Locally, there is a pretty large Amish/Mennonite population. If you drive around, you will see them in the horse and buggy. They always seem so happy. At least they always wave which is more than I can say for some of the surly English folk. Their little children skip merrily to and from school, lunch boxes in hand. And they also wave. So friendly. So humble.

Of course, they have a lot of incest. And they don’t believe in vaccinations. But everything has its downside.

Regardless, the notion of homesteading is one that goes to the core of the American psyche. (I wonder what the author of Little Boy Blue’s Pomegranate is doing right now. Did he just run over a little Amish child? Sinister doppleganger of me!! Desist in your dark ways!)

Americans love to romanticize the frontier and the rugged individualism that it suggests. It should be noted that most of these romantics live in suburbs where a delivered pizza is just a call away and they have these buildings called hospitals. Hopefully, these hospitals have ventilators, but that is another story.

It is important to understand that true homesteading does not mirror what one saw on Little House on the Prairie. For example, if you ran out of food in the winter, you couldn’t just run to the grocery store. You either asked your neighbors for charity, or you had to kill and eat your neighbors. Cannibalism was not unknown in those times. Read about the Donner Party once. It is a story that will make you appreciate Google Maps. They could have really used a better suggested route. Turn left at Salt Lake City was a bad idea, that’s all I am saying.

However, bad ideas abounded in the days of the homesteader. People who had never farmed picked up everything and moved to another state to… become farmers? I understand that times change, but I can assure you that I wouldn’t walk to South Dakota to plant a forty of wheat. In fact, I wouldn’t drive to South Dakota unless I was going to the Black Hills and staying at a hotel with a pool.

There is a local author who has made a living describing the (rapidly disappearing) lives of rural Wisconsinites. To do this, he walks around a lot in rubber boots and says things like “how ya’ doin, dere” even though he probably knows how to talk. It’s a living, I suppose. Certainly, people who listen to NPR eat it up with a spoon. Personally, I don’t find cleaning chicken coops to be that interesting. In fact, they are not even necessary. Eggs are cheap. Cheep, cheep.

I don’t have to shovel chicken shit to save eleven dollars a year. I’m a man.

On the other hand, the apocalypse (or at least a fascimile thereof) might be upon us. In which case, homesteading skills will come back in style.

And if you can’t plant wheat, you can always kill and eat your neighbor. As noted in previous installments, it is said that human beings taste like pork. And who doesn’t like a good side of bacon?

Jews and Muslims. It is unclean.

But otherwise it is ok.

The apocalypse makes me hungry for some reason. It’s probably like when you suddenly get thirsty if you are watching a documentary on the Sahara desert.

And I am for sure going to get a Mad Max car. The ass-less chaps are out, however. There is no reason to panic.