The Rural Advantages (Farmers, Ranchers, et al.)

[flyinglentris]

It's no small thing to be growing food down on the farm or the ranch. It's a lot of healthy work from early in the morning with big breakfasts, to late with big suppers.

And except for what goes in the root cellars, most things for meals are about as fresh as they can be. Variety goes well beyond the grocery store, including what the farms produce, to wildlife nearby.

My grandma has passed, but when we visited she had a railroad box car on the property with about seven deep freezers inside. These contained such things as parts of a large snapping turtle, white tail deer, pheasant and more. Fishing on a Minnesota lake reeled in Great Northerns, Pike, Large and Small Mouth Bass, Pickeral, Pike, Sunfish and Croppies. In the woods, one picks wild Strawberries, Blackberries and things that I still don't know the names of. You have to go to the store for some things like Bananas and Oranges, but Apples were common nearby.

Country Cooking isn't perhaps, on par with fancy restaurant food, but I would insist those rural folks got it good.

 

[TastyReuben]

I would say that, growing up, we raised upwards of 90% of our food (fruit, veg, and meat), enough to feed 10 people, more or less, and I'm thankful for the experience, because I learned a lot and I know where food comes from and how it's raised (at least from a self-sufficient standpoint).

That said, I'd never, ever, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever, voluntarily return to that lifestyle. It's bloody hard work. Physical, muscle-tearing, back-breaking work, and it never ends. No thanks.

I'm glad I live in a time when I don't have to rely on shoddy supermarket approximates of "good" foods, and can shop anywhere from a megamart to the family organic farm around the corner and get a decent selection of whatever I want, albeit at a premium at times.

The main driver for my parents raising us that way was pure economics - no way could they afford to shop-feed that many people on one below-average salary, so in went the garden, up went the fruit trees and berries, here came the chickens, and there came the pigs and cows (and the butter churn and smokehouse and root cellar).

 

[TastyReuben]

Just to add, unrelated, MrsT and I called Minnesota home for eight glorious years!

 

[flyinglentris]

Just to add, unrelated, MrsT and I called Minnesota home for eight glorious years!

Oddly enough, my grandmother was a Mrs. T. She had her place in Crow Wing County on the west side of Mille Lacs Lake. She's buried near Onamia.

 

[TastyReuben]

My earlier, initial response somehow turned into its own topic in another sub-forum, so here's a link back to that:

The Rural Advantages (Farmers, Ranchers, et al.)

 

[Morning Glory]

My earlier, initial response somehow turned into its own topic in another sub-forum, so here's a link back to that:

The Rural Advantages (Farmers, Ranchers, et al.)

My mistake - I didn't move it here. Done now.