Andy Griffin writes a great post from the experience of a farmer. If you haven’t visited The Ladybug Letter, you should…
“What’s your ‘Plan B’?” a radio reporter asked business school students the other day. One young woman’s answer caught my ear.
“If things get bad enough,” she said, “my friends and I are thinking of getting a farm together.”
I’m not going to argue. I graduated in ‘81 with a degree in Philosophy and I’ve been “down on the farm” ever since. Society didn’t need youngsters lecturing on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer back then any more than it needs more business majors now. Now I’m fifty. I farm 60 acres of organic vegetables and I live at the end of a road with olive and lemon trees in my yard, plenty of firewood at hand, an array of pole-mounted solar panels in the pasture, two wells, a gun, and a diversified portfolio of stocks that range from goats, sheep and cattle to a single, colossal Gloucestershire Old Spot pig. If worse comes to worse I’m as ready as most people are. Have I learned all there is to know about farming? No, but my education in philosophy gives me the skills to act like I do, and my experience in the field has taught me lessons I won’t forget. So, going out to the young woman in the radio interview who almost has an MBA, and to all her friends, here are my ten cents about going back to the land.
via Apocalypse Deferred at The Ladybug Letter.
As this economic crisis continues, I am more and more aware that my contemporaries who moved back to the land in the 70’s and the 80’s have a hell of a head start should the “recovery” not work or take longer than anyone anticipates. Andy lays out some sensible advice in his post.
It seems I am hearing and reading a lot of the same kind of things that were being spoken and written thirty plus years ago…The only difference between then and now is my energy level. So let me add a word of advice to what Andy has to say…If you think you may want to try the “new agriculture” lifestyle, don’t wait till you hit middle age. Do it now, do it while so many other options are being shut off. Really, just do it…
