I have a rant about this article, which Mother Earth reprints once or twice a year. On mobile now, so will rage later. https://twitter.com/jkrwld/status/1056763339823607808 …
-
-
7/ ...but when you dream about living on a small self sufficient farm, and you can picture it with an old tractor that you've greased the zerk fittings on, it's a BETTER, HIGHER QUALITY dream. In 1970s and 1980s folks talked about Star Wars, Blade Runner as "lived in futures"
Show this thread -
8/ So Mother Earth News, etc. give you a "lived in future" for yourself. Instead of just thinking "in 10 years maybe we'll live on a farm", you think "in 10 years maybe we'll live on a 3 acre farm with an old Ford tractor and some Buff Orppington chickens". Much more "real".
Show this thread -
9/ But notice the difference between the PATINA of a lived in future, and an ACTUAL future. The patina is painted on the surface, and it doesn't need to actually work, it just needs to LOOK real, not BE real.
Show this thread -
10/ This creates selective pressure for the types of articles that are written and - PRAISE GNON! - this is the kind of article we get. Which sells better? "Live debt free on 4 acres" or "Hobby farming is very hard and very expensive"? You know the answer.
Show this thread -
11/ Now, with this in mind, go to the newsstand and look at all the farm LARP magazines. Every headline on the cover, & every article inside matches the template I just laid out. There's one mag, I forget the title, that literally has "live simple and debt free" on EVERY COVER
Show this thread -
12/ So, with that in mind, let's approach this classic article. "Start a 1-Acre, Self-Sufficient Homestead" Self-sufficient. 1-Acre.
Show this thread -
13/ Self-sufficient is impossible. It's impossible at our level of technology (where do you get the motor oil and diesel and tractor parts from). It's impossible at 1750 levels too (better to trade for leather and book etcs; no man can do it all).
Show this thread -
14/ One acre is impossible too. Oh, maybe, technically, if you managed every single square inch of it for high yield crops (and optimizing calories per square meter is a science), a family of four could live off a vegetarian diet from 1 acre. ...but they'd be quite skinny.
Show this thread -
15/ ...but this article isn't farming every square inch for calories. No, they've got a dairy cow! Rule of thumb for how much pasture per animal varies based on climate, soil, north or south exposure, rain fall, etc. ...but "1 cow per acre" is DENSE.
Show this thread -
16/ You can do it, but you need to be managing your pasture well, doing strip grazing, etc. There are whole books (I've got three or four) and whole college curricula about pasture management to optimize the most calories per square meter for your cow.
Show this thread -
17/ ...but that's not what this article is doing! This article is keeping the cow on 1/2 acre and growing crops on the other 1/2. That's not enough food for a cow, AND you're going to need to import hay for the winter. There goes self-sufficiency.
Show this thread -
18/ On the other hand, 1/2 an acre for a garden / crops is EXACTLY the wrong amount. It's too small to justify a tractor and all the implements you'd want, but it's too large for 2 adults to handle on the weekends and after work.
Show this thread -
19/ Then, of course, they drag in all the typical permaculture onanism. "Your pig will plow the ground for you!!!!" No, it will not. Have you seen what pigs do? It's not "plowing"; it's "tearing up". Once a pig is done rooting, you have ruts you can twist an ankle in.
Show this thread -
20/ I could go on, but I'll sum it up simply. When I was 9 or 10 or so I'd draw endless pictures of the super cool house I'd have as an adult: indoor swimming pool, secret cave, library, movie theater. This article is that for 30 yo aspirational people in Cambridge.
Show this thread -
21/ Here's the test you can use to tell daydreaming from actual knowledge: "do they include pictures?" If the article includes artist's conception, it's just jerking off. If it contains pictures it MIGHT actually work. /exeunt
Show this thread -
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread
-
23/ oh, and for reference, my farm ("farm") is: * 0.1 acres of crops (pumpkin, corn) * 3 acres of grazing pasture ( ~10-15 sheep) * 0.05 acres greenhouse garden * 0.07 acres vineyard * 5.5 acres pasture for haying * ~50 acres unused / woodlot
Show this thread -
24/ * 0.1 acre pig run * 0.05 acre turkey run * 0.05 acre goose run It is a LOT of work to keep up with the 0.2 acres of crops / vineyard / greenhouse... especially when feeding animals every day, splitting wood (which I buy, not fell), etc.
Show this thread -
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread
-
26/ Oh, another point: a large percent of farm hobby stuff, prepper stuff, etc. is written by people who have never done it, but recycle the articles they've read into new articles. This is how so much bad information propagates.
Show this thread -
27/ e.g. "I've never grown Jerusalem artichokes, but DallasPrepper971 and RetiredMarineZombieHunter (who also haven't grown Jerusalem artichokes) read articles by someone else, then wrote blog posts of their own, and I've read those, SO LET ME TELL YOU HOW TO GROW ARTICHOKES!"
Show this thread -
28/ It's like listening to 13 year olds talk about sex, or people with no fingers talk about how to do a totally radical guitar lick.
Show this thread -
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread
-
30/ The only problem with this idea is that $200/head is underselling the market by about $800. https://twitter.com/SaucercrabZero/status/1056906670348079104 …
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
31/ This ties back to the idea I've had for years about "butchery class". Invite a few Cambridge types to take a 1 or 2 day class in taking apart a whole pig - half pig included with each signup. A half pig costs me about $250 in piglet and feed, and yields about 125 lbs meat
Show this thread -
32/ I remain convinced that I could sell that experience for $800-900 per head (or per couple). Four butchering stations, 2 pigs = $2,600 profit for 1 weekend.
Show this thread -
34/ "60 minutes outside Cambridge MA" is the other "close to Washington DC". https://twitter.com/Janusianite/status/1056907680684617728 …
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread
-
36/ Farm hands are terrible, #99,562 in a series: https://twitter.com/FortyFour_North/status/1056908462330966016 …
This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.