If you were given one minute to convince a confused city person to become a homesteader, what would you say?

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), January 05, 2001

Answers

come spend the day at my house!

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), January 05, 2001.

What are you doing that is real? You go to work every day to a job where you don't make anything. You come home to your house and watch pretend people live pretend lives. You spend your weekend frantically trying to do something real to remember during your week.

Real is nursing tender seedlings into robust vegetables for your family to eat. Real is watching your kids splash in the pond after frogs and tadpoles or seeing them blissfully wrapping the runt pig in you best towel because he was cold.

Life means different things to different people. I suppose it stands to reason that "real" also has different meanings. To those who feel there must be something more than concrete and traffic, I say look at your last five years. The next five will be just like them if you don't make a change. Get out now!

-- Mona in OK (jascamp@ipa.net), January 06, 2001.

Try THIS tomato! {first bite free...lol}

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), January 06, 2001.

Anyone who has met me knows I could never talk for just one minute, so how about instead I hand them a nice, warm, baby goat to snuggle. Works every time! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), January 06, 2001.

Vicki!!!was it you who handed me that goat?Thats what happened to me..Imet the love of my life GOATS!!!....then came homesteading to make the goats happy...teri

-- teri murphy (mrs_smurf2000@yahoo.ca), January 06, 2001.

Why is it you spend all of your time working at a job you dislike to make money to pay someone to do the things you would rather be doing for yourself in the first place. - The Homesteader's Lament.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), January 06, 2001.

Nothing.I don't try to convince people.I talk about what I do. If that interests them,I talk some more.

Most people could not stand our particular lifestyle.Too much solitude. When people visit,they say it's a really nice place,but too isolated for them.And these are outdoors people,not city folk.The city folk are just plain old scared.

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), January 06, 2001.

Tell them the wonder of watching Gods Hand first handed in all things growing. Also the baby goat is a good way, wejust finished feeding one of the babies and they are sooo great to watch grow. Dont just envite someone for a day see if they will come for the weekend and see a miricale(bad spelling) in progress. God Bless and pray for them to see not only Gods Hand at work but to open their heart to Him as well.

-- Charles steen (xbeeman412@aol.com), January 06, 2001.

This quote from Henry Ford would do a lot to convince someone if they really thought about it.

"sThe land! That is where our roots are. There is the basis of our physical life. The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity. From the land comes everything that support life, everything we use for the service of physical life. The land has not collapsed or shrunk in either extent or productivity. It is there waiting to honor all the labor we are willing to invest in it, and able to tide us across any local dislocation of economic conditions. No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between man and a plot of land."

Earlier Abraham Lincoln stated, "The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land."

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), January 06, 2001.

"You couldn't handle it". Thats how I got a guy at work turned on. After that challenge and a week helping us, he and his wife went country.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 06, 2001.

Cut and paste Ken's response, with the added jolt to their system that actually stopped a boss in his tracks once. He was trying to convince me to change my appearance to better suit his preference (ah, showbiz), and brought up the (I'm sure he believed) clincher that I would make more money. My response (being true at the time - not so now!) was that I didn't spend all the money that I was making presently, so what did I need more for? I thought he was going to have a stroke. Never did really talk to me much after that - just kept giving me this weird, scared look, like he'd seen my eyes glow and vampire teeth come out. City folk are soooo fragile!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), January 07, 2001.

I'd just as soon confused people stay in the city. Sorry, I know that's not very neighborly, but my part of the country has seen some unhappy transformation since the confused city folk started to move to the country and brought their confusion with them. To those of you who are willing to learn, welcome and howdy. If you want to move to the country, leave the city behind you, don't cart it along.

-- Maggie's Farm (elemon@peacehealth.org), January 08, 2001.

I think I'd have to agree with Maggie's Farm on this one. If people are interested in homesteading, they will ask questions, come visit, and read and learn. If they aren't sufficiently interested to do all that, they are better off staying where they are. I like Vicki's answer -- you could substitute just about any baby livestock in there, though it would be hard to "hand" someone a calf or colt!! But then again, if someone goes to the country thinking cute babies is all there is to it, they are in for a lot of grief. Maybe a lot of growing, too, but surely a lot of grief. And often, as Maggie said, they bring city attitudes with them and try to change the country into the city -- in which case, why did they move?!?

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 08, 2001.