I am a woman in her late 20s. I grew up on a small hand farmed dairy farm during mad cow in Alberta, wanna know what people didn’t want during mad cow despite diary not being meat? Dairy! In any case, I grew up poor as hell. From the time I could walk I was helping out. Helping/learning to train the dogs. Milking the cows. Moving hay. Feeding the cows. Ice branding. Sometimes the slaughter of older girls. Waking up well before dawn. “Nurse” for cows my dad had to drain abscesses for. Helping the girls birth. Helping the boys… I had to learn machine work, how tractors drove, how to repair most mechanical things on the farm. I learned to weld, carpentry while putting up barns and storage and even how to dig a well. I learned how to grow most crops in zone 2, can and preserve fruits and veggies, and smoke and preserve meats. Hell recently I learned how to spin fur into thread from my sweet Samoyed dog.
I also live in a really supportive community that knows how to DO things like I was raised to. I feel like I’ll be ok with what’s coming despite only owning an acre of land in northern Alberta… but I know a lot of people won’t be and I seriously am worried.
Community is how we beat capitalism. If we can outlast them with food, water and shelter, even if it’s super fucking hard, we can beat them, but they have intentionally made it hard for us to do this. Most people don’t even know their neighbours and that’s what they want. They also don’t want us to have backyards or the ability to grow food.
We need to unite.