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nafex - [NAFEX] Corporate farms, off-topic (at least my ramblings will be)

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  • From: "Joe Hecksel" <jhecksel@voyager.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [NAFEX] Corporate farms, off-topic (at least my ramblings will be)
  • Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 21:42:25 -0500


Naomi in Idaho wrote:

> My husband has a conventional(Money ) job with benefits. I stay at
home... It is not a wage. It is a lifestyle.

Excellent. I like that you made your choices and are self-funding
them. I like that you are not wringing your hands and telling
everybody else how to change to accomodate your vision of how life
should be lived. I sense that you are not handicapped by the
entitlement mentality. Good!

This is the rankest kind of speculation, but I wonder if the Roman
Empire could have been saved if a bunch of Really Smart People could
have been beamed back in time like the Connecticut Yankee in King
Aurther's Court. I think not. The social structures are self-
reinforcing. Too many people thought they were ahead of the game to
abandon or modify it.

Regarding lifestyle choices. I grow fruit for many reasons. One of
the reasons is that my dad was a big gardener. I want my kids to have
the same experiences that I was blessed with.

One of the advantages of growing food, even one tomato plant, is that
you can grasp the basics of the entire venture. Water and compost (or
commercial fertilizer) make the plant grow. Sun makes the fruit
sweet. Air flow keeps the rot away. Staking the plants keeps the
fruit off the ground, away from the slugs. The Enron embarassment
would not have happened if corporate accounting was as transparent as
the cause-and-effect of growing tomatos, and if the consequences of
stupid decisions was as quick and ruthless tomato hornworms or slugs
eating 'maters.

I think that my kids will be better prepared for life if they have
gardened. They will have the mental models that will allow them to
efficiently winnow out the spurious detail and get to the basics. They
will ask the right questions. Is the goal worthy? Is the growth
advantageous for the long term? What do I really need to attend to?
What do I need to preserve so I can continue my enterprise in the
coming season.


--
Joe Hecksel
Personal Webpage http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel





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