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'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

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Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#191

Post by asdff »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #92
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #89

My grandparents and great grandparents all lived on 4+ acre properties in rural Louisiana. Not quite cottages, but a similar concept. They had 1100 - 1300sq foot homes but lived along the river and you could get to all of their houses without ever leaving River Road. They lived about 1 hour from the nearest city and were about halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and had a gigantic community social group. They…

Most of the people on this site have plenty of resources to buy into a lifestyle like the one you are describing. But for some reason they don't. To me, it seems likely that there are some serious drawbacks to that lifestyle that you're leaving our, which if further probed would change the equation.

That lifestyle does take a lot of experience your average knowledge worker just doesn't have.

People back then knew how to farm their land, they knew went to till and when to harvest, what to plant when and where. They were handy, they were carpenters, but also plumbers, roofers, painters, tailors, mechanics, menders of all things. Skills acquired by being a young child and holding the tools for an adult doing the task, engaging in a de facto apprenticeship for all facets of life since they could first learn to walk on their own and follow dad or mom around their chores.

You couldn't learn all this even in a year of ownership of land like that. Its the product of lived experience. Years of dealing with one catastrophe to the next and having no one but yourself and a few local friends or family members to help fix the situation through experience and physical labor. This is why when most rich people decide to take up farming on some land they've bought, they hire an actual farmer to actually do the farming.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#192

Post by asdff »

dls2016 wrote: post #17
zwieback wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and fighting off deer, literally sent by Satan to devour my tender green shoots

Six foot fence keeps the deer moving along... but those fat groundhogs climb right over.

Metal fences are tricky for groundhogs. my parents have one that is welded wire (comes in a roll) and its not sturdy enough for a fat groundhog to climb all the way up and get over, they aren't the most athletic. once they shored up some holes along bottoms of the fence the groundhog wasn't getting inside anymore.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#193

Post by asdff »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #58
redis_mlc wrote: post #4

I grew up in a farming area, and my family had a 30'x30' garden. Farming is a lot of work. It's a job, not a hobby. Even the garden was a fair amount of work, but more importantly, it's a lot of veggies to eat after harvest. I had tomato sandwiches daily for months. Plus insects to control. Doable, but not glamorous like the "cottagecore" photos. If I did a serious garden again, I'd focus on becoming a skilled grower…

It's not just a lot of work, depending on how much you can automate irrigation and weeding, it's a fairly sure-fire bet that you cannot travel during the summer.

At least these days you can hire a task rabbit to come by and water.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#194

Post by desertraven »

slibhb wrote: post #31

Having escaped the necessity of living in certain ways, we find outselves voluntarily adopting older forms of human behavior. That's what exercising is. It's what gardening is. It's what having pets is. These are behaviors that mimic the surface characteristics of old ways of life (hunting, farming, animal husbandry).

Interesting. Are such behaviours necessary to feel content as a human?

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#195

Post by theodric »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #73
giantg2 wrote: post #53

I dream of quitting my job and living on some land. My wife refuses to "live in the middle of nowhere, where there's nothing to do". I guess I shall continue to work a job I hate in order to live in this expensive area.

I follow a youtube channel of a chap and his wife who left the city and relocated to a rural area to do sustainable farming with ducks and geese. It is interesting but it is very hard work to husband animals but they seem very happy. https://www.youtube.com/c/GoldShawFarm/videos

That's a hobby farm. They both still work full time day jobs. She's a nurse, he's in marketing (remote work). I guess that's what HN really wants-- having it both ways.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#196

Post by asdff »

jtsiskin wrote: post #27
aussiegreenie wrote: post #3

Living a more sustainable life is the key to human survival. If you can grown your own food and produce local cleaner energy, humanity MAY survive. The existing American-model life guarantees human civilisation will not live past 2040.

Why? Wouldn’t centralized larger farms be more efficient?

No, they would just be more profitable but not more efficient. Large farms select the most profitable crop but that can often mean a lot of ecological harm for a crop that isn't being used to feed the local area, as it might be exported to markets where it fetches a higher price. Like cotton grown in water scarce california since water is very cheap for these large farmers, which is used to build mattresses in mexico. Smaller scale farmers who might show up at a farmers market grow a variety of different vegetables. There are still these sort of farmers in southern california in santa barbara county, out by san luis obispo, or in ventura or east of the redlands past san bernardino. They grow all sorts of produce on their land and bring in to sell in local markets, as these heirloom varieties are usually too fragile for mass export. Not sure about the central valley.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#197

Post by kongin »

barry-cotter wrote: post #85
giantg2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the economic scarcity is relatively less scarce than in urban areas. For example, at least during the depression those with farms had to ability to grow their own food. To be fair, sometimes the government would allow urban households to garden in a 1/4 acre or so plot in designated areas as part of a program to help people be more self sufficient. Although my grandfather said not many people took advantage…

> For example, at least during the depression those with farms had to ability to grow their own food. Those without farms overwhelmingly didn't need to. The only place in North America to have widespread hunger during the Great Depression was Newfoundland. If most people didn't take advantage of allotments it was because it wasn't worth it. After the fall of the Soviet Union lots and lots of urban ex-Soviet citizens…

Having grown up during that period no one needed to. You could survive quite easily on whatever you could buy in the stores. The diet you could get from growing your own food was much better than what you get even in the west today.

The one thing people who haven't experienced it can't understand is the taste of the food. I don't know what price I'd put on a breakfast made with fresh milk, eggs, home baked bread and salted pork but it would be at least a few hundred dollars.

If I didn't live in a region where any rural property is expected to burn down once a decade I'd have bought a weekend farm a long time ago.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#198

Post by rahoulb »

fineIllregister wrote: post #139
mey wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I am reminded of Common People by Shatner https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cMXhWf0vE7c

Shatner was covering the song, which was originally by the English band Pulp. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People

I was at university when that song was released and it used to amuse me greatly at the number of rich students singing along as if the song was some show of unity with “common people” - not taking a second to actually think about the lyrics.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#200

Post by runeblaze »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #111
wallacrw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthy? Sure. Fashionable? LOL.

Fashion here in a broadest sense - fashionable beliefs, hobbies, interests etc. I don't think it's fashionable to actually dress well anymore.

At least in NYC it is still fashionable to dress well (as in curating one's own style or to the upper-end styling haute couture well). If in NYC it is still fashionable, I am pretty sure it is still fashionable in a lot of places :)
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