I live in the rural west, did 4-H, my children have earned thousands of dollars selling their 4-H market animals. I paid only for the 1st animal/feed, after that they were self financing. 4-H clubs tend to have more male participants in the agricultural clubs, more females in the home-ec clubs.
All of my children regardless of gender can tag, castrate and shear lamb as well as spin and knit. The boys kinda suck at it, but they understand the engineering principles better than the girls.
I have butchered rabbit, deer, elk, lamb, beef and a large variety of fowl, wild and domestic as have most of my rural friends.
My experience is quite different and wonder if you actually live in the urban or suburban west rather than the rural west.
You are right about the government checks though. The government (all levels combined) is the largest employer in the county and outvote the farming community and then wonder why there are no jobs except government jobs and want to know why the food in a food growing region is so expensive.
Guess they couldn’t find directions to the Food Factory Outlet Mall. heh
Yes, things are different. It’s a gigantic, Republican majority county that’s very sparsely populated. Very few neighbors within ten miles and none within a mile. Mostly government and pensioners who don’t want any domestic animals, young men or otherwise working men or whole families around. They want “open space” and “sustainability” as in “no humans” except those with big accounts (”revenues”). There are impact fees, “wetlands” and the like, even though the climate is more like that of Mars than most places (high winds, colder than anywhere else in the USA and extremely dry). The main monsoon is during the winter with sometimes several feet of ice piling up and roads impassable. Soil is hard packed, sterile and evaporates very quickly. Policies and people are much like those of some combination of Germany and Italy.
On government checks, they want revenues from tourism only, except anyone who might consider being a resident for a short while to empty accounts a give up properties.
Oregon does have some relatively good communities and individuals. I have some relatives there. Portland, despite its negatives, even passed a permitting process for rocket stove mass heaters (first link below). That’s really something.
If you’re interested, the information follows. It’s not a commercial effort, and most of the building is done by the owners. It’s an “open source” home energy design effort, so to speak (very little wood used, much thermal mass for storing heat, very inexpensive to build,...).
http://www.ernieanderica.info/rocketmassheaterpermitting
http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp
http://www.permsteading.com/viewforum.php?f=6
http://donkey32.proboards.com/board/3/rocket-stoves-heating
http://donkey32.proboards.com/board/1/materials-casting-refractories-etc
I’m originally from the Midwest, BTW (’90s). Little culture shock there. ;-)
Oh...they haven’t solved the problem with those heaters and property insurance, yet. It seems that expensive lab testing hasn’t been designed for measurements on something like that. So it’s most suited to knowledgeable owner-builders.