Why does a recipe take three times the effort the first time it’s made? Or driving a new road in the dark take longer than the curvy valley road you grew up on? Movements that are skilled because of repetition and experience. Swimming, milking, sex, hoeing a garden, using a fishing pole, the experiences are innumerable. Things that are hard to teach from a distance because they need experience, yet so simple anyone can accomplish them if they’re willing to continue trying.
This is why we provide the hands on experience at our farm classes. Because you need to feel a dry cheese curd in a pot of liquid whey, you need to feel the joint between the leg and thigh on a chicken, you need to feel and see the knife cut the chops and the effort needed to sever the bone with a cleaver.
One dear student has attended many of our classes. Years ago he cut chickens for KFC. The agility and speed he still has with a knife on a chicken is impressive to say the least!
These things may not have value in a virtual reality, but on a homestead they are essential.
Homesteading, self sufficiency, farming, are a tremendous amount of work. It is such a rewarding work! There is real joy in a pleasant kombucha after gallons of flat, sour, vinegar. Genuine satisfaction in a made-from-scratch BLT or feeling those crunchy cheese crystals after waiting for months. Real pain from a smokey fire or blisters from the maul…but a weird accomplished feeling also! It truly is the little things that bring joy.