I live on a farm. If you have read some of my other posts you know that I moved from the city to this farm about 14 years ago. Nearly 12 years ago my husband and I were sitting on the couch watching a reality TV show called Rock of Love, starring the former lead singer from the band Poison. It was about Bret Michael's search for love in what I could only assess was a sea of beautiful, thoughtful, and intelligent women. That night, two of the beautiful, thoughtful, and intelligent women were fist fighting each other for Bret's love, and that is when it happened. My husband went over to the TV, picked it up and threw it out the door and into the yard. He then ripped out our cable box, cords, and anything else that went along with it and chucked it out as well. This was a rather extreme symbolic demonstration of us getting rid of the TV but also a necessary one.
We were getting dumber. With the introduction of reality TV, shows like Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Wherever, or Keeping up with The Kardashians started to become the norm, rather than the kind of TV that my generation grew up watching. Smart comedies and dramas with good writing were starting to be replaced with reality TV and I admit, I was on that bandwagon. I didn't even realize what was happening until we pulled the plug.
I think more and more people have gone the way of getting rid of their televisions and cable services in favor of services like Netflix. 12 years ago when we did it, there were no other alternatives. So what did we do? We became productive. We started finding other ways to spend our time that were more fulfilling. It was around this time that we came up with the idea to host a music festival at our farm: See Home Grown Music Festival. We also started spending more time outside, whether it be the summer or the winter. We were also providing better opportunities for our children by not plopping them in front of a TV. Instead we were taking walks, growing a garden, and more:
We made homemade maple syrup from our own maple trees
Flying kites
Playing outside with our animals
Skateboarding - We put this ramp in on our farm when an old skateboarding warehouse went out of business in our town
Sledriding
I started teaching yoga and had yoga classes at our farm at sunset
It is 12 years later and while we still do not have a cable service, we do selectively watch movies and shows on services like Netflix or Amazon. I think these services are lending themselves to financing projects that are more worthwhile. We now see actors that typically only did movies moving into more of the television type programs or mini-series because the writing and the stories are of better quality.
Think about how much time you spend watching TV yourself, and then think about all of the other things you could be doing instead! KILL YOUR TV and live long and prosper!!!!
For more adventures from the farm, follow me here:
@jodiegolier
