circles are 30% smaller than the average inhabitant of a town with 2,000 or fewer inhabitants. They are, in fact, the most provincial of peoples despite living in the most crowded environments.
I have lived in a multitude of places over the course of my life and have seen far more of the United States than the most seasoned travelers. I’ve lived in the center of the largest metropolis on the east coast and now choose to live in a New England village with a seasonal population that never exceeds 2,500 residents in an area twice the size of Manhattan. Our choice to live this way was predicated not upon an economic necessity, nor on an historic attachment to place, but rather as a deliberate choice based on what we wanted to best experience a better way of life.
Our economic standard dropped significantly but so did our expenditures. Our physical health improved markedly, our relationships with each other and our children has been greatly enhanced, and our connection to those who live around us, friends, neighbors and the community at large has been nothing short of miraculous. Peace is plentiful, crime is not a concern, freedom to do what we want when we want to has increased and we feel like we have lost nothing in the exchange. Try as I might there are only a few things I can think of as being a loss to us; a good pizza, variety of restaurants, and the friends and family we left behind. Beyond that there is nothing I can think of worth noting and under no circumstance would we ever consider moving back.
The historians rarely concern themselves with life in the provinces, where the toil and sweat of the creator classes accumulated the surpluses that allowed cities to exist in the first place, to flourish and become the centers of civilization we think of today. Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Shanghai and Baghdad. They focus on the remnants of collapsed citadels, shrines and fortresses. Those places that served both to celebrate the accomplishments of the nations and principalities that gave birth to them, and their glory are all ruins today.
As much as they were lighthouses to the young and the ambitious of each generation, so too were they the fire that drew attention from afar. Eventually the complex business of moving paper and money, of accumulating wealth and building shrines to their hubris always runs it’s eventual course. And as the lines of supply are cut off, either through inattention or rebellion, the dependent urban centers begin to feed on themselves, leaving them vulnerable to the predations of those who hunger for a taste of their flesh. And all that endures and comes to life amongst the derelict bones of an extinct metropolis are the sons and daughters of those who preserved their independence and traditions in the far flung country of the rural world.
Nothing lasts forever and the accelerating pace of domestic instability demonstrates just how fragile our social fabric is. As we enter the maelstrom of the Fourth Turning anything can happen. The Empire and its narrative struggle to maintain legitimacy in a time of universal corruption. All declines follow a similar path and once the collapse occurs events pick up speed leaving everyone who has failed to prepare caught unaware. The cities are the least secure location during such periods and only those who manage to find a place out of the reach of those who tear down the walls of our civilization will be safe.
Take everything into consideration, but prepare for anything. Your life may depend upon it.
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After reading in full, can only say it is a nice promotion for the event. I think I’ll leave “Sir Elton” with the enticing reminder of the Simple Life. With full awareness of the irony:
Edit: Now that I see you are trying to promote the idea that life is good in rural flyover country I have to protest. Some best kept secrets are best kept.
I agree with most of your points, having moved here five years ago from a different world, it seems. We talk about the changes of the Fourth Turning, but those of us living rural, like HSF, have a completely different level of clarity when looking at the changes in “society.” Every time I go into the city I try to make it the last.
“I’m Nobody, who are you? Are you Nobody too? Then there’s a pair of us. Don’t Tell!
They’ll banish us you know.” (probably Emily)
At least back in the 1980s we had ALDO NOVA to warn us that cities were GODFORSAKEN PLACES where, if one were so inclined, one could observe a VARIETY OF PERVERSIONS:
City nights
Summer breezes makes you feel all right
Neon-lights
Shining brightly make your brain ignite
*See the girls with the dresses so tight
Give you love, if the price is right*
Black or white
In the streets there’s no wrong and no right
Outta site
Buy your kicks from the man in the white
Feels all right
Powder pleasure in your nose tonight
*See the men paint their faces and cry
Like some girl, it makes you wonder why
City life sure is cool,
but it cuts like a knife
It’s your life*
So forget all that you see
It’s not reality, it’s just a fantasy
Can’t you see what this crazy life is doin’ to me
Life is just a fantasy
Can you live this fantasy life
Life is just a fantasy
Can you live this fantasy life
—
—
Turn the volume up to 11 before starting:
Excellent choice, gave me and mine flashbacks to the eighties!
I write for a very select audience. I’m certain that the people you don’t want to see out there are the last ones to listen to anything I’d have to say. In fact, I probably serve as a deterrent to their relocation.
Win/win.
You do have a point. It really is a lot like work here.
Quick note. I moved to a small farm 1972. Wanted to raise sons in an environment of freedom and discovery. Oldest son built extensive hay forts in the barn loft. Some had three levels. He is an architect in New York city today. I warned him along the way that certain trades entailed urban living. He’s happy enough.Other son liked tractors, 4-wheelers, hay season, machinery. Encouraged him to use my shop for anything. He learned to weld and fix brakes, carburation, even basic problems with diesel injectors by age 15. Today, he lives rural, rebuilt an abandoned farm house, gave his wife 4 children, and has a thumping excavation business. When I read these ubiquitious articles about helpless/hopeless young people moaning about debt and low paying jobs I want to barf. Life has always been difficult and challenging and becomes what you make of it. Why not join the fray and build your own?
Also, really enjoyed your television essay. Got an idea for you. Years ago, I watched in succession the “film of the year” going all the way back to the first, Cimmaron. Wow. What a road map for cultural change.
Around here there is an absolute dearth of cement masons, bricklayers etc. I have told dozens of young, bitching flatassers that they can make $50-100 per hour tuck pointing chimneys and repairing brick work. The idea of $100k a year isn’t enough to move them. I guess the new fantasy job is pro video gaming. I would be surprised if half of them would even do their own fucking.
Well our parents still believe that inflation is a sure sign of a healthy economy and diversity is our strength; how are us millenials possibly expected to amount to anything useful being raised like that?
Zerohedge picked up your article HSF.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-03/fourth-turning-case-against-cities
Hard Farmer,
I also read your article on ZH first, as I check financial news quickly before spending more time on TBP, the comments, you know! Just like to say that I was proud of you being on ZH, having read all your stuff for several years here, I felt like a friend was branching out and doing well.
The post was excellent as usual. I’m retired, rural by choice, but have lived in or near San Fran, Portland OR, Houston and St. Looie. All shitholes now, though I mostly enjoyed every one while I was there. A lot of it is what you make it, even in the country.
P.S. For Dutch, I’ve been visiting Minneapolis for 50 years; definitely a shithole now. Wasn’t so much back when I went with Little League to watch Harmon Killebrew and the Twins.
I was almost hit by a Harmon Killibrew foul ball over a half century ago! It was at Comiskey in the mid 60’s. I was going to the can, which in those days was a big trough, pretty third world in hindsight. I stopped behind home plate to watch and he hit one that came straight up behind him into the second level right at my head. It hit the back of the old timey wood seat in front of me and splintered it.
LewRockwell/dot/com picked it up today.
I would rather be in a country setting anytime then be in a big city.I have been on the road driving since 2010 and the things I have seen in the cities has completely changed my mind about urban areas . Mostly for the worse . Most big cities will be death traps in any kind of collapse . Stay far away from the big cities if possible especially in any kind of emergency . Charlotte NC is still very well off in many areas but the down side of ” diversity ” is turning the positive into negative real quick. I would love to sell everything and move to the Appalachian mountains but my mom still has family and friends here so I stay.
It’s the sprawling suburbs and the Northeast metropolis where things will get most interesting.
any place within 200 miles of diversity will eventually become “interesting”–
Most of the “thems and theys” won’t make it further than one tank of gas will take them.
Or however big a charge Elon allows when the SHTF.
I used to live in Rock Hill SC, met my future/ now wife in Charlotte. I like the city, but at this stage of life, I am moving to Murphy NC
American cities are part of the evil empire. The quality of life is shitty, unless you’ve got enough bread to overwhelm, and cover-up, the taste of the shit in the shit sandwich.
I’ve been to Reykjavik, and it’s nothing like the filthy cities here. Probably has something to do with having a homogeneous population.
Good music there too
Reykjavik? Prolly has something to do with it having around 27 people total (actually 122,000 which hardly classes it as a city in comparison with US metropolises), with Iceland having a total population of 350,000, and the vast majority of its energy being from thermal and hydro sources. But that is just a guess. But yes, a homogenous culture, especially when the population is small, is a benefit. But trying to compare Reykjavik /Iceland with anything in the US is absurd.
Wisconsin and a couple other upper tier states compare, especially where you have large concentrations of people who know how to climb on big rocks.
Hmmm. Sitting here in N. WI enjoying the latest polar vortex and 80+ inches of snow, trying to estimate the number of people I know who regularly climb big rocks – so far I can think of One. The number of people who regularly climb onto bar stools, too many to count.
I think the Walleye and White Bass runs are going to be a little late this year.
I was thinking of the big lava rocks in Iceland, but you got a point. Surely there are a few big rocks around somewhere?
I’ve been to Reykjavík, Iceland, nice place but extremely expensive since its on a small island.
If it were a different time and I was a different person I would tell about Iceland.
I’ll just say seeing the baby buggies parked outside stores like bicycles was charming. It probably isn’t that safe there now, but in the 80s, Reykjavik was indeed a lovely place to visit.
But where are you going to find a good dry cleaner out in the country?
Ha ha! That was an actual question last week on our “Front Porch Forum” (rural on-line bulletin-board.. town of 4,800)!
star? Why in the hell would anyone need a good dry cleaner out in the country?
We need a good seed cleaner.
Maybe he has a new pair of overalls?
If YOU need to get your overalls starched at the dry cleaners to keep a sharp crease, you might NOT want to masquerade as a redneck.
Here is an interesting bunch of info re farmland in the US. Lots of good facts and figures.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2014/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf
One interesting thing when you delve into the data – vast swaths of land is used to grow grain for livestock. It is a highly inefficient use of resources with respect to coloric and protein creation. Not that I am going to give up meat. It is just an observation. And I have always considered in time that that will change, and the land will be used more for direct human consumption rather than indirect.
The solution is to transition back to 100% grass fed. In that way you lose a little of the fat content, but you eliminate waste, transitioning it into fertility, you can use all kinds of silviculture that is currently underutilized until timber harvest and you would vastly improve soil quality and build grasslands over time. The way we do it now is a by-product of the post WWII petrochemical boom. It created the use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers that allowed for monocultures at very low prices. These feeds sped up the fattening process, a mechanization of both ranching and agriculture in a symbiotic relationship that destroyed our soils, water quality and erosion controls. And the system has to accommodate itself on small producers rather than on an industrial scale.
In Oz a great deal of the beef is grass fed. I find it far better. I am sure you are right. It makes perfect sense. They turn cattle out into the forests here quite successfully as well, although the greenies scream blue murder that they are damaging the forests. All evidence to the contrary.
Actually what you mean is grass finished. All cows are grass fed until they are shipped off to feedlots. There they are crammed full of soy/corn based feed and shot up with antibiotics to keep them “healthy” until they can be slaughtered.
Fact is we kill these already severely ill animals before they would soon die on their own.
Hell of a system, eh? And there’s wonderment that testosterone levels have dropped over 50% in the last 50 years?
Don’t get me going but eating just about anything in our processed food chain is gonna give you grief. As Robert Lustig says, diabetes 2 should be renamed, processed food disease.
I guess you can call it grass finished. They never get grain, only pasture. There are also grain fed, but not many.,
MM, ever see the 2 ton stake truck out on the back roads making the rounds of dairies to pick up the dead milk cows? It is funny seeing the rigor mortis’d legs sticking out the sides of the truck. Funny until you realize the truck is headed for the meat packing plant.
We found mostly grass with a little corn makes for better tasting beef; I get big chuckles when seeing how the marketeers use “grass fed” to justify high beef prices.
The only reason we ever began to feed cows corn was directly related to the surpluses of hydro carbon based agriculture of the post war era. Corn went from being an expensive crop to produce to being an extremely cheap feed. It also allowed for rapid weight gain prior to slaughter which raised price per head. In economies of scale that meant a higher profit margin, but the result was the same for beef as it has been for any other industrial style production- soil depletion, erosion, water quality issues, etc.
Cows are ruminants- their digestive tracts are designed for the breakdown of grasses, not grains. Corn packs on fat and adds weight quickly but it plays hell on their digestion and it requires additional tasks and equipment (planting and fertilizing the corn, harvesting and storage as well as a different kind of feeding out. Those things take time and cost money but it has as much to do with how you treat an animal as it does with final flavor. We had filet mignons for dinner this evening from a 2 year old steer that was 100% grass fed and it was one of the best I have ever eaten. Maybe it was because my son made dinner, maybe it was pride in having raised it, or that my daughter brought my meal to me with a smile, or all three combined, but it was still better than any other I’ve ever eaten and I didn’t have to go though all the additional steps or spend anything extra.
I’m not advocating that everyone do what we do, only that it better suits the nature of the animal and is cost efficient at the small farm level.
A while back I read a claim that in WWI America stripped its supply of nitrate fertilizers for use in wartime munitions, and that supposedly was one reason for the Dust Bowl days a decade or so later (i.e., there was still a shortage of nitrogen based fertilizers which resulted in less crop cover which with drought contributed to huge dust storms). Ever hear of that angle?
I don’t really know when corn became King, though would not be surprised starting after WWII ended.
Of course W loved corn for ethanol, but that is discussion for another day.
And even with cramming so much corn into cattle, the farmers have such a surplus that we are forced to put it into our vehicles (ethanol). Naturally the IA politicians fight for this rent-seeking like bears guarding their cubs.
Someone please show me the federal law, divine decree or papal encyclical saying only corn can be grown in IA. If normal demand is insufficient for their supply, let them grow something else.
w/o corn subsidies,ethanol would die a merciful death–
sen. grassley is a pos who will turn against republicans in a heartbeat if they try to end corn subsidies–
i have more respect for a gal in the 30 blocks pumping out babies than i do for these farmers taking subsidies–
As mentioned we have around 100 acres. Only around 25 of that would be truly farmable, but the rest is scavengable (is that a word?) and would support sheep or a couple to a few cows. We do not have farm animals at this time as we travel a lot and could not maintain them.
But if we were dedicated, we could run a handfull of cattle or so, a few pigs, some poultry, etc., that would fully provide us the meat and eggs we would need. Additionally, we have around 100 square yards of raised garden beds that are extremely productive, and which, amazingly, can provide 100% of the produce we require. We do buy some, as we are not always here at the right time to rotate plantings as seasons change. We have auto irrigation installed.
Sounds like it could be a nice self-sustainable farm, Llpoh.
Pocahontas Lpoo :
You are one full of shit cocksucker, I very distinctly remember you claiming that your place was 50 acres.
I looked up overcompensating blowhard in the dictionary and saw your picture- Fucking sad.
Let the ridiculous bullshitting commence!!
Perhaps you could first challenge the gentleman politely? Maybe he is as you say. But do you need to become enemies?
Anon – yes, he simply could have asked. The answer is straight forward. Bought the adjoining farmlet to secure water for the entire place in perpetuity.
We became “enemies” when he had the grandiosity to call the fake swamp fox FM a “rapist” for the crime of helping poor Africans with their giraffe overpopulation problem.
So that ship would have sailed if there could be such a thing as me having friends or enemies in interweb land.
I deny calling him a rapist. You want to post the link to that? I have zero against FM, but do disagree with hunting animals for pleasure. FM and I have to disagree on that front. FM is a big boy, and is more than capable of sticking up for himself. And be assured there are enemies, and friends, around here.
You got the “tard” part of your name right at least.
I NEVER said such a thing to FM.
Here is the partial post that Flashtard is referring to:
“While I am at it, I also think that your “I hunt because I am a hunter” statement nonsensical. I rape because I am a rapist? I murder because I am a murder? I steal because I am a thief? It is absurd. “
In no way was I calling him anything. In fact, the entire debate on that thread was quite civil. In the end, we simply disagree on some aspects of hunting.
LIpoh :
I respect and enjoy reading your comments, thanks for writing them and you are a Big Dog TBP treasure.
I thought I should bust your balls about the mongoloidian giraffe fest that seemed to cause those great hunting stories to go the way of the dodo.
Thanks for being a good sport.
That is not nice. Funny, but not nice.
Girra – you remember correctly. However, in the past year I bought the spread next door when it came up for sale, and have integrated it into the lower 50.
You might take lessons from the MSM and not assume so much, when you can simply ask the question first, instead of being an asshole.
By adding the new spread, I increased water storage several million gallons, which was the point of it. Water is king in this part of the world.
Yeah. It’s depressing to drive by a cattle feed lot. It’s like a concentration camp for cattle. And I’ve read about and watched videos about the port they have to install in cows who are raised mostly/entirely on corn, which they can’t digest, and the vet has to reach into the cow’s stomach to remove the undigested corn. Disgusting shit.
The more I learn about where our food comes from, the more I’m disgusted by Big Food and their govt enablers.
Exactly. I grew up in a world where happy cows grazed on half the farm for a couple of years and they replenished the soil with all the nutrients and enzymes necessary to grow the rest of our food.
A perfect circle.
Along came Monsanto and John Deere.
in the mid 70 s i would go to okc in the summer & work for my granddad–
when he turned 65 he closed his business & then became a “horse trader”,meaning he’d buy/sell anything,and do anything to make a buck–
a guy who had worked for him in the 60 s while attending u of oklahoma & had stayed friends w/my uncle had a huge feedlot outside amarillo–
they bring in gazillions of semi trucks of grain & just dump it on the ground & then they would hill it up w/a front end loader& tarp it–when feeding the animals they use front end loaders to take the food to the animals–
my granddad always drove a 1 ton flatbed & had a 30′ gooseneck–the guy from the feedlot gave him a contract to supply tires to hold down the tarps that covered the hills of grain–
for a year or so he was getting all the junk tires he wanted for free from junk yards & tire shops,loaded for free,and then he would haul them to the feedlot so they could be used to weight down the tarps–
Back in the 70’s I would help a farm friend who had hundreds of cattle and about 700 acres of corn to feed them. I would drive the tractor with a wagon and he would drive the combine or “corn cutter.” He would be cutting the stalks at the ground and the combine would grind up the stalk and ear of corn and shoot it into the wagon. We would then drive the wagon to a contraption full of nutrients and they were dumped into the wagon. The wagon then mixed and ground the whole mess which we then drove to the troughs and drove down the line with the freshly cut and mixed feed dispensing into the feed troughs. Then, we would go get drunk and chase women. Quite often we just got drunk and the women came looking for us! Those were the days.
Corn fed women are the best!
I’ve driven by that feedlot on trips to the Grand Canyon. Peeeeeeeeeeee Eeeewwwwwwwwweeeeeee……
For miles and miles and miles.
And it is so sad to see the poor cattle just jam packed in there against feed troughs, eating and standing ankle deep in their own filth.
Like humans.
In cities.
Growing a revolution : bringing our soil back… by David R Montgomery
A fun read with examples of small farmers all over the world who are doing novel things to bring back their soil.
Sounds like something I’d like.
We grass feed our cows, farts and all. Once you eat grass fed you never go back to wrapped in plastic. John
We were “city farmers”; usually ran 5-6 head of cattle along with the hand-me-down jumper horse. Butchered one steer every fall and usually 2 others for family/friends. Had 20 acres with plenty of bluegrass pasture-the grazing “herd” never put a dent in the grass. Minimal corn was used to feed out the butcher beef. Doing the math I would guess no more than 4 acres would be allocated to 1 steer, plus maybe 1 more if we were to grow the corn (which we didn’t). This does not, however, account for hay that was used to overwinter the animals-maybe 2-3 bales weekly.
Having said all that, I would feel comfortable having the same 20 acres to survive on; plenty of meat, veggies galore (some of the best asparagus in the world was grown by Belgian ladies up on the next mile road), a milk cow or goat, chickens, maybe trade hogs for steers, would plant fruit/nut trees; could squeeze all that in on the 20 without having to drain the bass pond (would probably dredge it out and add catfish for steady source of fish) . Good stand of trees on the back third of the property would yield firewood for several years; more if that were a long term need and replanted diligently.
Efficient? Who knows. But in a pinch I think it would be possible, unless we add a billion due to the invaders and their spawn.
I agree… We have forty acres here, with about a third cleared for gardening and crop (hay).
I would advise anyone interested in feeding a family fairly efficiently to raise domestic rabbits. Three does and a buck can produce a couple hundred pounds of meat a year. I am personally not breeding rabbits now, but I have them ready to go in the event of TEOTWAWKI.
Just don’t name the food.
HSF – nice article. However, you have, in my opinion, made the very common mistake of assuming correlation is casuation.
You say “most of the greatest developments of the past two hundred years were the result of people reared on farms“. Two hundred years ago, something like 97% of people were from farms (that is by memory, so do not quote me. A hundred years ago it was something like 50%. So statistically, the odds were very much that what you say would be the case. It is not causation necessarily, but simple statistical probability. I think if you looked at the last 50 or 100 years, that statement could easily be reversed. It still would not indicate causation, just statistical reality.
Given there is something like a billion acres of land in the US where a person can farm, that would be 3 acres per person, if everyone moved rural. I suppose people can live in areas that are not farmable, but that seems to defeat the purpose, largely. My family currently has 40 acres per person. And would like more.
If everyone moved rural, it would require enormous infrastructure to handle those numbers, with respect to roads, schools, hospitals, etc.
I would never return to live in the city. But I do not want those lab rats moving out to me, either. Nor would I be willing to sell them a square inch of my land. That is an interesting aside – there is no where for the masses to move as I am sure I am not alone in that.
All good points but like I said above I am preaching to a very select choir. Most people would not listen if you had proof positive. There are still large numbers of us- the remnant- who are either stuck for familial or economic reasons to the urban centers. We are no longer coming into a Fourth Turning, we are right in the middle of it and all that’s missing is the spark that strikes the fire.
There are so many other peripheral issues associated with urban versus rural and those topics require their own analysis, like population issues, mass migration and resource exhaustion, specifically those which support our ever expanding numbers.
All that I am trying to advocate is that if you are aware of these things, your best bet is where the quality of life exceeds whatever other benefits exist in cities.
And to the farm inventors, that is a reasonable observation, but my counter argument would be that now that farms represent 2% of the population, it would be interesting to list all the great inventors that grew up in cities.
I’m really glad to hear how you took to your new life, although it was an obvious fit for someone like you. Self reliance demands people with a lot of depth and a work ethic. It’s almost impossible without it.
Thanks HSF. You are echoing what I have said many times here re hard work, thrift, education etc. paying off. Many come back and shriek that there are not enough jobs, resources etc., and if everyone did what I said no way it would pay off.
My answer is always much as you have said – it will work for anyone that does it, as only a very few will indeed make the effort. And hence my, and your, answer is correct. It would not work for everyone, but it will indeed work for anyone. One simply needs to be one of the few “anyones” that will do it.
It always pays to remember that humans are creatures of habit. Few city dwellers would want your land unless the city becomes inhabitable. That is when guns help out. (Actually, they would want your produce well before they would think about working your land in order to survive).
Should we name your “schtick” the “RemnantFest” ?
I think you know, HSF, that cities define a **civilization**.
The very meaning of the word, “civilization”, is that it is characterized by cities.
Without civilizational hierarchy, one simply doesn’t have the concentration of time+surplus to develop specialized social classes devoted to Religion, the Military, a canon of Literature, the Arts and Academia, Science, etc. which characterize “civilization”. So while people may have needed to be conversant with what was understood to be the Natural Order of Things (and it was certainly easier to be so in earlier times) the luxury to elaborate upon a lot of these concepts has, in the past, been provided by the civilizing structure itself.
In the US, we could re-form societies without civilization (in the classical, rather than the colloquial, sense), but I’m not sure we could know what that would look like given the demographics and how crippled folks have become.
=======
Cities, though, developed IN ORDER THAT they consume the wealth of the countryside. They are a Technology and a dissipative structure… as are all living creatures including ourselves as individuals dissipative structures. Cities enable us to collectively break down energy gradients faster than we would otherwise be inclined.
(Image from one of my favored blogs: https://megacancer.com/)
I have lived – ‘near’ – cities (NYC, Philly, Boston, Minneapolis currently) my entire life.
I have to say that all those cities have turned into shit-holes, except Minneapolis (where I currently live) – the progressives are working to turn Minneapolis into a shit-hole.
At one time the lawyer / banker / doctor / financier needed to be close to one another. But no more. With e-mail / internet / fax / phone / fedex overnight / etc – there is no need for this proximity.
Cities have always been a magnet for the poor.
Hasn’t Minn become a center for Muslims and mosques? Most stories I see coming from that area involve one or the other, and the “conformity” to their rules and culture.
Little Mogadishu. Where Ilhan Omar comes from. The people there have re-sorted themselves back into the same clan and war groups they fought in back in Somalia. I believe it’s correct that the highest number of radicalized people leaving the US to fight with ISIS are from there as well. Drugs and sex-trafficking thrive.
Justine Damond was mercilessly shot while asking for help while in her jammies thru a squad car window for no goddam reason by a trigger happy Somali cop Mohammed Noor who they say was rushed thru training for “diversity” reasons and had other complaints against him already in his really short career. He still refuses absolutely to give any statement what-so-ever on the killing, and is pleading Not Guilty.
THE WORST drivers in the nation come from there, as well as the most spoiled young people spawned in the surrounding cul-de-sac McMansion communities of ostentatious wealth.
There’s a failing nuclear reactor nearby and supposedly no money to fix it. AND they’re the first city in the nation to actually (get this) outlaw single family zoning because….that’s racist. It’s racist and non-inclusionary to own your own home. Density and Diversity are the new American Dream.
Further, Justin Vernon lives there. I could go on but that should suffice. Yeah, Minneapolis is a shithole.
Care to guess the nationality of many of the slaughterhouse workers in the US?
Meskins.
Sounds like meat processing should be a lucrative target for robotics.
Mpls has gone from a small town ‘feel’ in 1978 when we first moved here – to a shit hole in 40 years. Everything liberals / progressives touch turns to shit.
So is it that cities create sociopaths or do sociopaths just naturally gravitate to cities?
50/50
agree w/farmer but it seems like there are more in the city because they can’t be anons in the country/small towns–
Re. citified people… I came across this on another site with a “social-media” element and squirreled it away because it was too funny/horrifying not to save….
Until I read this, the fact that people might actually live this way hadn’t been that apparent to me (although my degree of reliance on the regular grocery store is not really that many stages away from the above scenario, when you think about it).
Reminds me of an old saying: better to have Scotch and no money, than money and no Scotch.
Well according to Freewheelin’ Frankin, you’ve got your intoxicants wrong.
Good times from the 70’s. Time to put on Floyd then the dead.
Not sure about that. Was just listening to a podcast featuring some young rural guys. They claim the young ladies are leaving the countryside faster..
https://www.rumblestripvermont.com/2019/02/deer-camp/
I’ve brought this up before, and it surely demands a post unto itself: Production is Consumption. Consuming more is not, in the long term, an Especially Good Thing. Cities have more money throughput, which is seen as positive (it is actually negative).
Similarly, do we create the “social fabric”, or does the “social fabric” create us.
I know a lot of people here are religiously-based or otherwise Agency-based. I used to be Agency-based too, but increasingly, over the last decade or so, I am prone to looking on our predicament the way one looks upon one of those optical illusions: is it a vase or an old woman? Is the dancer spinning to the right or to the left? And here we are, with our “lifestyle” being—at the same time—comfort-begetting and world-destroying.
It is both.
It depends upon your viewpoint.
HSF, your piece raised many good points. Apparently a lot of people see things differently, since they’re voting with their feet and the percentage of people living in urban areas continues to grow. I might prefer being able to see stars to the ability of having Uber Eats deliver Thai food at midnight, but to each their own.
Maybe, but I like to cook my own Thai food, did so tonight. But I’ve lived amongst these urbanites, and they don’t want to do shit. When the SHTF they are truly screwed. And that’s ok. Fuck em! If they can be turned, ok, if not 5.56.
For over 50 years I have preached that cities are degenerate and going to implode so buy a few acres and make a garden, get some chickens, plant some fruit and nut trees, etc. Zero friends have made the move into the countryside. They vacation and build retirements with Securities that will turn to dust when the SHTF. They are all to lazy to make a garden or keep any chickens. They love having a good farmer/rancher friend, but I tell them I can’t feed them all, but I think they think they will just come here and hunt game and eat somehow . Even my wife (an ex-city girl) won’t work outside and help me. Cities ruin a whole lot more about people’s thinking than HSF even began to explain. Ya’ll don’t see the nights jewels or shooting stars, the woods through a full moon; hear the Nightingales, Doves, Bob Whites, Hawks, etc; watch herds of deer eat your stuff, see your fruit orchards looking like Spring cloud formations, colorful song birds making families, and you pick some kind of fresh fruit all summer; see and smell flower bouquets by the acre with butterflies and humming with honey bees. There is a view that allows beautiful wrap-around sunrises and sunsets, and dynamic panoramic rain clouds that play symphonies on tin roofs to adore. And God loves the country too.
Even my wife (an ex-city girl) won’t work outside and help me.
If you’ve got a barn then there is another reason to count yourself really, really lucky.
Nothing grows and life ain’t very pretty
When you’re down that’s where you’ll stay
The city “ain’t no place for children.”
That was a gratifying read. I was thinking about writing a sardonic rejoinder to Bill Maher’s latest snobby rant entitled “Red states wish they were us”, but now I don’t have to. So thanks for that.
Regarding your party, I’m supposed to be somewhere else at the time but that could change. If not then, maybe another time down the road. Ya never know. But thank you for the invite. Seriously.
Great article. Having begun my last chapter in fly over country a little over two years ago many of your points struck home.
People are more civil out hyar. Everyone’s probably armed.
The livings healthier. “I want to be close to the Drs” is not really applicable in these parts as the boom boxes, helicopter overhead, pistol shots and God knows what else ain’t happening yonder way. I’ve lost 30 lbs and am thrilled to be here.
It took 7 years, 8 property appraiser sites and hours of weekend driving to find my spot. By the grace of God I went.
Anyone who’s been reading this site, knows even marginal world or American history, recognized something horribly skewed since 2008 and can balance a checkbook, should be looking to get far more out of life by moving to the country!
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DBFeOE5JD7fg&ved=2ahUKEwjj04XxpeXgAhWupFkKHWAcBa8QwqsBMAp6BAgEEAU&usg=AOvVaw3_0j7tBKH_6IvNtuebMMcc
About being close to doctors? The part of Iowa we are likely going to wind up in is only 60-90 minutes from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. Many of the hospitals in that region are owned by Mayo as well. I doubt most people anywhere else have a better selection of doctor options as the rural folks in parts of Iowa and Minnesota and western Wisconsin.
Delete this article now.
There is no useful purpose in convincing people, most of whom, one may assume, currently live in cities, that they shouldn’t be living in cities.
Do you really want them moving out to the country near you?
Nobody is served if 8 million New Yorkers ever learn what a shithole they live in. Their self-delusion is the only thing keeping you from seeing asshats with those yellow plates swerving all over your roads. The Californian refugees are bad enough, don’t make it worse.
BTW- it sucks when big city douchers sell their shithole apartments and homes for more money than the locals will ever see and realize the ability to buy houses that are little more than massive cheaply-constructed monuments to bad taste. The Californians moving into my area build houses that are equally monstrous in size and aesthetic taste. There’s nothing like combining a ranch-style, a castle, a beach house, and the entry to a Howard Johnsons into one home.
Don’t worry. Few if any of the Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, SNL or Bill Maher fans or groupies would stoop to reading TBP. Or, God forbid, actually moving to Deplorable Flyover Country.
What are the yellow plates?
The newer NY plates are gold with black letters, while the older plates are white with blue letters. All are in circulation, but the city types, who usually don’t own cars in the city, probably have new cars with the new gold plates when they come up here snooping around in God’s country.
Great post HSF. Grapes in the ground this week. Five more apple trees and five more peach trees going in next week. Over a dozen varieties of citrus trees already in the ground. Will start a greenhouse next month. A little under two acres where we are in South Texas but it’s about all my wife and I can handle on our own. Hope we stay healthy and up to the task. She just had shoulder surgery last week so I’m pretty much single handed for a few months. All the best for a speedy recovery… Chip
And to your wife as well
Can’t wait to go outdoors again and get back to work
I will see your Marvin Gaye and raise you a Stevie Wonder.
I always liked the spoken lyrics in the song that starts at 4:20. Sorta jus da way it is.
Bob Marley’s Concrete Jungle captures it too.
“Concrete jungle (la-la!)
Man you got to do your best, whoa, yeah
No chains around my feet
But I’m not free, oh-ooh!
I know I am bound here in captivity
G’yeah, now (never, never) I’ve never known happiness
(Never, never) I’ve never known what sweet caress is
Still, I’ll be always laughing like a clown”
Istanbul in 1975 was super safe to ambulate around, anywhere, anytime. Something to be said for that. Remnants of Constantine’s city would bend over backwards to help a Christian soldier find his way.
There but for the grace of fate, I could be your neighbor in New Hampshire. I will not be attending your fun food fete. Too far and too much expense for this shy semi recluse. And I would wilt in the presence of so many luminaries. 1954 or so my father and his B-36 crew members purchased a cow to slaughter from some sod buster in New Hampshire. Loring AFB in Caribou Maine had the shortest route to Russia – to drop big bombs. I had a balcony seat in the loft of the barn. They had a 38 revolver to kill the cow. I recall no one wanted to dispatch the bovine. Eventually the most diminutive of the flight crew stepped forward to brandish the pistol. A shot to the neck exploded the jugular and the cow dropped in it’s tracks.
The farm had an apple orchard where I saw my first deer tracks. And I ate apples til my heart and stomach were full. The estate was for sale and my father entertained buying it. It must of been dirt cheap as an Air Force Captain’s salary was paltry, even with extra flying pay added.
I doubt you would ever go to a Firehouse Subs store but one of my most favorite team members just opened a new store in Manchester. Her ex flyboy husband and their three children recently moved there. What a rare jewel Julie is!
Peace be with you and yours as you mend. Poise you possess – with these things you confess. Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQM00K24qG8
“Got nothing against a big town
Still hayseed enough to say
Look who’s in the big town”
John Mellencamp, “Small Town”
I hear gunshots at night where I live but now it’s just one of the neighbors dispatching a coyote or “takin” a deer outta season to feed the family, so I no longer have to place the head of my bed against an inside wall in case of drivebys, actually knowing all my neighbors are armed and experienced gives me a warm glow. Am just outside the city limits so cops don’t bother to come out unless called. Got an old deer trail right through the back yard. Off topic, horoscope says from 2020 til 2026 entire world will be unsettled and you won’t know from day to day which end is up and your plans will have to change on the fly..who’d a thunk..
I’m not sure it matters how far you go, the city seems to follow. https://www.wmur.com/article/barricaded-subject-in-sunapee/26599027
You notice there was no SWAT and no one was shot to death.
Yet.
Per usual or maybe even more insightful HSF! Makes me cry that I cannot move.
“A report commissioned by Seattle business leaders and written by a member of the previous Mayoral administration concludes that a small number of homeless repeat offenders are involved in thousands of criminal cases in the city. Titled “System Failure” the report looks at 100 offenders and finds they are involved in over 3,500 criminal cases. Most of those offenses involving stealing from area businesses to pay for drug habits. And because the homeless have learned to work the system, they often spend little or no time in jail, and never appear for court.” https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/26/seattles-homeless-prolific-offenders-responsible-thousands-criminal-cases/
Summer anywhere, city or otherwise sounds good to me right now.
All I can say right now, after reading this fantastic essay, is “THANK YOU!” We lived the rat-race in Boston and New York City for over 30 years and we finally came to our senses about nine years ago. We now live just below the Adirondacks in a small house we renovated ourselves. We share our lives with our cats and chickens and bees and big garden, enjoying the hell out of the quiet surroundings, the clean air, the clean water, clean food, the stars at night, the songs of birds greeting the dawn, and the like-minded farmers and neighbors nearby.
I have a pair of those chairs on my front porch in the Ozarks!
Living on the edge of a mediocre metropolis with little to no ability to sustain itself or those dwelling within I have had a front row seat to witness the decay and unavoidable collapse that is coming . Make no mistake the PTB are funneling funds by any means necessary into the city coffers to continue to make an appeal to those surrounding it to come in and spend your time and money here . You may avoid criminal activity you may not . The attractions are nice however the cost to attend the cost to park your vehicle and hope it will not be vandalized when you return the swarm of squgeey kids descending upon you at nearly every major intersection cleaning windshields for a few bucks and kicking or scraping your car should you decline as the light turns green wow cannot wait !
Baltimore just promised the Syphony $3.5 MILLON over some time period to cover salary and expenses because attendance is down but broad daylight murders are way up . Somehow though I am seen as racist uncaring greedy because I resent being taxed to cover something in a city I do not live in . If I wish to support the syphony or sports team I buy a ticket but to be fleeced by government to support any private enterprise is nothing less than orginized theft . If these operations cannot support itself it must die !
That’s what I was told when the largest steel plant on tide water in the world went belly up and my pension with it !
OK but I do not forget and you government workers with underfunded payrolls and pension plans , gee too fucking bad !
Good Luck
How did I know old Boat would toss in the old steel company went belly up line. Every time. Every post.
Loved the post, though.
I don’t mind the reminders from boat guy to thank my lucky stars I was stupid enough to withdraw my entire 401K, pay a heartbreaking penalty and still have enough to pay for a few logs and a builder.
The rest went into silver, which sank with our boat.
boater,
you need to support the symphony,it might give you enough class to be the mayor’s butler–
i heard she wants an old white guy but he can’t be an uncouth redneck,she wants a polished soyboy–
Speaking of Bantumore, it’s possible the Preakness will soon leave that shithole.
Somewhere in hell, Art Modell is being flayed 24/7 for moving the Browns there. Meanwhile, the Colts are happy they left.
Well congratulations Mr. Hardscrabble, seems you’ve made it on over to Zerohedge with this article….today Zerohedge, tomorrow Drudge and from there the sky’s the limit…..
Agree with everything except comment about having good pizza. It’s taken years, but my pizza crust is now perfect. No need to ever go back into the city.
The crust is the essential thing most of us cannot make at a competitive level.
The very first thing Cain did after God cursed his ability to work the earth as intended was to build a city and name it after his firstborn son.
That says a lot to me.
Genesis 4:11-12 KJB… “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”
Genesis 4:16-17 KJB…”And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord , and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
HSF,
Thank you for an excellent piece and the many great comments.
For those that want a scientific framework in support of HSF see: https://www.postcarbon.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/The-Future-Is-Rural-2019.pdf
https://bongino.com/nypd-reports-drastic-increase-in-murders-and-rapes-in-2019/
I hope that you are progressing healthily and will be back on your feet soon, if only in a limited fashion. Those animules ain’t gonna feed themselves..You still got a few seasons left in that arm, kid…
I agree with you – the country is the place to be!