It is still very possible for a lot of us. It will not stay that way forever. If it's a leap you can take, and something you really want, push yourself. I'd be happy to offer advice.
I'd love advice on this as well. My husband is active duty and pursuing a religious accommodation. They aren't approving them. He's at 15.5 years, and we hadn't spent much time discussing what we'd do in 4.5 years when he finished. It appears we'll have to make these decisions sooner than anticipated.
Might be time to buy the farm.
Great idea for articles on Shouting from the Gutter.
I'm very sorry for your husband. Based on the recent (suppressed) DoD data, I think "the chickens will fall," as my dad is fond of saying, very soon, and if active-duty folks can hold the line, they MAY squeak through without have to "quit or submit."
I will absolutely bookmark this as a good article idea and do a little more research.
One thing I would strongly urge anyone staring possible sudden unemployment in the face (as I did 2 years ago when lockdown more or less eliminated my client base) is begin pivoting money NOW into a private retirement fund like a Roth IRA and pay down debts- and do these things BEFORE you lose your job, not after.
This made it a lot easier for us to seamlessly sell our previous home and move quickly as I expected the NYC market to burn down at any moment (and it has definitely started smouldering).
What is it with nurses and farms? I’m a present nurse and still want to live on a farm. I keep telling my husband it’s time to buy the compound lol! When my uncle retired from the police department he bought a farm, and I spent some of my childhood there; I absolutely loved it!
If I had to guess from among the nurses I've known, it's a few particular things:
- Nurses are, or have become, very comfortable dealing with things that are dirty and smell "bad." Having to be around the smell of animals, manure, poop, fertilizer, and other things rarely smelled in The City are not seen as being very onerous parts of the job.
- Nurses (IMHO, more than doctors) become very close to the rhythms of life and death. The farm life is a constant reminder, sometimes unpleasant, of the inexorability of life and death: animals get sick or injured and are put down, animals give birth to cute babies, miscarry, and eat their young; virtually any plant or animal on a farm can become diseased, etc. These are the sorts of things that make a typical person shy away from the environment; a nurse is already inured to it.
- Nurses (again, IMHO, more than doctors) do a lot more physical work during the course of a day; running around, lifting and moving, fetching and holding, etc. They've learned from experience that this aspect of a job, if it includes it, can be invigorating and joyful.
- Farm life is indisputably peaceful; it is very, very often amazingly quiet and still here, and when your lifestock is content and happy, there is a calm silence that pervades everything. Many nurses long for that as they're often lucky to experience even 5 minutes of it in a typical day on the floor.
- Farm life is much more self-driven than healthcare, even when you become an administrator; I think nurses and many other HCP's long for the ability to do things their way, on their time. There is very little tolerance for individual judgment and responsibility; protocol and practice are the order of the day. Farming is scientific, but it is also very artful, and every farm is run uniquely by the people that own it.
I just found this substack on another site and I look forward to reading. To share about me, I’m a 40-something woman living in North Carolina with my husband and two teens. We live in a suburban "red county" outside of a liberal blue county, in a house that sits on about 1/2 acre. Somehow this year I will figure out how to garden - not because I have a green thumb but because I am concerned about the supply chain. My husband and I both have advanced degrees and I have found myself having much more in common with Canadian truckers than any of my colleagues or former friends. Currently, but not for much longer (no jab, no job), I make six figures so we have given our children a nice life. We are Christians. We have ample emergency savings. My husband is a teacher who really believes in teaching critical thinking. His family is tolerant of us, my husband is tolerant and supportive of me (and thus remains unjabbed), my son embraces my thinking, my daughter thinks critically but does not share her thoughts, my parents share my thinking, my siblings think I am insane. God has brought me closer to him. This, to me, is about power and freedom. It is about putting faith in man and leaders in power and not examining critically any pronouncement. It is about labelling anyone who disagrees with the "moral view" (as decided by the leaders) as an "other" who deserves to be destroyed. Despite my education and bank account, I have been a deplorable (critical thinker) for as long as I can remember. I have never done anything because I am told to do so. I must always understand and agree. For that "sin," I will take my punishment of banishment from polite society. Thank goodness I live in a red part of North Carolina. If my children were persecuted more, this would be harder. I can take the barbs, I hope I can take them if it is instead my children feeling intense and daily pain of rejection and exclusion.
Welcome! You sound very preparation-minded; I think you and your family will do okay.
Duke and Chapel Hill cast a long shadow of leftist orthodoxy in NC, don't they?
You can do decently on 1/2 acre. Invest in a greenhouse (my philosophy is that it's cheaper to buy a little bigger than you need right away than to replace entirely when you expand) and start some veggies. You can also probably handle up to a dozen chickens in a small run if you're willing to supply them with feed (your land is a little small for free range).
Don’t ask me why, but in my mind I think of you like Sylvia Plath meets Bill Hicks. So I picture you looking like Sylvia Plath but in farmer attire and covered in hog shite 🤣
We're both Danish so we both have that chin, and I'm the same height, and used to have wacky colored hair before it became associated with a certain mentality I didn't want.
Farming? The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka is fantastic. He also wrote The Way Back to Nature and also The Natural Way to Farm. Bill Mollison dedicated Permaculture to him.
Congratulations on firing up a Substack and posting right away. You are brave. I love possums, will this site be mainly about them? I think the reason there is only 1 comment on your love nurses/hate doctors piece is that it is for paid subscribers only.
Wow! You are correct, reading your comments in other sub stacks I discovered you. I found you refreshing, smart, witty, and best of all, talented in the art of profanity. I myself, am the family guttermouth. The biggest surprise was when I learned you were a woman, LA TEE DA!! Looking forward to this!!
I love this! Wow…your pandemic story is somehow sad, energetic and reassuring all in one. And…I haven’t gotten your email! So, I’m not sure how we connect without throwing our emails into the wind, like a streaker racing across the green…a sure breach of privacy for both of us. 🙄 Can you figure out how we send private messages via Substack? Tech-wizard subclass -5 is my ranking, I’m afraid!
You will never HAVE to pay, but once I develop a full content roster- hopefully offering something every weekday- paid subscribers will get the whole enchilada.
Once a week would be cool and if it's anywhere near what I gleaned from the intro, this would be a subsub I'd pay for. Very much looking forward to your content. BTW, if you're near Easton, PA, check out SARCO--ridiculously great mil-surp and gun parts store.
I wanna live on a farm!! Former nurse here
It is still very possible for a lot of us. It will not stay that way forever. If it's a leap you can take, and something you really want, push yourself. I'd be happy to offer advice.
Welcome to the stack, by the way.
I'd love advice on this as well. My husband is active duty and pursuing a religious accommodation. They aren't approving them. He's at 15.5 years, and we hadn't spent much time discussing what we'd do in 4.5 years when he finished. It appears we'll have to make these decisions sooner than anticipated.
Might be time to buy the farm.
Great idea for articles on Shouting from the Gutter.
I'm very sorry for your husband. Based on the recent (suppressed) DoD data, I think "the chickens will fall," as my dad is fond of saying, very soon, and if active-duty folks can hold the line, they MAY squeak through without have to "quit or submit."
I will absolutely bookmark this as a good article idea and do a little more research.
One thing I would strongly urge anyone staring possible sudden unemployment in the face (as I did 2 years ago when lockdown more or less eliminated my client base) is begin pivoting money NOW into a private retirement fund like a Roth IRA and pay down debts- and do these things BEFORE you lose your job, not after.
This made it a lot easier for us to seamlessly sell our previous home and move quickly as I expected the NYC market to burn down at any moment (and it has definitely started smouldering).
"Buying the farm" is a phrase that expresses a very morbid economic reality. Not sure if you understood...
I love telling people "I already bought the farm."
What is it with nurses and farms? I’m a present nurse and still want to live on a farm. I keep telling my husband it’s time to buy the compound lol! When my uncle retired from the police department he bought a farm, and I spent some of my childhood there; I absolutely loved it!
If I had to guess from among the nurses I've known, it's a few particular things:
- Nurses are, or have become, very comfortable dealing with things that are dirty and smell "bad." Having to be around the smell of animals, manure, poop, fertilizer, and other things rarely smelled in The City are not seen as being very onerous parts of the job.
- Nurses (IMHO, more than doctors) become very close to the rhythms of life and death. The farm life is a constant reminder, sometimes unpleasant, of the inexorability of life and death: animals get sick or injured and are put down, animals give birth to cute babies, miscarry, and eat their young; virtually any plant or animal on a farm can become diseased, etc. These are the sorts of things that make a typical person shy away from the environment; a nurse is already inured to it.
- Nurses (again, IMHO, more than doctors) do a lot more physical work during the course of a day; running around, lifting and moving, fetching and holding, etc. They've learned from experience that this aspect of a job, if it includes it, can be invigorating and joyful.
- Farm life is indisputably peaceful; it is very, very often amazingly quiet and still here, and when your lifestock is content and happy, there is a calm silence that pervades everything. Many nurses long for that as they're often lucky to experience even 5 minutes of it in a typical day on the floor.
- Farm life is much more self-driven than healthcare, even when you become an administrator; I think nurses and many other HCP's long for the ability to do things their way, on their time. There is very little tolerance for individual judgment and responsibility; protocol and practice are the order of the day. Farming is scientific, but it is also very artful, and every farm is run uniquely by the people that own it.
How did I do?
Wow, you did brilliantly! I do believe we yearn for stillness in what is otherwise a chaotic environment. Thank you!
Please re-post this as an article rather than just a comment. It's brilliant.
Woot! So glad to see you start a Substack! 🎊🎉
Good to see you here, maybe most of all.
My particular brand my smartassery will be very comfortable here!
I just found this substack on another site and I look forward to reading. To share about me, I’m a 40-something woman living in North Carolina with my husband and two teens. We live in a suburban "red county" outside of a liberal blue county, in a house that sits on about 1/2 acre. Somehow this year I will figure out how to garden - not because I have a green thumb but because I am concerned about the supply chain. My husband and I both have advanced degrees and I have found myself having much more in common with Canadian truckers than any of my colleagues or former friends. Currently, but not for much longer (no jab, no job), I make six figures so we have given our children a nice life. We are Christians. We have ample emergency savings. My husband is a teacher who really believes in teaching critical thinking. His family is tolerant of us, my husband is tolerant and supportive of me (and thus remains unjabbed), my son embraces my thinking, my daughter thinks critically but does not share her thoughts, my parents share my thinking, my siblings think I am insane. God has brought me closer to him. This, to me, is about power and freedom. It is about putting faith in man and leaders in power and not examining critically any pronouncement. It is about labelling anyone who disagrees with the "moral view" (as decided by the leaders) as an "other" who deserves to be destroyed. Despite my education and bank account, I have been a deplorable (critical thinker) for as long as I can remember. I have never done anything because I am told to do so. I must always understand and agree. For that "sin," I will take my punishment of banishment from polite society. Thank goodness I live in a red part of North Carolina. If my children were persecuted more, this would be harder. I can take the barbs, I hope I can take them if it is instead my children feeling intense and daily pain of rejection and exclusion.
Welcome! You sound very preparation-minded; I think you and your family will do okay.
Duke and Chapel Hill cast a long shadow of leftist orthodoxy in NC, don't they?
You can do decently on 1/2 acre. Invest in a greenhouse (my philosophy is that it's cheaper to buy a little bigger than you need right away than to replace entirely when you expand) and start some veggies. You can also probably handle up to a dozen chickens in a small run if you're willing to supply them with feed (your land is a little small for free range).
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the Gutter!
Oh goodie, you finally started a Stack!! Looks like you’re off to a roaring start—I’m going to have to set aside some time to catch up!
It's truly an honor to have you. Hope it isn't too coarse for you, but you're a grownup, you probably know what to expect from me by now. 😁
*lol* Not only do I expect it—I demand it! 😆
Don’t ask me why, but in my mind I think of you like Sylvia Plath meets Bill Hicks. So I picture you looking like Sylvia Plath but in farmer attire and covered in hog shite 🤣
Until I cut my hair short that's, um, probably exactly how I looked.
When I lived in Japan I was constantly mistaken for Milla Jovovich. But that was 10 years ago so add about 20 pounds. 😁
I didn’t know who that was but just looked her up and see she’s known as “reigning queen of kick-butt,” so it sounds like a perfect match! 😂
We're both Danish so we both have that chin, and I'm the same height, and used to have wacky colored hair before it became associated with a certain mentality I didn't want.
I knew it! 😹
Ha! I was thinking earlier today--where is Guttermouth, I miss those comments.
"But kids are resilient" one of my faves LOL
Subscribed--sorry but I'm broke AF, free one for now.
It's cool, do what you can, when you can. Welcome.
Impolite comments? Yes, please!
Farming? The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka is fantastic. He also wrote The Way Back to Nature and also The Natural Way to Farm. Bill Mollison dedicated Permaculture to him.
I'm fairly near to Joel Salatin. My Grange has had him and Temple Grandin give talks a few times.
Glad this exists, looking forward to the journey!
In the words of the immortal Sammy L., hold onto your butts.
Congratulations on firing up a Substack and posting right away. You are brave. I love possums, will this site be mainly about them? I think the reason there is only 1 comment on your love nurses/hate doctors piece is that it is for paid subscribers only.
Great catch. Fixed. Thank you!
There will probably be one or two articles about possums. Mainly dead ones.
Wow! You are correct, reading your comments in other sub stacks I discovered you. I found you refreshing, smart, witty, and best of all, talented in the art of profanity. I myself, am the family guttermouth. The biggest surprise was when I learned you were a woman, LA TEE DA!! Looking forward to this!!
It's great to have you!
"transition from a career in cybersecurity to trucking" - I see what you did there^^
Looking forward to this stack.
Did not expect a gal Guttermouth, but okay!
>> "transition from a career in cybersecurity to trucking" - I see what you did there^^
Believe it or not, no joke there... he actually worked in cybersecurity and he is actually now a semi truck driver.
>> Did not expect a gal Guttermouth, but okay!
I've been getting that a lot- more than any other time in my life online. I find it very interesting.
I love this! Wow…your pandemic story is somehow sad, energetic and reassuring all in one. And…I haven’t gotten your email! So, I’m not sure how we connect without throwing our emails into the wind, like a streaker racing across the green…a sure breach of privacy for both of us. 🙄 Can you figure out how we send private messages via Substack? Tech-wizard subclass -5 is my ranking, I’m afraid!
I feel honored to share this space with you. Thank you for writing. I will re-assess who earns my subscription dollars next month.
You will never HAVE to pay, but once I develop a full content roster- hopefully offering something every weekday- paid subscribers will get the whole enchilada.
Once a week would be cool and if it's anywhere near what I gleaned from the intro, this would be a subsub I'd pay for. Very much looking forward to your content. BTW, if you're near Easton, PA, check out SARCO--ridiculously great mil-surp and gun parts store.
I ended up paying after reading your intro.
I'm honored, April. Thank you.
A smallholder, who's also academic but shoots, has a martial arts background, cooks and writes snarky messages and blogs? I think I'm in love xxxxx
Fuckin awesome to have you here. Lots of good stuff to come. Enjoy.
Fuck no.
🤣😂🤣😂