Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
We just wrapped up the sugaring season, our tenth one. Now that all the syrup is made, we’ll start to pull taps and flush lines, clean up the evaporator and restock wood for next year. There will be a couple of days of power washing and scrubbing, hiking back up into the maple orchard and walking back out again at the end of the day. We’ll have to work with the weather to catch the right mix of the warm sunny days to wash and dry hundreds of buckets, lids, and spiles and scrub the out the totes before we put them back in storage until next year.
It was a so-so year for production but the quality was as good as anything we have ever made. The time up in the sugarbush between the end of January when we started clearing out the deadwood and repairing broken lines and first run in early March was an opportunity to reflect on the past year. That’s one of the advantages of living in tune with the seasons, the ability to apprehend both the passage of time outside of man-made means. I watched as my sons took on ever more responsibility this season, carrying the tool bags slung over their shoulders, both of them taller than they were last year, their hair down to their shoulders now.
I have been paying closer attention to the older trees in the stand, trying to identify the ones in the terminal stages of decline to remove from the mainlines and watching for the emerging ones mature enough to take their place. From up on top of the esker, even in the middle of the big stand of hemlocks you could look through the black lace of the bare branches and see the herd pretend to graze on the snow-covered pasture below. Last year’s bullocks are filling out, even at the tail end of Winter, and all of the cows are wide with this year’s calves only weeks away now. For all of the furor that took place out there somewhere since this time last year, everything here has just matured, like a fine wine.
I joked early on that we were made for times like these, but it’s not a joke. From where we sit the odd behavior of a collective madness gripping huge swaths of the population, lathered into a panic by professional agitators is more of a curiosity than a threat. The idea that people will continue on with such paranoid delusions for much longer seems highly unlikely despite appearances, but I could be mistaken. People cling to odd notions for as long as it is socially efficacious and then when things go another way, they drop it with equal ease. In the essay Corn Pone Opinions, Mark twain wrote the following-
“A new thing in costume appears — the flaring hoopskirt, for example — and the passers-by are shocked, and the irreverent laugh. Six months later everybody is reconciled; the fashion has established itself; it is admired, now, and no one laughs. Public opinion resented it before, public opinion accepts it now, and is happy in it. Why? Was the resentment reasoned out? Was the acceptance reasoned out? No. The instinct that moves to conformity did the work. It is our nature to conform; it is a force which not many can successfully resist.”
He understood the importance of conformity and though he managed to navigate the world of 19th century celebrity as well as any, he saw the world from a distance that afforded him a better view of behavior over time and I believe that he was quite right in this regard.
As a small, independent, family farmer I realize that I live on the fringes of modern American society. It allows me to observe the popular culture from a distance and to form opinions that are not- as Twain quipped- dependent upon where I received my corn pone. We generate our own power, produce our own food, carry no debt, have no mortgage and are not employed by others. What we do we do for the benefit of our family, friends and neighbors and so we are free to express our opinions and follow our own customs without the ever-present fear of being fired or compromised.
This was- as long-time readers are probably aware- a deliberate decision on our part more than a decade ago. Having gone through an early version of being cancelled in 2003 for a series of essays I wrote about popular culture we began to lay the framework for our retreat to a rural property where we could, in the words of Nasim Taleb, become anti-fragile. Although we had no experience and virtually no real understanding of what becoming homesteaders meant in the 21st century, we set our sights on becoming as independent and self-sufficient as humanly possible. As each year has passed, we developed new skills and awakened long dormant instincts we never realized that we possessed.
We started with a garden and a few chickens, added goats, then sheep, pigs and beef cattle, tilapia and rabbits, and by the time we’d celebrated our 3rd anniversary we’d been named a New Hampshire Farm of Distinction by the Department of Agriculture, featured as Homesteaders of the Year by Mother Earth News, as well as becoming the first farm in New England to be awarded the Animal Welfare Approved designation. I mention these only to demonstrate that by the standards of authorities in the agrarian field, we had displayed an understanding of something that was new to us in a relatively short time. My belief is that most of us possess these innate abilities but due to our disconnect from the natural world our instincts have remained untapped. Our practices were based on the premise that we wanted to live healthier lives in balance with our surroundings, and to do so in a way that was as close to what nature intended.
We’ve never used artificial inputs on our fields, have eschewed the use of pharmaceuticals on our livestock and in all ways focused on imitating what has worked for thousands of years rather than to become an extension of the industrial agriculture of the last half century or more. In doing so we began to notice certain undeniable truths about how life is supposed to be rather than how we, as humans, wish it could be. Our animals have thrived without having spent money on commercial feeds, the quality of their diets producing high quality manures that have enriched and built the soils of our pastures and paddocks to a degree we never could have imagined and the meat we produce? I’ve never eaten better in my life.
What has happened as a result of our removal from society at large has been a better understanding of how it is malfunctioning. Before we moved here, we felt that something was wrong but we had no means of grasping what the root causes were. I began to see people as simply another species of domesticated animal rather than as something elevated to the level of minor gods.
You begin to notice their infirmities and weaknesses that previously had gone unnoticed, perhaps deliberately for reasons of civility. I can easily observe if a chicken is healthy or if a bull poses a danger without a second glance, but until I was well into middle-age when I was dealing with someone who was unfit or exhibited signs of maladaptive behavior, I’d ignore the signs in order to be polite.
Let me state clearly lest I be misunderstood. I have no opinion about what other people choose to do with their lives or their daily behavior as long as it doesn’t require me to be either an advocate or a victim of those choices. It would be hard to distill that view down any further and by extension my only demand is to be treated with the same respect, but it must be stated. Far too few people have a personal code that they can articulate and I think that may contribute to the current dilemma and why so few people seem to be able to resist the enormous pressure exerted on them this past year. Imagine if you had pulled a Rip Van Winkle about a year ago an awoke to a world where healthy people wear surgical masks while driving alone in their cars in order to avoid the flu.
And not just some people, but virtually everyone in the Western World. Somehow the fact that it has happened cancels out the outrageous and nonsensical notion that it had to happen. I won’t list the endless litany of unreasonable demands that have been made of a formerly free people without their advice and consent, nor the rhetorical extremes used to justify them by people so obviously ill, both physically and mentally that anyone should clearly see it if they only looked. Unfortunately, we live in the middle of a mass movement, the kind that human societies experience when they are themselves unwell, collectively as a people.
If you haven’t read Charles MacKay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, now would be a good time. His examples of these types of unified aberrations on a mass scale pale in comparison to what we have experienced in this most recent spin around the Sun. People spending fortunes on tulip bulbs or a few dozen witches being hung for consorting with demons seems tame after you’ve seen watched the behavior of the class of 2020.
People defer to the experts, so when it comes to herd immunity it’s safe to say that I qualify. We practice the kind of farming practices you’d likely have encountered prior to World War II. No pesticides or petroleum-based fertilizers. We don’t use commercial feeds for our pigs and poultry and our cattle are 100% grass fed, like ruminants are designed to eat. And our herds are healthy- year in and year out, through some pretty severe New England Winters. We eat fresh in season and we preserve by canning, fermenting, curing and smoking for all the rest of our needs.
We produce our maple syrup the old way, on a wood fired evaporator and with the exception of our diesel tractor, almost everything else we use is either human or animal powered. We get up when the Sun rises, work together as a family, make 99% of our own meals and take them together. We work outdoors every single day and probably deal with more pathogens than the next fifty people combined and yet we never get sick. No colds or allergies, no sleep deprivation, no stress related issues, and with the exception of an occasional broken bone or a cut requiring stitches, we’ve spent nothing on medical care or health insurance in 12 years.
I’ll give a nod to good genetics, but having been an insomnia plagued, stressed out, desk bound slob who suffered from colds and flus every year when I was in my forties, I can say with complete certainty that my turnaround is the result of how we eat, live, and behave. Our lifestyle is not something most people would want to emulate and it isn’t one I would recommend to everyone, but if it worked for us, it could benefit those who want it bad enough.
Maybe I am mistaken. Maybe it’s better for people to repeatedly inject themselves with vaccines, wear masks that cover half their faces whenever they go out, maintain distance between each other, not gather in groups of more than a few people at a time and continue eating as much as they want because obese people are just as healthy as physically fit specimens. Maybe it’s best to take advice from people who are sickly on what’s best for their health, or practice rituals and observe taboos that have never existed before because they might otherwise come down with a flu bug that only 99.7% of the population recovers from.
Maybe, but it seems highly unlikely. My own personal belief, based on my personal experience and all of human history says that the best bet for dealing with any type of disease is to first acknowledge that death comes for us all at some point and prophylactic politically driven mandates will never alter that inevitability no matter how healthy or cautious we may be. That fact aside, a healthy lifestyle, a positive outlook, plenty of time outdoors in nature and the society of other people who share similar values provide a much better quality of life than dodging other humans as if they were on fire every time we step outside of our home.
Throw in an immune system designed by God or evolution (take your pick) and 99.8% under the age of 80 with a BMI of 30 or less stand a good chance of doing just fine. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time we decide for ourselves rather than to blindly accept the diktats of people who clearly didn’t think of any of this as recently as a year ago. Having raised a family and producing thousands of healthy animals on our farm over the course of the last 12 years I have come to several conclusions about the health of living organisms. We live in a world filled with far more pathogens than any other form of life.
Their purpose, of course, is to handle the decay that results from life itself. They breakdown manure and turn it into soil, aid in the digestion of every living animal by breaking down consumed energy of fodder and turning it into waste products in an endless cycle which leads- dare I say it- to even more life. Bacteria, viruses, molds and germs are essential to our life in a way we can hardly comprehend if we live outside of the natural world and ensconce ourselves in the manifest realities of ideologies, religion and politics. Pathogens are- to healthy organisms- a kind of co-worker that perform a multitude of unseen tasks that boost our immune system and aid in our overall fitness and well-being. The only time that they pose any kind of threat is when an organism is compromised, either by poor nutrition, unhealthy environment, stress and anxiety, injury or senescence.
While on the human level it is unfortunate to acknowledge that these states of existence limit our lifespan, it is a reality we can never escape from. A physically fit specimen in the prime of life faces virtually zero risk from any type of opportunistic infection and an old, worn down, poorly fed and anxious animal is ripe for illness. In fact, these considerations are, at least metaphorically, the soil in which we are raised. As anyone who has ever attempted to grow a garden understands, the most important factor for the success of any plant is the tilth of the soil in which it is planted.
Contrary to this widely accepted wisdom of the ages, modern man has come to believe that people can live lives of complete safety if only the proper combination of panaceas are applied. Fat is healthy, promiscuity is exciting, stress is medicated. None of the essential ingredients to living a healthy life are ever promoted- in fact the signature of the CDC over the past year has been to completely and totally ignore the promotion of healthy lifestyle, but replace it with a pharmaceutical treatment while allowing the individual to continue with their maladaptive behaviors, and even engage in increasingly bizarre and destructive responses such as avoiding human contact with loved ones, hiding indoors out of the Sunlight, and retarding their ability to breathe fresh air. It would appear, to someone standing at a distance, to be a formula to guarantee the spread of sickness among a population that would ordinarily walk it off without so much as a symptom even if exposed to it.
I have been thinking a great deal about the direction of our current cultural slide into totalitarian policy making that removes the voice of reason from the conversation, that disallows dissent in any form. It would be one thing if this was a response to a demand by the people, or even a plebiscite to determine the will of the people, but once again we were left out of that discussion. I do not believe that anyone should be forbidden from wearing as many masks as they like, or remaining inside their homes for as long as they like if they fear illness to such a degree and I have never heard of anyone suggest something like that.
Those of us who have never worn a mask because we are able to not only reason for ourselves the calculated risks associated with living a normal human life without ad hoc mandates to do something that violates fundamental human rights, but resist the unwarranted social pressure of a clearly traumatized and frightened public unable to do the same for themselves.
When I made a decision to start writing again and posting it on the Internet, I understood that those who responded would fall into one of two camps regardless of how benign and inoffensive my intentions were. Those of like-mind would appreciate someone being open and truthful about their experience and perspective and those who oppose my general outlook would be either skeptical or deeply offended. I offered to open up our life to anyone who chose to come by and see it for themselves to either confirm or dismiss whatever preconceived notion they may have had.
I suppose there was an inherent risk to such a move, but I am not particularly risk averse by nature and as a perpetually optimistic person I looked forward to meeting people I would otherwise never have had an opportunity to encounter. The result has been a unique blessing that I never fully anticipated. The quality and character of the visitors, their generosity and enthusiasm, the fellowship and encouragement have acted as a force multiplier that surprises me every day. In turn I have tried to share everything that we have learned from our experience, from the various tasks and disciplines of living a neo-agrarian lifestyle in the post-modern world, to the shortfalls and heartbreaks of our daily struggle to survive in a toxic culture.
I have tried to provide as much encouragement as possible, tempered by a realistic assessment of the difficulties we’ve encountered to anyone and everyone who has taken the time to reach out, drive up, work alongside, contribute, and support us over the years. A few years back we hosted the first July 4th Farm to Table Dinner on the farm and found that people were willing to travel as far away as the other side of the continent to spend a day on the farm. It was the kind of experience you might see in a magazine spread, only better and the relationships formed then have only deepened and grown stronger.
This year we will host it once again and like some of the other things we’ve tried in the past we will trust in the basic decency and good nature of the majority of the people to come up and experience both our hospitality and our deep appreciation of their numerous gifts and support. If you are able to come up, you are welcome. If you would like to contribute, you are welcome and if you cannot you are still welcome. If you know someone who would benefit from a visit, tell them to drop me an email or give me a call and I will gladly do whatever I can to extend a hand.
The world has changed irrevocably in the past year and there has been a bifurcation of the nation in a way we have never experienced before. I think that this time, while fraught with challenges and disturbing trends, is also an opportunity of a lifetime and I hope to share a little bit of it with you and show that there may be an alternative to the kind of life we have been living in the past and to learn from others how they see us moving forward.
And for those of you who have enjoyed our syrup in the past and would like to try another bottle or two, we’re about to start bottling up this year’s production; sweet, unique and made by our hands in cooperation with some of the healthiest sugar maples anywhere on Earth. And if you’ve never tried it before, this would be the one taste.
Mahalo!
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As always, a beautifully written piece.
Thank you for your contributions and I hope to make it up this year myself, I am not far.
Your pup rants are classic. Would be nice to see you at the farm.
“As anyone who has ever attempted to grow a garden understands, the most important factor for the success of any plant is the tilth of the soil in which it is planted.” Here here, so very true. While I am no longer living in the Live Free or Die State, but am surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, I will be at your farm come the 4th. I will be up to the camp in Croydon the week before and will put in a days work or two at the end of June to prep for the gathering, although a fishing trip in Maine beckons the 1st – 3rd. Your journey has been inspiring to me, thank you for your honesty and truthfulness. Oh, and fuck conformity! Best to you and your family!
HSF,
Is there any land for sale connected to your farm?
Anyone here want to consider purchasing acreage next to Hardscrabble?
email me to discuss.
Isengard bids 5.
FYI, land and property taxes in NH ain’t cheap!
If we are facing what seems to be “The Final Solution” for TPTB, creating a “safe” space with like minded individuals is wise(?). And getting a leg up from an experienced, honest, hard working and “down with the struggle” type of neighbor seems like a no-brainer.
Indeed. That’s why i am trying to keep my property up there. But property taxes for us “retired” folks make it difficult.
You poetically and wonderfully (as usual) write about healthy living — moving about, fresh air, eating well, exercise, etc etc —– and then end it with a video of an enormously obese man.
That’s funny, I don’t care who you are.
==============================
Note: I love Izzy!!! I have posted that same video, as well as several others, in a music article I wrote a long time ago. Yes, indeed, Izzy was a wonderful artist and human being.
“Let me state clearly lest I be misunderstood. I have no opinion about what other people choose to do with their lives or their daily behavior as long as it doesn’t require me to be either an advocate or a victim of those choices. ”
My wife and I saw him at a place called Shark’s in Oahu when we were first dating and he was amazing. Sad that he made the choices he did and deprived himself of perhaps having a far more lasting career and a family, but he made his choices.
I just finished watching this wonderful 30 minute documentary. Izzy fans will love it.
Thank you Stucky. I am a fan of Izzy. I lived in Hawaii ten years on the big island. It was truly a great experience. Izzy was about Malama Na Ka Ina; caring for the land. The spirit of Aloha is something one feels when in Hawaii. This spirit is felt no where else.
I lived in Hilo for about a year, on Ohai St. Big Island is by far the best place, IMO, to actually live on the Islands. The others were awesome to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live on them. It was a real culture shock; I was in Ridgecrest, CA for 6 yrs before that. My wife (at that time) worked at Ken’s. She had lived, years before, on the South End for several years.
I can tell art from trash primarily by genuiness of it. I think he is an artist. Just try any deliberate form of expression that you can deliver with precision.
Sadly I think Izzy was a victim of the standard American diet. A Dr. wrote a book called The Hawaiian Diet and proved that if Hawaiians would go back to their original diets the weight and health problems abate.
I am finding it hard to keep on weight while I stick to the outer perimeter of the grocery store and don’t eat out and quit drinking like a degenerate. You know what happens when I eat a bunch of natural fiber? I feel better. I am hyper aware that I was able to not be able to notice if I abused my body for the first 30 years. It was really hard to tell if I was abusing my body. It was a fit machine and it was young. I can really really tell if I abuse my body these days. I like to think to think I am trying to be healthier because I respect myself, but probably my body is having a fair amount of silent majority influence.
My wife and I discovered that song some years ago and then had a romantic getaway to Moss Landing/Monterey Bay and the restaurant happened to have a ukulele player we flagged down and that is one of our best vacation memories.
To a far far lesser degree, wifey and I have reconfigured our priorities. City folk moving to the country.
Working on our small plot and always slowly increasing its size and realizing better production each of the past 3 years has given us an appreciation for a better way. While I’ve always appreciated nature, the many ways it presents itself to us is an amazing dance of intertwined systems impossible not to be impressed by.
The further we move away from that old life the more confident and secure we are in managing our fate in a world that is truly going nuts.
We at that precipice where if the world goes go to hell we can manage here and be OK. That is a comforting and worth the work put in to achieve it.
Is this a feature, or a bug? A feature, I think. I hear people cast doubts upon the idea that the undermining of wealth, health, and common sense is intentional and deliberate, but so far, no one has explained to my satisfaction the continuum of “failure’ that has brought it upon us, how it is always NEGATIVE and that not a single decision from the idiots-in-charge has ever proven to be, by accident, a POSITIVE for society at large. For example, for FIFTY YEARS, parents and (good) teachers alike have resisted the destruction of the public education system, and it is far worse today than it ever has been. In no way can this be an accident, but the unions blame the boards; the boards, the states, and the states, the feds, and, meanwhile, citizens pay through the nose for the ignorance and indoctrination that, in theory, no one wants. Thus, I am convinced that malfeasance is the goal, a convenient excuse for the cause of the “decay” when THEY are “called out”, when, in reality, these very thoughtful animals inflict destruction upon the rest of us, and no matter the push-back, they win, regardless. Sure, they will pitch someone in front of the bus – Cuomo’s current situation being a good example – but the bus continues its course, straight to hell.
The way of life that you live, that others among us endeavor to emulate, is THE best way to resist. It is peaceful, fruitful, fulfilling, and, in the end, the resilience learned and lived makes one more likely to survive (and THRIVE) if not outright harder to kill.
Thanks for this article, HSF.
The more the public suffers the more power Statist accrue to themselves.
I think it’s deliberate
Voulez-vous dire que vous etes en colere contre la meme icit? Une chose que je n’ai pas appris durant mes annees la – Loring AFB, moi, Hard S – cent milles de chez moi au rive sud, au phare du Point au Pere – il n’y a personne qui a compris comment on/ nous etions ensemble. Pas complique – regardez la globe terreste – 24/7/365 nuclear en haut, sans commentaire, plutot sans enquiete. Au Sud cent milles? Ouiii, ca commence a nous enquite. Je ne me cache pas – ni mon francais, ni mon vois de la future. Robert.
neibo, I would like to share with you what Ayn Rand has to say about the function of government in a free society. “It’s function is to protect freedom, not truth or virtue.”
“The right to think and act as one chooses necessarily includes the right to choose incorrectly, whether through ignorance or evasion (and then to suffer the consequences). An individual free to choose only what the government authorizes as correct has no freedom. A proper government is based on a definite philosophy, but it can play no role in promoting that philosophy. Such a responsibility belongs to private citizens, who can keep the right system only by exercising “eternal (ideological) vigilance.” If the agency with a monopoly on coercion undertakes to enforce ideas, any ideas, whether true or false, it thereby reverses it’s function; it becomes the enemy, not the protector, of the free mind and thus loses its moral basis for existing.
What government has done from the top down to the local level regarding it’s handling of the covid-19 has proved according to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is that our government has lost it’s moral basis for existing. However, with so many in our country willing to go along with this blatant abuse of power it shows me many are no longer fit to live in freedom. If they are in the majority then we who can reason will have to watch the final destruction of our republic. Unless we act. Hosts of conservative talk shows we can take our government back without violence. This is a lie. Compromise with those who don’t compromise has cost us this country. Our forefathers did not compromise. They used violence.
U R Right.
Hanlon’s Razor may apply to many things; but it does NOT apply to actions of the U.S. National government
Until people realize that, in politics, Hanlon’s Razor is BUNK; and start applying “Roosevelt’s Razor”**, there won’t ever be hope for this country.
** In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Been off doing my own ‘thang’ for a few days, and then I come back to this. What an absolute pleasure to read and share your thoughts.
I would love to immerse myself as fully into a similar lifestyle, but I am doing it completely solo. So I do what I can. No-one appreciates the value of at least one extra set of hands or shared thoughts/perspective as much as someone going it alone. One excellent by-product of that, however, is the strong network of neighbors and friends I have been blessed with, all of whom have different abilities and end-products to bring to the table – literally and metaphorically.
By the way, I’ll be sending an email to order a bottle of your syrup. I can’t stand not sampling it any longer. I would love to show up this year, but it’s a dim prospect at best.
Bless your day, Hardscramble.
HSF I’m envious of your family support. In our immediate family there’s Marilen(wife), our dog, and me. The dog and I are on the same page politically.
Marilen, as a critical care nurse practitioner in a big city hospital, is all in with establishment protocols. As an avid watcher of the PBS, the view, etc she clearly knows the truth of the world.
So as I listen to liberty oriented podcasts while rotating our pigs, making compost, attracting hummingbirds, and working on the final 1.5% of our log cabin, my head has become obviously filled with what she might describe with some dialogue from Young Frankenstein: the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind.
There is a disruption in your relationship. It’s only a couple days old but there’s power behind it. I’m to get the jab so we can travel again. Travel is something we used to do before up became down.
Only thing is I’m not not getting the jab. I’m outside most of the day and move well for a 70 yr old. She’s the love of my life yet I have a compelling need to make a stand.
Not happy about this.
Sorry to hear that Red, but stand your ground, DO NOT get the jab. I thank the Lord every day that my wife and I are on the same page.
Us, too, CO2. Thank God for that. It’s sad to hear when this crap comes between couples.
Hope to see you guys at the farm again in July!
I would love to come. I posted why we won’t be able to further down.
Damn.
These are times that will try us all. We will not travel outside our safe zone for some time, I don’t think.
Ignore those loservotesters. I sure do, except when I try to up the numbers. What a bunch of morons. They don’t deserve the honorary ‘maroon’, etc.
if mRNA gene altering drugs are required to travel, I guess this old man will never travel again.
Sad to hear your wife’s trapped in the bottle.
I too would avoid the jab. Get some Ivermectin.
I have some. Turns out that my few pigs don’t need it and presumably they’ll be happy to share
I know a farmer here who rubs some into his forearms after spreading it down his cattles backs for ticks and lice. Go figure. Noone here is afraid of the Rona and noone wears masks, except at the grocery store.
Same here Red. Mrs. is terrified I’m going to die without it. She even signed me up for it and I said “not happening.” The illegitimacy of this whole thing and the whole cast of characters has “Oh hell no!” written on it large enough to see from outer space.
Maybe the issue will fade away. A few years ago I tossed out my statins after attending a low carb conference. It was a known fact stroke or cardy arrest would befall me yet here I am.
I’m a skeptic on those too. I think they cause Parkinsons which “bad” cholesterol prevents.
Steve – My wife and I still travel, though not as much as before. We try to make it to CO to see the kids once or twice a year and a time or two to OK to see more family. We have talked about what we would do if push came to shove and we had to get jabbed before we could fly or stay in a hotel. I am down with driving and staying with family/friends along the way, but she doesn’t like to ride in the car for more than 4 – 5 hours at a time which makes a trip to CO 4 days each way.
Stand firm on the jab, I plan on doing likewise.
We’re thinking about getting something like a small RV with a bathroom. Never have to stop anywhere. Have your own facilities. Park in one kid’s driveway for a few days and on to the next one’s driveway for a few days etc. Maybe park in my sister’s driveway in Ft. Meyers for a day or two.
Loved my 11.5 ft WineInA Bag F350 Camper but get it clear on Abo/ Crown/ State etc rights. Me, I followed Abo culture – dust to dust. Shift ends 04:30, dark park on Res land, pull plug, depart. Cut the BS on Green – went straight to a Farmacyst – reply = ‘Bleach kills. 4 L that tank = certain death to all.’ Agreed – wasn’t the same dude who passed 2021 Practice Exams on Vaccine & Gunpowder Trace. Today, I would follow friends eg: quick stop 1/2 mile b4 Interstate Official Rest Stop # 237 – pull plug. Depart. Arrive #237. Screw cap back on/ dribble water down truck, go to washroom. ‘What? Huh? Must be confused. Ya got a picture? That? Ya, u no it rains up here so drips on I-X Hiway = normal. Serious? Ya got me on vid going to thhe Kellog’s machine? But no citation to Kellog’s?’
Sounds 14th Amendment to me.
Me – ‘Great honey – u signed us up for Club X, early arrive, free snacks etc? So my nap is when, for a couple hours, & we beez eating where ’bout 18:00? If answer = clear English eg 15:00 to 17:00 – marvy. If not – …uh, we beez waitin’ for # 1 b4 we does #2, nomesayin’?
S in Law called 20:00, family hates my guts, niece preggers due, ignored Call Display. Brother called 08:30, I’d already hit the bottle & was back in bed, non-compus-mentus. Called him back 10:30 – u have 11:30 COSTCO vaccine appntmnt booked on-line. Thanked him, was there 11:15, ace job by all concerned (uhhm due TO/ Glasgow/ Prague/ Houston/ SF in Aug).
Like, I always get sent to Secondary for stunning stupid questions, slept floor O’ Hare 2 nights last trip (gunpowder residue random sample test/ missed departure), like, when do we stop being giggles to those in command?
I admire people who are creators and unafraid. You are correct: most people will never willingly live this way.They are too weak, afraid of ‘failing’ (learning) and taking their power back.
Many people go through life feeling like a victim of someone’s evil plan; yes, there are evil people with agendas.
We all create our own reality for the most part. At first people recoil when this is brought up.
Studying Quantum Physics, history, Universal Laws and the true spiritual world removes all doubt from someone who is really an intellectually honest seeker of truth.
https://youtu.be/qTMWuVKcoRY
In my State the mask requirement has been lifted but many of the corporations are still enforcing it.
This past year I have woken up to the fact that many people are too lazy to question the story presented to them about this virus called covid 19 and because people are so suggestable they just follow and believe what they are told by the government.
We are experiencing the ramifications of “the falling away” as told us in the holy scriptures when people no longer follow the principles spelled out in the word of God. This falling out we are experiencing leads to insanity which is presently why so many actions by government seem to make no sense at all.
We are on the highway to Hell and unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it but prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Anyone observing can see the system is going down around them. The collectives are looking for government to save the day and what a surprise they will experience when they wake up to find that the government cannot save them.
Thank you Hardscrabble Farmer for your well thought out article. Your way of life may become very popular after the crash. I believe many will die because they are not prepared economically or spiritually for what is coming. Living unnaturally; as you know, has it’s consequences. Many people in our society are sick physically and spiritually due to their lifestyle. What is equally sad are the many people who are too lazy to use that marvelous brain we have and develop it to our own advantage. Nature is now taking it’s course and we are witnessing the outcome.
Two things are evident here. Communism comes to populations that are too lazy to develop into individuals. Democracy is the worst form of government of a free people because it allows ignorant people in the majority to elect equally ignorant people to lead them.
Western civilization is dying as did 23 civilizations before ours. We happen to live in a time of transition. What I see in the world right now is tragic. People all over are losing it. I do feel grateful we are living in this country at this time regardless of the many bad things we see going on. We are still free in many ways and there are many rational people that are humane and will bind together to form a better system when the current one fails. If the current drive to federalize the States succeed then we could have a communist government for the next 50 years. I am hoping this does not happen because it means that the human condition will go backward.
I have faith in God and his plan for humanity. God is all knowing because he can see into every human mind and has the power to influence outcomes. What seems to us evil in our limited capacity to see past time God sees things and events or occurrences on an eternal scale and thus can see the outcome of all events and occurrences. God gave each one of us talents which are discovered when we develop this wonderful brain he gave us. Remember the parable of the talents the master gave his servants to develop and what happened to the servant that buried his? This is how I look at all those who are too lazy to develop reason and logic in themselves. Those who were given 12 years of basic education and squandered it.
The reckoning is coming. The chaff is being separated from the wheat and burned. So Hardscrabble Farmer what you and I are witnessing is what is foretold in the scriptures.
Happy Easter
The fact that there is a highway to Hell and a stairway to Heaven would be an indication of the numbers in each direction.
Obtw Hell was capitalized automatically Heaven was not, odd.
I believe you posted the 100th comment. Keep track!
“In my State the mask requirement has been lifted but many of the corporations are still enforcing it.”
That is the BIG NUT of corporate fascism. The Corporations are now in charge of governing. They have/are privatizing this fascist dictates so you have NO RIGHTS. NO Mask. No entry. NO Vaccine. NO food.
Unless small businesses grow some balls and refuse to comply with this communist/fascist/social-engineering/non critical thinking regime….we will be fuct. Support businesses that support you and the LIVING.
Reading this article was like a couple of blueberry and banana pancakes with your syrup–to be savored. Wisdom comes to those who seek it, who have the courage to think for themselves. You and your family sought it, and you all have found it. Thanks for a great rumination (in every sense of the word). See you in July.
Did anybody ever talk about herd immunity?
Pets and farm animals appear to be next on the Covidians list. Spreaders.
I have read and personally seen people get it because of family pressure, travel, etc. the biggest reason is ‘just because’, however.
I am SO thankful my spouse and I are on the same page but that kind of pressure makes me even more determined. Practice good ‘ shut up’ type answers and escalate.
This article on the brain infecting viruses that have brought on much of our collective societal INSANITY is really instructive. A book review.
https://mises.org/wire/mind-viruses-creating-social-justice-warriors
Huzzah to optimism.
No bees?
When does he start talking about herd immunity?
Was I too subtle?
We’re immune to the real sickness threatening society because we’ve been drawn together.
Oh.
Yes I guess it was too subtle, or perhaps it was buried too deep and I failed to dig deeply enough to find it.
Herding up can be good for some things, but I’m not sure any immunity comes of it.
If you’re talking about good people supporting each other, yes. Faith will be required, a swell as all the values of a civilized community that come from faith.
It is denied these days that religion is anything good at all, but the Jude/Christian traditions led to the ideas that founded America. They aer stil our moral and legal foundation.
Undoubtedly that is why “progressives” of all stripes hate religion.
I’ve been telling my friends, Faith is God’s greatest gift.
HSF, your inspiring words are the best I have read in a long time. Hubs ordered some syrup last and I made some Pecan pancakes, it was delicious! Izzy’s song is one of our favorites because we had a young man with a ukulele sing it for us in a resturant in Monterey Bay. I could read your words for a long time! Thank you and God Bless!
Thanks for that Scrabble.
There was a time when I thought you message was getting back to the land.
Now I see it differently. Now I see it as getting back my agency.
Thanks, good observation.
The individual is the essential part, and without individuals being recognized as free agents, nothing good will happen.
If we can, we will.
In accordance with the “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds“, you wrote:
Indeed. I can see the future historians now, scratching their heads and muttering to themselves…. WTF?!
Real historians in the very near future will put it al together and expose it for what we already know it is.
Real journalists are the historians of the instant, and they are exposing it every day.
I don’t you think you understand what real journalists and historians do.
What do you think they do?
God’s original intent for His creation was the Garden of Eden not the concrete jungle. Everything beyond or outside of that was man’s creation not God’s original intent pre- temptation, pre-sin and pre-fall.
The millennial reign of Jesus will revert back to His original intended lifestyle for us on earth apart from those in their new spiritual bodies.
I doubt very much that you know God’s intentions, now, or in the past.
I’m sure you are aware of the historical fact that priests of every time and place and religion claimed to know God’s intentions.
We know God’s intentions because He had it written down
Sounds like God has Alzheimers.
The Priests of many religions have relied on Sacred Texts containing the words of God, and they always seem to think that God speaks only to them.
Regarding the Garden of Eden, what I take from the story is that God wanted us to remain ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil, in other words, to live in the Garden as animals.
That is my problem with it. Whatever power only speaks to priests and messiahs sounds more malevolent than good. And the whole parable is so abstract now, that Genesis is pretty meaningless.
The millennial reign of Jesus began with His resurrection as Christendom spread throughout the world, bringing schools, hospitals, the sciences and human rights. This era of relative peace ended as Satan was released from the abyss more than 100 years ago, spreading communism throughout the world – with the US being the last hold out until November 2020. The coordinated, purposeful destruction we all lament now is not merely incompetent government nor clueless woke virtue signalers just coincidentally all aligning against common decency and common sense. No, the destruction of Christendom is the work of the beast. But it will last only for a short while. Then Christ will return to not only defeat the dragon but to also defeat death.
More TRUTH about the covid Bull Sh*t.
Thanks for a splendid, soul stirring piece. A happy and blessed Easter to you.
Great article. My wife told me to read it. Why does: “Throw in an immune system designed by God or evolution (take your pick) and 99.8% ” need to be an either /or? I have never met a professional theologian or scientist that considered it doesn’t, but occasionally someone writes about it obscurely.
Minor irrelevant tangent, but the article stands on its own without comment. Your lifestyle sounds wonderful. I have worked on enough farms to understand the work. I would like to do something similar, primarily for the benefits you speak of, but the path to get there is unclear. I assume you had massive savings to purchase the farm and get started. We are going to be scouting land in a couple of years, but I’ll need to collect numbers to see what the budget is going to be. I don’t see how you stay out of debt and self-sufficient if don’t know what you are doing beforehand or have a clear idea of your business-plan/production-capacity.
I got to ask, how did you ever succeed not even knowing you had sugar trees or how you were going to work the land? Definitely it sounds like you knew enough to leverage state ag-extensions. A resource not enough people use.
Maybe PMs take off and we have more options open, but I have about 2 years to figure out what I want to do while I grow up.
I guess I ended up rambling. Executive function is not warmed up yet. It has been a long week.
I can tell you how to do it, but first you need enough capital, then you have to find a suitable place and acquire everything you need. Yes, you might get some free help from the state, maybe even the county.
I worked on a farm some too, but not a farm that was geared toward a survivalist lifestyle. The gardening and canning they did was useful to learn. I already knew how to clean and skin and butcher animals and birds from hunting them, which is why they liked having me help so much when it came time to slaughter a pig or a bunch of chickens.
There are lots of reasons people left farms, mostly boiling down to constant hard work with no end in sight. Working hard is good, no end in sight and the chance of going hungry or dying, not so good.
I found it strange that you mentioned a “business plan”.
I found it strange that you mentioned a “business plan“.
Why?
Not a business… its a life style.
It is just common terminology that I take to mean considering costs and returns so that you don’t end up doing something disastrous, not that I wanted to make it an actual business.
Victor David Hanson has compiled Ten Rules that have been installed / propagated to run the society.
As a born and bred city (NYC) dweller and resident of same along with other cities on three other continents, once financially able, child responsibilities met, I set out to evacuate. A second marriage delayed that departure for six more years, although I’d already begun looking at rural property in Spain, where I then lived. Seventeen years ago, I found it in Argentina and have been here ever since, delving more and more deeply into a way of life not dissimilar to yours, save that it’s on a smaller scale and less labor-intensive. The values, however, are for all practical purposes identical.
I opened up my place to some young people from an organization the name of which I’ve repressed; I ended up feeling as if I were runing a lunatic asylum al fresco. You’ve done far better in that respect! Folks have told me that people like you and I are “a species in danger of extinction”, but somehow I’ve always doubted that, and now doubly so.
Keep on keepin’ on, sir, and may the wind be at your back.
The syrup is the cat’s meow. I got 2 jugs last year. I’m watching our sugar/carb intake so I still have half a jug but will order some more. We won’t make it up this year. I refuse to fly and we just can’t be away for 2 weeks so we could drive. Going through NY could become a problem. I’ll post a little vid below this comment.
This actually happened to a UK teen. His family was kept from all human contact from him. It’s amazing that he survived.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/03/uk/joseph-flavill-coma-pandemic-scli-gbr-intl/index.html
When people just allow the government to keep them from their loved ones without a fight and this is continuing to this day, I’m not optimistic about the world ever going back to what it was before 2020. I think, well I hope, there might be pockets of parallel societies but there might be a fight to keep them if they develop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcVxcTsaRVg
It seems obvious that they intend tyranny. More and more people are realizing that.
I’m more worried about them starting wars than I am about them repressing parallel societies., which we already have.
The trick will be to prevent parallel societies from wanting to kill each other in tribal warfare. I guess I already said that.
Always a fan of HSF’s words of wisdom. Working the land is no easy task, but the results of self sufficiency are both gratifying and an inspiration to others. Independance is the spice of life. For those that have the motivation and financial resources to tackle such a noble cause, we owe them our thanks. Never let the government tell you what you can or cannot do. If its moral and productive, there need not be a law that justifies the act. Acts of kindness and sharing the knowledge of true production will give future generations the ability to continue the legacy, a legacy we should all be striving to obtain. Grow your own food, aggregate the tools to maintain a homestead, source a library of self help books, and be a lifetime student with the drive to accomplish the never ending amount of tasks that ensure a bountiful and meaningful life. Thank you! 👍🏻👍🏻
John,
“If its moral and productive, there need not be a law that justifies the act.”
In fact the idea of America is that everything is permitted as long as it doesn’t infringe or deny the equal rights of others.
Laws are only required to punish or deter criminal acts, which are defined as all types of force and fraud, and to keep the government within it’s legitimate bounds.
HS, you may very well enjoy this documentary on Vandana Shiva, one of her primary achievements in life was to educate people regarding seed saving and maintaining the small farmer. The best from Monsanto have come after her, but needless to say she is a warrior and remarkable.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/04/03/the-seeds-of-vandana-shiva.aspx?ui=7547d59c2af18b01b4324bf40244e5db42697a3b45110d2e14dc20a4a93ddf48&sd=20160904&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20210403_HL2&mid=DM847632&rid=1123423642
We have been at our Homestead for 37 years in the Sierra Nevada in Northern CA – very remote here – and next to the National forest. We have toyed with idea of moving to NH where I was brought up. But, it is a daunting idea to move from our beloved gardens, home, animals and friends and family and leave behind the Herb School. We are in our 70’s now and don’t know if we have the energy to move! I have taught Herbal Medicine and it has been my life work . Working for ourselves and creating our own school has been amazing! I’ve not been to a doctor in 40 years and have handled any health issues with my beloved herbs – along with massage and chiropractic work.
We have not worn masks – not once- this whole time. And recently, I finally decided to teach again at the gardens/our home starting this month. I have not taught for a year. Classes would readily fill with 40 – 60 students and then, bang, it stopped!
The upcoming class is filled with like minded people who are so eager to learn. These are advanced students, most of whom I have known before. We also have had many guests visit here to get their dose of sanity from the madness. We find that we have to maintain a deep integrity to Truth in spite of the push the other way. I will not allow anyone on the property who is wearing a mask or doing the 6′ thing. We go only to local restaurants that actually have signs stating,”No Masks Allowed for Your Health.” Maybe if Newsom is recalled we might see things change, but, we are not holding our breath. We are Just living our lives as “true human beings.”
You made the right decision at the right time. now that hyperinflation is here , it has hit land too. small farms 40-60 acre farms in Alabama are now going for $500K 5 years ago you would have been lucky to get $ 125K for. everyone is trying to get out of the city. The hardest part of homesteading, which my parents did when I was young in the 70’s seemed to be getting money for property taxes , utilities and etc. given how high those things are now it must be quite a task. good luck with your sons’ , children are gods greatest blessing while we are here.
Food will become very valuable. The problem has always been raising a surplus and getting it sold.
Will you take 1000 FRNS for a chicken, if you have one to spare?
A wonderful piece about a wonderful life.
Life really was/is better when one eats real lard (and real food).
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-crisco-toppled-lard-and-made-americans-believers-in-industrial-food?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Makes the best pie crusts in the world.
I use lard, which I buy from U.S. Wellness Meats online. I also use real butter.
People still eat margarine? At some point in the past we just kept our covered butter dish out and it always gets used before it goes bad.
We don’t do much cooking that requires lard, but that is also a no brainer that is healthier and tastes better than fake food. Turns out they were really wrong on just about everything about dietary fat… and diet for that matter and still are. Nobody can grind my gears like some dipshit nutritionist trying to argue with me about biochemistry.
Hardscrabble, have to considered selling lard?
We do.
I’ll definitely be checking that out.
Hope to talk soon!
I saw the hand writing on the wall after 911 through 2008. Tucked myself and my wife away in a small town in north Florida in the forest and started a permaculture existence on a quarter acre of land on a canal. Big garden, like-minded friends, clueless but wonderful family not far away. This is the hill I die on. Very nice read. Good luck and enjoy life on your end.
HSF: Did you start off debt free or get there over time?
If you really want to do it and don’t have the means go rent, at least at first. We have friends that do this and the owners offered the property for a really low price in an area where the average price is north of 500k. They’re not going to do it because they don’t want to. Taxes right here are much more than rent, but not as high as other states…
They have other jobs but live in the midst of agriculture and benefit that way. They participate, and know how to do stuff, and are part of the community.
Many properties here are owned by rich people who don’t live here. Almost all have tenants and some are live in orchard managers, etc.
Edited to add there are actually no rentals or property available here right now (very weird), but there are other areas.
I also know many people who have significant sums in 401k’s. I find this extremely risky. These same people lost A LOT in 2009. Go figure.
If you have to take out a loan interest rates are extremely low. What’s the worst that can happen, especially if you’re younger? You have to move, but first you work two jobs for awhile to get out of the hole. I think the majority of the time people don’t do what they have to do, but give up.
I’m not judging necessarily but you can work like a dog if you have a dream and goal you love but sometimes you just have to let go.
There seem to be a cornucopia of low paying jobs that would actually cover most payments. In the meantime you work on increasing other income streams and you get to know people and opportunities open up. We know a farmer who works at Costco for the insurance as they have a sick child and need it. He’s also an EMT and on local, rural, boards. Quite an asset to a community.
Just ideas.
Nice article Farmer. It would be a better world if we all took a page from your notebook. We too live on a small acreage and are working to get where you are.
@Hardscrabble
Your lifestyle is very much like the Amish, except for the diesel tractor, lol. There is not a person on this forum that wouldn’t trade lifestyles with you in a nanosecond.
There is an incredible courage in being able to step away from, or better yet, never join the herd. Conformity is seemingly bred into the bone of humanity – along with the impulse to bend the knee to any petty tyrant that claims sovereignty over you in the name of “safety”, “for the children”, “for the greater good”, “we are all in this together” or “social justice”.
Whenever I hear that bilge, my oppositional impulses kick in and I go scorched earth on these folks, biblically. I have made myself “anti-fragile” over the last decade financially, socially and professionally by hard work, luck and sheer bloody mindedness.
I guess I have reached BFYTW Boss Level in life. You certainly have.
The goal of the last 50 years of our cultural programming, aka MSM, education industry and Hollywood, has been to stamp out every last vestige of individualism , free will and independent thinking in the American people. It has been relentless, cunning, insidious. The tragedy is that we did it to ourselves every time we turned the knob on the demon TV.
Anybody that strays from the herd, questions the narrative, that strives to be their best, to create and to build, to soar on their own wings, is torn down and shamed for their efforts as being “mean” to those that are less able, lazy, foolish, stupid or criminal. We are truly in a race to the bottom where the worst among us are raised as Gods and the best among us are shunned. No society lasts for long by worshipping failure, glorifying depravity and excusing criminality.
The Amish know this. They have stayed near but apart from our society, preserving their way of life and resisting the seductions of progress and modernity. They have successfully marketed their way of life to the English with their furniture business and stores. Trust me, they are laughing all the way to the bank. They just rock on while we tear ourselves apart with our petty arguments over how many genders there are or whatever the lunacy-de-jour is.
Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, after two weeks of lockdown and masking, the Amish decided to ignore all the experts and resumed their normal lifestyles. They then had approximately 90% of their people infected by the virus. The local health experts thought it would be an extinction level event for them.
And what happened? The Amish had exactly the same mortality and morbidity that everybody else had. Actually, they did better because they have likely achieved herd immunity and, most importantly, didn’t destroy their society and their economy in the process.
All the masking, lockdowns, quarantining, putting infected people into nursing homes, thousand dollar meds, ventilators, travel restrictions, tests with 70% false positive rates – none of that has had an iota of impact. Zero. Nada.
(In fact, it likely made it worse. I could go on for hours about how poorly this thing was handled, likely intentionally so, but this is not the venue. Don’t even start with me about Satan’s Poker, the mRNA vaccines.)
When asked by one of our retarded MSM reporters why they weren’t seemingly affected by Covid, the Amish replied, “We don’t have television”.
And there ya’ go.
Resist the mind virus of cultural programming, resist the impulse to conform without question, resist the fools gold of the illusion and lies spun by our elites.
Be true to yourself and your values. Be brave and arm yourself with reason, logic and a well-oiled bullshit meter. A solid hickory ax handle is also likely useful.
It will give you resistance to all kinds of evil influences, both physical and spiritual.
Hardscrabble did it. The Amish have done it for hundreds of years.
Both will be around a lot longer than our current Babylon.
Hope@ZeroKelvin- Proud Unvaccinated Deplorable – BFYTW Boss Level
The best scenario would be to have a balance of the agrarian model with modern advanced tech. There are many great contributions that the advancement in technology has made to the human condition and many more to come but the criminals amongst us are using the advanced tech as a weapon and the dependents amongst us use it as a crutch to sustain their laziness -all as a parasitic class of non-producers (takers). The criminal overlords of the parasitic class uses fiat currency as their mechanism to establish armies of dependents who will carry out orders of their overlords and knowing that most humans do not have a single creative idea in their entire life means that most are bound to the information they have been exposed to hence the driver of the overlords owning the newspapers up to the internet and now search engines, social media and the censorship of the free thinkers who can see beyond the information they are exposed to.
Is it possible to have the agrarian society with modern technology advancements and still maintain freedom? I believe it is possible but it requires clarity that that the parasitic class are criminals and a resolve for justice. Resolve for justice means that true justice will be carried out to stop an on-going injury no matter what or who stands in the way. Even the ‘good’ people don’t have such resolve, they would just assume to stay out of the way and let everything collapse around them maybe hoping to lead their own sustainability by example as a best effort which is certainly required but still falls short of justice due where an on-going injury is occurring.
The injuries of the parasitic class are now hindering our advancement to technologies that would lower the barrier to entry and burdens of the agrarian society. This is seen in the censorship of information, suppression of energy tech, inflation that makes land and tools acquisition unobtainable for many, property taxes that requires dependency on participation in a worthless currency of negative value, all of which puts up barriers to many who could otherwise build their own sustainable future. If we have justice for blatant criminality then we enable more access to sustainable living. I argue that the mass institutionalized criminality is THE single largest impediment to more people achieving independence.
Can anyone here imagine what a 200kW micro-fusion generator the size of a baseball that runs continuously on 10 grams of water per year that costs $200 would do for the advancement of an agrarian society? What do you think the criminal overlords would do to stop such a technology? Censorship? Kidnapping? Murder? Mass murder? If we only have an agrarian society can we develop such technology? Isn’t a balance of agrarian with advanced tech development preferred? There are many technologies possible that can contribute to a super advanced agrarian society if independence but we need the balance of the agrarian and tech development. With the lack of justice, I don’t see this future being widely obtainable to the level needed for a sustainable future.
I pray that people can find their resolve for justice within their pursuit of the independence in the agrarian model and I pray that they can find the balance to embrace technology advancements to bring sustainable independence to more people.
“Is it possible to have the agrarian society with modern technology advancements…”
Somebody has to create and manufacture the modern technological products, and those who do won’t be “agrarians”.
I agree but only to a point. It may be possible to develop advanced AI robotics that build all of the advanced tech thought up by agrarians running into problems that need solutions. So for now you are correct but your position is not necessarily eternally true.
My main point with that question is that, without justice, the advanced tech is making the criminals so powerful that they may use advanced tech to totally prevent the independent agrarian model to exist.
You do realize that the majority of the early inventors right up through the the industrial era were all raised and reared on farms, right? Not that there aren’t others coming up with ideas, but necessity is the Mother of invention.
And how much of “modern technology” is actually used for beneficial reasons rather than as distractions?
Yes. I am one of them and I have hired many of them. I prefer Engineers who grew up on farms because they are ALWAYS better than others.
Believe it or not tech used for distractions is actually a tiny insignificant fraction of all tech dev.
Nobody, most tech is disguised as making life easier, which a lot of it does. The trade-off in loss of liberty makes me prone to live a simpler life with harder work.
How do you lose liberty by using technology?
Nobody,
Would you not admit that a background in practical mechanics tends to make better engineers? Certainly many farmers are good practical mechanics out of necessity, but so are many people who grew up in families that worked at all sorts of mechanical trades.
Yes, practical mechanics is absolutely necessary. I think it is insane that Engineering education is established in silos without any direct path from Technician>Technologist>Engineer. That has never made any sense to me.
Farmers or children of Farmers make awesome Engineers because they are usually multi-disciplinary, creative, hands-on, practical, and understand the need for high quality at the best price. Plus they know what they hated about fixing something and know to design in ease of maintenance.
The absolute best engineers IME are optical engineers who grew up on farms. Those guys and gals are top notch, most diverse and can pretty much design anything.
Of course, and the first advances in subsistence farming came from hunter gatherers.
Somewhere along the line, people began specializing in science/technology, including the science and technology that created modern farming.
Being raised on a farm did indeed lead many ambitious smart people to leave the farm , often to profit from ideas and methods that increased agricultural production and made farming easier.
I won’t address your statement about much of modern technology being used for entertainment/distraction other than to say it was advances in science and technology that made leisure time possible.
Thomas Jefferson was an advocate of an “agrarian society”, but he didn’t hesitate to use advances in technology and science to try to increase the productivity of his plantation. Of course he didn’t actually do any of the farming himself, he was more like the CEO of a corporate farm, and he had plenty of leisure time to fiddle around with gadgets.
I’ve never been sure what an “agrarian society” actually means, perhaps only that the majority of people are farmers? The U.S fit that description for quite a long time. It didn’t look all that great to me, or to the millions of people who fled the farms when jobs in factories became available.
Anyway, John Deere wasn’t a farmer…
The majority of the people eat, why should a minority be compelled to feed them all?
What comes next, people chewing it for you?
An agrarian society is based on the fundamental principle of sustenance being a personal responsibility, like wiping your ass or brushing your teeth. Humans are certainly domesticated, but now they appear to decline towards a vegetative state.
By connecting people to the source of their own nourishment at least at some level, you tap into a thousand manifold opportunities to see the world as it is, not as a manmade contrivance built on the ideas and dreams of random individuals completely unconnected to your life.
Listen, I may be wrong, maybe we’d be better off as nerf-suited, human diving bells with an IV drip, but there are a lot of folks who would rather risk it as autonomous beings.
Apples and oranges, as they say..
Who’s talking about compelling farmers to feed people?
Farmers raise crops/animals to sell so they can in turn buy the things they need and want.
Have you not read Adam Smith?
I provided for myself all my adult life, and still do, but I’ve never been an “agrarian”.
I supported myself by working at other things., manufacturing, construction, technology. I was much better at those things that I am at farming, and I much preferred the work.
Seeing the world as it is includes seeing the manifold blessings of technology.
Many farmers are ignorant of what goes into producing the tools they use to farm, just as much so as a factory worker might be ignorant of what goes into producing the food that appears in the grocery store.
So what?
When the shovel you use to turn over your garden or dig your potatoes wears out, will you learn to make steel and forge another shove? Do you need to know how steel is made to grow crops?
Compel was a poor word choice. Expect would have been more accurate. That the vast majority of Americans expect there to always be food available to whoever has a debit card is a super idea until it isn’t.
If every farmer took the advice of the official narrative and gave up farming tomorrow to learn to code, where would the food come from then? You buy food that someone else produced assuming that they will always do so, but there’s no guarantee, is there?
And just because it’s more convenient to buy something or hire it out for the sake of convenience doesn’t mean it’s the right choice, does it?
Would you outsource the raising of your children to someone else because you are better at other things? Or how about your husbandly duties? Do you have any obligation to your needs or wants that can’t be handled by subrogating?
Here’s the thing- having lived a life of specialist in the past- it is easy to assume that something as important to life as food will always be available because you live in a modern society with its myriad benefits of just in time delivery and the outsourcing of everything associated with your needs, but that’s an illusion propped up by a multitude of complex systems that rely on everything continuing without a hitch, in perpetuity. If you want to make that bet, you won’t be lonely, 90% of Americans prefer it to recognizing just how fragile our economic and social structures are and have been demonstrated to be, especially in the past year.
You also communicate as if I am suffering from some sort of cognitive disability. When you take the position of an interlocutor its always preferable to give the other person the respect of knowing what they are talking about as long as they don’t prove otherwise. Did you actually think that I was unaware of the use of steel or were you being sarcastic? I’ll bet you I could learn how to make steel- certainly iron- far faster than you could learn how to produce enough food to survive if both suddenly disappeared for purchase tomorrow. Not to mention I could rely on all the tools I already have, many of them half a century old and still in service.
You are confusing a society that is built entirely on specialization with one constructed on the basis of generalization. In the event of some kind of interruption in supply chains (not that it could ever happen, right?) people could survive without technology a lot longer than they could without food. Suggesting that people are responsible for providing at least some small part of their daily sustenance is not that radical of a suggestion, is it?
I take that back, it is the very definition of the word.
My position is that we made a massive mistake when we took something that had always been a personal obligation (feeding yourself) and made it a society wide dependency on someone else. And citing Adam Smith, a man whose entire body of work was completed in a time when the world was overwhelmingly agrarian in nature as the final word in this debate is either unintentionally ironic or a massive misunderstanding on your part.
But by all means, as I said earlier in the essay, make your choices that best benefit you regardless of how much sense they do or do not make, no one is telling you to do otherwise.
People assume that if it’s profitable, to produce food, somebody will do it.
I don’t think anybody except maybe your immediate family expects you to produce food for them, and I have a feeling you aren’t keen on supporting parasitic children.
“We” didn’t make people leave the farm and take jobs in factories and live in cities.
Individual people made those decisions for themselves for any reason they thought was compelling for them.
I cited Adam Smith because I was thinking that you didn’t understand that the baker doesn’t bake so that you can eat bread and pastries and cakes, the baker bakes to support himself and his family.
I am not yet convinced that you understand this basic fundamental of human nature.
You’re probably right.
Another fine article by Hardscrabble. I wish I could live this way but I’m currently living alone since my son is still away at college and wanting to get married as soon as he graduates and gets a job. I can only do so much by myself.
Question for you. How do you raise your rabbits, in rabbit tractors or in cages?
VV? I laughed at your question because I’ve let so many rabbits go around here I am now pestered by wild domestic rabbits when I feed the caged rabbits.
My rabbit raising partner Larry has a sign in his front yard “Dressed Rabbits & Eggs” so everyone knows him as the Dressed Rabbit guy on Hwy 51.
And, one time a man did stop with his kids to buy a “dressed rabbit.” Larry told him he didn’t have any dressed, but he could have one ready in an hour maybe.
The man asked if his kids could pick it out and watch him dress it and you got it… they were horrified when he killed the rabbit they picked out instead of putting a little dress on it.
I’m guessing that family buying the rabbit never visited a farm before.
By the way, did you use just cages or rabbit tractors, too? I didn’t get an answer from Hardscrabble on that question.
May be a stupid question, maybe not: Is this the sap that comes out of trees to make the syrup?
I don’t think Hardscrabble would wound a tree this way. This looks like slash and burn maple sugar harvesting and I can’t image that the tree would survive this.
I don’t think Anon is implying this is sap harvesting but asking if this is what is tapped, ie color. consistancy etc… This is clearly falling a tree and demonstrating the amount of sap liquid trees can hold.
Worked in the bush for a long time. Cotton wood trees hold enormous amounts of water. You can literally get soaked when you hit one with a saw when felling them.
Would it be safe to drink the water from a cotton wood tree? If so, it would be a good tidbit to know.
Safe drinking from a cotton wood?? I don’t see why not, it’d be filtered but the question remains why??
And probably the taste is not something you’d like. Cottonwoods generally grow where water is plentiful or shallow. If not surface then a little digging will get you the water you need, filter the chunkies out, boil it and you’d be good.
Back in the 60’s the Corps of Engineers wanted to cut down all the cottonwoods along the Rio Grande to pay back the water bill to Mexico. They each drink a huge amount. I don’t know if the plan would work. I do know water in the SW is
complicated
I’m going to guess that this tree has issues further up and water is flooded the heartwood and its rotting it from the inside outward.. The tree is in decline so its being removed. HSF can clarify this more than I can.
The ringwood looks solid, I’d give my ete teeth for it. Lotta cbg’s in there.
The sap travels in the xylem (the sheath under the bark and phloem of the tree) not the wood and it isn’t present in any kind of quantity even remotely like that. The tree he’s cutting into has a decayed center, probably from a rotted area in the crotch above that’s just accumulated rainwater that was trapped in the trunk releasing when he made the hinge cut.
Our neighbors put a little hole into the tree, insert a metal spout or a tube with tubing… it runs steady but is more of a trickle. And, it is almost clear until boiled down for many hours.
Some delicious Hardscrabble Syrup for our Easter brunch.
My study is the same shade of green as your wall, lol.
I need to just go for carbs one day and get some of that maple syrup.
99. I know you are out there TS.
Stuckenheimer picked up a Tri-Centurial Award this week. (300)
Back to the game a bit late- 104, to be exact. Pretty busy.
Baking sourdough/buttermilk bread, planting the seeds for transfer in a few weeks, converting an outbuilding into a chicken coop/run, sharpening drill bits. Plus a few other lesser things. That’s why I’m usually in n out.
I hear you. We have learned to appreciate living in paradise.
You had me at “walk it off”…..
An inspiring contribution, HSF. My wife and I are trying to take a similar path – well, maybe it “rhymes”- to become more self-reliant, raise some of our own food, support the local farmers’ markets, integrate with our new community and better and insulate us from what I see as the upcoming troubles.
It’s a long and winding learning curve, but we are, hopefully, sensible enough to not take too big of a bite each year. A few years ago we found 2 acres in a freedom-loving and independent area, that was settled by my forefathers, the Scotch-Irish, in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. We built a shop, followed by a house (the order was dictated by the fact that I’m a bit of a sports car guy). Our land is sloped, so our goal this year is to plant fruit trees (after the Brood X hatch) to augment last seasons raised-bed veg gardens. Baby steps, but in the right direction.
I love New Hampshire. One of my fondest, recent experiences was spending Independence Day with some semi-distant cousins, that we hadn’t yet met, in New Hampshire several years ago. It was a lovely family-style meal with lively conversation that was enhanced by the bond we shared, but had not yet enjoyed. We ended the evening by watching the setting sun light up the Mt. Washington range. I suspect the Independence Day celebration at your farm has a very similar vibe. I hope we can attend.
HSF, thanks for the great article.
Isn’t it great to be cancelled from the insane asylum…
Notice they have never made the claim about asymptomatic transmission, and only supplied a couple questionable anecdotes? They don’t hardly talk about it, compared to its importance. They don’t want to be caught in a lie, because it doesn’t even make sense, so you wouldn’t expect them to ever even find evidence to support it. They know that. I know that.
Thanks, HSF. Very nicely written. Always a pleasure to read your tales.
Fantastic as usual and lots of great comments, so I’ll restrict mine to a thought that’s been coming up of late… the deep, fundamental power of incentives.
My friend and i were discussing what the foundations of civilization are and i suggested that they were psychological (as I’ve stated in various comments here) and he said they were economic. Afterwards., i started to think the two answers are quite similar, maybe identical. As in, they explain the sum total of all the individual incentive structures in said civilization.
Then out of the blue, i was listening to a tom bileau podcast with a psychologist who believes (and some heavy hiters in the physics world are with him) that consciousness is the true cosmological foundation of things and our spacetim/matter/energy “reality” is mote like a video game style interface to the fundamental world of consciousness. And what is the most basic requirement for consciousness? You guessed it…incentive.
Nothing conscious, at any kevel, does anything without incentive. A.I. programmers, in fact, found it impossible to code the world in enough detail to make any useful intelligence…but if they simply programmed in some incentives and let the code discover the world amazing things happened.
And so what does any of this have to do with this article? A system of perverse incentives lie at the heart of our current socio-cultural disease. Perverse incentives drive big ag, big pharma, the mic, the msm, the banks, the alphabet agencies, and, course, the government itself.
Your incentives, however, are beautiful. You have spent a decade learning knowledge and skills that are of incredible value, yet, you are incented to give them away, for free, to any and all who would learn.
There’s a lesson in that…one i hope can be applied if we’re given the opportunity to rebuild this society after it’s inevitable collapse.
After the IED went off underneath us, after I eventually began to regain consciousness, but hadn’t quite got there yet – I wonder what incentive I had, because in that place there were no memories. Just the basic drive, I guess. That looks pretty circular and hand wavy to me.
Agreed. But at a certain level everything looks circular and hand wavy. The materialists need a definable rational universe…but any proof of a rational universe would necessarily require the assumption of a natural universe.
Evolution is the process of natural selection and what is nature defined as: that which selects.
Circular is all we got at the low levels, beyond even our imagination. This is at least a new path to look down.
Even my physics professor that hated circular and handwavy explanations (that’s where I learned the phrase) would probably concede that, because sometimes that is the best she could do.
Drud, yes, along those lines, life is what we make it.
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We now know Thanks the Chris Koo’moe show, and reports that indicate Biden admin. will spend 1.5 billion of our money on advertising for getting the Political Prophylactic …Koo’moe .interviewing a guest…She said… (I completely paraphrase) “CDC and this administration have a very narrow window to tie ‘taking’ the Covid-19 Vaccine with “Getting” your freedoms back….That is the carrot to get back to normal…With States opening up 100%….we are losing that incentive. That are getting those freedoms back and returning to normal with an mandates. ”
history of Epidemics go as far back as 3000b.c. I’ve completely given up on the SARS Cov2 Combat Worriers. Despite the media, they are not the majority of the Country… I asked one Pandemic Worrier…”Can you tell me”…”has there ever been a pandemic / Epidemic that has whipped out all of humanity”; Answer: NO!! But for the 3 sec. look of complete dumbfound on the Face of the SARS Cov2 S.O. Worrier…before he said (now pay attention) “This is Different”
They won’t be able to tell you how its different. Can’t tell you why its different. Only they can Quote the CDC / WHO / Fauci Verse, Chorus , Verse. Yet when evidence is showing that natural herd immunity is now here…they can’t take their mask off, or they look at you like you’re a leper for not identifying as “Vax’d”
They despise us for exposing their moral and intellectual cowardice; they know we are correct when they are backed into a corner.
Glad to see you writing. Sharing your observations and reflections on life. Your farm is food for the soul of your readers as well.
We are making our way north after an Easter trip to the south. Masked insanity seems to end somewhere around the VA/NC border. Further south, even though there are signs on stores nobody pays them any mind.
By the time we got to GA even the staff was maskless except at Megastore. We were greeted by the kid from Deliverance at Megastore in GA. Him & staff were masked but customer participation was 25% at best.
We spent most of the trip scouting areas for relocation…my wife even agreed on a few! My friend there invited me to his farm, introduced me to some of his friends, and gave me a better lay of the land than I could get hundreds of miles away or from strangers.
I had mentioned that the locals in the town we stayed thought “everyone up there has Confederate flags flying and drives monster trucks.”
I saw neither and my friend laughed. “Please let them continue to think that.”
He said even his doctors office staff is maskless unless you are coming for a possible covid visit.
Dear HS,
You are the best. I will contact re syrup purchase/coming up.
Per my usual, enjoying spring with visions of seedlings dancing
in my head.
Key word/agenda = surviving a toxic culture. Ain’t that the truth.
Wow. I am doing a TBP drive-by before I head out to a rally to say “fuck you” to the NWO’s Excelsior (aka Vaccine) Pass at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, NY. I know this was a great sign finding HSF’s article! I hope everyone is well. I have my accommodations booked for the 4th fiesta and hope to see as many of you there as possible. (Ciao LUV!)
I’ve met some wonderful folks standing up in NYC…I call them my ABC. AIR BREATHERS CLUB! Here are videos from a woman I’ve recently met…A POWERHOUSE. She explains the plan…of the NWO to collateralize all humans…especially the children. Give her videos a look so you know what to look for when they implement these plans in your areas…(you may want to start with her 4th Industrial revolution videos.) Blessing to All!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQdN0TfBHaXbDF5EDEgglfQ/videos
Marc, I am so looking forward to seeing you, Meredith and family (and of course the Farm too!)
Nice work, typical of the quality of your thoughts.
The “ jab” is a non starter for me, my wife gave in due to elderly parent pressure. So with that stance in mind all of my travel if any is to be by by car and staying where “ vaccine passports “ are not needed.
While not perfect it is freedom of choice for me and I am damned happy to roll with what ever is the outcome of that choice.
Looking forward to a return to the best 4th of July celebration in the USA …… until then be free