I love being a rural hick! I’ve lived everywhere but I once wound up locked down in a city too long. It did me harm. Thankfully I bailed out from “the city composed entirely of debt” well before the inevitable (and obvious to anyone who isn’t Paul Krugman) real estate bubble popped.
Buying a homestead was my ticket to an anti-bullshit lifestyle. There I planted my flag and began a novice’s long journey of discovery about why my tractor wouldn’t work.
Every day I breathe deep of the inherent freedom. You can, if you try, dodge a certain amount of politics by staying away from people. While the East Coast is fretting about Big Gulps and the Left Coast is hosing up everything, I’m contentedly stacking firewood in flyover country. Flyover country is where reality still reigns. (The geographic rule of thumb isn’t foolproof. Fly over country is a swiss cheese remainder after each city predictably taxes itself into the ground to finance it’s lifestyle as a minimum security prison. Doubt me? I mow my lawn with a tractor and have a shooting range on my yard. Try that in any city anywhere. In fact, if you seek freedom you’re more likely to find it in the Gulag than Detroit. Nor is it wise to hunker down in tax free and gun loving Chicago.)
Being free is a lot of work. Two steps forward and one step back. After several years progress has been made: chickens peck at the lawn, I can usually keep the driveway plowed, the woodshed is full, etc…
Every journey is a matter of steps. How would I know I’ve fully made it? I guess I won’t. On the other hand last week I saw a signpost that said “still on the right path”.
I went to the fair and met a friend there. The friend has a kid. The kid has some pigs. One of the pigs is “mine”. As I’ve done before, I’ve pre-paid this year’s bacon. The money I paid this spring paid for not only my piglet but a few others, and plenty of feed for them all. The kid raised them all and stands to make a tidy profit. In turn I’ve got bacon waiting for me this fall. I’ve commissioned the creation of a freezer full of bacon.
I’m a patron of the bacon!
At the fair I met my bacon. He looked pretty healthy to me. Just over 200 pounds of him. He snorted at me. I snorted back.
My bacon’s caretaker had some questions about logistics. Did I want my bacon delivered?
So soon? Was the bacon ready?
My bacon looked up at me. Good thing it can’t speak English.
Why not let my bacon mature a little more; fatten up? My bacon’s caretaker, the kid who’d won a ribbon based on her pen full of three pieces of bacon, agreed. The bacon would grow several weeks more. Happy Curmudgeon!
I arranged delivery of my bacon to the butcher for later in the fall. Which butcher? Why the butcher that also does my venison. Venison doesn’t stand around while you discuss logistics. I have to shoot the venison and bring it to the butcher myself. My bacon gets to ride in a trailer, lucky bacon.
I left the fair extra happy. There’s a world of difference between buying food in a grocery store and commissioning two hundred pounds of ribbon winning bacon several months in advance. The world would be a better place if we all got to meet our bacon and say hi to it and talk to it’s caretaker. That way you can decide when and where it will eventually wind up with a side of eggs. (Our farm fresh eggs I might add!)
Life is better when you’ve got a freezer full of bacon in your future. It’s how you know you’re on the right track.