[Dawnsblood]

I feel sorry for their children. To think they are stuck with the last two people in the western world that still believe in hippies and communes.

[goldstategop]

Such people should really join a monastery. Very few people have the discipline to deny themselves worldly pleasures.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[FlingWingFlyer]

Dumb stories like this have been coming down the pike on a weekly basis since the 60s. It won’t be long before they show up at the local welfare office. I think a lot of people just crack under pressure and want to return to their prehistoric roots.

[rabscuttle385]

“The idea in the movement was ‘everything you own owns you,’” said Dr. Grigsby, who sees roots of the philosophy in the lives of the Puritans. “You have to care for it, store it. It becomes an appendage, I think. If it enhances your life and helps you do the things you want to do, great. If you are burdened by these things and they become the center of what you have to do to live, is that really positive?”

Now that's a nugget of gold right there.

Such a pity that FReepers are so quick to condemn these folks.

[LibFreeOrDie]

So they’re moving from Austin, TX to a remote cabin (no electricity) in central VT to be organic homesteaders?

Do they realize that VT has winters?

Have they ever grown enough food to sustain them for a year at a time?

He wants to keep his job as a telecommuting sysadmin, but doesn’t know if there’s even Internet access “in the woods.”

How will they feel about having to kill brush and trees to get space to grow food?

I’ve met turkeys smarter than them...

[2ndDivisionVet]

"I feel sorry for their children. To think they are stuck with the last two people in the western world that still believe in hippies and communes."

Have you ever been to Oregon, Vermont, San Francisco/Berkeley, etc.?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

What do they plan to organicly homestead if they do not own anything?

Dust mites?

Skin cells?

Silly people let's see how long you can live on air.

[buck jarret]

The story mentions some people who took their 3-year-old to live with them full time on a sailboat. Sounds like an extremely bad idea to me. I hope nothing happens.

[The Woim]

If it makes you happy, do it.

[gogov]

Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions.

call it homeless...althought I wonder if they might leave the shopping cart in the shopping center.

[yetidog]

Their idea is not altogether preposterous, rather a good idea just taken to an extreme. Retirees and other mid-life folks like myself and wife scale down all the time for reasons that are similar....and as choice that refutes the materialistic hardsell of “gated retirement communities” with “Robert Trent Jones” golf courses and “world class amenities.” My last house was a fully furnished 3000 sq. ft, but we now live (smaller) in a two bedroom 1600 sq. ft small town neighborhood home as an alternative to what a possession-obsessed society tells we should be doing. More power to anyone that recognizes the possibilities for happiness absent possessions and toys. (However, you can’t have my travel trailer!)

[workerbee]

attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned

I'm betting much of this is stored away collecting lots of interest in an account called Backup Plan.

[ought-six]

Their first New England winter will find them running back to civilization and greedily accumulating anything they can get their grubby hands on (especially warm stuff).

[Cenobite]

Utopia is, roughly translated, Greek for nowhere. I truly hope their children become union busting agents of the FBI

[WorkingClassFilth]

I'm O.K. with their idealism. Truth is, I partially agree. Many of our problems are related to the crap we think we need, the crap we have and the desire for crap we will never attain.

That said, good luck to these babes in the woods. Try homesteading today without the skills, tools and a sufficient level of industrial products and you're doomed to failure...

...or enlightenment.

[kalee]

Good luck to them. We have some friends who chose to do something similar. Their son now a young adult has other ideas. He could hardly wait to get off the homestead and into a city.

[Oztrich Boy]

Poverty to poverty in just one generation.

Why is everybody in the modern world in such a rush?

[maine-iac7]

Delanos and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a Mayflower settler, Isaac Allerton

LOL

I had many ancestors on the Mayflower - Allerton was one.

He is the only one I wish wasn't. He was a scoundrel...he enriched himself at the detriment of the colony...and was tolerated far longer than he should have been, due to his having married a daughter of the colony's beloved spiritual leader, Elder William Brewster (one of my 7th great great grandfather's.) Allerton was finally asked to leave the colony.

[PGR88]

it’s a nice idea, and indeed, over-attachment to material goods is a great spiritual hindrance BUT it should be noted, such a thing is ONLY possible in the United States and possibly a few other western countries. Many of you mentioned the security net of public health-care, welfare, etc... but even more basic - they will still access the wealth of the USA in ways they don’t even comprehend - access to clean water everywhere they go, eradication of once common diseases they will never have to worry about, good roads and efficient transport, etc... As one of you indicated - go try this India!

[Hot Tabasco]

dropping out of college, who grew up poverty-stricken

I grew up poor too.......underfed, over disciplined and just plain abused.

[sportutegrl]

. . . and, after a son and a daughter came along, toys, toys, toys.

Stepped on a few too many Legos barefoot, sounds like.