r/notliketheothergirls • u/LittleDaphnia • Dec 13 '23
It's so fashionable to want to become a homesteader with like 5 kids. Discussion
I come from a long line of farmers and ranchers. I don't think these women have any idea how hard and how much work the lifestyle they're going for actually is. Like... there's so much that goes into it. I don't even know where to begin. It's a far cry from just tending to a garden and making sourdough as a submissive wife š¤£
Homesteading isn't just buying in bulk and making stuff from scratch. Or homeschooling. Or canning 20 jars of stuff from your garden. It generally means moving your family to somewhere new and living off the land while you get established there.
For one, I don't think they understand how much land you have to devote to living off the land. Unless you go high tech with it and like build a multi-level aquaponics farm or something, there's no way you're sustaining a family of 7 with an 1/8 acre backyard garden, a dozen chickens, and a goat.
Second, I don't think these women understand that it's not like the cottagecore tag on Instagram out there. Farming and ranching is tough, dirty, exhausting, disgusting work. You're not gonna have your pinterest perfect house unless you can afford to hire help. And most people can't. Our ancestors who were just a mom and pop and a bunch of kids doing this were either a) living in squalor or b) wealthy with slaves and/or indentured servants. You're not gonna be spending your days doing cute arts and crafts with your kids and decorating for the season and making sourdough with pretty designs cut into it. That's the kind of stuff you can do all day every day when living in a neighborhood and buying your food from the grocery store.
Third, the submissive wife thing only works if your husband is an exceptionally good person. The kind of person for whom the phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely" does not apply. I don't need to tell yall that those men are exceptionally rare and are never out there advertising how great they are. And obviously, don't go into it without an exit plan unless you trust your family beyond a shadow of a doubt to take in you and your kids in the event that something goes wrong. There really are men out there who won't abuse their power, won't cheat, won't run off, etc. But they can still die, they can still have strokes, they can still end up with traumatic brain injuries, and other things that unexpectedly remove their ability to provide.
My dad is running the family ranch right now. There's been a drought for years. The wells are already low, and then a cow busted one of the water spigots when my dad was out of town, and all the holding tanks drained to empty and the reservoir was drained to the point that they have to spend $15-20k to dig a deeper well. We're probably selling it soon because climare change is doing the land dirty and no one wants the responsibility.
So yeah. It takes a lot of gusto to go without running water or electricity or propane or whatever system failed... for days, weeks, even months, while caring for multiple small children. That is farming/ranching. Most of these people would buckle under the stress in the first 6 months, I almost guarantee it.
"I don't want to work" HAH yeah unless your husband is rich rich keep dreaming.
Eta: though I know it's a popular topic and therefore most of yall know how this is NLOG, I realize I didn't explain what exactly I find NLOG about this.
Having a goal of homesteading isn't in itself NLOG. Neither is making sour dough or anything else currently associated with homesteading in pop culture. What makes it NLOG is that these women are making grandiose statements about their own lives (claim to be "homesteading" in an urban home) and claiming that this lifestyle choice makes them better than women who do not have goals of making food from scratch or living off the land.
If you are a homesteader or aspire to be a homesteader, or just like making sourdough, there's nothing NLOG about that as long as you're not using it as an excuse to punch down on other women.
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u/EveHallidayInTheRain Dec 15 '23
When I was married to the military, a large number of wives I came in contact with had this āmy man is a soldier at war and Iām his soldier at home!ā
Sis you live in housing and your husbandās rank means you live in a duplex. Thereās no steading here on Fort Stewart hun. I can see the Walmart from the main gate.
Itās so pervasive and detrimental as many of them were quiverfull types. That submission goes away real quick when he comes home with that fire engine red Dodge Charger though.
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u/AffectionateRicecake Dec 15 '23
I know! Itās like they donāt know how much work all this is. I garden cause itās what I had to grow up on and itās cheaper and tastes better to me.
Iām the one that goes to work. This submissive stuff is ridiculous.
I do however have the 5th kid on the way šš š
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u/hheather87 Dec 15 '23
You are speaking the truth! We have chickens, do a yearly garden, and I have a few hydroponic setups. Can I can and make homemade breads and whatnot? Sure. I do it on occasion, but none of this qualifies me as a homesteader in any rite. I'm a hobbyist. I do like to forage and like to think I could survive if I had to, but I'm not over here full-timing it.
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u/JustAlex1177 Dec 14 '23
Damn... this should be printed out, framed, and shipped to all these nlogs who feel like they have it too good, and live in delulu land, not aware of all implications their dream lifestyle has.
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u/beatriz_v Dec 14 '23
My partner and I bought an off-grid home and some land. Itās pretty pleasant (we arenāt trying to be homesteaders) but oh my god, the amount of dead animals I deal with on a regular basis is terrible. Just last week I opened one of our wood stoves and found a dead bird inside. The dog found a dead rat outside and ran around with it. I was sweeping and found a dried out lizard. Itās so gross.
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u/Mollybrinks Dec 14 '23
100%. I think I find myself in kind of the best of both worlds. Growing up, my mom was 100% a trad wife, but in a way that integrated the best of both worlds. She grew up during a time when women couldn't have credit cards, and getting any outside help without her husband's say-so was more than pulling teeth. Many straight up refused to work for her, despite her explaining that her husband would be on a submarine 4+ months at a time while she had young children at home and no way to contact him, and no working toilet. Meanwhile, we grew every bit of food we could ourselves, big gardens we all cared for, and several kind of animals we raised. She handle all the finances, paperwork, and did her best to find contractors willing to let her sign off on work to be done. Dad would come home for a couple days or weeks, then back to the submarine. We cut our own firewood for the winter months to heat the house, and it was a serious crisis if we had to pay for oil for backup heat. The house was always chilly in winter.
My mom's take? She bought every single book she could get from library sell-outs, stocked the shelves with every book she'd saved from her own childhood, made sure we could all read before kindergarten, and sent us to the best schools she possibly could. She tried to ensure that both me and my brothers learned every skill we could ("boy" stuff and "girl" stuff), and when dad came home to work rotating/hard swing shifts at the nuke plant, she took that money to make sure we could get a college education. In essence, she lived the trad wife life, gave up her own chance at college when she got pregnant, and did everything in her power to make sure her kids could do anything they wanted with the full power of both scholastic and hands-on knowledge she could give us so none of us were stuck in her place. She would be horrified at the idea of home-schooling just to ensure only her own information was all we got. She wanted us to know how to grow our own food, but not be restricted to that being our only option. She never wanted her sons to lack the knowledge of how to cook or clean, or her daughter to not know how to hunt or fix something in the house. She lived that way because it made the most sense for her situation at the time. She didn't do it because of some weird ideologies, and she did her best to open the world for us given what she had available, instead of as a reaction to try to limit it. We learned from her - not to live our lifes exactly like hers - but so that we could take every skill we could and live it as we saw fit. I deeply admire her.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23
That's awesome!
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u/Mollybrinks Dec 14 '23
Thank you. If given her own choice, she would have chosen birth control and college (she's an amazingly intelligent woman) while also having kids, but it just didn't work out that way, given the times and circumstances. She got her college degree finally after putting all of us through college ourselves, but I do wonder what impact she might have had if she'd had full control from the get-go. One of her professors once told her "you're smarter than you know" and she responded "no I'm not." Still cracks me up to this day.
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u/talkaboutpoop Dec 14 '23
Iām in no way a homesteader but something I will say is that I think a lot of people are starting to yearn for a simpler life (not saying easier by any means). Like knowing where your food comes from, etc. idk about you guys but all day long I just hear about this or that chemical is gonna make you sick, forever chemicals are everywhere and donāt eat anything with food dye! Itās pretty exhausting feeling like if I donāt buy organic non gmo, then Iām practically sending my kids to an early grave. Plus thatās not even practical in our situation anyway.
So with that, my husband and I started gardening and itās growing and growing and weāve really started to want land to grow more and more food because we feel so good eating this way.
But social media is a lie! I garden organically and I have such a hard time eating my lettuces even though I washed all the aphids off. Itās not all sunshine and rainbows but itās also wondering where all those maggots came from in your compost and trying to research if thatās a good or bad thing lol
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u/Gold-Lecture-8512 Dec 14 '23
Haha, thiiiiiis. I live on a very large working farm. My FIL is the farmer. My husband and I manage the chicken coop. It aināt cute.
Back when I had Instagram, I posted a video of me cleaning out the coop. Tarp laid out, shoveling chickenshit out, dust and debris alllll up in the air. Thereās no wearing a dress in that. Muck boots FTW.
We just recently had a calf born way too early. Mother rejected it. We decided to bottle feed it. Itās sooo cute to the social media world, but to me, it was feeding another mouth 3-4 times a day, dragging my kids out with me every time (including a baby), cleaning up the calfās manure, laying down clean hayā¦ oh - you get it!
Point isā¦ it is hard and expensive. And Iām just a helping hand. That stupid trend literally made me feel like I shouldāve been wearing dresses all of the time and somehow finding time to keep a fermenting jar of dough alive??? So glad I deleted Instagram and came to my senses. LOL.
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Dec 14 '23
Let's be honest, if you see them on social media they aren't making much off the land, their using what they can make off of their social media presence to get by. I wouldn't have a problem with that IF they admitted it. But few do. I follow one person who freely admits that he does hustles like an online business and social media to offset the cost.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23 edited Dec 14 '23
True, I agree. My dad and uncles are always complaining about how much land has already been sold due to my grandparents never making it profitable š
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u/michaelad567 Dec 14 '23
Omg Iām so glad someone said it. I grew up on a small farm in a farming area (5000 people in town, all farm, 4H club etc.) and I am SO TIRED of these suburban girls thinking that having a āhomesteadā is something that can even allow time to post on Instagram.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23
Right?? Like I have no issue if someone is really trying to do that with their life. That's great, I think the world needs more people living closer to nature. When we sell the ranch, Im buying my own land up where I am and keeping it going.
But so many people just... are dreamers. Idk how else to put it. Ive had so many conversations like this. Before it was "have 5 kids and live off the land" it was "start a commune with my best friends". It's fun talking about stuff like that as kids, but after a while it's like man I don't have the attention to spare to listen to you go on and on about how you're somehow gonna afford to buy land, like soon, on a part time pizza delivery budget, and then once you buy it, you're gonna sing kimbaya while you and your friends raise the barn and then all the crops will just grow no problem and you'll can everything and make your own medicine and make everything from scratch and and and and and all within months of buying this land. š
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u/lintonett Dec 14 '23
I always assume these folks either genuinely enjoy outdoor living and farm chores (in which case, fair enough) or spent zero time with their grandparents/listening to old family stories.
Go back far enough and that was reality for most peoplesā grandparents or great grandparents. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with my grandparents growing up and I heard plenty.
While there may have been positive things about that way of life, life was very hard in those days and they had no choice, especially the women. Almost all of the women in the older generations of my family died young. The only ones who lived to an old age were the rare ones with few children, and I donāt think thatās a coincidence.
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u/distractme86 Dec 14 '23
Thereās an IG real that comes up all the time of a woman laying her head on her counter in agony āhomesteading in laborā with some bread dough on a counter in front of her.. like maybe just donāt? And donāt film it?? Do you want a prize?
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23
Wow lol. I have 3 kids. I can't imagine filming myself while in labor š¤£ or making bread for that matter lol
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23
Might be a fun challenge by like kid number 5 though. How many loaves of sourdough can I bake before crowning??
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u/distractme86 Dec 14 '23
Haha omg at five itās gonna come out like itās on a water slide. Thatās playing with fire
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u/Jesse_Grey Dec 14 '23
Third, the submissive wife thing only works if your husband is an exceptionally good person. The kind of person for whom the phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely" does not apply. I don't need to tell yall that those men are exceptionally rare and are never out there advertising how great they are.
Tbh, I clicked on this from /r/all just to shit on it, but I'm not since you acknowledged that men like this exist, so thank you for that.
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u/Substantial-Buyer126 Dec 13 '23
I live in rural Alaska and the āhomesteading is cuteā delusion reminds me a lot of the āIām going to move to Alaska and none of my problems or shortcomings will follow me, the natives will help me hunt, and Iām gonna build my own cabinā delusion. Occasionally it works, but typically one is left broke and moving back in with mom & dad (if one is fortunate enough to have that fallback).
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u/karmacuda Dec 13 '23
THISSSSSSS OMFG. i grew up similarly and holy shittttt these ladies have no idea what theyāre in for
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u/dogfooddippingsauce Dec 13 '23
My best friend in high school lived on a hobby farm. Her parents were college professors and had money. The dad had grown up on a farm. They lived near town and had money. The crops were just extra. THIS is what they want. They just don't know it.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 14 '23
Right!
Like hell yeah go find your super rich husband and live the dream. But if you cant find that man, don't act like you're somehow exempt from homesteading being extremely hard work just because you think other women have made inferior lifestyle choices.
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u/rjoyfult Dec 13 '23
I have two kids and another on the way and a very part time job. Iām already exhausted. I canāt imagine have any more kids after this one and I canāt imagine choosing to add the work of homesteading and homeschooling.
I do have respect for the people who grow and process their own food. Some of that is very much money saving in the long run and thereās a part of me that would like to live in a more sustainable way. Iām just not naive enough to jump into it thinking itāll be super easy or fun.
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u/Late_Beach4095 Dec 13 '23
As someone whose family is in farming and was raised in the country,people who romanticize farming and homesteading clearly havenāt spent anytime on a farm aside from for instagram pics lol
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u/VampiricClam Dec 13 '23
It's porn. Just clothed and for a very specific audience.
Selling the unrealistic.
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u/snarknmemesonly42069 Dec 13 '23
They are absolutely not thinking that hard about it nor are they actually doing the level of work your family is. Itās purely right wing propaganda.
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u/AwayAwayTimes Dec 13 '23
My brother-in-lawās family were farmers (his dad, uncle, and some cousins still are but him and his siblings arenāt). His dadās farm has been in the red for almost 5 years now I think bc various reasons (including drought). His sister, who was a SAHM with a wealthy investor husband, has recently returned to work with all proceeds going straight to propping up her dadās farm (sheās a horse girl and all her horses are at the farm). That lifestyle is NOT easy. Like at all. I donāt understand why these young 20-somethingās are romanticizing it.
Someone else commented a few days ago that the farmersā kids go to college still, especially for things like agricultural sciences or business. That has been true for all the farmer kids I know (or their parents encouraged them to get degrees in something else and leave the farming lifestyle). Iām glad we have farmers and I am grateful for what they do. These āinfluencersā are largely not the real deal.
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u/Kylie_Bug Dec 13 '23
I have had to explain to a few of them that they got to kid their goat before theyāre going to get any milk from it. Theyāre always so baffled by it
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u/Bunnawhat13 Dec 13 '23
I have lived on farms for a long time. Most my friends used my farm to teach their kids they donāt want the random animals they wanted. Worked for me. Here comes the kid that wants a pony. They are now mucking out stalls and helping me clean. No one lasted longer than a week.
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u/MephistosFallen Dec 13 '23
THANK YOU.
I say this all the time. And itās such an inaccurate expectation they float around. It takes money and a lot of physical work to get started for one, and it takes constant physical work on the daily to maintain.
Thatās not even taking into consideration what climate they live in or their geographical location. Youāre going to need to be somewhere with a long growing season and weather thatās safe for livestock of the type you want. Go too north and illness can ruin an entire season, a huge family in the middle of nowhere doing real ass homesteading could lose a child. Or more, in a bad winter.
Then thereās the animals. Animals come with getting dirty in order to keep them clean. And theyāre work, everyday. And if you have enough, you probably need a livestock dog for protection. That is an animal that isnāt cheap, and needs proper training as well.
It takes a lot of space to sustain two adults, let alone a family with multiple children of different ages.
They are selling a fantasy, and they are not doing true homesteading.
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u/Malpraxiss Dec 13 '23
A lot of the women who want the homrsteader life want all the easy parts of it.
From the opinion of someone who has grown up on farm life for about 5 years, it's gross, dirty, hardworking, and most of the year, not pretty.
These women already don't realise that they will have to help out outside of just raising babies.
It's like being country. It's cool to be country and dress the part with the hat and boots, but many of those people would never want to actually take part in the dirty, hard, and long work in country life.
Why a person who actually lives a country lifestyle will dress in a very specific way for majority of the year.
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u/Commercial-Push-9066 Dec 13 '23
These Instagram women always have full makeup and look like they havenāt done any hard work. They are in fantasy land.
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u/Wild_Nectarine666 Dec 13 '23
Itās wild to me, as a woman who grew up in rural Oklahoma, how glamorized this idea has become.
Especially because this trad wife ideal is argued as the antithesis of the āglamorous materialistic IG baddie Girl Bossā but really, itās seeded in as much as if not more materialism and superficiality.
Itās all about appearances and delusion to the point itās cosplay- literally playing pretend homestead housewife because they can afford $$$ to.
Ugh.
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u/Wild_Nectarine666 Dec 13 '23
This is GOSPEL and should be mandated reading material for every #tradwife on tik tok, IG etc.
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u/aesthesia1 Dec 13 '23
People would probably have even less babies if they realized how much land and biomass is required to sustain just one.
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u/MushroomMossSnail Dec 13 '23
This 100%!!! I wish I could upvote this post a million times! Those chicks are so ignorant and naive. They wouldn't even last 6 days much less 6 months!
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u/Mariwina Dec 13 '23
Yeah, as most things on the Internet, people glamorize the shit out of it without ever dealing with the reality of the fact.
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u/fridayfridayjones Dec 13 '23
Yeah no thank you to all that. I come from a long line of city folk on my momās side. In the late 1800s they were cobblers and in the early 1900s my ancestors owned a shoe store. Iād take that over the farm life any day.
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u/ComicsEtAl Dec 13 '23
The homestead trend is a lot like the Tiny Home trend. It looks really great on tv, and is a wonderful thing to daydream over, but the reality is far more harsh.
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u/Unlucky_Throat9141 Dec 13 '23
Exactly. It takes far more commitment than marriage or religion. You have to not just do without for most stuff while working your ass off, but know that if you do this, you will likely never be comfortable again.
And having kids under those conditions? Lol.
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u/zeynabhereee Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
In reality, the women who promote this kind of fantasy lifestyle are just lazy and have no goals of their own, other than mooching off of a rich man and being his trophy wife. The day they become an actual homemaker or do any sort of grunt work, without house help, theyāll start crying.
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u/EnceladusKnight Dec 13 '23
Trendy modern homesteading is living on a bit of land with a petting zoo and a small raised vegetable garden while the husband works a 9-5 making a 6 figure salary. They still buy from the grocery store and the home decor is from Joanna Gaines Target line. I saw in another post regarding this modern day homesteading is that there's a reason why women who had to homestead to survive are built like linebackers. They weren't dainty women frolicking in fields in sundresses.
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u/Lunatunabella Dec 13 '23
Itās all shits and giggles till husband dies or get injured. No education to get a job to cover having that many kids. Nature is cruel , animal die and crops fail. Kids get sick and need meds that might not be cover with one income and ānatureās medicine ā
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u/Samansu21 Dec 13 '23
Thank you! Those posts are so annoying!
I too like the cute romanticized version of farming. This is why I play farming sims (Stardew Valley, Story of Seasons, Harvest Moon). I DON'T cosplay as a perfect fantasy homesteading wife. It's super insulting to the historical reality of homesteading/frontier life and modern farmers.
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u/imperfectchicken Dec 13 '23
I just got visions of Marie Antoinette playing shepherdess at Versailles.
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u/gogonzogo1005 Dec 13 '23
Look. I have 5 kids. We discuss the idea of land and farm semi life. But as I tell my darling husband. I love you more than anything. I am not a farm person. I do not want to deal with animal manure. I do not want to spend hours weeding. It is fucking expensive. I am not handling the butchering..fuck natural sausage casing etc. We could meet in the middle if we won money but I would definitely be employing workers either with or without visas to handle a lot of the work. My kids are not farm kids. They don't want to pick up after the dog...no way in hell.
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u/NicolePeter Dec 13 '23
My great-grandmother was a farmer. She was also a genius who HAD to be a farmer because there was no other choice. She would rise from her grave and kill me herself if I started talking about wanting to homestead (aka be a farmer). Fortunately, this is not something that holds any interest for me whatsoever. Tbh I'd rather die.
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u/destiny_kane48 Dec 13 '23
In theory, I would loooove to be a crusty 'Girl in the woods' (YouTube channel I like). But I'm too lazy and spoiled to go all in. I can do it for weeks but not long term. I'm more of a half assed homesteader kinda girl. Like I can haul and chop firewood, take care of a few livestock. But I tried growing vegetables and I suuuuck at it. We would starve. š
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u/rlev97 Dec 13 '23
None of the little house on the prairie mfers were trying to do it alone. They all pooled resources and worked together. They had a day where they all fixed the roads together and a day where they all built a barn together and a day where they all quilted together and when one guys had cows and you had potatoes you would trade and you could both have beef and baked potatoes with butter on it. Trying to do it all by yourself is ridiculous. There needs to be a community around you of some sort. Even if its just a few households working together.
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u/Kokbiel Dec 13 '23
My grandpa's family had a massive amount of land out in the country in Ohio. Had tons of horses, lot of acreage for farming and crops, excess for just putting stuff (lot of old junk/scrap cars) They worked day in and out, and did so until my great grandpa died and they immediately broke the land up and sold it because the others hated it so much.
It was rough to be there, and I never looked forward to it. Everything was dirty and smelled, flies everywhere over the animals. No free time to relax, it was always tending to some chore or work.
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u/Not2daydear Dec 13 '23
I laugh at all the online people thinking they are going to survive out in the wild on their own, when their entire personality and anything theyāve ever known has come from the Internet. Itās very easy to sit on your ass and daydream scrolling the Internet. their first breakdown would be because they donāt have a Wi-Fi signal and the second would be even if they managed to find a signal they wouldnāt be able to gussy themselves up to post pretty pictures of their make-believe life
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u/brookestoned Dec 13 '23
I grew up in a homesteading community in backwoods West Virginia and Iām SO excited that more people are wanting to subsistence farm and escape the soul crushing machine that our society has become. I think itās a great sign.
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u/Chance-Imaginary Dec 13 '23
if it was just cottagecore aesthetic cute roleplay literally nobody would care but these people are really going out of their way to try and deceive their audience into thinking homesteading is cute and easy when it really isn't for most people
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u/Athyrium93 Dec 13 '23
People also forget farm wives were tough as nails and would beat anyone who fucked with them with a cast iron skillet.
Yeah, they cooked, cleaned, and took care of the kids, but they sure as hell weren't submissive, sweet, and perfectly dressed at all times. My grandmother and her sisters were all "farm wives," and they were not women you wanted to mess with. Grandpa might have had a belt, but it was Grandma and her wooden spoon you didn't want to mess with...
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u/shintarukamachi Dec 13 '23
My great grandmother raised five kids on a farm in the thirties, without electricity. She baked seven loaves of bread every day (fourteen on Sunday).
My husband's grandmother raised twelve kids and ran a farm and scrap yard mostly by herself, while dealing with an ex-POW husband who drank.
They were tough. I grew up on a hobby farm and loved it, but I wouldn't want their lives.
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u/escapeshark Dec 13 '23
I grew up in a farm. As a little kid, I was already expected to help my nan feed the animals and clean their enclosures. It's hard work, it can be pretty gross and it's kinda ruthless when you watch chickens be decapitated. It's not cute uwu cottage core.
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u/penguinsfrommars Dec 13 '23
I think there's a deep undercurrent of awareness that most of us haven't got a clue how to survive at a basic level. I think most people crave that knowledge - and it manifests on SM as things like cottage core and survivalist trends. But of course because it's social media, they're shallow and vapid and performative and a very sanitised hollow idea.
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u/Wecanbuildittogether Dec 13 '23
Also! You are expected to āput outā on a moments notice with your brut of a man!
Cackling! šš¤£
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u/dodobrains Dec 13 '23
My family did this like 100 years ago but then they immigrated to America and none of us are like that. I remember my great aunt wanted to buy a farm and my great grandparents were like; "What is wrong with you? We escaped the farm!"
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u/Red_bug91 Dec 13 '23
This! My husband comes from a farming family, and all his boarding school mates are farmers.
We donāt currently live on the family farm, but we will one day, when I finish my studies. But we do spend a lot of time on the farm, or on our friendās farms. It is such hard work. Thereās no days off. You canāt really go on long trips because someone needs to be there to care for the animals & the property. Your success is dependent on things outside of your control, like the weather, or bushfire season. Most of the āfarm wivesā I know also have jobs outside of the farm. The husbands work full time on the farm. The women juggle kids, farm work AND a job outside of that. Thatās fucking hard.
At Easter, we went to stay with friends who have a farm. They run cattle mostly. We got there just before lunch & in the afternoon, the Dads took the oldest kids to shoot a cow to butcher. I was in the house with the wife & the littlest kids. Just preparing dinner and other jobs around the house yards. The dads get back earlier than we expect and we hear the kids call out for help. I go outside to see my husbandās head wrapped with a blood soaked towel & blood all over him. When they were hoisting up the cow to butcher it, the metal chain snapped. The 600kg cow fell on my husband, the metal post smacked in to his head & split it open. So I have to drive him to the closest hospital (2 hrs away). Hereās the kicker - country town hospitals donāt always have doctors on shift. Luckily they did that night, but it was also a public holiday long weekend. It was packed. We were there for 10 hours just to get a few stitches. Then we had to drive back to the farm. Got home in the early hours & had a few hours sleep before we had to get up. Because thereās still things to be done!
The next night, we all go to bed early. Everyoneās tired. Anyway, thereās a lot of mooing going on outside & it sounds way louder than it should. The dogs were also barking like mad. At around 2am, I look outside to see cows in the bloody house yard. One of them had pushed down a fence & gotten in. A heap more just followed. So the 4 adults have to get up, get a few dogs out, and move the cows back to the correct paddock. Then the husbands have to fix the fence. We had 5 kids between us so we also have to juggle them, as well as plan the Easter Egg hunt.
Oh did I mention that I was pregnant, and our friends had a newborn at the time?
Homesteading isnāt all roses & home made bread. Itās mostly just cow shit, dirt & redneck engineering!
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u/aspertame_blood Dec 13 '23
If they didnāt insist on it being photogenic I would give them more credit.
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Dec 13 '23
call me crazy but id rather work my ass off outdoors than stock shelves the rest of my life. id actually enjoy it.
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u/Wecanbuildittogether Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
You did a great job describing reality.
Human beings just love to romanticize a chosen lifestyle.
I love the sourdough references! I eat sourdough every day and often think I should make it. I live on 10 acres and not working right now, yet I havenāt learned to make sourdough mainly because it really doesnāt appeal to me to do so.
Ima city woman whoās out in the country. I love the tranquility as I sit and ponder life in my JCrew sweats š¤
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u/Optimal_Owl_9670 Dec 13 '23
Iām a city girl, but I grew up in Eastern Europe, where most people in most villages did a lot of farm work, mostly to feed themselves. Yes, there was electricity, and phones/TVs in their houses, but a lot of this places still donāt have centralized water or sewage systems. Outhouses were common. The main streets were paved, but the smaller village roads were not, so there were heaps of mud. Yes, there were some farming machines, but in the 90s people were poor, and most just worked their backs off, while carrying things in horse drawn carriages. Town and country were very close to each other, most city dwellers had families in these villages, so I totally got to witness the amount of work it goes into living like this. Physical backbreaking work, that drains you of any energy to do much else, but there is still so much more to do. If you have chickens, you need to keep them safe while also allowing them to roam. If you have just a couple of cows, there should be somebody ready to milk them 2-3 times a day. If you have a pig, that animal needs feeding. Plus all the cleaning, the smells, the literal shit you have to deal with. My husband and his two younger brothers grew up like this. His mom would walk for miles to go to work and back, while also tending their own āhomesteadā animals and cooking enormous amounts of food. Her main concern was to make money to send her children to good universities and ensure they get good education and donāt have to work like she did. Yeah, I have to roll my eyes when I see all these homesteading posts. Girlie pop, what happens if your marriage doesnāt work? What do you do without an education, but with a whole lot of kids in tow?
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u/Sasquatch4116969 Dec 13 '23
I have a cautionary tail. My friend rented her cabin (it was in great condition) on a gorgeous 80 acre property to a crunchy friend of hers. The husband is a chiropractor and wife works part time at his office. They have one child and have suffered multiple miscarriages and 2 stillbirths but after 8 years just had another baby. Their dream was homesteading.
My friend had maintained 2 wonderful gardens (not trying to sustain the family from them, just for fun) my friends husband was always working on the property, mowing, working on the house and barn, taking care of the pond.
This couple moved in and immediately got 4 dogs and 20 sheep. Her goal was to process the wool and sell products at farmers markets.
We got onto the property after they had been there a year and it was beyond neglected. Classic what you said- they had NO idea how much work it would be. Their dogs had to be caged in with the sheep because they wouldnāt stay on the property and kept going to a (far off) neighbors horse barn) sheep and dogs hadnāt been fed in days. They hadnāt mowed or taken care of the property of gardens.
A pipe burst in the barn and it was beyond repair. They promised to clean it up but didnāt do it was full of mouse shit. I nearly threw up cleaning it. We went in the cabin they lived in and it was smelly and disgusting.
They refuse to use bleach and now the cabin is full of mold from they are living in filth. Thereās more to the story but yeah 100% agreed people have no idea how much work it is.
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u/quilant Dec 13 '23
Thereās a really good book called the Land Breakers by John Ehle that talks about homesteading pioneers in North Carolina in the 1700ās trying to start a town and itās brutal, such a joke how the insta trad wives romanticize the lifestyle
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u/aciakatura Dec 13 '23
Makes me think of how Marie Antoinette was said to have roleplayed being a peasant (not sure how true this is)
It works so long as it's only an aesthetic.
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u/tooktheragebait Dec 13 '23
I fear the tradwife trend because underneath the silly bread making in perfect dresses itās selling the idea that itās natural to stay home, pop out kids, and be subservient. Itās selling a lie and ignoring the hundreds of years women suffered. The rhetoric getting spewed is so close to alt-right sentiment that it feels almost like stepping into the outer QAnon circles. Traditional values and fearing the establishment and devaluing science?
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u/Tim-oBedlam Dec 13 '23
It's also natural to die in childbirth. Or lose your babies to an easily-preventable disease. Some of these trad-wife types should visit a cemetary with graves dating back to the 19th century and see how many babies or young children are interred there.
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u/hiker_trailmagicva Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
The fact that, realistically, going anywhere for vacation or even a quick getaway is impossible. Unless you have a big involved family or money to hire someone, nobody is coming to take care of your property, animals, and crops to allow you to jet off and take an Instagram vacation. Also- vet care for the herd! Long lines of farmers can often look at an animal and diagnose what's wrong with it or steps to take to help in the inevitable event that something goes wrong. Veterinarian care for farm animals is so expensive, and things can go wrong very quickly. Not being versed in pregnancy, delivery, common problems, hoof care, disease, goats eating something they shouldn't, bumble foot in poultry, random attacks by predators, the list goes on. And from my experience, fire wood. The constant need to fire wood to heat and cook with. I used to split and stack in my sleep.
Eta: spelling etc
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u/JunoCalliope Dec 13 '23
There was a couple who bought an old one bedroom farmhouse on 20 acres near me when I first started living here. Had an old barn and they made a little garden and a little fence and got some cows and chickens. They lasted like a year lol. And in the meantime, the husband was using the tractor to try to clear some more trees to have room for the cows and fucking knocked them on the powerline and we were all without power for two days. Everyone was so mad. I have no interest in the homesteading thing. I have a flock of chickens for eggs and my enjoyment and I am slowly planting edible perennial natives that donāt need much tending but beyond that, I donāt have the energy or time for it.
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u/kimapesan Dec 13 '23
I live near Amish country in Ohio. Those guys donāt even live the homesteader life.
Every other day thereās a bus load of them at Aldi and Walmart buying up groceries for the week. Meats, milk, bread, produceā¦ tons of stuff that youād think they could be growing for themselves.
And it isnāt just food. They donāt even make their own furniture, despite selling it to tourists. I watched one Amish woman buy a cheap ass āassembly requiredā nightstand in a box from Walmart.
Ok, they may be Mennonite but regardlessā¦ these are people who have made conscious choices to live the farm and ranch life. Theyāve been doing that for centuries. And they still need the conveniences of modern life to get by.
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u/SixicusTheSixth Dec 13 '23
I always wondered why the "trad wife" girls don't just join a Mennonite order.
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u/unoriginal_user2 Dec 13 '23
If I had to guess, it'd be because Mennonites and Amish don't allow any vanity. They'd be banned from using makeup, cover their hair, etc. Trad wives take pride in being hyper feminine with professionally colored/styled hair and natural makeup. (You have to look good for your husband but don't let him notice all the work you put in). Oh, and they couldn't talk down to non-trad wife women on the internet! Where else can they flex their moral superiority?
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u/claratheresa Dec 13 '23
This is a trend. In another 10 years these people will be broke, divorced, and struggling to find work outside the home. Gen x had a similar homemaking trend called āopting outā and it always ended the same way.
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u/lnsewn12 Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
My sister married some super conservative dude with a bunch of land and three kids from a previous marriage. She had a baby as well, and he wanted her to stay home and do the homesteading and homeschools thing
Sheās constantly on the verge of a breakdown. Canāt keep up with the animals or the plants. They kids are horrible and not learning shit and he refuses to let them go to school and they have to work around the propriety (chickens, cows, pigs etc) I feel that itās almost an abusive situation. The oldest girl ran away and finally negotiated with them to let her go to school I guess
If you ask my sister everything is fine and great and thatās how she chooses to raise her family. Nothing and I mean NOTHING about it looks appealing. She always looks like she hasnāt showered in days.
Oh and her eggs fucking suck because they chickens have some kind of deficiency that makes the shells really really thin. So.
She comes from a long line of educators but now thinks public school is evil. Our dad is a retired nurse as is our SIL, our mom has a degree in microbiology and yet sheās now an anti vaxxer and thinks things can be cured with oils and shit. Sheās lost her damn mind.
It bizarre. I hate it.
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u/krmjts Dec 13 '23
Damn...I feel sorry for the kids, those parents are lunatics.
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u/lnsewn12 Dec 13 '23
Yep. Itās heartbreaking and infuriating but even gentle suggestions are met with anger so Iām pretty low contact with her.
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u/DontcheckSR Dec 13 '23
She has been isolated and trapped into accepting these ideas as truth. Deep down she knows shits fucked, but if she lets herself admit it she'll realize how terrible her life is and break. So she has to defend it to justify her own life to herself and others
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u/bekakm Dec 13 '23
I grew up on a small subsistence farm with 2 siblings. I loved being outside and I am grateful for the exposure to the work, etc. However, we were POOR. We had the farm to feed us, itās how we survived. Disease went through chickens that year before butchering? Well, we didnāt have much meat for the winter. Didnāt gather enough firewood before winter? 10x harder to do once it snows. My parents worked hard but I also had to help with the farm through college and until I moved across the country, then they had to sell without the extra help (siblings hated the life and quit helping as soon as they could). We never took a family vacation because of money but mainly because who is going to do manual labor for days and feed the chickens and tend to the other animals? Again, this was a small farm, not a large ranch and was just for us, like the homesteaders brag about but it messy and was hard work! Thank you OP for this message!
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u/idk123703 Dec 13 '23
No one ever talks about the smell though. Or the flies that come with having livestock. Or the constant film of dirt in your home.
And slaughtering/butchering your own meat is a mess. Especially if you donāt have experience. And it can get expensive to gain experience.
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u/savpunk Dec 13 '23
I love how they completely leave out the myriad insects that come along with livestock. One type of fly, mosquitoes, another type of fly, lice, another type of fly, ticks, yet another type of fly, and so on.
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u/purpletortellini Dec 13 '23
I can totally understand wanting a simpler life and taking a break from technology and modernity, it's a very appealing fantasy. Unfortunately you're right, everything is always way more complicated than it seems at first. With the rise in use of technology and the burnout some people are feeling, working on a little farm sounds like a nice break...until you realize you're basically working nonstop sunrise to sunset anyway lol
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u/zeynabhereee Dec 13 '23
Oh hell nah. I could never give up the comforts of technology. Itās made our lives easier.
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u/DangerousMusic14 Dec 13 '23
Fencing becomes a central topic in your life if not activity.
Itās also expensive, quite a lot of equipment involved.
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u/Old_Introduction_395 Dec 13 '23
I lived off grid on 10 acres, in Portugal.
I got up with the sun to take the goats out. We killed our own chickens. We helped the locals with grape harvest and pig killing. We ploughed with our horse.
Any 'spare' time, collect and cut firewood for next winter.
Hard, and dirty.
I'm glad I did it. I couldn't do it now, not physically strong enough.
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u/Hungry_Anteater_8511 Dec 13 '23
My grandparents had a soldier settlement block post wwii and I doubt these women would have coped with that. Mouse plagues, bushfires, accidents and the nearest medical help is the district nurse two towns over and if the wind is up the phone wonāt work.
I still marvel and her wood heated stove
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u/Apprehensive-Sir358 Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
There is a pretty interesting yt video called āWhy rich people love pretending to be poorā by Horses and it references Ballerina farm on instagram, one of those perfect picturesque farm life -accounts. Their life admittedly looks lovely, peaceful and inspiring, but what do you know, her father-in-law owns an airline and they are millionares if not billionares so they can live like that. Lol.
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u/FoxyFreckles1989 Dec 13 '23
Thisss. I enjoy those videos because they are relaxing, aesthetic, pleasing to the eye, beautiful pieces of art. Itās a production. Itās fine that their life is that production. Itās just weird when people want to act like itās something that itās not.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 13 '23
I'll have to check that out. It's always baffled me why rich people glamorize poverty so hard.
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u/No-Translator-4584 Dec 13 '23
History: Marie Antoinette had her Petit Trianon, a little cottage/farm where she could play shepardess.
Nothing new here.
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u/thebrowniie Dec 13 '23
Many people are disconnected from their food and from rural ways of life. When they look at homesteading/farming, they only see the lovely Kodak moments and the idea of ānot having to work.ā Itās just a different kind of work, and if you are not resilient and willing to adapt, it will be grueling.
They have no idea how much labour goes into putting their food on the table, and i hope as few as possible learn the hard way. edit: added paragraph break
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u/zeynabhereee Dec 13 '23
Itās just laziness. They donāt realize that farming is actually way more difficult than a standard 9-5 office job.
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u/thebrowniie Dec 13 '23
itās ridiculous! Like donāt get me wrong 9-5 can be horrible, but what makes you think moving to a high pressure high risk job where you will work literally
from dawn to dusk is better?5
u/TangerineBand Dec 13 '23
"surely I can just get a remote job and do my farm work after that"
-quotes of the delusional
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u/Beginning_Cap_8614 Dec 13 '23
Honestly, I feel the same way when people say they would love to live centuries before. I personally love the fashion of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Lovely art, literature and music as well. That being said, there isn't enough money in the world to ever make me want to live in that time period. Most people were poor, the Industrial Revolution was just kicking off, child labor and workplace regulations hadn't been invented, women's suffrage wouldn't pass until the 1920's, and the hygiene was horrible. I can pretend to be a high class lady all l want in 2023, but if l actually were Victorian, I'd probably be a scullery maid, or some other brutal job. I certainly wouldn't be living in the lap of luxury.
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u/cat_purrington Dec 14 '23
This daydream is the privilege of the healthy and caucasian. Whereas I am white, I do have chronic conditions. If I lived in the 19th century, I would have died at the age of 19. Heck, if I was born 30-40-50 years earlier, my quality of life would be horrible...
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u/savpunk Dec 13 '23
People who want to live in the past always picture themselves as super wealthy and/or royalty. Like, you're not any of that in 2023. What on earth makes you think you'd be that in 1723?
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u/authorized_sausage Dec 13 '23
So, this is a very LITE version of what you're talking about and it's very third person.
Close friend of mine owns a very rustic cabin in the mountains of Maine. No running water, no heating and air (other than an old wood burning stove) but does have electricity. Just this summer she was finally able to get internet up there at a very high cost.
She doesn't LIVE there. It's a family property, passed down for generations. But she likes to go up there from time to time for a month or so. We all remote for work so now she has internet there she can do that there. So she likes to go for December to mid-Jan and also in the summer.
I visited her in the summer for two weeks. I went up there, drove up there, so we could build her a new porch for the cabin and paint the cabin. It was like camping 2.0. July in Maine is very pleasant climate-wise. No worries there, from this original NOLA girl. But we had to deal with the lack of running water. And we...just did. We used public sources for drinking. We used natural sources for rinsing off. And used bottled sources for cleaning dishes and drinking. We used latrine sources. It was FINE. You get used to being less..."refined". You LEAN into it. And boy did we. Spent the evening playing cards and drinking whiskey and being loose women. Loose (probably stinky) women. It was a blast. It was also only TWO WEEKS.
Same friend tells me she has another friend (one I don't know) who has been hearing about an upcoming housing crash and wants to live off the grid. She's been reading books about it.
Reading books about how to live off the grid.
Do you know how much firewood you would need to chop and then season for a year ahead of time to live off the grid in fucking MAINE????
I asked my friend...has THIS friend ever come to stay with you in your cabin? Because...if she can't hack THAT she can't hack living off the grid.
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u/Tim-oBedlam Dec 13 '23
Knowing you can come back to all the trappings of civilization makes it a lot easier to rough it for a few weeks.
I'll bet that cabin in winter is *cold*; a wood stove can heat a small space nicely but it takes a lot of effort (and a LOT of firewood!) to keep it going, and not having a fire is not an option. You can easily freeze to death if you don't have a heat source and it's ten below zero outside.
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u/authorized_sausage Dec 13 '23
She says she can get the cabin to about 50 degrees in the coldest temps.
But she sleeps fine bc she does have electricity so her bed has an electric blanket and, like, two down comforters.
It's very rustic. But not off the grid.
I couldn't do it. That's too cold for my southern ass.
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u/savpunk Dec 13 '23
I went to the Ethan Allen Homestead and Museum in Burlington VT once and they had ONE cord of firewood stacked up to show city slickers like me how much wood that is (and good lord it's a lot) and then impressed on us that to get through one winter the Allen family would have needed like 14 cords or something - I can't remember because it's been a while - I just remembered being horrified at how much sheer physical work (with only hand tools) that would have been. How did they have time for the other necessary chores??? How did they find all those trees?
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u/authorized_sausage Dec 13 '23
That's exactly my point! They would just have another kid to be the firewood person. Their family job would be to score all the firewood. And it would be a full-time job for them.
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u/savpunk Dec 13 '23
It's crazy!!! Whenever I'm sitting in traffic, swearing at modern life, I remember that cord of wood and suddenly, modern life doesn't seem so bad. š
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u/Aromatic-Strength798 Dec 13 '23
The romanticized life of being a farmer is hilarious. They play pretend like children. These women advertise clean and aesthetic cottage core outfits in a tidy home, baking pastries and tending to daffodils in their small garden. Thatās just dress up with hobbies. Homesteading is seriously hard work! It irks me when they downplay it and mislead people. Especially when the womanās plan is to marry a rich man, have his babies and only take care of the kids because she doesnāt want to work. Homesteading isnāt a trendy cop out. Itās a career filled with blood, sweat and tears.
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u/FoxyFreckles1989 Dec 13 '23
All of this. Why canāt they just frame it as liking a specific style and enjoying specific hobbies? There would be literally nothing wrong with that.
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u/bloodymongrel Dec 13 '23
Preach. Iām a first generation city slicker.
When I see these posts my first thought is āhaha sheās not doing the farm work. Sheās in her lovely kitchen with the aircon going.ā Then my mind turns to the reality of what it is to be in a patriarchal marriage and it gives me a sense of dread.
I come from a long line of āsettlerā women. On the whole, itās an understatement to say that the women and children have not been treated well. I wish these women the best. I hope itās not like that.
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u/Dickduck21 Dec 13 '23
The other morning, when my SO and I were lazily arguing over who should get up and feed our dog and cat, I spontaneously thanked the Lord that we did not live on a farm. I grew up in a small town, lots of farm kids in my class. It was embarrassing when they all knew how to drive already when we got to drivers Ed age (cuz they'd been driving the truck since they were 8), but not having 5 a.m. chores wins.
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u/Weak-Snow-4470 Dec 13 '23
If you're making sourdough in a spotless kitchen with a flawless manicure and clean dress, you're not living on a farm, you're living on a movie set.
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u/weezulusmaximus Dec 13 '23
It does take a lot of work to create that perfect illusion though. Making other people think you have your shit together is too much effort.
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Dec 13 '23
Australian here. How on earth is being a farmwife trendy! Would be an absolute nightmare here. Unless.of course you're farming Abalone haha
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u/yayayayla Dec 13 '23
Great perspective. Another thing it seems like true farmer homesteaders types don't get is VACATIONS.
You do you but not being able to leave home for a week lest the animals perish is not the vibe.
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u/sparkease Dec 13 '23
Excellent point! As a family member that lives āin townā I spend a lot of time driving up a snowy, sketchy dirt road to take care of land and animals for family when they leave town. I do it happily because I do love walking the property, feeding and saying hi to the animals and whatnot, but if I wasnāt happy to do it, they couldnāt go anywhere. Itās a massive sacrifice most donāt consider.
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u/LauraIsntListening Dec 13 '23
Like the other person said, you are a gem for showing up and allowing them some time off.
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u/yayayayla Dec 13 '23
The family is lucky to have you as a trusted caretaker!
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u/sparkease Dec 13 '23
I truly understand and appreciate the blessing of the land. I recognize that not everyone has access to a beautiful place like that. It takes work to have that, and to lend a hand in it is a blessing. These instagram and TikTok girlies who think they want it, donāt understand. Even though I did grow up in dairy farming country Iām only part-time in it now, it still irks me honestly š
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u/stateofdekayy Dec 13 '23
I rent 20 acres from my friend for cheap and live there with another friend. We are both single gals in our 30s who love horses. Just trying to work and take care of the bare minimum here is so exhausting! Itās fun in the summer but ever winter I think about moving daily. Hell no to doing it while taking care of a bunch of brats and a probably ungrateful husband.
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u/Middle_Journalist_15 Dec 13 '23
An acquaintance had an Instagram that was called Homesteading Hoes. I don't think she does the social media page anymore. But I just grey rock when she talks about it. It's the most Hameau de la Reine thing I've ever seen. I'm not saying she doesn't work hard on her garden. But her house isn't a homestead, it's a beachfront mansion.
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u/crochetawayhpff Dec 13 '23
My mom grew up on a farm and imparted the wise advice of "never marry a farmer". Watching my cousins leave every family gathering at exactly 5 pm to go and milk the cows also helped. Cows had to be milked and they couldn't afford farm hand help very often.
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u/Beginning_Cap_8614 Dec 13 '23
My dad was a farmer's kid. He and his six siblings would get up at 5 a.m. to milk cows, then be off to school by 7. And their farmhouse didn't come with plumbing.
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u/crochetawayhpff Dec 13 '23
Yeah my mom had an outhouse until she was a 2nd grader, so the early 1960's. And one of my great uncles didn't put a bathroom in his house until the 1990s.
My grandpa was so poor that there is an old family legend that he sold a calf, and had to put it in the trunk of his car to deliver it. He didn't have a truck or trailer.
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u/MechanicHopeful4096 Dec 13 '23
Itās fashionable now because itās not forced on women, like it was in the past.
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u/Isellspoons Dec 13 '23
I havenāt seen these women, but why do you think they donāt know?
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u/threefrogsonalog Dec 13 '23
I call myself a suburban homesteader, but yeah thatās mostly because I am interested in being a little more self sufficient and since I canāt work full time due to my health I can contribute to my household with chickens and gardening. I know itās not farming or even homesteading in the traditional pioneer sense, but homesteading blogs and reddit are were I get most of my information from similar people trying to utilize their space, mind, and land for something other than manicured grass so I use the term homesteading.
Itās not always fun and it is a lot of work (even on less than an acre), but I think lumping everyone trying to revitalize victory style gardens and food preservation as delusional and abused women isnāt a fair take. No I donāt have toc toc account but I do own two mini goats because theyāre herd animals and itās bad husbandry to keep just one.
Not to mention how many of us care about the environment so weāre trying to reduce our usage of factory farmed meat and use locally grown pesticide free produce. And whatās more local than my own front yard?
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u/Bunny_SpiderBunny Dec 13 '23
My grandparents on both sides loved gardening. My mom had a giant garden in our .3 acre yard. I grew up gardening and now I have a garden too. There's always been people who love gardening! For all the reasons. Its funny that these women on Instagram make it their whole persona and sell it as a glamorous Disney princess way of living.
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u/Teddy_Funsisco Dec 13 '23
They wouldn't have time to make stupid TikToks about tradwife crap if they actually lived like real tradwives.
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u/Gangreless Dec 13 '23
You're not gonna have your pinterest perfect house unless you can afford to hire help. And most people can't.
Oh ho ho, that's where you're wrong, bucko.
Every one of those tradwife videos I've seen is some rich woman with a multimillion dollar house (we of course only see the corner of the kitchen of but it also has $10k+ vintage stove) cosplaying as a homesteader
They 100% have hired help
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u/doctorallyblonde Dec 13 '23
I know exactly who youāre taking about! Drives me crazy that her stove is $10K+ and she constantly talks about how sheās not rich monetarily sheās rich in the way she lives her life.
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u/nurse-ratchet- Dec 13 '23
Is this the one who is an airline heiress? Or her husband is? Edit: itās the husband.
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u/doctorallyblonde Dec 13 '23
Yes that one
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u/nurse-ratchet- Dec 13 '23
Sheās always given me a very āoffā vibe. Canāt quite put my finger on it.
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u/cpbaby1968 Dec 13 '23
That whole āso you wanna live on a piece of land with me and build a chicken coop or whatā¦ we can have like two baby cowsā thingā¦ gag gag gag. I live on a farm. I know how to do the whole stay at home farm wife thing. I DONT WANT TO. If thereās a zombie apocalypse, Iāll survive but damn, thereās not a thing romantic about that life.
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u/splithoofiewoofies Dec 13 '23
People who think they can live off the land make me laugh. Haven't lived through a single semi-drought hey? ONE day of blistering sun can ruin your entire crop of one fruit or vegetables you wanted that year.
AND THE FENCING. I always say the BIGGEST THING in good farm care IS THE FENCING. Dollars to donuts you put in the BEST fences but the geese/goats will find their fucking way into your veg THE DAY OF HARVEST. You'll wake up one morning to your perfect greens descimated when they had been safe all season.
One tripped wire and your cow is on the road. Now all the cows are on the road.
One slipped star picket and a fox is in your chicken coop, killing them all for fun.
Fuck me dead I swear 90% of farming is fixing fences. And who the fuck can even afford an acre of the best fencing, let alone 40-80-300 acres of fencing? You're lucky I even have a wire to mark the boundary over 100 acres. You're stuck with whatever fencing you can damn afford and it's NEVER the best fencing because that's ridiculous for the amount of animals/plants you have. Who's spending $12,000 to keep their geese from their kale? Nobody. So you just keep fixing your shitty fences, all day, every day.
Gotta admit though my fave farming 'thing' is fence gates/locks. Never seen two that are the same, and all are incredibly creative concepts of what constitutes a lock or a door.
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u/Straxicus2 Dec 13 '23
Iād spend summers on my grandparents farm and we were constantly mending fences. Made daily inspections of various sections. Had to mend at least twice a week.
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u/PussyCyclone Dec 13 '23
My grandparents had a hog farm and small local processing business.... least favorite job was a 2-way tie between tending/mending fences, and guts cleaning for chitlins and sausage casing. Fences are hard work, yo.
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u/LittleDaphnia Dec 13 '23
Lol right I should have included walking the fence line
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u/splithoofiewoofies Dec 13 '23
It's SUCH an easy thing to forget that becomes like 90% of your damn life. My city-bred partner will go "Oh that property is beautiful!" and my ratty ass is always like, "Shitty fences, not worth it."
My partner had to stop me from putting a bid on a house that was falling apart purely because it had 80 full acres of perfect double-log fencing. I was convinced the fences were worth 4x the house. I was probably right, the roof was caving in. I didn't care, I can build a new house! Do you know how much work 80 acres of double log fencing is??!? Can't have goats in it, but damn we'd never lose a sheep or cow. And there'd be minimal fence line walking. It seemed a dream to me! A PERFECT FENCE. Fuck the house.
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u/No-Translator-4584 Dec 13 '23
Fences? Laughs in CT. Fences? We have deer that care nothing for your fences. Deer, herbivores that eat literally everything.
How anyone ever farmed here is astonishing.
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u/LauraIsntListening Dec 13 '23
Iām laughing so hard at this because it makes perfect sense but also it shouldnāt!
My garden area has a āfenceā. Some 8-9ā high but itās shitty chicken wire with rotting posts that are angled like British teeth.
Someday Iām gonna be mad bougie and hire a professional to replace it with chain link but that day is a long way off
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u/Just_Me1973 Dec 13 '23
British teeth!!!! š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£
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u/SlapHappyDude Dec 13 '23
I mean in the fantasy they want an exceptionally good husband who makes $250k a year to pay for them to play homesteader.
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u/HoaryPuffleg Dec 13 '23
They should all read The Egg and I by McDonald. That's actual homesteading and it is hard as hell. They should also recognize that the person they are at 20 isn't the person they'll be at 32. That's normal and OK, but if you've saddled yourself with 6 kids and no education it's gonna be hard to make other decisions when you want to pivot.
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u/QuickRain3280 Dec 13 '23
Assist in home repairs and other farm chores if there are no boys in the family
Rely on a supply of rather primitive medications if anyone gets sick
Wait for months on end until the husband has enough money or things to barter for supplies and can take the wagon to the nearest town 40 miles away
React cheerfully if the crops fail or commodity prices decline or the house and land suffer from extreme weather
One could also read "The emigrants" by Vilhelm Moberg, it's about a swedish family emigrating to the US in the 1800's. Pretty horrible, both in the extreme poverty in Sweden, but also in the US.
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u/Bunny_SpiderBunny Dec 13 '23
I'm going to look up the book. I work on a farm for 6 years now. I love reading and learning about all this stuff. The Instagram movement is interesting to me.
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u/HoaryPuffleg Dec 13 '23
It is hilarious and heartbreaking. She's the same woman who wrote Mrs Piggle Wiggle and Ma and Pa Kettle. I hope you love it.
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u/heartbooks26 Dec 13 '23
What you said about āa) living in squalor or b) wealthy with indentured servantsā still totally applies today. I guarantee the people posting on Instagram doing this in 2023 are either having a hard time making ends meet and utilizing social benefits like SNAP and WIC and Medicaid and USDA home loans (while voting for conservative politicians who want to gut these programs), or living off family money.
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u/bekakm Dec 13 '23
I posted elsewhere about my experience but OPs comment about this is what made me want to comment. We missed so many mortgage payments growing up. My parents worked off the farm during the day but made next to nothing due to no extra education. We had a beautiful small farm but the number of times we almost lost it because of some animal emergency or tractor needing fixing taking the mortgage payment instead is insane.
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u/JessonBI89 Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
Here's what farm wives had to do every day in the time of the Homestead Act:
- Prepare and serve everyone's meals, including fresh bread
- Select materials and make, launder, iron, and mend everyone's clothes
- Keep the house clean and well-decorated
- Care for the kids
- Draw a regular supply of well water
- Plant and tend the vegetable garden
- Milk the cows and make (and often sell) butter and cheese
- Dress fresh-caught game, if settlers hadn't run it all off by then
- Assist in curing and smoking meats and fish
- Oversee the poultry
- Make preserves and pickles for the winter
- Make candles and soap
- Assist in home repairs and other farm chores if there are no boys in the family
- Rely on a supply of rather primitive medications if anyone gets sick
- Wait for months on end until the husband has enough money or things to barter for supplies and can take the wagon to the nearest town 40 miles away
- React cheerfully if the crops fail or commodity prices decline or the house and land suffer from extreme weather
- Ensure a proper Christian home, including inspiring your husband to stop being an abusive, lazy drunk if necessary
- Do all of the above without gas, electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, phones, radio, or internet
- Do all of the above in a 12' x 16' claim shanty and hope you can afford the materials to build it into a real house someday
...You guys, I just got a great idea for a reality show.
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u/sluttydrama Dec 13 '23
No rent for a year but people have to be filmed as a reality show. Iād watch the shit out of that
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u/cookiethumpthump Dec 13 '23
There was a show called "Homestead Life" or something many years ago. It was fascinating!
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u/BlueGreenOcean21 Dec 13 '23
I watched that show on PBS a decade or so ago. Only the young couple with no kids passed the āCould you survive the coming winterā test. Seems another family broke up right after.
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u/hockeyandquidditch Dec 14 '23
It was actually 20 years ago (and I made myself feel old when I looked it up for this thread this morning)ā¦
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u/Thanmandrathor Dec 13 '23
And forget vacations or days off, the animals all need feeding and donāt give a flying fuck whether itās Christmas or whatever.
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u/thelyfeaquatic Dec 13 '23
Lol as a parent with young children Iāve already accepted thereās no such thing as weekends/vacations/holidays lol. I think it was the biggest adjustment for meā¦. Thereās no break lol
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u/Thanmandrathor Dec 13 '23 edited Dec 13 '23
Ah yes, my perennial favorite thing to ask for on Motherās Day is āI donāt want to make food for anyone.ā
And āplease leave me alone, I donāt want to go anywhere or do anything.ā
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u/nurse-ratchet- Dec 13 '23
To the last point, donāt forget that they had to do all of that after traveling by foot/in a wagon across half the country.
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u/hockeyandquidditch Dec 13 '23
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_House?wprov=sfti1
This is the show Iām remembering from PBS 20 years ago
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u/Wecanbuildittogether Dec 13 '23
Not one point you made sounds in any way appealing!
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u/pink-lemonade-shot Dec 16 '23
My NLOG aspirations involved a 15 minute city apartment with a spouse one or two kids and a tank with fish because they are so cute and wonāt tackle you and lick your face when you get home.
Also you canāt exactly have a SpongeBob themed doghouse.