$80 organic turkey....and

[me&thegals]

This fellow, raising pigs in Scotland, has written more than once on this subject. He has an interesting blog; I recommend it.

http://stoneheadcroft.com/2011/03/02/calculating-the-cost-of-pork/

There's a reason we have factory farming these days. Most people are not willing to pay what the other kind of farming costs.

 

[BarredBuff]

This fellow, raising pigs in Scotland, has written more than once on this subject. He has an interesting blog; I recommend it.

http://stoneheadcroft.com/2011/03/02/calculating-the-cost-of-pork/

There's a reason we have factory farming these days. Most people are not willing to pay what the other kind of farming costs.

SO true....

 

[me&thegals]

I would suspect the same is true for you

Nope. If I yearned to live elsewhere, I'd take the necessary steps to live there. If Iived in the city and yearned to have acreage, I'd sell my house in the city and buy or rent in the country. Life is short and waiting until some distant point in the future where you will be able to finally afford to move seems silly to me....particularly if I was paying $20 for a chicken and I really just wanted to be able to raise my own.

People have different priorities and that's okay. It's also okay to wonder how folks can afford this or that when you cannot. Thats called a discussion. Like when city folks say they'd never live in a place that didn't have cell reception or where the nearest fast food or Walmart is 50 miles away and they think people are crazy to live there.

I'm not intending to be argumentative here, but this doesn't make sense to me. You can't afford a $20 chicken, but you can afford land somewhere else? Not everyone HAS a house in the city that they can sell. What about those who can only rent? And what does "silly" have to do with it? Some people live with hard economic facts, no silliness involved.

The ONLY reason we have land is that DH has worked his entire life on the family farm. His parents were gracious enough to sell us our land at about 1/3 the going price. No way could we have afforded it otherwise. I humbly understand that most of the population is not in this situation.

 

[moolie]

I would suspect the same is true for you

Nope. If I yearned to live elsewhere, I'd take the necessary steps to live there. If Iived in the city and yearned to have acreage, I'd sell my house in the city and buy or rent in the country. Life is short and waiting until some distant point in the future where you will be able to finally afford to move seems silly to me....particularly if I was paying $20 for a chicken and I really just wanted to be able to raise my own.

Life for me has many dimensions, and some of the things in my life that are important to me are my proximity to family and life-long friends who might as well be family. I also value the fact that my kids won't have to pay living expenses to go to university like I did--I had to work two jobs to get through school, they can live at home and actually save some money which is important to me.

People have different priorities and that's okay. It's also okay to wonder how folks can afford this or that when you cannot. Thats called a discussion. Like when city folks say they'd never live in a place that didn't have cell reception or where the nearest fast food or Walmart is 50 miles away and they think people are crazy to live there.

I think your view of "city people" might be a tad skewed to what you want it to be. Just because people live in a city, doesn't mean their values are different than yours.

Yes, it's a discussion--but it's always good to take good manners into account when using words like "ridiculous" to describe the "lobotomized" "suckers" who apparently "have money to burn".

 

[Beekissed]

Man, you guys seem to want to argue tonight! I said "silly to ME"...doesn't necessarily mean it may be silly to everyone else. I think I can have things seem silly to me without expecting you all to feel the same.

I can't afford land either....this is why I rent. If I could afford $20 chicken, you can bet I could afford me some land. I don't spend big on anything, so when I see big spending on something like chicken, I can only think~from my frame of reference~that other expensive things are also able to be funded.

You can't afford a $20 chicken, but you can afford land somewhere else?

Read carefully, for there are qualifiers like "if".... IF I lived in the city and didn't want to live there, I'd move. IF I owned a house in that city, I'd sell it and move to the country if that was my desire.

These statements are made to illustrate a point...point being that I am not like Moolie in the fact that, when I yearn to do something, I generally try to make that happen. I don't ...

I live where I do because it's what I know, it's my home.

...and yearn to be elsewhere. If I love my home, it's not necessarily because it is what I know, it is where I want to BE. If I yearned to be elsewhere, I'd go there and then make it my home.

 

[Beekissed]

Yes, it's a discussion--but it's always good to take good manners into account when using words like "ridiculous" to describe the "suckers" who apparently "have money to burn".

Moolie, if you can find anywhere in my post where I referred to anyone as being ridiculous, suckers, or having money to burn, I'll glady apologize....please do search and verify those descriptors in my posts, won't you?

 

[BarredBuff]

I would suspect the same is true for you

Nope. If I yearned to live elsewhere, I'd take the necessary steps to live there. If Iived in the city and yearned to have acreage, I'd sell my house in the city and buy or rent in the country. Life is short and waiting until some distant point in the future where you will be able to finally afford to move seems silly to me....particularly if I was paying $20 for a chicken and I really just wanted to be able to raise my own.

Life for me has many dimensions, and some of the things in my life that are important to me are my proximity to family and life-long friends who might as well be family. I also value the fact that my kids won't have to pay living expenses to go to university like I did--I had to work two jobs to get through school, they can live at home and actually save some money which is important to me.

People have different priorities and that's okay. It's also okay to wonder how folks can afford this or that when you cannot. Thats called a discussion. Like when city folks say they'd never live in a place that didn't have cell reception or where the nearest fast food or Walmart is 50 miles away and they think people are crazy to live there.

I think your view of "city people" might be a tad skewed to what you want it to be. Just because people live in a city, doesn't mean their values are different than yours.

Yes, it's a discussion--but it's always good to take good manners into account when using words like "ridiculous" to describe the "suckers" who apparently "have money to burn".

This is not her perception of city folk. I believe its far from it. That is just things she has heard, and I have heard them too but I dont view city people as snobs who have no moral value. This IS a discussion and should be treated as such.

AND for the record I would much rather buy a piece of land that is an investment rather than a 20$ organic chicken that I MYSELF wouldnt call organic, I have seen the regulations by which they are raise. Not my version of organic.

 

[me&thegals]

I realize I'm coming across as argumentative, and I'm sorry for that. However, there seems to be a "flavor" to this forum lately that really bothers me. It's a classism or something I can't quite put my finger on.

It's an attitude that makes it okay to criticize someone who would spend $80 on a bird and refer to them as a sucker or someone who has been lobotomized.
And the same attitude that feels attacked or argued with when someone challenges that criticism.

I've said enough.
But I'll just end with my summary on my thoughts on this whole conversation.

We all lead different lives and have different ways of making a living. We on this forum tend to value self sufficiency and take different paths to reach different levels of sufficiency. I may be more sufficient than some in my food production, but this low income is making me lose self sufficiency in providing my family decent health insurance. My choice.

I'm incredibly grateful for people willing to spend $3/lb on chicken and $525 for 20 weeks of vegetables. My photographer customer charges $300+ for her photo sessions and wouldn't consider slashing those costs, or she couldn't make a living either. I don't consider it a virtue to live in poverty, nor a virtue to be middle class or wealthy. All of us have something to contribute at all levels of income, and people can be incredibly generous at all levels of income.

 

[moolie]

Beekissed, you have no idea what I "yearn" for.

Yeah, it would be nice to have my own chickens, or more land to garden, but I don't have it... and yet... I'm pretty darn happy right where I'm at. Imagine that.

I'm only just turned 40 and have all sorts of ideas about how to live the rest of my life, and it's not possible that they all come to fruition. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure I'll change my mind about 5000 more times as I go along.

If I look back 20 years I had other plans, but changed them as I went along--didn't you? When I graduated university with a teaching degree I thought I'd move to a certain area in order to get a job--I never figured in meeting the love of my life while still at school and getting married right out of school. I never figured in how difficult it was to get that initial job when I graduated with a glut of other brand new teachers. I never figured in the moves we did make in order to find jobs and an affordable place to live. Life throws curve balls, and I think we've fielded them really well.

At the moment I have a tentative 5-year plan and a tentative 10-year plan. Each gets constantly tweaked, other than how we plan to finish paying off our mortgage. We're actually very spontaneous people, so sometimes plans get totally trashed and begun again--that's life.

I have an open mind and heart and look forward to the road ahead, I take time every day to "live" my life, and I'm certainly not pining away for anything.

 

[Beekissed]

Yes, it's a discussion--but it's always good to take good manners into account when using words like "ridiculous" to describe the "suckers" who apparently "have money to burn".

Moolie, if you can find anywhere in my post where I referred to anyone as being ridiculous, suckers, or having money to burn, I'll glady apologize....please do search and verify those descriptors in my posts, won't you?

No? Couldn't find them? Probably because I didn't make those references. Good manners also include not jumping to conclusions, reading hostility into someone's wording and allowing someone to have their opinions the same as you have yours.