This is great and I appreciate that all the interviewees were willing to take time to share so much! Another big factor that also goes unacknowledged is how inaccessible farming loans and other supports are for Black and Brown families who do want to be farmers. The idyllic all-white homesteader imagery is not an accident...
Thank you for this. A few years ago I followed my first (and only-ever) "homesteading" account on instagram, which I thought seemed like a good follow because it was two women, married to each other, making their own stuff, showing the work, etc. The slant of it was progressive, and I like nature, and as a woman in a blue-collar trade profession I like seeing other women taking on mechanical or fabrication type projects, so why not follow? And yet, their content always kind of icked me out in a way I couldn't quite define.
Eventually they had a baby and eventually that baby was a toddler and at some point they posted a photo of their toddler with a caption kind of like, "this life may be hard, but it allows us to be here with this little one, home with this little one, living the parts of life that truly matter, so it's the only life for us." And I just had this moment where I was like, "this is the feeling I have not been able to name. It is the SMUGNESS of it all" if that makes sense. Like, oh, you know what actually allows you to be "here, home with this little one?" It isn't your farm. It's your content, and people like me viewing it. So like, fuck you for viewing my job, and my entire lifestyle, as some kind of pity-worthy concession I have made, at the expense of what "really matters" for my kids. I instantly unfollowed and now I don't even remember the name of that farm account and mostly when I look back on it I can't believe that I clearly followed them for years on end, casually glancing at whatever they posted, when most of what they posted just made me feel vaguely bad in a confused way.
Like I am actually ALL FOR opting out of late-stage capitalism, and if you find a way to do it, then I absolutely support you. But if you find a way to do it and are smug about how other people (let's be real, women) have just "chosen not to" or some shit? Nah.
Growing up in southern Idaho, many of my friends were farm kids, and their lives were nothing like what is pictured on BF's instagram account. They had hard chores to do both before and after school which didn't sound in any way fun or glamorous. As a rural Idaho teenager, l topped corn one summer to earn a small amount of money, and it was exhausting and boring, the crew boss yelled at us if we slowed down any, and l got stung by bees. We carried a gallon of water in an old milk jug tied to our belt loops because it was 95 degrees out and ate dry peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. We started at sunrise and worked till sunset. l did it for a week and then quit because it was so terrible. My friend Brian, who still farms there, escaped to LA for a brief visit a few years ago and spent half his time on his phone solving problems from the farm that were ongoing and also reminding his workers to move and start the syphon tubes which were used for irrigation, which alone seemed like constant work. One family l knew - their two little children suffocated when playing in a pile of cotton seed. I showed Brian the BF account and suggested he ought to start one to show what farming is really like and he made a snorting sound and said - wish l had time. This man inherited a farm from his uncle and is still barely making it financially. l cannot emphasize enough how different his life is from the one pictured on BF.
My uncle was a sheep farmer. They had a small-ish farmhouse and land on the English/Scottish border. He went to school for it, bought the land from his wife’s dad. You could stand outside of the house and look around the windswept fields and not see another soul. Just him, wife, kids and his two sheepdogs.
Aside from all the work, and the shearing and the lambing, his kids absolutely hated it. They were horribly isolated and prayed for school days so they could be around other kids. He ended up selling it and tbh I’m not sure what he does now, but I will say his wife coming from some money did help them when they decided to pack it in.
My partner and I recently moved to Indiana to take over his family rowcrop farm, and even as a newbie who is inclined to see everything through a slightly romanticized lens, I frequently find myself comparing the glamorized instagram ranch/farm life with the reality of what a lot of "real" modern farming is. Especially in field crops / row crops / grains etc, you have to be working at such a scale to be profitable that you're more big-machine engineer / mechanic than you are one-with-nature (even if you're doing organic or regenerative farming!). I LOVE being here and being outside a lot and living with the seasons (also our life is a lot more flexible because we don't have animals), but it's a lot more ordering parts, diesel fuel, and following commodity markets than it is charming and pastoral. Also yes, health insurance stress!!!
My grandfather grew up on a working farm, and at 90 years old, he is still working in the vegetable garden. My husband and dad helped him at Easter with the post hole digger because he still wanted to make wire fencing for his tomatoes rather than buying the plastic cages.
His father died when he was 10 years old, and while he doesn’t talk to me much now due to his very limited hearing, all of the stories I have heard of his life are so fascinating from the perspective of a “city girl” (as my dad calls me). My grandparents have quite a large property and planted many pine trees when I was young which my kids now call the woods when we visit. My grandpa invested money well, but he grew up very poor and stressed. They all love to tell the story of him answering “Hoed the back 40” to “what did you do this weekend?” My grandparents are born and raised in rural upstate SC. My grandma graduated HS with my grandpa’s brother in a class of 10.
My dad helped plant the pine trees but there was never any thought of him “taking over the farm.” When he went to college, he never really intended to move back to his hometown and the same for my mom who met my dad when they were in the county spelling bee in the late 70s. my parents got jobs in Columbia, SC and my sister and I grew up there.
🤣 WHERE IS THE POOP HANNAH???
This is great and I appreciate that all the interviewees were willing to take time to share so much! Another big factor that also goes unacknowledged is how inaccessible farming loans and other supports are for Black and Brown families who do want to be farmers. The idyllic all-white homesteader imagery is not an accident...
Thank you for this. A few years ago I followed my first (and only-ever) "homesteading" account on instagram, which I thought seemed like a good follow because it was two women, married to each other, making their own stuff, showing the work, etc. The slant of it was progressive, and I like nature, and as a woman in a blue-collar trade profession I like seeing other women taking on mechanical or fabrication type projects, so why not follow? And yet, their content always kind of icked me out in a way I couldn't quite define.
Eventually they had a baby and eventually that baby was a toddler and at some point they posted a photo of their toddler with a caption kind of like, "this life may be hard, but it allows us to be here with this little one, home with this little one, living the parts of life that truly matter, so it's the only life for us." And I just had this moment where I was like, "this is the feeling I have not been able to name. It is the SMUGNESS of it all" if that makes sense. Like, oh, you know what actually allows you to be "here, home with this little one?" It isn't your farm. It's your content, and people like me viewing it. So like, fuck you for viewing my job, and my entire lifestyle, as some kind of pity-worthy concession I have made, at the expense of what "really matters" for my kids. I instantly unfollowed and now I don't even remember the name of that farm account and mostly when I look back on it I can't believe that I clearly followed them for years on end, casually glancing at whatever they posted, when most of what they posted just made me feel vaguely bad in a confused way.
Like I am actually ALL FOR opting out of late-stage capitalism, and if you find a way to do it, then I absolutely support you. But if you find a way to do it and are smug about how other people (let's be real, women) have just "chosen not to" or some shit? Nah.
Growing up in southern Idaho, many of my friends were farm kids, and their lives were nothing like what is pictured on BF's instagram account. They had hard chores to do both before and after school which didn't sound in any way fun or glamorous. As a rural Idaho teenager, l topped corn one summer to earn a small amount of money, and it was exhausting and boring, the crew boss yelled at us if we slowed down any, and l got stung by bees. We carried a gallon of water in an old milk jug tied to our belt loops because it was 95 degrees out and ate dry peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. We started at sunrise and worked till sunset. l did it for a week and then quit because it was so terrible. My friend Brian, who still farms there, escaped to LA for a brief visit a few years ago and spent half his time on his phone solving problems from the farm that were ongoing and also reminding his workers to move and start the syphon tubes which were used for irrigation, which alone seemed like constant work. One family l knew - their two little children suffocated when playing in a pile of cotton seed. I showed Brian the BF account and suggested he ought to start one to show what farming is really like and he made a snorting sound and said - wish l had time. This man inherited a farm from his uncle and is still barely making it financially. l cannot emphasize enough how different his life is from the one pictured on BF.
My uncle was a sheep farmer. They had a small-ish farmhouse and land on the English/Scottish border. He went to school for it, bought the land from his wife’s dad. You could stand outside of the house and look around the windswept fields and not see another soul. Just him, wife, kids and his two sheepdogs.
Aside from all the work, and the shearing and the lambing, his kids absolutely hated it. They were horribly isolated and prayed for school days so they could be around other kids. He ended up selling it and tbh I’m not sure what he does now, but I will say his wife coming from some money did help them when they decided to pack it in.
My partner and I recently moved to Indiana to take over his family rowcrop farm, and even as a newbie who is inclined to see everything through a slightly romanticized lens, I frequently find myself comparing the glamorized instagram ranch/farm life with the reality of what a lot of "real" modern farming is. Especially in field crops / row crops / grains etc, you have to be working at such a scale to be profitable that you're more big-machine engineer / mechanic than you are one-with-nature (even if you're doing organic or regenerative farming!). I LOVE being here and being outside a lot and living with the seasons (also our life is a lot more flexible because we don't have animals), but it's a lot more ordering parts, diesel fuel, and following commodity markets than it is charming and pastoral. Also yes, health insurance stress!!!
yessss there’s no life free from admin!
My grandfather grew up on a working farm, and at 90 years old, he is still working in the vegetable garden. My husband and dad helped him at Easter with the post hole digger because he still wanted to make wire fencing for his tomatoes rather than buying the plastic cages.
His father died when he was 10 years old, and while he doesn’t talk to me much now due to his very limited hearing, all of the stories I have heard of his life are so fascinating from the perspective of a “city girl” (as my dad calls me). My grandparents have quite a large property and planted many pine trees when I was young which my kids now call the woods when we visit. My grandpa invested money well, but he grew up very poor and stressed. They all love to tell the story of him answering “Hoed the back 40” to “what did you do this weekend?” My grandparents are born and raised in rural upstate SC. My grandma graduated HS with my grandpa’s brother in a class of 10.
My dad helped plant the pine trees but there was never any thought of him “taking over the farm.” When he went to college, he never really intended to move back to his hometown and the same for my mom who met my dad when they were in the county spelling bee in the late 70s. my parents got jobs in Columbia, SC and my sister and I grew up there.
Thank you for this.