Homestead Rescue....New program rescue....On Discovery

[hunter63]

Looking back in my experience.....I will give the lady credit.....or question her intelligence, but DW said to me back when....
"Build what ever you want....but if I say there...there will some sort of crapper"

After 15 years of Porta-potty, then composting toilet.....when the cabin went in....Inside running water, shower, and flush toilet.

[kyratshooter]

I just watched the second episode of this series and I am being successfully entertained!

I have not seen the Rainey family do anything I could not agree with even if I would not have done it that way.

Problem is that they are dealing with people that do not realize they are dumazzs, are failing in every way and arguing against change.

There is just something encouraging when the geezer Dad speaks the words "I don't want to here the words YOU-TUBE while I am on this property!" that rings true.

[hunter63]

LOL....That YOU-TUBE comment made my day...........
I am kinda enjoying seeing a little light coming on in their heads, the only thing worst than a Dumas is a stubborn Dumas.....LOL

Remember, they are allowed to be Dumas's.......Lord knows many of my endeavors were viewed by other as sorta Dumas-sy.

Maybe do a follow up in a year?

[kyratshooter]

Their short term follow up showed a big litter of piglets already squealing and happy. It probably would have been a dozen or more if they had sheltered the sow while she was pregnant.

One might also come to the realization that our protective attitude toward predatory birds can only exist in a world of factory farms where all small and infant livestock is caged or housed. It was not random sport shooting that kept the number of predatory birds in check during our settlement and farming years, it was the need to protect our livestock.

Yet people that do not live on farms will argue that hawks, eagles and buzzards do not really kill livestock and that attitude is a myth. They have never walked out their back door and picked up a dead chicken that some hawk seemed to have killed for sport and left to rot.

And they definitely have never sat up all night waiting for a coyote or raccoon to return to the hen house for a snack.

I thought this weeks big "grow a set" factor was the young couple realizing that if you survive on a homestead you are going to have to learn to kill things, both as protection and for food.

[Seniorman]

It's all "show biz," folks. Everyone wants to be in "show biz."

S.M.

[WalkingTree]

I haven't seen any of this show. But from reading you guys, it sounds like I'd just end up shaking my head - them not having any sense, not doing any thinking beforehand, not willing or able to kill an animal for food, not trying to garden or have any water. I wonder if they'll have a show about them folks going to south America illegally that we heard about in here recently.

[1stimestar]

Homestead Rescue will be airing an episode this Friday that takes place here in Fairbanks.

Marty Raney says when working on the show with production companies, he wanted to make sure that it was as authentic as possible.

Raney said "I'm not doing scripted TV. Nobody in L.A. is going to sit in an office and tell me what to say when they get here. It's not going to happen. You don't script real Alaskans. Alaska is better than fiction. I can see that Discovery and Raw Productions out of England did in fact gain my trust, and we shot six episodes across America -- one in Alaska... Fairbanks."

I'm not sure whether this qualifies as bragging or not hahhaha.

[kyratshooter]

They got to apply fire proof siding to a cabin and dig a root cellar while fighting two twenty-something year old homesteaders all the way.

They were in the last house at the end of a dirt road in the middle of no where but wanted a barrier of trees, that were creating a fire hazard, for "privacy". You are in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain, why do you need a privacy screen?

Dumping garbage 20 feet from the back door in bear country. Keeping dog food in plastic tubs, meat in an unlocked deep freezer.

The "team" got most of that sorted out.

They will still be lucky if a grizzly does not eat one of them.

[hunter63]

I'll have to try and catch this one....had company so missed it......Oh well.

[izameez]

I watched the second episode entitled "Under Siege" with the Virginia couple and their free range pigs and chickens. I found it entertaining. However, are these people for real? Can people really be so stupid and naive to move out into the countryside with zero knowledge about self-sufficiency and survival? It seems so. It appears that the little knowledge they have came from Youtube. Much information can be garnered from Youtube, but it's not a catchall. The mentality of these naive folks who decide to move out into the country and believe they will automatically become self-sufficient and successful without the proper preparation and knowledge needed in advance, I refer to as the "Field of Dream" mindset. Like in the movie, "Build it, and they will come". They seem to believe, "Move out, and we will prosper".

For example, how can you live in the developed world and seem to know nothing about sanitation and hygiene? Apparently they don't as they went #2 in the woods surrounding their no electricity and no plumbing dwelling for over a year.

The guy Josh is a card-carrying, charter member of the Maroon Club. He says they have principles and ideals concerning their free ranging pigs and chickens, even though they are all slowly dying due to predation and other causes. What? I thought the first principle of raising critters was common sense and responsible stewardship. Free ranging is a great concept, but you control the critters and not vice-versa. Also, he argues with the Raneys over their pigs after they talked to a man who had successfully been raising pigs commercially for over 20 years. He says something like, "But you only talked to one person". (Yeah, who has 10,000 times more experience than you and is successful too!)

The couple does finally come around, so intelligence finally does win the day. Ah.... such is reality TV!

[hunter63]

Hunter63 saying Hey and Welcome.....
But you would be surprised at what people do.

[DSJohnson]

So, what I hearing is that these people really need a copy of the WEC.

[hunter63]

Steve Jobs was quoted as saying the WEC was the Google of the 1960's, so I don't think things are that different.

I gonna guess we were all over confident and stubborn back when.......
But we(I) got slapped down enough times that we(I) learned the hard way...matter of fact one on MF favorite saying was "Experience is the best teacher".

So far we are kinda seeing that in these shows.

Back when Mother Earth News used to have articles on "Them that are doin'......Homesteaders that had been successful at least for a while.

Then were only a couple of articles about "So and So's Homestead, 10 years later.....many couples were divorced and had moved on.
But there were still the Helen and Scott Nearing stories....of a life long Homesteader life style.

So who knows....but I sure the drama is cranked up....

[DSJohnson]

I loved the Helen and Scott stories and really were encouraged and challenged by them.

[DSJohnson]

The fact that they used a buck saw and a bow saw to cut their firewood still wows the daylights out of me!!!

[hunter63]

Scott Nearing passed away couple of week after his 100th birthday, by fasting on purpose....was his own choosing.
Quite a story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Nearing
Quote>
Nearing died on August 24, 1983, eighteen days after his 100th birthday. His death was described as a conscious leaving of life brought about by fasting in Helen Nearing's memoir, Loving and Leaving the Good Life. However, later accounts by Nearing biographer Ellen LaConte and Jean Hay Bright state that Helen Nearing glossed over some of the painful details[v

[Faiaoga]

Thank you for reminding about Helen and Scott Nearing, people I have heard of but never learned much about. You might also mention Wendell Berry, a person with similar beliefs, but who seems to be still living - I have been able to learn more about him.

[hunter63]

The Nearing's weren't talked about by the main stream media....... as Scott was a fanatic pacifist and against war back starting with WWI...
Continued his teaching all his life.....so was kinda shunned except for homesteading and building skills.

[kyratshooter]

I saw one of the comments from a former employer during WW2 stated that his pacifists logic was "infantile".

He also considered the Stalinist purges of the 1930s a necessary preparation for WW2. Hypocritical considering that violence and summary execution was acceptable to promote world wide communism but defense of democracy was against the rules of nature.

A socialist and communist who still accepted payment for his speeches against the capitalist system as a work product and sold the produce of his homestead on the free market as a working capitalist.

[hunter63]

That him.....and why they don't get much press.....wasn't real popular with most folks.
Heck of a homesteader and I would guess that the same hard headed tenacity served him well in that life style.