Back Ache

Sometimes a zeitgeist takes the blogosphere. Minimalism, for example. The entire Christian blog community convulsed with pretend-amishness a few years ago. In the mommyworld, it's usually some reheated hippie stuff. Some new gloss on not vaccinating, or birthing in the living room, or never letting your kids within ten miles of plastic.

Right now a lot of people are into "living simply."

I have three children five and under. The only way I could simplify would be to ditch two of them. there is no socially acceptable way to do this, so we're going to have to work out a way to be happy with complications.

Well enough. But why does "living simply" translate into "moving to a farm"?

In that vein, I recently read This Life is in Your Hands and The Egg and I. The former is about an organic vegetable farm (affiliated with Helen and Scott Nearing) and the latter about a chicken farm.

Nothing about a farm looks simple or uncomplicated to me. I keep a fairly intense garden. I'm kind of glad that when something doesn't work out, it's easy to dispose of the evidence. I definitely keep a closer eye on the kids because of this quality. Cows, sheep, that sort of thing, they definitely fall into the "awkward disposal" category.

Second, I'm not sure that I'm responsible enough to own animals. I'm responsible enough to own children, but the standards are much lower for that. No one is going to get e coli if I forget to change the sheets this week.

Finally, as I explained in my previous entry, I'm heavily lettuce-centric. I'm not sure that there's a huge market for that.