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The Sustainability of Rural Living


I logged 200 miles the other day. 200 miles. I one day. Multiply that by 20 (five days a week for four weeks), and you’ve got about 4000 miles at least that I’ve probably put on the company vehicles this summer as part of my internship. On the drive back to the office one evening I reflected on how far apart things are out here. It takes twenty minutes to get to the next town, thirty to the one after. The vehicles that populate the roads are mostly SUV’s, pick-up trucks, things that can tow a boat, a livestock trailer. They’ve all got their deer guard, some with a “Make America Great Again” sticker…few are compact and get anything better than 15 miles to the gallon.

It’s part of the culture out here to drive something robust, to serve all your towing needs. And as much as it pains me to be the smallest thing on the road (with my tiny Mazda 2, bike rack and all), it is in no way realistic for me to expect those around me to up and switch their vehicle of choice for a Prius because of how much gas it inefficiently combusts or spews noxious greenhouse gas emissions into the air. Doing so would be like asking the girl at the bakery I’m in to take all the American flags off the walls because it offends immigrants. People’s choice in their vehicle is just as much a point of pride as it is to be an American or Rural by Choice.

On return from Jewell County Fair


So what do you do? If you know that rural living necessarily requires significant mileage on a daily basis, and that you must have a certain amount of muscle to drag stuff behind you, how can you make the process less detrimental for the planet? Because believe me, I as much as the next guy am not going to complain about the process of driving around here being a hassle. In fact, traipsing across the countryside and enjoying the beautiful sunsets every evening it’s an impeccably smooth and relaxing journey (Kansas has some of the best roads in the country due to our awesome concrete mix). I’ve never quite enjoyed driving as much as I have this summer. But it still doesn’t solve the issue of contributing to a very dark and imminent problem known as global climate change.

Can we run cars on air? We’ve already tried transitioning to biofuel, and you see how well that’s worked out for us. What about smart carpooling? The whole smart car thing is soon to be ubiquitous, so we might as well embrace that. But there are a lot of times when I’m driving that I feel like I could be more productive if I didn’t actually have to drive. If I could just sit back, work on my projects for work, and enjoy the scenery, life would be just grand. Instead, I listen to podcasts like Plate of the Nation or audiobooks like Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain and contemplate my next steps forward in this food systems trajectory I am on.

After having mostly made the decision yesterday not to complete the dual MLA/MURP program at the University of Minnesota, I can’t stop thinking about what goals I have in life that I will and won’t accomplish through my degree program. A very wise professor told me a while back that there is no catch-all degree that will teach me everything I want to know. Even a handful of degrees will probably not offer me the skill set that I need to kick ass at life. But I’ve got a full ride in Minneapolis, so I’m going to take that and run. Free money is free money, and the network is, well, an awesome network.

Mostly I just keep thinking about the joys I will have from pursuing holistic medicine, agricultural escapades abroad, carpentry, graphic design and marketing, permaculture, and writing.

Today I realized I’m likely to become an entrepreneur very shortly after graduation. 

Waconda Lake with the farm gang!

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