When the System Implodes You Can Try Farming To Feed Yourself

But you’re going to fail

Photo by James Frid from Pexels

I used to say that my favorite things about living in the twentieth century were antibiotics and indoor plumbing.

Those are pretty much still my favorite things about existing in the twenty-first century. Fuck the Internet. My enduring love is still for a toilet inside my house and for antibiotics that made the big bad bogeymen like pneumonia, UTIs, and ear infections a little less terrifying.

So when I see people saying things like “maybe we should all try to live off the grid and farm,” here at Medium and in the larger culture, I get very, very, VERY nervous.

Because here’s some things I know: Without medications and antibiotics, my family is fucked. And also? I grew up on a farm. We grew our fruits and vegetables. We had dairy cows and drank unprocessed milk and butchered our own cows, pigs, and chickens. My parents were badass goddamn frontier people who could do anything, and I worked with them every day for nearly twenty years.

And you know what? I wouldn’t have any idea how to feed myself through farming. I am afraid of cows. (They’re big and dumb and they’re surprisingly fast and when they step on you it hurts.) I can’t do anything, and I don’t want to. Oh, and also? If society implodes and…