The Joke's on Me
plus an exclusive offer!
Hey y’all. I have been on Substack for a minute now– approximately 700,000 minutes, digitally existing on this platform. It’s becoming a crowded place, and maybe a little stupid, too. In the past few months, many new features have been unrolled which combine the psychologically damaging effects of social media with the inability to make very much money unless you are already successful that Substack is famous for. And so, if you’re here, reading the Fox Holler Almanac today, first off I’d like to congratulate you on your excellent taste, and second, you are clearly an intellectually superior person which is why I’m going to tell you a little secret: there’s no money for you to be made on Substack… but have you considered subsistence agriculture?
The Fox Holler Almanac has never been a project for everybody—I only produce it for an elite few, 40% of whom actually open it up in their inbox (Yes, I can see if you read this). That’s you. Because you are so damned smart. That’s why I’m giving you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get in on the ground floor for my workshop/retreat/masterclass: Regenerative Farm Marketing for the End Times. For an amount of money I’m not going to be immediately forthcoming about, we’ll set you up with a flea-ridden yurt down where the summer rain sits stagnant, boiling over with mosquitoes. Our “Glamp-ground” is prime foraging area, thick with Three-Leaved Missouri Vine Spinach and those little purple berries we warned you about. Go ahead, harvest everything you see– our land is regenerative.
When you’re not busy building connections with your fellow classmates during hourly tick inspections or digesting your breakfast gruel (we made plenty), you’ll receive the benefit of an intimate learning environment where you can frequently interrupt with questions like: “Did you ever hear of hugelkultur?” or “Why aren’t you doing hugelkultur?” Anytime you see a brush pile, and we have a lot, please, ask me about hugelkultur.
Day one is all about getting started– Land Access and Finances. We’ll teach you how to sign up for food stamps if you fall into our “Homesteader” class, or if you’re a “Family Farm” (Over $500,000 annually) we’ll show you how to obtain farm subsidies for making environmentally devastating tillage choices and find you a pair of comfy slipperss for wearing on the crop insurance gravy train. (Also, can I borrow your truck?) It’s ashes and sack cloth for everyone else.
No matter your finances, we will look for a pen that works, and draft up a basic business model, referencing an article in the Mother Earth News that you can’t seem to find on your own personal scrap paper that you can drop on the floor, next to the increasing pile of bills. Who knew that self-sufficiency in isolation would require so many outside services that I can’t exchange week-old radishes for? Your regenerative enterprise is almost within reach, so why do just one thing? Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of business plans, each written on the back of an envelope, for five or six things that you can do simultaneously and equally well. How demanding could a sawmill side-gig be?
If you’ve got land, that’s great. In our Farm Succession workshop, you’ll learn how to keep your valuable land out of the hands of real-estate developers or your next of kin who probably want to make an air-b-n-b wedding chapel barn or some dumb shit like that. And we will offer you the first opportunity ever to sign your land over to our new fledgling land trust. Give it to me, I’ll take care of it.
For our young, beginning, and historically disadvantaged students, well, that’s probably never going to happen. But I’ll give you some insider tips on how to live on the razor’s edge of dispossession by moving onto somebody else’s land and hoping they’re good enough folks to not exercise the privilege and power afforded to them by land ownership. I actually heard in a podcast that feudalism wasn’t that bad –for everyone. We offer work trades for those unable to afford tuition. It might be really hard work though.
Day one is capped off with a first-time-ever offering of the world’s only compost-based currency: ShitCoin. Think about it: you’ve been eating a lot more legumes than you’re used to, and you’ve been holding back on them all day, because our facilities are really rustic and you might be able to sneak a 14 mile drive in to the nearest public restroom before breakfast tomorrow. But also, you saw a YouTube video one time about a guy who made electricity with compost, in Europe in like the ‘70’s. With ShitCoin, you can mine crypto with composting manure, of any kind. It’s also the world’s only Marxist currency. Think of ShitCoin as owning the means of production… it’s like our digestive system is a factory for cash! If only we could turn shit into money, we’d never stop making it…
On the second day of Regenerative Farm Marketing for the End Times, we’re getting our hands dirty, and in ways far less fun than that sounds. You’ll be working with livestock that you have no business ever unleashing onto your land, with advice from folks that are actively losing their asses to feed and fuel costs. Say you milked a goat on your friend's farm one time? That makes you an expert! Get out there with that lone, big shouldered cow in the field all by his— er- herself and treat your colon to some raw milk to get those lentils loosened up inside you. She has but one udder… heritage breed.
And yes, you will step in shit. There’s shit everywhere. And blowing around pieces of scrap sheet metal. It’s regenerative. Do you want to sound smart? Feed your livestock, like, more than one mineral, because, it’s like more minerals and they get to choose. I can’t believe nobody is doing it this way. By the end of your pasture-management session, you’ll practically see the organic matter in our fields increase, especially when it washes down from that distinctly barren patch that’s looking a little bigger each year from the top of the hill. You’ll go home able to offer the most opaque, indecipherable yammering about cation exchange rates and active water capacity to folks who just want to buy their tube of over-priced burger and get away from you!
For an extra amount of money we will offer a Certification of Niche and Esoteric Regenerative Practices. I heard NERP certification is pretty much the only one that counts as truly regenerative. You don’t need a degree in organic chemistry to save the world by running livestock, and in fact we prefer that you’re somewhat uneducated on soil and climate science. Making my best guess, in combination with a few graphs, is just what I call citizen science.
By day three, you’ll probably feel like shit and look like hell, which is why we’re focusing on wellness and self-care, available at an hourly rate. Anyone with an insufferably positive attitude and handful of cash can do goat yoga in an air-b-n-b barn and wedding chapel, but you’re probably smarter than that, because you read The Fox Holler Almanac, which is why you’re visiting the only chicken acupuncture studio east of the Rocky Mountains. The way we can make money on heritage breed livestock is through a bit of rooster based entertainment that is probably still legal in Missouri. Just get in the pen with our certified therapy roosters armed with acupuncture needles, and you can tell me all about hugelkultur from within the confines of the Self-Care Coop. I can hear you through the door that only opens from outside. The exit leads you through our essential oil gift shop. Some of them might burn.
Then, to get you to your primal peak, we’re going to rock your gut-micro-biome hard. We like to think of our gut flora and fauna as an ecosystem, and what makes an ecosystem regenerative? Seasonal disturbance. If drinking our cistern water doesn’t do it, we have a wide array of unlabeled ferments. I heard the top two inches of the jar are the most potent for achieving your total psycho-spiritual-metabolic potential. And we have a cacao ritual led by white folks that is going to open your heart chakra as well as your butthole chakra.
The last day is about doing anything other than actually functionally growing food for people who need it— starting a Substack. You will get the opportunity to battle with an imposter syndrome, neglect timely and important work on the homestead, all while wondering “who is actually paying to read what Matt Taibbi thinks?” Substack not your thing? Don’t worry, it’ll die eventually, like everything else. That’s why you’ll also learn how to film yourself for TikTok all while you avoid showing any clues that point to the actual squalor you live in or the fraudulent nature of the fantasy life you present to poor, gullible people. Wait, that’s not funny.
Once you post your soon-to-be-viral content and you’re waiting for the money to roll in, like, really checking your phone every minute to see if any money has rolled in at all, the workshop is commenced, you can get your numbered certificate and get off our property. You are now officially regenerative, as long as you live in a perfect climate. Everyone talks about living the simple life, but since you’re different and special, you get to actually live it, so go. Now. Go home. And take your hugelkultur with you, you’ll need it to outlast the apocalypse, because you are now special enough to think you can.
Foolishly,
Benjamin Bramble (NERP Certified Life Coach)
Where can I sign up!
This shit made me belly laugh... too hard honestly. It hit a home I am sad to admit I live in. Thank you for making me laugh and cry at the same time.