Suburbanite Puns

I have always felt a strong affinity for agriculture, though my understanding of it is mostly from online research.

I grew up in the suburbs, my family would occasionally plant 4-6 tomato plants in our tiny backyard garden. Watching those plants mature and yield fruit was a truly wonderful experience, but I always wanted to try to grow other things. So, after graduating college as an engineer (around 4 years ago) my wife and I purchased several very young fruit bearing trees/plants and began to grow them from pots on our apartment balcony. My thought behind doing this was that we should be able to afford a home in a couple of years and could allow them to mature in the meantime (in retrospect this was perhaps an ill-conceived plan).

Since then, we purchased a quaint home on a tiny lot near the city of Birmingham, Alabama around 2 years ago. This home has a deck but literally no backyard. Local ordinances are also quite strict regarding landscaping. Consequently, we have several large pots that we (or more realistically, I) carry to our balcony when the temperature is sufficient and then back inside when temperature drops. These pots are filled with mandarin trees (pictured below), apple trees, blueberry bushes, etc (all things I had reason to believe could potentially work in this climate).

However, we would really like to be able to begin to grow a larger number of fruit/nut trees while we are still in our mid-20's, so that we and perhaps our future family may enjoy them later in life. I would also like to grow a variety of fruits/vegetables in a garden, but I can wait a few years on this to avoid the hassle of having to frequently maintain them.

So, now that we have built back up our savings I gave thought to purchasing a small parcel of land within an hour or so of the city, which I could keep even if I eventually sold my current home. But three things greatly surprised me:

1. I had no idea that most land is sold by the hundreds of acres.

2. I didn't realize how expensive the one or two small pieces of cleared land would cost.

3. I was unaware of how different financing was for this sort of purchase

I don't have any family wealth or land, but a high income between my wife and I (plus no kids yet). Does anyone know of a way I can achieve my seemingly ill-considered goal without waiting 5 years and spending all of my savings? Are there any pitfalls in particular that I need to avoid? Do I just need a reality check?

[ Our tree may not look

This is like bumperstickers about their retarded straight A students but even worse and more gaudy

SOLVED SOLVED SOLVED

I bought this book in elementary school sometime between 2006-2010ish at the scholastic book fair. It was a small book geared towards kids, like a quarter inch thick.

It’s about a suburbanite man and a Morticia Addams like woman who remarry with each other, they both have 3 kids all in parallel ages. The oldest are a vampy guy and a cheerleader girl, middle kids are both nerdy, and then there’s the youngest two. It’s like the Brady bunch but if half of them were goth. They move into the woman’s house and the normie kids hate it and think it’s creepy because it’s like a gothic castle. They also have some weird pet that is never really seen but lurks around and it freaks out the normie kids.

The cover is literally the gothic mansion with the parents standing next to each other and the kids lined up on either side of them in descending age.

Maybe I'm being a little uncaring, but have any of you ever run in a suburban area and have some lady at Kohl's or Target insist her pre-syncope "I almost felt I was going to pass out" was due to attempted kidnapping? I mean a lady said a stranger's phone must have been coated in fentanyl because after helping him find a charger , half an hour later she felt faint. When asked if the old scary man was wearing gloves she said no, I then stated he probably would have as well and she assumed he must have had a coating on his hands. Like literally no evidence, but according to her she had been drugged so they could human traffic her in the parking lot of Target in the middle of the day. They went back and checked footage and the old guy just bought his charger and left. Nothing fishy but she insists he was going to take her.

I'm tired of everyone thinking they are certainly going to get human trafficked if they go return their cart in broad daylight. That's not how they do it. I just can't anymore.

When I first moved to Buffalo, we lived in Allentown and have since moved to Tonawanda. Visits to the city seem to get less and less frequent and just curious how often other suburbanites head into Buffalo proper...

(If you work/commute in the city, how often do you stay before/after work or make other trips in for non-professional reasons)

(I just posted this on r/homestead .. thought I'd try here too.. hope that's okay)

I legit know nothing. In my life there were a few summers where I mowed a neighbor's lawn and a handful of times my mother made me plant flowers in our front yard.. outside of that I have killed many houseplants and I hate bugs. My whole life has been spoiled by upper middle class air conditioned living where I spent more time playing video games and surrounding myself with comforts than ever doing any real hard work. During the lockdown of the pandemic and till today I have been frequently considering selling my unnecessary luxury items, quitting my job, and buying land somewhere in the hopes to start a homestead then progress to a farmstead and then further progressing into growing a regenerative farm/permaculture business where I focus on organic and regenerative farming practices.. chickens, pigs, then maybe some dairy cows and possibly expanding from there. I have probably watched 100+ videos on youtube in the past 2 months on a variety of homesteading and regenerative/permaculture farming practices and can't get the idea out of my head. I suppose a part of me is yearning for a life with more purpose and meaning.. with earning something to be proud over.. and regenerative farming fills my heart with a vision that my life could mean something in a more rural community where I feel more connected to the earth and my fellow man and I could develop more as a human and give back to the earth and a community and to a future family. I feel delusional.. but I have dozens of online courses bookmarked and books to potentially get and a rough outline in my head on how I could make it happen. Both of my parents passed away before the pandemic from lifelong alcoholism and depression.. and their passing has given me a small inheritance which I think could make the transition doable..

I guess I just want to know from people in this sub... is that nuts? Are there stories like mine where people have gone from being so completely unskilled to being the next Joel Salatin?! (Maybe he's devisive for some.. i know so little that perhaps I'm foolish for mentioning him..)

My next thought is to maybe find a farm/farmstead to visit for a week and take some PTO to work/experience the life firsthand to see if I could even do it.. I don't know.. It's odd to be 35 and feel like you're in a midlife crisis but my whole life has been pretty depressing and the one thing I do know is that I need com

https://www.reveddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/r5hd56/discussion_thread/hmpb3xo/

Full comment:

Dr. Oz seems like he has the middle-aged suburbanite vote locked up, and just being a Republican these days is good enough to win the rurals. Meanwhile, Fetterman’s base is what? College students from California?

- Not_Reverse_Flash

Like most in North America, my city is sprawling due to market demand (and corrupt politicians). People will say they can't afford a house in the city (what they mean is a 4 bedroom house with a large lawn), so they *need* to buy out in the suburbs. But this is obviously a large burden on society - environmentally, economically, and socially. Yet the market for suburban homes will barely suffer the consequences of funding this unsustainable lifestyle - whether it's the car dependency, the infrastructure maintenance, or the paving of greenspace. How do we make them feel the pain? Is education going to do anything or is it going to take some very progressive taxation? Or perhaps we need to educate voters, which in turn can achieve better policy/taxation. But the momentum of the American dream is strong. Can't get in the way of the American dream...

The white working class has been moving to the Republican party for a while but it hasnt stopped, they become more republican every election. The suburbs turning blue is a more recent trend, they voted for mccain and Romney and then for hillary and biden. Do you think this trend will continue?

I have come across quite a few rather unfriendly suburbanites who obsess over the littlest of things, think: hedges too long, sprinkler leeching onto sidewalks, people j-walking, unraked neighbour's lawns, barking dogs, kids playing too loudly, etc.

I have a hard time trying to find significance in these things, yet suburban dwellers feel pretty emboldened to voice their unrestrained opinions on these.

So here’s my theory: Everything that anti-IDpol Lefties, Alt Righters, Conservatives, Libertarians, Populists, and basically all normal/non-political people hate about Wokeness can be laid at the feet of a single demographic: White people with college degrees who live in the suburbs, AKA, what many pundits and political junkies falsely think of as the “Traditional Republican Base.” (This demographic is neither traditional nor Republican).

A couple weeks ago, Zack Beauchamp of Vox wrote this on the matter:

>So if white college-educated suburbanites really are turning to the left, why might this be?

>The simplest and best explanation appears to be partisanship.

...

>Increasingly, Americans pick their party on the basis of cultural affinity: whether people like them, who share their cultural values on topics like race and immigration, are in one party or the other. This is why college graduates, who tend to be culturally progressive, are an increasingly Democratic bloc, and non-college whites, who have conservative cultural views, are increasingly voting Republican.

...

>”Individuals identify with the cultural liberalism of the Democratic party and adopt its approach to economic matters as a package deal,” they write. “Economic preferences [are] an expression of a more basic cultural division in the electorate.”

Basically, College Educated White Suburbanites are known as what a September 2018 voter survey by the Voter Study Group calls DILE’s - Democratic Independent Liberal Elites:

>What merges from this data is a clear division between the issue preferences of the DILEs and DLWCs. The latter group shares the economy as a high-priority issue with every cluster but the DILEs. DLWCs are also closer to conservative and moderate voters on jobs, crime, terrorism, and Social Security, which are high-priority issues (or close to it) for all clusters except the DILEs. And the top two issues that DILEs highly prioritize — environment and climate change — rank only ninth and 11th among DLWC voters, respectively. >

(Readers note: DLWCs are Democratic Leaning Working Class voters)

And what are the demographic traits of these DILE voters? From that Voter Survey link:

>The 2017 VOTER Survey data reveal stark demographic differences behind these issue preferences

the title says it all lmao

why wouldn't leftists do it, create wannabe new black panthers? especially blue-checks

Somehow this seemed weirdly divisive when I last saw it come up in internet conversation.

If you do not have a sidewalk how close are you to the nearest sidewalk?

Live up north in the suburbs and every summer I get a slew of door to door pest control companies. What's odd is I'll see like 6 or 7 different companies in a summer that I've never heard of or seen any advertising. The next summer will be a whole new crop of brand new companies. It is always a different company that knocks but every rep has the exact same script. Do you fellow suburbanites get these and do you know what the deal is? It seems too weird to be legit.

Figured I’d ask here because we all would have a similar drive.

Either in Illinois or nearby out of state. But would like to make this a one night away deal with decent options on food, drink, shopping. Thanks! Hope this doesn’t get deleted!

I legit know nothing. In my life there were a few summers where I mowed a neighbor's lawn and a handful of times my mother made me plant flowers in our front yard.. outside of that I have killed many houseplants and I hate bugs. My whole life has been spoiled by upper middle class air conditioned living where I spent more time playing video games and surrounding myself with comforts than ever doing any real hard work. During the lockdown of the pandemic and till today I have been frequently considering selling my unnecessary luxury items, quitting my job, and buying land somewhere in the hopes to start a homestead then progress to a farmstead and then further progressing into growing a regenerative farm/permaculture business where I focus on organic and regenerative farming practices.. chickens, pigs, then maybe some dairy cows and possibly expanding from there. I have probably watched 100+ videos on youtube in the past 2 months on a variety of homesteading and regenerative/permaculture farming practices and can't get the idea out of my head. I suppose a part of me is yearning for a life with more purpose and meaning.. with earning something to be proud over.. and regenerative farming fills my heart with a vision that my life could mean something in a more rural community where I feel more connected to the earth and my fellow man and I could develop more as a human and give back to the earth and a community and to a future family. I feel delusional.. but I have dozens of online courses bookmarked and books to potentially get and a rough outline in my head on how I could make it happen. Both of my parents passed away before the pandemic from lifelong alcoholism and depression.. and their passing has given me a small inheritance which I think could make the transition doable..

I guess I just want to know from people in this sub... is that nuts? Are there stories like mine where people have gone from being so completely unskilled to being the next Joel Salatin?! (Maybe he's devisive for some.. i know so little that perhaps I'm foolish for mentioning him..)

My next thought is to maybe find a farm/farmstead to visit for a week and take some PTO to work/experience the life firsthand to see if I could even do it.. I don't know.. It's odd to be 35 and feel like you're in a midlife crisis but my whole life has been pretty depressing and the one thing I do know is that I need community, I need purpose, and I need to work hard at something to have a better life..