even the guy who made Stardew Valley was smart enough to translate his sentimental feelings about rural life into making a really good video game instead of being foolish enough to actually go out and live that way himself
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This isn’t new either. The Roman archetype was the hardy yeomen farmer. Veterans were given land and Roman Senators loved to cosplay the role - on massive estates worked by slaves, because farming is brutal work.
it always ends badly. Some very nice people bought a small farm up the way from me, bought a few goats and chickens and a cow. I pulled that cow out of the road four different times, because they put it in with the chickens in chicken wire and when she got hungry she just. left.
Just, they had no business whatsoever trying to run a small farm. None. They kept putting a cow in chicken wire fencing! Multiple times! A cow in the road is a really big, dangerous deal! And they had no capacity to solve that problem.
Thankfully they eventually sold her to capable people, but I've seen way too many desperately neglected and un-cared-for animals by people who had NO business ever taking them on, who thought they would be cute and had no concept of the work involved.
Lots of people think they can have fun and make money owning restaurants. 90% of new restaurants don't last a year, and it's not much better for hobby farmers with no experience or funding.
A lot of us Boomers knew hippies who wanted to move back to the land, in communes, which mostly failed BOTH because farming is hard (unless you were willing to grow marijuana as a cash crop and even then it was hard) and because personal relationships are also hard, especially when the work is hard.
Theres a successful RadFae community I visit sometimes and one of the reasons they've succeeded as soms of those few hippies is theyre open about so many intentional communities failing over who does the dishes.
Think growing up rurally and working a million different jobs has inoculated me against such notions. They're still romantic but I don't think I'd ever act on them
My mama was a farm girl. I am a city girl who goes to visit the home farm on occasion to take pictures of the sunrise and hang out with my family who farms.
My FIL semi-retired to a farm when my wife was a teenager.
The fruit trees that were already there did just fine;
the rest of his attempts at farming went as well as you'd expect for a guy from the Bronx.
Fortunately for him the land value appreciated a lot.
Right? Dumbest thing I've ever seen. She'd just lean a shoulder against it, bend it down, and stroll on out. They'd put her back in and straighten out the wire. So, so ridiculous.
I think a lot of these fantasies are best expressed as video games. Like, the nocturnal anarchist bookstore with a cat thing. Sounds like a killer concept for a game. Someone should make it, and everyone who wants that should play it instead of opining about economics.
Truth be told, that's the best way to actually experience most of the actual acts involved with to-scale agrarian farming, without having to actually go and do it.
Hint, it involves a lot more slurry and silage than you'd think.
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The fruit trees that were already there did just fine;
the rest of his attempts at farming went as well as you'd expect for a guy from the Bronx.
Fortunately for him the land value appreciated a lot.
poor cow
Shamelessly stolen from @dibabka.bsky.social
Hint, it involves a lot more slurry and silage than you'd think.