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191 comments on DrumBeat: December 23, 2008
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191 comments on DrumBeat: December 23, 2008
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Why do you actually name yourself "jewishfarmer"?
Could it be, that you actually think, to be a "jewishfarmer" is better than to be a "cristianfarmer" or "muslimfarmer" or "Africanfarmer"?
Is it that important, to which religion you belong or to which people?
I am also a farmer, a cristian farmer if you interested in. But I would never mention that. Because believing in a religion or belonging to a certain race is totally PRIVAT. It is just not important to the public.
How come no one asks me why I'm "Ignorant"?
I can save you money on your car insurance...
I've been asked on other forums if my handle is a brand of bottled water.
Judaism is not just a personal choice of religious beliefs - it's also a kinship group. Self-identification as Jewish can be as innocuous as self-idenfication as "Okie" (native Oklahoman.) Nobody would chastise a member with the name "okiefarmer."
I don't actually think that my religious and cultural identity is private, and I don't really understand why your feeling that yours is should apply to me. I respect your feeling that your religion and racial identity (Jews are not a race, btw) are private - note, I never asked you to reveal yours, and I don't proselytize (Jews don't), but where is it written that religious and cultural identities are private, and thus it is somehow an affront (because your tone is one of affront) to use it as a monniker? For the record, I'd be fine with your calling yourself "Christianfarmer" if you so chose. After all, people here often identify themselves by their worldview, of which religious faith is one format - thus we have "doomer" "antidoomer"
Since you asked so nicely, I've actually answered the question in some detail on my blog here, so if you want, you can read the answer; http://sharonastyk.com/2008/12/01/why-jewishfarmer/ It is kind of OT for TOD, IMHO (enough acronyms?).
On the other hand, if it really troubles you I suppose I could consider changing it, and picking up on element of my identity. I wonder if "YankeeShakespeareanGeekFarmer" is taken? Or "ApocalypticDominatrixofFoodPreservation" or "BalabustaFarmGirl" (oh, wait, Jewish again..." But oh, the possibilities!
Sharon
How about switching to "Kieyeinharah_farmer" ?:-)
I'm an old woodworker but still an apprentis to a Jewish Carpenter.
i think joey bishop once made a joke to the effect that he was not a jew, but jew-ish.
and on that basis, i am probably jew-ish. i have also been called zipper pockets.
That is a very interesting article.
I am not Jewish, but I, too, feel insecure in land ownership. Land is easy to take away. Heck, that was the real reason west coast Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. They turned land nobody wanted into fertile farmland, and suddenly, other farmers decided the land was too good for "outsiders." Even today we have "eminent domain," which is used not only to build schools and highways, but to build Wal-Marts. If food really does become scarce, I imagine farms will be prime targets for government takeover.
Land also ties you down, when I want freedom to leave if necessary.
I figure it doesn't hurt to have some property, as part of a diversified portfolio of assets. I know that most baskets will lose some eggs, but it still seems reasonable to me have eggs in many baskets. I just I wish I had more egg money.......
Land only ties you down if you're emotionally or heavily economically vested in it. Dustbowl Okies left farms that they owned in significant numbers, I'm sure. Tax foreclosure of your farm is probably a serious worry as well.
I'm sure that's what Richard Rainwater and Matt Simmons are thinking.
But for the average American, buying real estate means they'll have little money to put toward other eggs.
Maybe what we need are land-purchase co-ops. Here, you can buy suburban land for about $100K per acre in .25 to .5 acre sizes, or you can buy 20 acres for $500K. Or you can move a few miles further out and buy 160 acres for $300K.....or 640 for $2M.....or go further and get 1000 for $1M, and so forth.
If like-minded people could pool their pennies a lot more of us could get 10 or 20 acres, cutting out the middle-man and drastically cutting costs. In town, the developer gets that money, and puts in roads, sewers, fancy gatehouses, rock fences, drainage retention ponds, and so forth as needed for a city lifestyle. If you didn't want any of that and were willing to move a few miles out, gravel roads and septic systems would meet the need and drastically cut the cost.
If you bought a working farm, you could even have some shared "common area" of big barns, shared tools, and so forth. Having 10 or 20 small farms colocated would go a long way toward easing the info sharing, produce sharing, and market-cooperation aspects as well. Plus, if the county or state got uppity with eminent domain or such there are 10x the people to go sit in meetings and write letters.....not that such will always help enough.
Heck, most of could probably reproduce the house we're in now for 50c on the dollar in a low-cost rural locale, and add land and improve the energy efficiency while doing so.
Then we'd just need to convince Jewishfarmer, Wyoming, or Airdale to come teach us the ropes, and we'll start down the road to self-sufficiency.
I believe Westexas has suggested something like that.
I think it might work better with an extended family than with strangers, though. There will be liabilities, even if the property is paid for, cash on the barrelhead. As you mentioned, taxes will probably be the way governments take property, more so than eminent domain. What do you do if one of the partners doesn't pay his share - can't pay it, because he's lost his job or had unexpected medical expenses or been robbed (at gunpoint or on Wall St.)?
Once you plat and subdivide, it could be everyman for himself, but some working agreement on first-refusal buyout might make sense. Or a waiting list for new buyers?
Or at the outset it could be cash-up-front with a surplus kitty to pay taxes for so many years......
Some of us who can (for now) work from anywhere could help pile up some spare cash, too, but contribute less work into our land to begin with. Actually, I'd be willing to buy into a deal like this now, as a hobby far, as long as BAU holds out. I know it's not optimal, but it's an approach I can sell at home.
Hello Paleocon,
Not necessary to own the land: I refer you to my earlier posting series on I/O-NPK investors teaming up with a farmer to provide and store his inputs plus armed protection, if required. This can be further extended to buying farm equip, paying taxes, seeds, diesel, irrigation equip,...whatever helps provide the best harvest yield.
Remember, farmland is like an ICE-vehicle, but it is the gasoline [farming inputs] that makes its topsoil motor hum.
After WW 2 they decided to put in a massive irrigation district in the Tri Cities area of eastern Washington. Veterans were allowed first shot at homesteading 140 to 160 acres of irrigated but otherwise unimproved farm land. It was usually the third owner who made anything of it as the first two went broke in a year or two. Further as machinery improved the successful farmers were able to buy up the adjacent unsuccessful ones.
So don't just think you can go someplace and farm ... doesn't work that way. A garden, especially with a Walmart superstore nearby, is not too difficult.
Voice of experience, 3 couples buy large property, deed off seperate couple owned house lots. Own common property as tenants in common. Then the fun begins, one couple wants a barn on the common property and expects other couples to help pay for and build it. 6 people, and majority carries. What do you do when your wife votes against you? How to build roads through the woods, one couple builds an ark and burns 10 cords a year while another builds tiny house and burns 4 cords. So how do you divide labor? Or resources? You work your ass off cutting 14 cords of wood and get 4?
Great way to break up families, marriages and friendships. Pay lawyers. Be careful what you wish for. I got to be a single parent with two young boys. You see I got the job, the other folks played farmer and native. So everyone got to hang around the land and played and "got to be close". I was a little busy putting food on the table and paying bills. This is the 80's recession and "back to the land" hippie thing. Hard to work your your job knowing that one of the farmers who can't leave the land is probably doing your wife.
I met a sweet young lady with 2 girls, a few years later. Nothing untoward meant but I call her my New Young Sexy Wife. In fact that's how my oldest son introduced her to his friends when they came over. That's where it comes from. It may not come across as respectful but it is. Think Brady bunch. Best thing that ever happened for all of us, oldest son and oldest step-daughter in their 30's now have such a great friendship.
NYSW and I have been together for 15 years. It's just kind of the way we poke fun at things. The guys in my family seem to pop off around 85, so when I do it, and she's holding my hand, she will still be my new young sexy wife.
Don in Maine
Not good form to reply to your own post, but I wanted to add. The years we were just the 3 guys, shaped and formed us all. Things like laundry, food, etc. I can remember coming down from a mountain and finding youngest son cooking dinner, needed a stool to see the top of the stove. Loading wood was a joy, a team effort. Age did not seem to matter, what we did was look out for each other. Money was tight, times were tough, and probably at least once a day we all laughed. Reruns of star trek, all the moral code you ever need to know.
When the 3 young ladies arrived, it was more a share the load thing and they all did it very well. The blending was swift, and we had a whole new crew who already knew the drill. The thing you do, is support each other.
Wheew talk about nostalgia. They will all be here shortly, camped on the fouton and the floor. Lots of food, and wine. Bringing their kids for the indoctrination. I suspect someone will keep an eye out from when Grampas' beer is close to empty and show up with another one. They seem to do that lately.
Chuckle
Don in Maine
Funny, but I watched a similar setup-common property, tenants in common, go the same route in the 80's. Four couples, constant bickering, same general issues, don't know what finally happened to them all, but as outside observer, I marked it as something to avoid.
It's hard enough to manage a piece of land with your spouse and the government, forget throwing other couples into the mix.
Intentional communities (used in the narrower, more usual sense) apparently have a hard time staying together, too. In your case, I'm wondering if you took the egalitarian, unanimous vote route? Also, a land trust where nobody owns and everybody leases... and can be voted out?
I think one of the reasons the intentional communities fail is that they don't match reality very well. They seem to be rather cliquish and require a very high degree of harmony - which also seems to take an awful lot of work.
My thoughts are evolving on this, but right now I see a land trust with work and voting requirements, but everything else left to the individuals. Probably more akin to a transition town or relocalizing, but with some explicit behavioral expectations mixed in. The most important, and potentially one of the very few would be to live sustainably, not to screw with others, and must work... or you're gone.
Cheers
It's because a lot of the people who set them up are rather idealistic and not very pragmatic. They imagine that "community" is all about everyone loving each-other. It's not. "Community" means being able to get along with people who really piss you off, and managing to get things done anyway.
What you suggest is already the norm for many (most? all?) intentional communities. Most take the Land Trust approach according to my limited research.
It is what I am trying to get people to do. Alone, my wife and I could buy enough acres for ourselves of poor ground we'd have to build up. It would likely be far from a city center and the resources/customers/jobs that might imply.
You can argue either way whether isolation would be safer than proximity, but I know I and my wife don't currently have the skills to exist without any other people/resources about over the long term. Well, unless we hope to go naked eventually and expect to never get sick, wear out our tools, need to repair our house....
Leanan, I disagree. We cannot expect all families to reform and give it a go, and there are too many families with no financial wherewithall to get started. Besides, going all the way back to the level of tribe would be a bad idea, I'd think, as it would be more likely to engender separation and conquest. A group of people with a more heterogeneous base hopefully would be more likely to have interconnections with other groups, thus, hopefully, encouraging area/regional cooperation. Also, any given family isn't likely to have the range of skills needed by a community.
Cheers
ccpo, what your problem is going to be is that you are thinking to much, like you have time to plot it all out and make your choices. Think with your gut. You are smart enough. But that is not the whole thing. Ever been shot at? Ever had someone aim a gun at you?
Thanks to the US government I have, looked into those eyes, and the light behind them was mine, or theirs. I still have trouble with choices like that, but I disregard people who have never made that choice. I suspect there will come a day when I see the light and it is not mine continuing, not you for sure. I'm still here, they are not.
You expect to be safe and be able to think it through. Sometimes, in life, that does not happen. I have the way I think I'd like it to be. Going back to the tribe would be bad, show me why, the tribe had loyalty, and the thought that we support each of us, a problem with one is a problem with all.
I think there is a reality you sense but don't quite see. and you can't quite get a handle on it, that's why you are here.
"High on a feeling
Hooked on believing"
Thank you US government, but I have looked into the eyes of someone attempting to kill me. Words and thoughts at that point do not hold up to much. At that point action is pretty much all you have.
It's the border ground, you do or you don't. You exist or you don't.
Don in Main
Don,
What has all this to do with land trusts and building community? I have no idea what you are on about. Can you clarify your thinking a bit?
Am I right in thinking you believe you know what I think, how I think, what my life experiences have been, etc? Don't know... I've been in some tough situations. If you're implying I can't act for me and mine, well, that's already been proven wrong.
Strange message, Don. Again, clarification might be useful.
Cheers
I am not expecting all families to give it a go.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say if all families do give it a go, all will fail. We are past the point where subsistence farming can sustain us all.
You were speaking in generalities in response to the idea of creating an intentional community, essentially. You seem to think generally we're headed for collapse, so... if not intentional communities and not families... then what?
Cheers
I was talking about what I, personally, might do.
I think we're headed for collapse, but probably so slowly I won't live to see the end of it. Even if I live to be 106, like my great-grandmother.
I believe that examining the past is the best way of predicting the future. It's the best way to avoid optimism bias, exceptionalism, etc.
And looking at history...it's hard to find examples where a doomstead in the boondocks was the key to salvation. That seems to be a peculiarly American belief, perhaps a remnant of our frontier past. Even that Argentina guy did not recommend rural living.
More and more, it's looking to me like the correct model for the next decade or three is the Great Depression. Complete with environmental crisis (global warming instead of the Dust Bowl).
"I think we're headed for collapse, but probably so slowly I won't live to see the end of it. Even if I live to be 106, like my great-grandmother."
I agree, with the caveat of not knowing your age. Given 50? years and climate change, I think the conclusion is inescapable. Hard to see us turn that around. With the planet pressed to the max wrt population now, we might power down on the slow downslope, but won't mitigate climatic changes.
I think we're headed for collapse, but probably so slowly I won't live to see the end of it.
As someone in his mid-30's I think "collapse" for lack of a better term will determine my life expectancy. Given my father's medical history I have serious doubs that in another 30-35 years I'll have access to the same medical procedures that have extended his life.
I was talking about what I, personally, might do.
Ah. OK. There was nothing in the language to make that clear, so thanks for clarifying.
Collapse? You'll have to define that before we can compare notes on expectations. A simple definition might be that point at which what comes after resembles what was not much at all; a paradigm shift large enough that the primary structures change because the underlying beliefs/values no longer support what was. And all with a long or short period of chaos to come first. (I just made this up as I wrote it, so it may have lots of holes in it.)
You?
Cheers
I live on 1/4 acre in a small town. I have done some careful calculations, and IF I go all out, take out most of the trees and put most of the yard into crop production, and IF I get chickens and a dairy goat, then I figure that my wife and I could produce approximately 75% of our annual food requirements. We would mostly need to buy grains, dried legumes, feed and fodder for the livestock, and some fruit. Not everyone could do the same, but a great many could; anyone with a yard could produce at least some of their own food. Counting lawns, we easilly have enough land here in the US to produce all of our food, plus a big surplus for export - even if we have to ditch most of the high-yielding industrial agriculture.
Far easier to confiscate or lose funds in a financial institution than land. There are lots of things that can tie you down such as friends, community, lifestyle, and a job. These can exert such a heavily influence as to delay a decision to leave an area when it really hit’s the fan. By that time it will be too late, and you will probably find yourself on the road, if you could get out at all, with hoards of refugees and miscreants waiting to prey on you. No thanks. I’ll make my stand on my land in which I have made preparations. If I’m wrong, I’m no worse off than the rest. This is what scares the Dickens out of me about working in Chicago, being trapped in an area where the natives go bonkers. Any indication of that happening, even a wiff of it or my sixth sense tingling (I grew up on the streets in South Chicago, you acquire this) and my job is history.
I don't trust financial institutions, either.
I guess I am lucky to trust most government institutions and the governments and institutions in our closest neighbours.
You go Gurl!
BTW....my vote is for "ApocalypticDominatrixofFoodPreservation" ;)
TS
euro - Jewish doesn't necessarily signify a religion.But even if it did,so what?
People are entitled to identify themselves however they choose.
BTW - if you are going to post in English how about taking a little care with your spelling and grammar?
errr, thirra, how do you know he's NOT taking a 'little care' with his English ??
This from someone using the screen name "Euro"...
It's because being Jewish and a farmer is unusual outside Israel. People remark on things which are remarkable.
It's also because her Judaism informs her way of farming.
She has a blog which describes all these things, so that you can read and discuss instead of just whinging.