Lori Alexander: Everybody should farm

[Wolfie]

lorialexander.blogspot.com/2013/03/homesteading-for-families.html

So apparently people are meant to be on farms and it would solve all of our money problems if we'd never moved to the cities. So Lori, where do you live?

[AVENues]

Everybody thinks she should stop blogging.

[lilwriter85]

Lori does posts like this all the time where she tries to suggest a one size fits all idea in certain situations. Farming isn't easy or ideal for everyone. She forgets that depending on where you live, you sometimes only have certain crops or plants. Money problems aren't always solved by living out of cities. Living in rural areas can present other money issues due to limited local economies and the need for extra income supplementation.

[GeoBQn]

I just planted my little garden. I planted tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, kale, marigolds {to keep the big, ugly horn worms away, hopefully}, green beans, catnip {for my cats}, and basil! I will show you a picture someday, maybe.

Where does she live, again? Because it a lot of the country right now, the weather hasn't gotten the message that it is now spring.

I'm impressed with my friend who has been gardening. She just bought baby chicks and ducks too. But homesteading in a way that is not a giant money suck requires a lot of planning. I can imagine a lot of people being more like the following entry from Not Always Right:

(A client comes into my dog training program with a very energetic Border Collie puppy.)

Client: My puppy is out of control. We live on a farm and needed a dog for our livestock. This is not what I wanted.

Me: Okay, what is your puppy doing?

Client: Chasing my goats and chickens all over the place!

Me: Well this is a Border Collie, and they do herd. If the drive is not properly honed in to a herd, then a Border Collie will just chase.

Client: But, I do not want my dog to chase my animals at all.

Me: Then do not put your dog in with the animals.

Client: But, I need her to protect my animals.

Me: This is not what this breed was developed to do. This is an active, working breed that will chase.

Client: But, I need her to lie quietly and just watch the animals.

Me: It’s not in her breeding. What research did you do into Border Collies before you got one? Every piece of literature on dogs out there will tell you these are active dogs that will chase.

Client: Well, I asked some guy at the local feed store what a good dog for working livestock was. He suggested a few breeds. I saw Babe, so I got a Border Collie.

Me: Did you tell the feed store guy the type of job you wanted a dog to do?

Client: Work livestock.

Me: Work it how? Herding or guarding?

(The client just gives me a blank stare.)

Me: You have no idea the difference between herding and guarding?

Client: I thought they were the same.

Me: No. Have you had any farm experience?

Client: No, we’re from the city. We thought it would be fun to move to this county and buy a small farm. But, now we have coyotes killing our animals.

Me: So, you have no idea what you are doing at all?

Client: No. It’s not as easy as it looks on TV huh?

Me: No…

[Ellimenopy]

Farmer here (okay, okay: farmer's wife). Lori is a frickin' idiot. Farming sucks. It's backbreaking work, you never get to see your family, and unless you have somebody with a lot of experience giving you good investment advice, you will overspend and lose everything. Even with a lot of experience you can still lose everything. It's NOT for everybody.

Now, that being said, support your local farmers - it's important (but also an argument for a different thread). But don't move to the country because you want to save money. That's a really stupid idea.

[Dysfundamental]

Pay no attention to that ancient Rome behind the curtain, Lori. Or Jerusalem, for that matter.

[Closed Womb]

Hey, it's a nice break from the "every woman should submit" storyline that Lori usually presents.

[VooDooChild]

I'm sure some logic professor out there could use Lori's blog to aid in teaching the fallacies. She commits just about every one of them in every. single. post.

[Maggie Mae]

I don't farm, but I grow vegetables in yard. I've been lucky in that I live in a house that has a yard. Less than 25% of my yard gets enough sun during our 60 day growing season to really grow anything. Potatoes, onion, chard, kale, beets, and lettuce do not last all year. The salmon we caught last summer doesn't last all year, and if it did, I wouldn't have anywhere to store all that food.

Most people in my city don't have the space to garden. Those that do fight the short growing season, building greenhouses and cold frames. There is also the fact that much of our soil is thin, rocky, acidic and sandy. It also varies greatly from lot to lot. There could be permafrost across the street from perfectly good soil. Temperatures can vary by several degrees within town.

Lori is stupid if she thinks that everyone in the world could just spread out and plant food. Doesn't she know how many people there are? Does she know how many acres of land it takes to produce food for a family?

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/in ... -four.html

How do people possibly believe that everyone in the world would fit into Jacksonville FL? Do they not have access to Google?

[pudding]

Lori is like 5 yr old me! "Mommy, mommy, please let's live on a farm, I want to be with the animals 24/7!! Please, ok??"

Does she know that not every soil is for farming? Does she know that livestock, land, machinery cost money?

Why doesn't she join the Amish?

[yewchapel]

At the moment, the only growing space I have is on the windowsill, where I could maybe grow herbs or salad. A) it's not enough to feed myself on and b) it is fucking cold here still! The only seasonal veg here at the moment is root veg and brassicas, both of which need er, actual space to grow in.

[AnywhereButHere]

I have a very small plot of dirt in my backyard where we plant cucumbers and tomatoes. Once we tried green beans, but they seemed to only ripen at a rate of a single serving every couple of weeks. The tomatoes also have problems. They tend to rot. I grew one eggplant once and was so proud of it, I refused to let us eat it. We tried a fig tree. It's buried behind a riot of black eyed susans - I think. Haven't seen it in a while. Somehow, I don't think that giving us more land to play with will improve our odds of feeding ourselves successfully. Unless we want to live on cucumbers. Those suckers grow like wildfire for me. Figures they're our least favorite of the bunch. :D

Lori's nuts, and I have no desire to starve to death. I'll leave the farming to those who are a whole lot better at it than me!

ETA - Forgot about the whole livestock part of it. If I can't even grow enough to feed myself, the animals would be out of luck - unless they like cucumbers. And no way am I trying to milk a hungry, pissed of cow or goat.

[Maggie Mae]

Lori is like 5 yr old me! "Mommy, mommy, please let's live on a farm, I want to be with the animals 24/7!! Please, ok??"

Does she know that not every soil is for farming? Does she know that livestock, land, machinery cost money?

Why doesn't she join the Amish?

Too much work for her, and I'm sure it would be "unbiblical" somehow.

[Rosa]

You know what drives people out of farming (aside from the low cash flow and backbreaking labor?) Farmers having more than 2 kids. Because over time the farms get smaller and smaller and smaller and people have to move away to town and get a cash job, or starve.

Even Amish people have this problem. If every farm family has 8 kids and all the farmland is already occupied, what happens?

[slickcat79]

You know what drives people out of farming (aside from the low cash flow and backbreaking labor?) Farmers having more than 2 kids. Because over time the farms get smaller and smaller and smaller and people have to move away to town and get a cash job, or starve.

Even Amish people have this problem. If every farm family has 8 kids and all the farmland is already occupied, what happens?

Which is more difficult in today's economy than it was in the past because competition is greater and education requirements are higher. If the family farm can't support all the children (or hell, if they don't want to be farmers when they grown up), what kind of employment opportunities are they going to find when they spent their childhood working the farm instead of going to school? These are not the good 'ol days. We couldn't go back, even if we wanted to, and most of us really don't want to.

[constantgardener]

Lori is being ridiculously unrealistic if she thinks that everyone living on farms would solve unemployment and mean that you 'wouldn't have to worry much about the economy because you can get milk and meat from the cows and goats'. I have been interested in self-sufficiency for many years, and one of the main mistakes people trying to live the 'good life' make is that all you need in life is food. Let's move to the country and grow our own food! We won't need to rely on the outside world any more! Apart from the money we need for a house, machinery and equipment, insurance, utilities, medical bills, clothes, a vehicle etc. At my peak of self-sufficiency on a quarter acre garden, I was managing to produce about half our family's fruit and veg needs, all our eggs and the odd chicken. All my spare time was spent on my garden and animals. I was saving about £10 a week on my food shopping.

I live in an area of large arable farms on some of the best land in the country. Farmers with hundreds of acres are still struggling due to the wet year. It's much worse for livestock farmers, many of whom are going to the wall, even committing suicide because they can't make a decent living. Lori needs to get a grip.

[Coconut Flan]

Lori appears to live in northern San Diego county, California, so weather for growing things would not be a problem for her. Space may or may not be depending on where she lives. She seems rather disconnected from reality though. I'm almost tempted to stalk the church looking for her. Almost but I really do have many better things to do.

[GeoBQn]

Climate change could be an issue too, though I'm sure Lori doesn't believe in that. 2012 was the hottest year on record. I live in Iowa, where farming is a major part of the state's economy, and nearly the entire state was under extreme drought conditions throughout the summer. There were serious concerns on how it would affect the crops.

[Conuly]

So apparently people are meant to be on farms and it would solve all of our money problems if we'd never moved to the cities. So Lori, where do you live?

I thought God liked herders, not farmers. That's why he's our shepherd instead of our gardener. We can't do both - rancher vs. farmer is literally one of the oldest conflicts in the book! (No, really. Cain was a farmer, Abel a shepherd, God preferred Abel's sacrifice, sibling rivalry came to a head, you can't trust those farmers who put up fences everywhere.)

Though if you want an easy life with less work, I hear hunter gatherers do pretty well. Can't support a large civilization that way, though, and I imagine it limits your ability to have lots of stuff.

[Arete]

Part of my family still grows/makes a lot of the stuff they use during the year, including wine and olive oil. Guess what? It still requires income from other jobs to be able to survive. Yet another sweeping statement of Lori's on a subject she knows absolutely nothing about. :roll:

[OkToBeTakei]

Maybe Ken's new bedroom perversion involves animals. :shock:

[Maggie Mae]

Lori is being ridiculously unrealistic if she thinks that everyone living on farms would solve unemployment and mean that you 'wouldn't have to worry much about the economy because you can get milk and meat from the cows and goats'. I have been interested in self-sufficiency for many years, and one of the main mistakes people trying to live the 'good life' make is that all you need in life is food. Let's move to the country and grow our own food! We won't need to rely on the outside world any more! Apart from the money we need for a house, machinery and equipment, insurance, utilities, medical bills, clothes, a vehicle etc. At my peak of self-sufficiency on a quarter acre garden, I was managing to produce about half our family's fruit and veg needs, all our eggs and the odd chicken. All my spare time was spent on my garden and animals. I was saving about £10 a week on my food shopping.

I live in an area of large arable farms on some of the best land in the country. Farmers with hundreds of acres are still struggling due to the wet year. It's much worse for livestock farmers, many of whom are going to the wall, even committing suicide because they can't make a decent living. Lori needs to get a grip.

And the thing is, people have NEVER lived like that. Before currency, people traded. If you had a surplus of beaver pelts and berries, you traded those for things you were unable to obtain, like leather or a textile. If you had a bunch of girls and the neighbor had a bunch of boys, you might trade fruit that the girls gathered for meat; or have them sew clothing for the boys in exchange for whatever. People/families have never been self sufficient. If you somehow manage to learn all the skills needed to create a shelter, ward off pests and other wild animals, plant and harvest a garden, hunt meat, do any repairs necessary, build a well, keep the well operating, make your own clothes out of plant matter and animal hides, do your own dental work, do your own surgeries, tan your own leather, cobble your own shoes, build your own fishing equipment, build your own farm equipment, test your own water for safety, well, then you get mad props from me, because I don't think there is anyone who can literally live off the land without the help of another human being or technology anymore. And if you could, you wouldn't have time to read your bible (which is important to lori) or ever do anything at all besides stay alive. If you had a fire, or a drought or an invasion of beetles, you would starve. Sometimes, the fish just don't run, for whatever reason. Sometimes the moose or deer are few. Sometimes bears or cougars or foxes will get onto your property and create chaos. Sometimes things happen. And when those things happen(ed) people's neighbors helped them out.

Now days helping each other is called socialism, with a scowl.

Do fundies learn any history at all?

[constantgardener]

The other thing that winds me up about this post is the 'kids working on the farm is good for them' bit. Why does child labour always seem to get a pass when it comes to farm work? You wouldn't take your kids to your office and get them to do the filling. We no longer give children jobs minding factory machines. But farm life is seen as 'wholesome' in the same way as 'homemaking' so it's fine to get your kids to do your work for you. The reality is that farm work is hard and often dangerous. If your children have a genuine interest in agriculture, great, let them help out. But don't make it a compulsory life skill.

[slickcat79]

The other thing that winds me up about this post is the 'kids working on the farm is good for them' bit. Why does child labour always seem to get a pass when it comes to farm work? You wouldn't take your kids to your office and get them to do the filling. We no longer give children jobs minding factory machines. But farm life is seen as 'wholesome' in the same way as 'homemaking' so it's fine to get your kids to do your work for you. The reality is that farm work is hard and often dangerous. If your children have a genuine interest in agriculture, great, let them help out. But don't make it a compulsory life skill.

The sad thing is, plenty of them would do that. Chris Jeub comes to mind. I think more of them would if they actually had an office to go to...

[Loveday]

And the thing is, people have NEVER lived like that. Before currency, people traded. If you had a surplus of beaver pelts and berries, you traded those for things you were unable to obtain, like leather or a textile. If you had a bunch of girls and the neighbor had a bunch of boys, you might trade fruit that the girls gathered for meat; or have them sew clothing for the boys in exchange for whatever. People/families have never been self sufficient. If you somehow manage to learn all the skills needed to create a shelter, ward off pests and other wild animals, plant and harvest a garden, hunt meat, do any repairs necessary, build a well, keep the well operating, make your own clothes out of plant matter and animal hides, do your own dental work, do your own surgeries, tan your own leather, cobble your own shoes, build your own fishing equipment, build your own farm equipment, test your own water for safety, well, then you get mad props from me, because I don't think there is anyone who can literally live off the land without the help of another human being or technology anymore. And if you could, you wouldn't have time to read your bible (which is important to lori) or ever do anything at all besides stay alive. If you had a fire, or a drought or an invasion of beetles, you would starve. Sometimes, the fish just don't run, for whatever reason. Sometimes the moose or deer are few. Sometimes bears or cougars or foxes will get onto your property and create chaos. Sometimes things happen. And when those things happen(ed) people's neighbors helped them out.

Now days helping each other is called socialism, with a scowl.

Do fundies learn any history at all?

Hell, even the fiercely independent Charles Ingalls, out on the nearly empty Kansas prairie, had to go to town for supplies once in awhile. :roll: