Riveting Content
Of course it’s no surprise. If you have been an idiot for 40 years chances are pretty solid you will be an idiot going forward. An additional platform isn't going to change that. Also, she refuses to do anything differently.
At least she is entertaining in that she gives us plenty of ridiculous to comment about.
HD. I’m laughing at your accurate description of Jenna. She’s made promises for years, but couldn’t keep them. Her stupid Substack won’t be any different. It’s fun to mock her here.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious how long shamsters think she'll keep this up? She promised 3 posts a week. She has flamed out very quickly in the past.
ReplyDeleteHow long will she keep up 3 posts per week, average of 12 per month?
one month? six? a year?
I can't see this lasting more than a year, I will be FLOORED if she does.
Again, if she can make a living from her substack, fabulous. Just don't be a scammer about it. And improve your animal husbandry like yesterday.
Agree it won’t last but how long before she starts begging on the substack? “Paypal a tip, it means so much”.
DeleteThe last post was pushing her chicken book. It shows how clueless she is about all this. Only the paid subscribers will see that promo, and only Jenna super-fans (less one of us shamsters) subscribe to her substack. Those people ALREADY HAVE HER BOOKS. They bought the books as soon as she published, probably.
DeleteShe does not understand sales funnels. She is treating substack like an early 2000s blog, when substack is the end of the funnel, not the beginning. Substack is where you push people who already bought your product, as a way to get them to continually buy into you.
At most, you offer your substack people the early release of newly published books - you don't try and resell them old books.
Paid content should be pretty much advertising-free.
For example, those "fishing diaries" - she could cobble together an e-book and publish one FREE post on her substack, and really make that post shine about fish and fishing and flyfishing, and whatever deep unique thoughts she thinks about / while she's fishing. Then direct people to subscribe to the substack to unlock more blog posts and buy my e-book of fishing journal entries from this summer.
Deletethen promote the shit out of that free post on instagram / twitter and try and get it cross-published with other substackers or on other publication platforms.
DeleteBoom. Sales funnel.
All this good advice but will she take it to heart and act on it? We know she hates being told what to do but realistically she needs to listen to those with knowledge of how this stuff works. I imagine her parents were constantly banging their heads against the wall when she was growing up.
DeleteThe pathological rejection of good guidance is called Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and it's very common in people with ADHD.
Deletehttps://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/oppositional-defiant-disorder
And it IS pathological. She's set herself back and hurt her own goals by reflexively and defensively rejecting any and all input to the point she doesn't think she can tolerate employment.
I wonder if her parents ever took her to therapy?
If they had her evaluated as a child they would not have caught the ADHD then, they were only diagnosing it in mostly boys or children with a specific collection of hyperactive behaviours.
Now ADHD in girls and women is much better understood, and she'd qualify for this and other diagnoses I'm sure, if she cared to get herself evaluated. It'd change her life for the better more than 1000 concert tickets or hand hooked rugs or led mushroom lights ever could.
There's some self-destructive behaviour she never got help with as a kid and couldn't help then. But since being a child she's grown into an adult with probably some personality disorders and certainly a ton of maladaptive thinking and behaviour. Oh and substance abuse.
On IG “I just spent 5 hours writing a new essay and accidentally deleted it because I’m new to this platform and am too disgusted to start over. New post tomorrow”
ReplyDeleteAnd so the excuses begin. Put the pipe down darlin’
lol. Spat my water out. Put the pipe down, darlin!!
DeleteI think you are on to something. I think with time this will become the norm as it has with 100 percent of her other scams. Accidentally deleted a post. Tooth hurt so bad I didn’t finish a post. Had no power, couldn’t write a post. Was up all night watching the stove, didn’t have time to write. Had to break ice in buckets be then haul buckets up a hill, didn’t write a post.
DeleteMark my words.
I feel sorry for the fools who jumped in and bought it for a year, like the guy who asked her which one she preferred and she laid it in thick how anything goes! (But yeh pay me for the year because I get the money upfront)
She may keep the substack for a year or longer, hell, it may become her new blog, but she won’t be posting consistently for long, or anything of quality.
Excuse the autocorrect above. Typing too fast. You get the gist! 😉
DeleteI guess that Jenna is too stupid to write her essay, then simply copy and paste it into Substack. She’s already making feeble excuses for not putting out promised posts. This is typical of every venture that she’s done. Talk about “disgusting.”
DeleteI call BS! She said 3 posts per week… she delivered 2 this week and then deleted the 3rd. As a writer who rights, Jenna should be using a document for her work and then putting it on sub stack. What if sub stack closes down, gets hacked, etc. she’ll lose all of her work if she’s not backing it up somewhere. I just don’t believe she’s that dumb. I believe she’s that much of a con artist though. If she spent 5 hours on one of her 3 essays this week this whole project is diminishing returns. But of course it’s all a scam as always.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I’ve said something similar above in my morning comment.
DeleteI thought the same thing. She’s either lying or she’s dumber than I thought.
DeleteThis is just like the videos people were promised if they paid $100 for 10. This was years ago. She uploaded ONE. The excuse was her bandwidth wasn't enough to upload content. No one got a refund.
ReplyDeleteSubstack is another con.
We agree that this is her “latest con.”
DeleteYup, the begathon is still on. Latest twitter post trying to convince potential subscribers that it’s a good deal, and cheaper to subscribe after getting it for free all these years. Actually, Jenna, if you weren’t so desperate to get subscribers, you would let the writing speak for itself. It’s not up to other people to pay your bills or make you feel safe.
ReplyDeleteNo normal adult expects their bills to be paid for by others. But Jenna has been begging for years. She uses manipulative marketing to elicit empathy from followers to filch free funds.
DeleteSuch disdain for her readers 😱
ReplyDeleteTwitter, March 2022: "I've...kept a farm journal online for over 15 years. It's all free to read and learn from..."
X, November 2023: Wog wants $96 per year from each reader... "after 2 decades of giving it to you for free 🖤"
Once again, she's betrayed reader trust. For years, she proclaimed that her blog would remain free of charge and encouraged her readers to browse. Now she wants money for recycled content. As Anon says, GFY.
Substack should consist of new, appealing essays, worth $96 per year. That's how it works, darlin'.
PDD
Her hypocrisy is astounding. She’s recycling a lot of crappy content, but demanding to be paid for what was once free. “GFY, Jenna.”
DeleteOn IG she says she has a new essay up about growing up in PA. She also shames her readers… only 1/3 of her sub stack readers are paid readers and she needs support to be a writer!!! Maybe spend more time delivering quality content and less time bitching. You are not going to solve your financial woes 2 weeks into a new venture that you’ve already messed up!
ReplyDeleteHaha. Wog is gonna Wog.
DeleteShe has, let's say, 35 monthly subscribers. If they each pay $8/month, Substack keeps 10% plus 3% for credit card processing. That means she'll receive about 35 × $7/mo direct deposits ($245) per month. Wow. A whopping $56 per week (before taxes). Plus, no benefits!
Badgering trial subscribers is a sure way to encourage them to pay a subscription rate that's equivalent to a major magazine or newspaper, when they're on sale.
Maybe she should mention she can't befriend straight women and lives alone on the side of a mountain??? 🤪
PDD
And here it is, darlins! As predicted, the excuses will start showing up. A deleted post here, not enough subscribers to make it worth her time there. It’s been less than two weeks and she is already looking for ways out, and flaking.
DeleteTypical, typical, chronic Jenna.
If I understand the way this is working is that the ones who paid for a year's subscription and the founding members have paid now, in November, so assuming that will be the majority of those people for awhile, and they don't have to pay again until next year, her next month's income will be her monthly subscribers @ $8. each, and any new suckers she draws in. I can see a big dip in next month's income, although she may get more pity donations if people feel more connected to her (self-imposed) plight. She'd better keep slopping those pigs!
Delete“When I think of my hometown I think of rocks.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the small town of Palmerton, Pennsylvania - a defunct factory town tucked beside a mountain. I had the quintessential childhood, the kind you only see on television now. I had a swingset in the backyard, birthday parties with a dozen classmates, paper valentines dropped into lunch bags, all the hits. The town felt safe and I played outdoors all day till the street lamps came on. Yet under the veneer of ice skating rinks and a local milkman still delivering dairy to our front door—it was the kind of town constantly trying to prove it was something it wasn’t—which I could relate with.
I was raised pure 90s middle class. My mom was a teacher, my dad was a salesman. They’re both retired now, living in the same beautiful 22-room house bought in 1976 for $27,000. The wide street in front of my parents’ house was lined with beautiful beech trees. I remember whipping past them on my ten speed, kicking up leaves like golden sparks.
Little me. I was the only cheerleader with a mullet.
Deleteideal as it all sounds, there was an uncanniness to Palmerton. It was a planned town and had the ever-present feeling of growing up in an abandoned theme park repurposed as a strip mall. Everything within the town’s city limits was manicured lawns and free-range children playing flashlight tag, but if you looked up at the mountain looming over main street, all you saw was brown. Things had trouble growing in Palmerton. It’s a pesky side effect of being slowly poisoned for half a century.
For being a quaint town in the Northeast, it looked like a sanded-down version of the Southwest. My memories of being a kid there include red and orange hillsides, scrub vegetation, dramatic ridges of slab rock and boulders. The town had a weird geography, the memories of the last of the ice age’s glaciers that came here to die. A lazy river passed through a gap in the rolling mountains, all barren of vegetation. It wasn’t pretty but it was mine. The library was top notch. I’ll give them that.
Palmerton reminded me of the fort towns I had to pass through while playing Oregon Trail in my elementary school—but instead of booming with pioneer spirit—it had faded slowly into a reminder of what it had been, back when the two giant plants on each end of town supported hundreds of families.
Back then, in the town’s heyday, there were jobs of all sorts - everything from dairy farms to shirt factories. The main street was full of post-war businesses and the mountains were green and full of life. Towns like this ebb and flow with their populations. Some decline into ruins, some prosper into tourism sweethearts. Palmerton refused to do either, but did learn to adapt in its own way. I will always have a grudging respect for it. I liked that it reminded me of that educational computer game, a safe place to stop while on the adventure of a lifetime.
DeleteI liked playing “Oregon Trail” IRL too. I’d set up me and my sister’s cabbage patch plush horses at the foot of my bed and use jump ropes and terry-cloth robe belts to make bridles and lines back to the edge of my mattress. I’d snap the lines and tell my doggies to git along, flicking the rumps like I had seen in movies. It didn’t take long for the canopy on my little girl’s twin bed to turn into the wooden frame and canvas of a covered wagon. My favorite stuffed animals were at my side - wolves and bears and oversized cats. (I was not the kind of girl that liked dolls.) I had packed two hard salami sandwiches and two packages of Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets, because I knew provisions were key for a cross-continental trek. I had a super soaker for protection. What more could a frontier woman possibly need?
That game absolutely enchanted me. What was more exciting than heading out on an epic journey to find home!? Not happy where you’re at? Well Lady, hitch up some oxen and go forth and find your own happiness and purpose! It’s not where you started, and even if it is, you won’t have the perspective to appreciate it if you stay put. That was what that primitive computer game taught me. I didn’t know who Joseph Campbell was then, but I was already an ardent believer. The Hero's Journey was the whole point of life to this chubby, bifocaled, mess of a girl. That computer game is probably why I was so enchanted by another famous route that passed through my hometown, The Appalachian Trail.
DeleteIf you grew up in a town big enough to have a laundromat and convenience store a few miles from the Appalachian Trail, you’re living in what hikers call a “Trail Town”. If you’re not familiar with the practice; towns situated a few miles off the AT are frequent stops for the long-distance hikers who could really use a shower, laundromat, and cheeseburger. Palmerton was one of those Trail Towns; a refuge for people on a heroic journey.
This was a point of pride for me. It was arguably the coolest thing about my town. I idolized the Thru-Hikers (backpackers who were hiking the entirety of the trail from Georgia to Maine in one summer). I watched them pass through my town like cowboys. Inexplicably, that pride eluded most of Palmerton’s residents; at least the residents I was growing up around.
My parents didn’t talk about the trail. Their friends didn’t share stories of picking up hitchhiking AT hikers and driving them to the hostel in our town hall. My piano teacher down the street never mentioned them, or talked about how steep the climb back onto the trail was from Lehigh Gap. This blew my pre-teen mind. To me it was like growing up two miles from the Vegas Strip and never even pulling the lever on a slot machine or not knowing how to give tourists directions to the Bellagio? How could all these people NOT be drawn to the trail? Not even a little curious to understand what compelled people to walk 2,000 miles with everything they needed strapped to their backs?
DeleteNo, the locals weren’t that invested. And why should they be? This will always be a problem for me, trying to comprehend apathy towards feral choices. They weren’t kids pretending to drive a team of oxen across a bitter landscape for fun, and they didn’t ask for the Trail to be a few miles from their tire shops or pizza places.
And as for the long-distance hikers? Honestly, they weren’t that invested either. The trail in Pennsylvania is hated by even the biggest fans of the footpath because the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania is mostly rocks. And if you are finally reaching this state—the result of nearly a thousand miles of (comparatively) deliciously-mindless walking—having to question and carefully place every step with the weight of a 9-year-old on your back is the equivalent of driving on the outskirts of a hurricane for hours - not impossible, but exhausting. Nothing is more exhausting than constant caution.
But if you’ve been dealing with intense anxiety since you were 12 years old; your body adapts. When constant wariness is already your MO, navigating jagged rocks is a welcomed distraction.
DeleteSo I learned to walk on rocks…
{Part 2 coming tomorrow morning.}
If you’re wondering why I am sharing all this, I wanted to write about how my personal story, starting as a kid, lead to such an unconventional life. I’m not publishing a whole auto-biography here going through each life stage, but if something in my past is a huge reason I
needed up a woman who knows more about harnessing draft horses than ordering a Lyft, you’re going to hear about it.
This is the first part of a long-form essay about my childhood and what first showed me a there were all sorts of different choices and lives to be experienced. I am not sure this is the kind of writing you want, but I’m giving it a shot this weekend.
Thank you so much for choosing to support this farm.“
Now, I need a second, strong cup of coffee after posting her puerile crap.
DeleteOf course, as always, Jenna couldn’t be bothered to do careful editing. I see several, stupid errors.
DeleteThe only thing ‘unconventional’ about her life is her refusal to work. Many people live a rural existence, many people are gay, there are many artists and writers out there who support themselves through their art. What makes her unconventional is that she begs online.
DeleteSFF. One of the most annoying aspects about Jenna is the delusion that her hobbyist homesteader lie-style is unique.
DeleteWog was born in 1982. In 1983, EPA established a toxic Superfund Site in her hometown. Coincidence? I think not!
ReplyDeletePDD
LOL!!!
Deleteheavy metal poisoning, holy hell. Quick google search found a study showing that kids in Chile who were exposed to heavy metals were associated with an increased risk in developing ADHD.
DeleteWhile this is known to be a genetic disorder, it's looking like the brain damage associated with heavy metal exposure in childhood seems to be correlated.
How tragic if all of this was linked to heavy metal poisoning exacerbating a genetic predisposition to a neurological disability.
the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1438463919307114#:~:text=The%20meta%2Danalysis%20suggested%20that,those%20exposed%20to%20lower%20levels.
Deletehere's another one from Taiwan.
Delete"Our study’s strength came from measuring various metals, as well as demonstrating the effect in subjects with a formal ADHD diagnosis that is based on DSM-IV-TR criteria. Our findings indicate metals’ relationship to susceptibility to ADHD, especially for Pb, Cd, and Sb. Children’s neurocognitive function is particularly correlated to Pb levels. "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6025252/
This one is really sad. It's worth clicking on and scrolling down to see the charts showing the spikes in ADHD criteria in relation to blood levels of various heavy metals, three of which were present in Jenna's hometown.
DeleteSo. Fucking. Sad.
ADHD is known to increase the risk of oppositional defiant disorders, conduct problems, delinquency and substance abuse, as well as impaired school performance, social competence, behavioral and emotional adjustments [13]. Considering the prevalence, seriousness and impact of ADHD on affected children and their parents with negative consequence on scholastic performance and adult mental health outcomes, preventative measures including attention to environmental risk factors including heavy metal exposure should receive sufficient attention
https://academic.oup.com/tropej/article/57/6/457/1735767
Zinc is the biggest culprit in the last study and guess what they called the site in Palmerton? "The Palmerton Zinc Pile".
DeleteFolks... we might actually have an answer here.
That could very well be. If that is true, so very sad.
DeleteI'm intimately familiar with superfund sites. I live near the largest one in the nation. Thankfully I didn't grow up within the damage zone. "Today, it [Silver Valley Idaho] is the largest contiguous Superfund site in the nation – 1,500 square miles (3,885 square kilometers) across northern Idaho and eastern Washington."
https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-the-bunker-hill-mine-fire-caused-one-of-the-largest-lead-poisoning-cases-in-us-history-idahos-silver-valley-is-still-at-risk-210452
That is so interesting. You both may be on to something which shines a bit of a light on the way she is.
DeleteA hundred unnecessary adjectives aside.
I don’t see how anyone would be interested enough to stick around for this type of a story, if that’s where she is heading.
ReplyDeletetest
ReplyDeletetest
Deletetest
DeleteWell she split one boring tale into 2 parts to keep up her weekly essay rate, I’ll tell you that much for free, Hoo!
ReplyDeleteHer editor told her they weren’t interested in her memoir for good reason. Snooze fest! Nobody cared about the Appalachian trail but me! Wah wah! People were working and paying bills Jenna.
Is there a typo for how many rooms her parents house has? 22? It might be Jenna math because that seems like a lot.
Thought the same thing. 22 rooms must be a typo or a plain lie.
DeleteIf it really was 22 rooms, then she did not grow up middle class. That's upper class.
DeleteThe 22 rooms threw me, too. If it’s not a typo, then her parents weren’t “working class.” But Jenna has always made a point that she’s not from family money, and doesn’t have a trust fund.
DeleteWho accidentally types 22 rooms? What's that a typo from? 2 rooms? did she mean 2 bedrooms? But she has at least one sibling and has never mentioned sharing a bedroom, so this makes no sense at all. 8 bedrooms is crazy-big and might have 22 rooms. For her parents' position I figure it's a 3 bed 2 bath typical middle class 1990s single family home.
Delete
ReplyDeleteOh, let me see if I can add to her rags-to-bitc$%$ story, using her OWN quotes.
I was born and raised in "the kind of town constantly trying to prove it was something it wasn’t—which I could relate with." (It) reminded me of that educational computer game, a safe place to stop while on the adventure of a lifetime."
Now that I'm a public figure and published author, I look back and see that hints of my future feral self were everywhere. Even though mullets were popular and I was sufficiently conventional to want to be a cheerleader (like my prettier sister) I knew deep down that I was special and destined for an amazing life: "Little me. I was the only cheerleader with a mullet."
It doesn't take a degree in psychology to see that seeds of my personal discontent were sown early. My older sister, attractive, personable and popular, was everything I wasn't. I couldn't compete, so like middle-school children everywhere, I did "opposites ".
Her hair was a shimmery blond; mine was drab. She wore fashionable clothes; I wore trash. She could succeed in a conventional life; I'd be opposite! That'll show them!
Early on, I created a fictional persona to match the name the boys had given me: the Beast. I drew furry fan art, werewolves and all sorts of predators. I dressed in flannel and dreamed of ways in which I could leave the family, school and town where I was the loser daughter. I'd take on hobbies where I'd be the protagonist of my own fantasy story.
Pennsylvania would be in my rear view mirror. In Palmertown, every day and in every way, I didn't win. "It’s not where you started, and even if it is, you won’t have the perspective to appreciate it if you stay put."
Yeah, I left town and went to a college with assistance from my parents. (They support Trump, so I don't talk about them or help.) After moving several states, I figured that I'd finally shown them how very SPECIAL I was.
Guys, it was a HUGE disappointment that no one cared, especially not my family who were publicly embarrassed. Like a hiker on the Appalachian trail, "...the locals weren’t that invested. And why should they be? This will always be a problem for me, trying to comprehend apathy towards feral choices."
It's bitchin' hard to realize you'll never meet your self-imposed standards for success, because you're disorganized, chaos-driven, self-centered and easily distracted. Add to this, my lack of empathy, disinterest in working for others or taking solid advice, and I've created the perfect dissatisfaction loop. The less I do, the more I need outside help. The more I beg for outside help, the worse I feel and the less I do.
"Nothing is more exhausting than constant caution... But if you’ve been dealing with intense anxiety since you were 12 years old; your body adapts. When constant wariness is already your MO, navigating jagged rocks is a welcomed distraction.
So I learned to walk on rocks…"
More to come.
Like reading my litany of complaints and pats on my back for dull lifestyle choices??? Send money, so I can cater to my whims and refuse to act like an adult and pay my own way. Venmo, PayPal, Substack - they mean so much.
PDD
PS, if her latest post is what she sent to editors, no wonder they turned her down 😅
PS. PDD here. Individual quotes are hers. The rest is my opinion of what she's all about.
DeleteGreat comment!
DeleteBrava PDD
Delete“I practiced by walking on rocks whenever I could. I’d run across the top of the stone wall on my block. I’d jump from boulder to boulder in the park. My first trip to the ER was for stitches because I busted my lip open jumping across those rocks in that park. People take up falconry with less bloodshed.
ReplyDeleteAs I grew into a teen I started to identify as the outdoorsy girl who felt comfortable with physical adversity far away from other people. I spent more and more time outdoors, in abandoned and overgrown neighborhood areas I could explore with my dog or bike to before I had a driver's license. When I got that license I was on trails all over Carbon County. This was the rebellion I allowed myself to have. I didn’t want to go to parties, smoke weed, or drink. I wanted to find secret places in the forest and read books about forgotten gods. Honestly, don’t know how I didn’t realize I was a lesbian sooner.
But I kept moving across those rocks.
After a while you get used to hardship. You grow an armor from disinterest in discomfort. You recover from twisted ankles, bandage the cuts, and gradually move faster.
Hoo! With my dense badger body I could dance across those rocks. My short, broad-shouldered frame offered a lot of muscle and an enviable center of gravity. I was like a stone covered in velcro on those ridges. The way that every single step had to be planned, had to be considered, I loved that.”
I remember one day being with some friends outside and having to navigate boulders around the edge of the pond. I bopped around with ease, moving from rock to rock barefoot. One of my guy friends talked to me later that night, in confidence, asking how I was able to do that? Run across a line of boulders in the time it takes most people to get from the couch to the TV? I shrugged and told him I had practiced a lot, and then felt ashamed for doing something so well that wasn’t correctly feminine. He frowned and said I “acted weird out on the rocks, like an animal”. It clearly made him uncomfortable. That was when I noted that I should probably be alone in the woods or just around other girls. Whatever I learned on the rocks outside town wasn’t what boys wanted to see.
DeleteDid I mention my hometown, this “Trail Town” that taught me to love the outdoors and molded my body into a half-goat mountain maiden was a goddamned EPA Superfund Site?
Those red rocks and southwestern ridges I scrambled across weren't just the result of a glaciers’ endgame. My town killed its wildness. Literally poisoned it. In a region of the country known for rolling green mountains, glorious fall foliage, and Amish idealism - I grew up in a factory town that killed its mother. I hiked in places that more closely resembled nuclear fallout than stock photos in Backpacker Magazine. This was also an important part of my falling in love with the outdoors. I fell in love with something so clearly broken.
Palmerton was a planned factory town designed by the New Jersey Zinc Company, which started its business out of Pittsburgh back when most of Pennsylvania was exploding with boomtowns because of the growing fossil fuel industries. Oil was first struck in PA. Coal lined every mountain bed. This was a state that knew how to burn. Or in Palmerton’s case, smelt.
The plant outside town smelted zinc into powder. The powder was (mostly) used in the making of better steel. And for 50 years heavy metals were released in billowing clouds of poisonous smoke that devastated the local ecology and that’s what made our town look more like Arizona. And if you were hiking on the Appalachian Trail in the late nineties, the closer you got to Palmerton the more vegetation disappeared. By the time you were standing over my town looking down at the Lehigh River, all that was left was rocks, dust, and the husks of what used to be trees that entropied into writhing ghosts, like something out of a Tim Burton movie.
DeleteBut you can’t help where you’re born and if you’ve got the call of the wild rattling around your ribcage you take what you can get. Even if my entry to that epic trail wasn’t beautiful, it was still my doorway to paradise. At least I knew the way. Within a few miles in either direction there were green trees and wildlife and rollicking waterfalls and other proper features of outdoor adventure. It didn’t matter to me if my trail started ugly. It was close and my hiking boots were my golden ticket. I’d be a Thru Hiker someday.
Good Lord, I wanted to be like those sexy nomads. I wanted to look like them. I wanted their hardship and the dignity that can leak from it. I wanted their tans and muscles and miles. I wanted their literal burdens, because strapped to their torso was everything a person needed to walk away and never look back. Leave. Just walk into the forest and set up camp a safe distance from the constant hum of anxiety.
DeleteAnd they were the most beautiful people in the world to me, a baby dyke, with Slavic genes better suited to wrestling bears than modeling outdoor apparel. Especially the women. I was so intimidated by them. They still remain archetypes in my mind. Thin, muscular, turned into athletes through the rock tumbler that is my state. Goddesses.
I never stopped comparing myself to them. I didn’t have the courage to even admit to myself I liked girls, much less walk across a continent. But I never let envy taint my admiration. I would’ve drank their bath water if it made me feel a little braver.
Sidenote: here’s a fairly recent video of AT hikers dealing with the trails I hiked over my town, in which she just calls The Superfund Site. This is where I would get dropped off and hike and watch the green turn to dust before walking down the Lehigh Gap, then along the highway, and then to my Main street (Delaware Ave), and then a few blocks home. It’s been a few decades since I hiked it, and the EPA has done a wonderful job helping replant and heal the mountain, but it’s still rocky as all get out.
DeleteAll these contributing factors are why there was so much romanticism in backpacking to me. Thru Hikers were Mother Nature’s pilgrims consuming whatever views and foodstuffs they wanted as they traveled through the wilderness in peak physical condition. I became a zealot, certain the trail could cure me. Make me stronger, smarter, prettier. Give me the ability to share a story that people actually wanted to hear over a beer at a pub.
The Appalachian Trail is an unreasonably hard thing to do. People quit who are making documentaries or writing books they already got advances for. And yet here they still were, in my town, over a thousand miles from where they started. Somehow more beautiful and ethereal than I would ever be AND after sleeping on the ground and not showering for a week straight? Absolute Legends.
You see, they escaped. Not just their hometowns or sedate bodies - but escaped the path I knew I would be on. There was no question about your future in the Woginrich Household. Life went like this: school, college, career, marriage, kids, and then your children’s school, college, careers, marriages, and kids, and so on into forever until you died. I remember finding out in fourth grade at an older cousin’s graduation that not everyone was going to college and being absolutely shocked. I didn’t know a 4-year university was optional. I was taught that college was what a decent citizen did with their lives. They sure as hell didn’t walk across a country avoiding jobs and families to “play in the woods”. No, a standard non-degenerate woman had a safe car, a 9-5 job, insurance(s), a husband, kids that also thought college was mandatory until they were 11 and voted on election day. That is how I was brought up, and you know what, my parents were right because there was nothing decent about my path ahead.
DeleteI knew what was inside me was to be avoided at all costs. I was scared of disappointing my parents, who already saw me as an increasingly odd and distant child. Why was this sweet Catholic girl - the first female altar server in her church’s history - toting around Appalachian Trail memoirs and brutish fantasy novels? Why had she seen Braveheart two dozen times when all her friends were memorizing lines from Clueless? Why was she dressing in her dad’s oversized sweaters and entering karate tournaments instead of taking dance lessons and cheerleading like her sister? Why wasn’t she a nice normal girl?
DeleteShe’s a rock walker. Watch out.
I was raised in a middle-class home always striving towards a higher standard of living, which was exactly what my parents had been told their entire lives they were supposed to do as red-blooded Americans. I can’t fault them because they ended up raising three decent kids, all of which grew up to be tax-paying, felony-free, voting homeowners.
You won’t find me tearing apart their parenting on this platform. They are good people that did the best they could with the resources they had at the time, and life threw them a hopelessly feral child. No, my parents aren’t monsters for not being bastions of liberal thinking in 1996 when their very gay daughter wore mens’ hiking shorts and an oversized LL Bean polar fleece out to dinner. Sometimes being politely tolerated is the best anyone can do.
DeleteAnother thing that kept me in the closet was my horrifically-low self esteem. I stayed away from activities with a lot of my peers outside clubs or academics. My parents were worried about drugs, alcohol, and teen pregnancy; not hikers. I stayed far from those vices out of fear of upsetting my mom and kept my grades acceptably high, and that was all I needed to do to keep suspicion off. There was a lot of don’t ask don’t tell around my spare time.
So what was I, a terrified gay youth doing with her secret time?
I was on those rocks, of course.
I’d walk along the ridges behind my highschool to the next town. I got a part time job at an indoor rock climbing gym, the first ever to open near my town, and learned the ropes. I started setting up my own climbs in the wilderness. A common Saturday afternoon was parking in the closed-for-the-season public swimming pool’s parking lot and finding old trails. I’d walk past the disgusting graffiti and beer cans into wilder places. There, myself and other friends would boulder, set up top-rope belay climbs, bring our dogs and packed lunches and cosplay a kind of outdoor bum life we only really saw in catalog spreads. It was adorable.
We become as adults who we needed as children. Pic by Dona McAdams.
DeleteBut all that weekend rock climbing and hiking on the AT was training to me, not the real thing. I wanted a Lord-of-the-Rings level journey; to cross the wilderness and come home again safe. In truth, I was far better at reading about adventures than going on them. By my late teens I had devoured plenty of Thru-hiking memoirs but also an unhealthy diet of novels about working besides wolves and trained dragons, and all I wanted was to live more like fiction. Escape this small town with a giant church and a small television, because both kept telling me I wasn’t the right kind of girl. Alone on a horse looking over mountains, my wolves by my side, that was freedom. Not all this algebra homework and another rerun of Night Court.
The Appalachian Trail remains my golden ticket. I haven’t Thru-Hiked it yet, and now that my ankle may be permanently damaged, I may never hike it again. So please know that while I am the woman you watched quit her job and live her rural dream life, there are plenty of dreams that will probably never become reality for me, just like everyone else. But the notion, even if in theory, a woman can throw on a pack and walk away for 2,000 miles is still my saving grace.
And that’s why this first act in my life starting out neat on the rocks; because I still associate hiking with freedom from anxiety and judgement, a baptism from volleyed shame I never asked for. I convinced myself that nature heals. Whether it actually does or doesn’t is above my paygrade.
I wish I didn’t spend a lifetime learning to love what I love the hardest way possible. But that is my way. That is how lessons stick. I learned to hike scrambling up boulders and sliding on skree. I learned to accept my love of women through mythology, witches, wilderness, and solitude.
I now live in upstate New York now, near the Vermont Border. The trail is still close. Within 30 minutes of closing this laptop I could be walking on it. There are boots and a daypack in the car just in case such an impromptu need arises. I’m not afraid to limp home if it still brings me peace.
DeleteLearning to walk across rocks as a child was good. The scrapes, the stitches, the twisted ankles - they all carried me closer to something beautiful. They trained me to expect hardship and ugliness, to use it as a tool to make myself stronger and more sure footed. But it never escaped me that all I wanted to do was leave. I’d find a way out. I’d find a secret place where I could pull a woman close by the waist and whisper to her every secret I knew about running barefoot across stones. We’d grow the toughest calluses on our paws together,
somewhere greener.
Thank you so much for choosing to support this farm.”
What a crock of crap. “I’ll tell you that much for free. Hoo!!!”
Delete“I can’t fault them because they ended up raising three decent kids, all of which grew up to be tax-paying, felony-free, voting homeowners.”
DeleteI’d say “two decent kids,” and the third is an animal abusing criminal who hasn’t been convicted for her actions yet. Her home was only made possible because of begging from followers from the start.
“You won’t find me tearing apart their parenting on this platform. They are good people that did the best they could with the resources they had at the time, and life threw them a hopelessly feral child. No, my parents aren’t monsters for not being bastions of liberal thinking in 1996 when their very gay daughter wore mens’ hiking shorts and an oversized LL Bean polar fleece out to dinner. Sometimes being politely tolerated is the best anyone can do.”
DeleteJenna always has to be the most “hopelessly feral,” special snowflake of all. We wore clothes like hers, and it was acceptable. There’s nothing unique about her stupid story. Millions of people are gay. Big deal.
“Whether it actually does or doesn’t is above my paygrade.”
DeleteBeing a beggar doesn’t have “a paygrade.”
I laughed out loud at Wog's hyperbolic description of herself as some sort of glacial-till ninja.
Delete"One of my guy friends talked to me later that night, in confidence, asking how I was able to do that? Run across a line of boulders in the time it takes most people to get from the couch to the TV? "
Sure, Wog. You may have forgotten that many of us saw videos where you huffed & puffed, walking on the flat or up a gentle incline. You weren't in any kind of shape, and not the kind you pretend to have.
You remain a legend in your own mind.
PDD
PDD. Exactly. Wog can only waddle to Walmart now. Her “badger body” is bullshit.
DeleteWe’ve watched Wog as she used to run on roads around town. She’s got all the “grace” of a gorilla not gazelle.
DeleteThere’s nothing nimble about Jenna.
DeleteI want to add, thanks, to our benefactor for posting her Substack crap. I’ve just been helping them here in pasting it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the help, JJ
DeleteYou’re welcome!
Delete“Born under a trailer outside Houston, and ended up on a lesbian farm in New York. He could do worse.”
ReplyDeleteHer cat “could do better.”
“Hey friends! Last week I launched my substack, I’m offering 3 essays/Farm updates a week for $8 a month. This is my chance to make a living writing and no longer scrambling on platforms like this desperately trying to make sales.”
ReplyDeletePay me for more rotten writing about my lie-style.
She says, while scrambling on the platform to, yep, make sales.
Delete“I started a substack. Yes, everyone has one. But this one is a gateway into a feral lesbian homesteading falconer and the writing is better than you think.”
ReplyDeleteHer rotten writing isn’t any “better than you think.” The filthy “feral” failure is still the same lying, lazy loser.
Not “everyone has one.” We’re writers and don’t. That’s more of her hyperbole, and blatant lying.
DeleteIt should be “I’ve.” And there should be a comma after falconer. Enough, already with the “feral” obsession. It stinks. Just like Jenna.
DeleteI can’t believe that 200 fools have subscribed to her Substack.
ReplyDeleteThere’s no accounting for poor taste. I’m sure that some are only there to watch the train wreck.
DeleteNew free repost on the substack - repost of the "barnheart" entry
ReplyDeleteHer Substack crap is mostly recycled posts from the old blog.
DeleteThis was the worst post yet. She really believes she is all that and a bag of chips.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you wrote. Why would hundreds of people pay to read her rotten writing? It makes no sense.
DeleteShe communicates like a child. How is running on rocks still the best thing in her life? She’s in her forties FFS.. Also it seems she left out the part about yearning for a man to breathe her name and get drunk with. So much for transparency. She sure likes to cherry pick her life events. So disingenuous.
DeleteSFF. Jenna is very “disingenuous” about everything. I remember that lame line. It was something stupid like “I want a man to only exhale my name.” Her years of “yearning,” and blogging about wanting a man appeared to be heartfelt. Funny, how she’s obliterating all of that now.
DeleteExactly, owning up to being unsure about her sexuality is more genuine than calling herself a “baby dyke”.
DeleteSFF. Jenna refuses to accept any adult accountability for her actions, and that includes trying to wipe out her history. Even though there’s ample proof that she’s wanted a romance with men for years. And has even said that she wasn’t a lesbian in a Reddit post.
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/s/YA0DpGVpna
DeleteHere’s the post where Jenna says that she’s not a lesbian. Reddit receipts last a long time.
More Reddit receipts:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/coldantlercritics/s/8hXfJYn1TG
I would like to sincerely thank and apologize to, the shamster who so generously is reposting here BUT. BUT.
ReplyDeleteI can not. This latest one is vomit upon vomit upon vomit. I am sorry you worked so hard to post it here but I can not bring myself to do any more than scan this pile of shit writing.
As someone above pointed out, if this is what her editor got-no effing wonder she got rejected.
My gosh. I have no words. This is so tedious and full of ramblings. I see she stopped proofreading again.
Gah. I can’t.
I’ve lost a few brain cells after reading her rotten writing, too. Jenna can’t be bothered to either edit the multiple mistakes, or polish her purple prose.
Delete“By my late teens I had devoured plenty of Thru-hiking memoirs but also an unhealthy diet of novels about working besides wolves and trained dragons, and all I wanted was to live more like fiction. Escape this small town with a giant church and a small television, because both kept telling me I wasn’t the right kind of girl.”
ReplyDeleteAnd here you have the start of her stupid motto “Live like fiction!” In addition to a fixation on wolves. She’s never “grown up.” Jenna still lives in “a small town” that loathes her for being a lying, lazy loser.
Jenna is still the same immature teen that she once was. Her fantasy, faux farm is a reflection of a stunted emotional development. And she’s too stupid to see it.
DeleteMoving to a big city might have been a better choice. Everyone fits in and no one cares.
DeleteAnonymous 3:49. I’ve said the same thing about her “moving to a big city.” She’d also have a better chance at meeting more people, and perhaps, a potential partner.
Deletetest
ReplyDeleteEffing FINALLY!!! Lol.
DeleteFirst off, a big thanks to the Anon (1:24 two threads ago) who took one for the team and got access to the Substack shitshow. You are AWESOME!! I'm also enjoying someone else's new user name, Juicy Jenna, haha perfect!
And...330 columbia avenue palmerton pa is NOT a 22 bedroom house. Maybe she meant 2 bedroom, in which parents had one bedroom, golden favored sister had the other, brother that Jenna never talks about had the converted den, and they put Jenna in the basement with the other vermin. Sounds about right.
Anon7. I’m glad that you’re finally posting again. I knew that the 22 rooms was probably another lie.
DeleteJenna knows how many rooms are in her family’s home. This is one more example of her blatant lying.
DeleteYAAAAAY! So glad you're finally able to post again! Thank you for the clarity on her house.
DeleteThis is old news from her Instasham where she announced her big news:
ReplyDelete"You guys see me out here, sharing links to my most personal and vulnerable writing to hundreds of readers for free, and then trying all month to make a living from scraps."
How careless and utterly insulting to her foollowers. Imagine, you are a Jenna supporter and you don't need anything, but you make a pity purchase anyway to keep her afloat. And then she turns around and calls your sale a "scrap." What an ungrateful bitch!
Jenna is really missing the fact that influencers that make $ took advantage of that early blogging boom and kept at it. Jenna basically didn’t do anything but stayed stagnant. Building up a following and making a living using essentially the same formula she was using 15 years ago is ignorant. People are using YouTube and tik tok and probably things I don’t know about to funnel people and their cash! She expects to put excerpts of her blog and the book no one would publish up ( a memoir from someone who does nothing) and make a living. Life doesn’t work that way. She manages to leave the farm for dates in the Adirondacks so she can leave for a part time job!
DeleteI find it very interesting that since she started her sub stack, she has way less obsessive posts about TS and being a lesbian. She’s probably making Pennie’s per hour on this new venture since she took 5 hours to write that “boys don’t like rock smashing” post. The way Jenna describes the scene, she was on all fours making her way across the rocks grunting like an animal. In real life, she probably went across the rocks on foot and the boy was like “cool” I’m going get some frie, see you at school”. Jenna turns it into why she decided to turn to girls. I’m straight but I’ll tell you this much for free, girls would be way meaner to her for jumping around like an animal on rocks with a mullet than any boy would be!
Mullets are coming back in style. Stay tuned for Jenna to reveal her new ‘do’. Maybe then she would finally stop wearing that filthy handkerchief on her head.
DeleteSFF. Jenna has never had any sense of style. That dirty schmatte looks stupid, but it hides her hair.
DeleteI think Jenna's hair has been thinning for a long time. She'll always wear it long though because short cuts require more frequent maintenance, and my thought is she hacks at it with kitchen scissors every other year.
DeleteLatest post on Twitter warns that subscribers can save her life, not just the farm. Whew….desperation again. She just can’t let it go. Plenty of writers live without money, but they don’t live on farms where they have to pay for animal feed and cords of wood. She needs to decide what is more important.
ReplyDeleteHer manipulative marketing is putting pressure on people to make a pity purchase. Now, she’s doing the same pushy tactics on Substack.
DeleteJenna is still a teen who’s trapped in the obese body of a middle-aged moron. No normal adult makes stupid statements about a platform that can “save their live.” Her many, mental problems are pathological.
DeleteIf you want to be a writer, you know what you have to do? Write. Authors have jobs, families, animals. The point is you need an income. You may not ever live off of writing… but you can still be a writer. Jenna can’t understand this.
ReplyDeleteJenna’s massive sense of unearned, self-entitlement is beyond comprehension.
Delete“I want you to know you can cut a flour tortilla into pizza slices, coat them in a milk/egg/cinnamon batter, and fry them in hot butter. Serve with cream cheese and strawberries and have French toast nachos.”
ReplyDeleteNo one cares, cunt.
She boasts about only eating one meal a day but leaves out the detail that the one meal is about 10,000 calories LOL
DeleteThe ‘one meal a day’ statement puzzles me. Is she intimating that she can only afford to eat once a day to elicit pity donations or what? Okay fine then, one meal a day but at least a half dozen high calorie snacks. Based on her shape she’s not fooling anyone but herself.
DeleteA person who has her obese body isn’t eating only one meal a day. What a bunch of bull. Jenna is a blatant liar.
Delete(Anon 8:38) Strawberries, cream cheese, milk, spices, butter, all pricy ingredients for fried flour.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI'll beat my dead ADHD horse again here and say that it's very common for folks with ADHD to not have normal appetites, to the point their bodies are very dehydrated and starving before their brains actually signal they're hungry or thirsty.
DeleteSo without a compensating partner around to prompt her into more healthy habits, she would fall into living off coffee and crackers for the first 16 hours of her day then pile on a ton of very sweet and fatty (for maximum dopamine effect) right at the end of the day when the body does the poorest job of metabolizing it.
Gone are the big healthy bowls of fiber-rich fresh veggies with beans, quinoa, and some protein. That was Shannon's doing. They were very good at Jenna husbandry.
WiW. Shannon was the best thing to ever happen to Jenna, but she screwed up their relationship. I doubt that she’s going to find another person to tolerate her crap.
DeleteI actually allowed myself a glimmer of hope while Shannon was on the scene, but after a year and Jenna was still unemployed, it seemed obvious that Shannon was paying far more than their fair share. It was ridiculous that Jenna was begging online AT ALL during that time, as presumably her living expenses would be half the bills plus her food which she claims to grow.
DeleteJenna's mentally unwell and whatever her damage it's untreated, making her an unstable, draining, and possibly abusive partner.
She really had a chance to turn things around with Shannon on the scene, but instead Jenna doubled down with her "dream" of not working, and if Shannon didn't get on board with that vision, then they must not really love Jenna or something.
It was really manipulative and sad, that custom birthday cake for Shannon after a year and a half of Shannon paying more than half the bills.
I would really appreciate hearing what really went down that day, but Shannon's personal life and what was likely a very painful day for them is not really my business. I'm so curious though. It would be great to have the validation / contradiction of my theories (lol)
The most likes her Substack posts have received is 25.
ReplyDeleteThat is insanely low. It may be why she is doing a potluck of post topics, to see if anything hits more than others. So far everything is getting a less than enthusiastic response.
Jenna usually gets very few positive responses on any of her platforms.
DeleteCue insipid surveys and repeat requests for cat & dog photos.
DeletePDD. Her stupid surveys are also just a way for the attention whore to garner more interest.
DeleteMore Reddit receipts:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/coldantlercritics/s/tAfdmGRQdO
I'm not on substack so I only see what I can for free, but from what I see happening is other substackers view/like/read hers so she will do the same for their own. May not be any real interest there but they are hoping to gain readers from CAF.
ReplyDeleteAlso, seems weird that she has an even 200 subscribers, and the last I checked she had an even 100, does substack round up?
We were wondering the same thing about her numbers.
Deleteyes substack rounds up. it doesn't display the exact number of subscribers but rounds up to the nearest 00. So if she has 101 subscribers, substack will show 200.
DeleteI think it's a wise move on the part of substack, avoids the problems on other platforms, and it doesn't allow bots to be purchased to push that number up. So what we can know for sure is there are no more than 200 subscribers. She claims 100ish are paid, there's no way to verify that except by keeping a list of individuals who comment on the post. Only when they comment can you click on them and see if they're paid, and whether they're a founding member.
Her posts are only getting like 10-15 likes each, and if she has 100 paid subscribers, you'd think each post would be getting more engagement. It seems strange to me. I have never worked on that platform so I'm not very familiar with the particulars.
WiW. Thanks for your clarification on the numbers. Whatever the case may be, Jenna will wind up being a beggar on Substack, too. She’s been doing it for so long that it’s become her lie-style.
DeleteDo you think she’s given one second of thought to paid-up-front customers who are waiting for soap, logos or cartoons? She’s probably even forgotten to feed the pigs.
ReplyDeleteJenna’s too obsessed with Substack to care about mundane matters like completing paid projects.
DeleteNow taking bets: When will she have her next firesale of soap / logos / pet portraits? The XMAS push should be fully on right now.
ReplyDeleteIt’ll start soon. Maybe Jenna will ask her new subscribers for Christmas cards, like she’s done before in the past. Of course, she just wants cash not the card.
DeleteYes, it's time for: "This farm needs a Christmas MIRACLE."
DeletePDD
PDD. That’s one of her manipulative marketing tactics. I wrote the card comment. Even though Jenna doesn’t practice Christianity, she still tries to capitalize on the holiday with her faux farm needing a miracle bullshit.
DeleteSummary of Jenna's post this am entitled "When animals die and it's your fault"
ReplyDeleteWhen you farm, death in inevitable. It's technically your fault the animal died, but not really your fault because you were still learning. But you will be criticized anyway.
Animals die on everyone's farms. Here's a memoir of a woman who wrote about farming with her MAN. Her animals died too. But she was not criticized at all!
If what happened to her happened to me, my trolls would call in a SWAT team. My critics are jealous, don't know about farming, and have internalized misogyny. If I had a man I would not be criticized. If I had written about this in a book instead of a blog I would not be criticized.
I'll just ignore the farming memoirs written by other single women and lesbian couples, bc that does not fit my victim narrative.
When you read about my animals dying, it's rude to ask what happened. Just so rude. The farmer is sad. So don't ask me what happen when I post about my dead animals. Just don't even ask ok? Got it? Don't be rude or make me feel worse than I already do.
But I have grown a rhino skin so criticism doesn't really bother me.
Animals on farms die. That's farming.
God, she's an arrogant twat.
DeleteYes, animals die, but small-scale farmers don't buy 50% more chickens than they need, because they expect to lose half to predators and bad care.
Of course, animals have accidents, but farmers don't have such bad fences that livestock routinely escape, jeopardizing their lives and the lives of people.
Sure, animals can get sick but farmers don't have tapeworm, tetanus, ringworm and other parasites established on their land and STILL throw feed and hay on top of feces. Even the most crowded feedlot feeds animals away from their own waste.
She's an incompetent, often uncaring, farmer. That's why she's called out by people who do, in fact, know better.
PDD
Yeah this morning's post was polarizing. You're a poor farmer if you learn via deadstock, and often times not even then.
DeleteWhen Animals Die and It's Your Fault
ReplyDeleteNavigating the Worst Feeling as a Farmer and the Public's Response
Be it the natural harvest of an animal raised for the table or a beginner’s mistake; loss hits hard and the emotional and social fallout can be devastating.
I walked out to the field and saw the body. She was laying on her side in the frosted grass, the same ice that tipped the winter-browned turf also covered her wool. When I reached out to touch her everything felt stiff and wrong. Like someone stretched a damp wool sweater over a metal frame, all natural movement ceased. I knew she was dead. And I knew it was my fault.
I still remember how that moment felt. The rush of guilt and fear, the doubt that washes over every decision as a beginner homesteader. I was in my early thirties and brand new to raising a breeding flock. I didn’t see the signs of weakness slowly gaining on her from internal parasites. I didn’t understand how to read a sheep’s face for gauntness, notice unbalanced or erratic steps… I didn’t recognize any the subtle signs in time. I didn’t have the experience yet to even know what to look for. It didn’t matter. This ewe died because I failed her.
DeleteHow it Feels to Lose Livestock
If you decide to raise farm animals it isn’t a question of if it will happen, but when. As the old saying goes: where there’s livestock there’s deadstock.
It feels horrible. It fills you with grief and doubt. It makes you question every decision that lead up to the point you’re fighting back tears while removing the body. For some, that first loss of an animal is enough to end their farming aspirations. I don’t blame them. Drag a 100lb carcass to bury in a cold rain and you’ll start looking into growing vegetables full time.
You can read a hundred books and stalk online forums—but until you have hens in your first backyard coop or a flock outside your window—none of that can prepare you for placing hands on a stiff body. I want to talk about dealing with that feeling, the fall out, and the online politics and emotions of losing livestock in your care.
In this particular case, I was brand new to raising sheep and this was the first one I had that contracted meningeal worms, a parasite usually found in white-tailed deer. If your sheep is unlucky enough to graze in the wrong place at the wrong time, they can get infected.
If a sheep is infected it will take early action from the farmer. The ewe needs repeated doses of worming medications, steroids, and if they do pull through they’re destined for a slow recovery.
The real treatment is prevention. Which means routine worming, regular pasture rotation, and vigilance. I haven’t lost a sheep to those worms since. I haven’t lost any sheep in quite some time that wasn’t intentionally butchered for a paying customer.
In my defense, sheep are not exactly dramatic livestock. They avoid looking sick or weak at all costs, a survival instinct they carry today. I didn’t have a local sheep-farming mentor that dropped by for advice. Hell, I didn’t even know anyone with sheep in the county well enough to ask for advice. I never saw the signs the sheep was sick enough to need help. These days I can spot those sign of weakness from across a field. You learn as you go.
DeleteI’ve now lived with these animals for over fifteen years. The ewes I have outside now are reaping the benefits of living on a homestead where the farmer already made all the beginner mistakes. Everything from mismanaging pasture to trimming feet too far to trying to shear my own sheep (Poor Sal, he was a real sport but after 30 minutes and barely any progress with smoking second-hand shears, I gave up.) But regardless of how prepared you think you are, or how much money you have to throw at problem; part of farming is accepting the statistical fact that despite your efforts, some things are going to go wrong.
I do not want to minimize anyone’s pain. I do want to convey is that loss is a natural part of farming. It doesn’t matter if it’s a nasty parasite, a wayward hunter’s shot, a mountain lion, or any of the other 17 jillion ways things can go wrong.
I know shepherds that have walked outside to find sheep hanging from woven wire fences, somehow tangled and killed trying to jump over them. I know people that pulled bloated livestock out of farm ponds. I know people that had to file police reports at 3AM because their horse got loose and caused a car accident. And I know people that have more money than I will ever see, have the best vet on call, and barns Martha Stewart would serve Thanksgiving Dinner in and they lose animals too.
I’ll repeat it a little louder for the people in the back: where there’s livestock, there’s deadstock.
Loss is Inevitable
DeleteI urge any beginner farmer—be it your first three chickens or your first herd of 50 angus beeves—to know that this is inevitable. It’s not a reason to quit or feel shame unless you refuse to learn from your mistakes.
When an animal dies, take notes, write down what happened and what can start doing today to prevent it from ever happening again. Now that you have a visceral and tangible experience with that accident or disease, read more about it when you’re done grieving. Use what you saw with your eyes and touched with your hands to deeper understand so you can move forward and do better. In time, share the knowledge you paid such a high price for.
And even if you and your farm is perfect, things out of your control will find their way to you. There’s an amazing poultry farm just outside my town, ran by an experienced and kind farmer. She lost all her animals (euthanized by the state) because her prize geese got infected with Avian Flu. Is it her fault? Yes, technically. She allowed her animals to enjoy a free-range life with access to a pond, as she has for decades. Infected wild ducks passed the disease right out of the sky when they landed in her pond and ruined her beautiful farm. Do you think because it was a tragic event out of her hands she didn’t feel that loss?
As someone who has been raising animals longer than Jojo Siwa has been alive - please understand that loss will happen and it will be your fault, but what you do with that loss is what fortifies or destroys your farming practice. If you keep making the same mistakes, you will fail and its probably for the best. But if you’re willing to sit with that responsibility and learn from it, it only creates a better farm for animals in your future.
DeleteHow to Treat Those Who Make Mistakes
If you share your experiences, some people will be unkind. But far more will be kind.
If your heifer dies because space trash hurtles towards it from a dying satellite and obliterates her into a black scorch mark; it’s still your fault. It’s your fault because you decided to purchase the animal, put it in that pasture, and whatever circumstances follow - you’re the reason anything happens, because you are the farmer and they’re your property. As far as anyone from the outside is concerned, you failed every animal that dies on your land.
There’s truth to that, but it shouldn’t be used as a weapon. The feeling of being responsible for an animal’s death, be it the day the butcher arrives for an expected harvest or your pet pony died naturally of old age - it’s one of the worst feelings in the world.
It’s so simple and raw, the aftermath could mean spending an afternoon digging a pit and dragging a body. It could mean calling customers to explain why their shares need to be refunded, or telling your kids why their favorite goat died. No one endeavors this kind of life because they feel indifferent about animals, and realizing your decision ended in the death of another creature is devastating.
If you could put the way it feels to lose an animal into a laser gun and point it at other people - you’d be arrested for reckless biological warfare. But if you’re a dummy like me and share all your beginner mistakes with the public, that is exactly what will happen. What started as grief and guilt turns into shame you may not even deserve. And for some it’s reason enough to never share an animal loss on social media, write about it, talk about it, or give anyone else the opportunity to learn from it - because no one wants that laser pointed at them in a time that’s already hard.
There’s an unwritten rule out here among farmers: If you find out online or in conversation that an animal died unexpectedly—unless that person is a very close friend—it’s rude to ask them what happened. It’s information you’re not entitled too, no more than when an obituary leaves out a tragedy or suicide. Livestock are technically personal property, and besides it being none of your business, having to explain a horrible incident over and over from the Agway to the gas station is exhausting. You say you’re sorry. You ask what you can do. You give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe not everyone deserves it, but most do.
DeleteIf you find out someone did something inanely stupid that cost an animal its life but they are genuinely trying to learn from their mistakes, show them grace. You don’t know people’s finances or what kind of loss this is. A foundation heritage heifer in calf could have been a $10,000 purchase for a new organic dairy. The loss could destroy a new farm, affect livelihood, and their to put food on the table. Show them the grace you would want in such times. If they’re going to continue farming, whatever it was, they won’t do it again
When I was brand new to farming I devoured every woman’s farm memoir I could find. My easy favorite was Kristin Kimball’s The Dirty Life. In that memoir she writes about how her and her new boyfriend (now husband) were able to start Essex Farm through luck, community, generous gifts, connections, and plain ol’ preservence.
DeleteHer book covers their entire first year, including everything that went wrong. She openly wrote about steers goring other steers in the field and the victim having to be shot and butchered before he died of Sepsis. She described cutting around the infected meat to save what they could for their own freezer. She wrote about livestock living in mud up to their knees, pit bulls ripping her milk cows apart while she wasn’t home, pigs scared to move to new pasture for days, dead kittens killed by weasels, draft horses escaping on the highway, rat infestations, breaking food regulations, and a half-dozen other incidents that if I wrote about there would be a line of police cruisers outside my door a city-block long from anonymous trolls who have already decided I’m a horrible person.
I wondered why she could talk so freely about her mistakes and I couldn’t? Her memoir explained events way more horrific than anything that ever happened here? This book was (deservedly) well-reviewed and highly regarded. Her brave honesty in how messy starting a farm can be was foundational to my own expectations. It didn’t mean I couldn’t stop feeling bullied when she was lauded.
Compassion is futile. It’s happiness suicide. Don’t do it.
My personal opinion was she was less publicly criticized because she was doing this with a man. If a woman is doing something with a male partner, especially if agriculture is his bailiwick, it was their business on their property and he’d handle it. But that clearly wasn’t the case, as she was as much a co-farmer as he was? That was the whole point of the book.
We’re socially trained not to attack a partnered woman because accountability is baked into the equation when someone else is both witness and co-pilot. And some people still feel if a woman makes a mistake it’s her husband’s job to correct her, not theirs. She belongs to someone. I belonged to the internet.
Have you met the internet?
Essex Farm isn’t too far from here. Over the years Kristin and I have chatted through book events and online, and I have asked her (I couldn’t help it) if she got any flack for what happened in those early years on the farm when they were just starting out? She never had a problem with people. It’s farming. Shit happens.
Me, on the other hand, I didn’t fall in love and follow a man into chaos. I created my own! I chose to quit a good job and tread water for years, all of it my sole decision, and all of it shared publicly as it happened. She wasn’t talking about those mistakes in real time like I was on the old blog. Instead they were stories in a memoir, already over and dealt with. All true, but part of an epic story arc that ends with a wedding and children.
I now know my story will always be seen as narcissistic and selfish to some people, because I was farming for myself, not for a husband or family. I have stepped out of my gender role in almost every way possible, and against what I was taught and what society socially permits. People despised me without even understanding that was why. My basic existence was proof positive another life was possible. If you think aiming a blame laser is bad, imagine walking into a self-inflicted guilt minefield like that?
DeleteTo some people, quitting your job to live your dream without a trust fund, giant inheritance, or pile of savings is seen as reckless if you’re a women, but heroic if you’re a single man doing the same thing. I don’t think I would have gotten half the flack I received online if I was a man and kept my mistakes to myself. Internalized misogyny is a disease and women have it too. I know I did. It’s why it took me until 2014 to listen to Taylor Swift.
Regardless, I took great heart in reading about Kristin’s beginner mistakes and how she overcame them. I stopped comparing my experience to hers or anyone else online. I remind myself that I was talking about homesteading before there were Instagram influencers and TikTok stars. There are now women beginning farming making six figures making 3 minute videos about their emus. Folks, I’ll be thrilled if I can make the November mortgage before Christmas. Times change. It’s not those people’s fault I didn’t grab an opportunity they did. I refuse to compare myself to them. I have shit to do.
I don’t begrudge Kristin or the influencers or anyone who pops up with a magazine-perfect instagram trying to sell body lotion. Cold Antler Farm is a different thing, and mostly about my personal experience and writing.
I still listen to that audiobook of The Dirty Life every couple of years, as it’s a bowl of creamy butternut soup to my ears. It’s still the book I recommend to anyone thinking about changing their life to farm, and I write beginner farm memoirs. So please know this isn’t in anyway criticism for the Kimball’s, it’ admiration. I want nothing but success for anyone crazy enough to farm and share it with the public. I hope their farm lasts a hundred more years.
Take heed: If you are a woman doing this alone, accepting any and all help, and talking about it online… prepare to grow rhino hide.
Don’t Let Anything Stop You From Living the Life you Love
DeleteLoss on purpose or mistake changes a farm and yourself. Keep going.
I always did the best I could with the resources I had. I forgive myself for animals I lost when I didn’t know enough to save them. I made the decision to do this at the only time in my life I could. That was the opportunity I grabbed, that was my TikTok. I had to pay as I go, now every aspect of my practice and life here is better. Their loss isn’t in vain if you sincerely learn from it.
Today the amount of animals I raise is correct for my land. The pasture rotation, farrier schedule, slaughter dates, customer communication, networking EVERYTHING is improved because I never let my own mistakes stop me from getting better at this, and while I certainly have more to learn, the difference between my first flock and the one outside my door now is measurable and I’m damn proud of that.
Listen, a lot of people have opinions. It’s unavoidable (especially if you’re going to share loss online) but please know anyone lashing out or trying to hit you with blame lasers is doing so because of their own lack of awareness in why you triggered them. And most of those people will never ask themselves what the root of their anger is about, or do the work to heal trauma or grow compassion. Treat them with grace or indifference. They’re also doing the best they can.
Take good advice, even when it comes from forked tongues. Make better mistakes every year, never repeating the old ones. Accept that loss will happen, be it because of bacon or a buick, and control what you can with eyes looking forward.
This isn’t an easy life, but I promise the rewards are worth the heartache. I wouldn’t change anything about how I got to where I am today, but I do look back on beginner Jenna with more compassion than I did even a few years ago. Everyone on a farm is being raised, all of us. And when you decide to do all of it yourself and not give up, it’s going to get messy.
Take heart. Be kind. And only compare yourself to who you used to be.
Love is harder than fear. Do the harder thing. Keep going.
And that's it. She's shovelling a lot of manure here, she should try clearing out the horses' paddock once a day.
DeleteWhat a crock of crap. It’s just more of Jenna’s justifications for being a garbage human. “I’ll hit you with blame lasers,” loser, because you deserve them.
Delete“I now know my story will always be seen as narcissistic and selfish to some people, because I was farming for myself, not for a husband or family. I have stepped out of my gender role in almost every way possible, and against what I was taught and what society socially permits. People despised me without even understanding that was why. My basic existence was proof positive another life was possible. If you think aiming a blame laser is bad, imagine walking into a self-inflicted guilt minefield like that?”
DeleteOnce again, she’s incorrectly using a question mark. Jenna reeks of superiority for no reason. You’re “despised” for being an animal abusing beggar, a pathological liar, and sociopathic scammer. There’s nothing unique about women who have “stepped out of gender roles,” but they don’t act as if the world owes them a living.
“They’re also doing the best they can.”
DeleteJenna is an arrogant, condescending cunt.
Jenna also didn’t mention dumping Maude in a wheelbarrow. She’s incapable of showing compassion to her hoard of livestock.
Delete“To some people, quitting your job to live your dream without a trust fund, giant inheritance, or pile of savings is seen as reckless if you’re a women, but heroic if you’re a single man doing the same thing. I don’t think I would have gotten half the flack I received online if I was a man and kept my mistakes to myself. Internalized misogyny is a disease and women have it too. I know I did. It’s why it took me until 2014 to listen to Taylor Swift.”
ReplyDeleteWhat’s “reckless” is “quitting your job” in your twenties like Jenna did. It wouldn’t even be “heroic” for men, moron. She then bought a home that’s always been beyond her economic means to sustain. But then begs online for constant support, while acting superior to others who are working to pay their own bills. Using terms like “internalized misogyny” sounds stupid and dated now. She always has to whine about not having a “trust fund,” like most of us don’t.
In the unlikely event that, heaven forbid, any men are subscribers I hope they’re paying month to month so they can leave this sinking STINKING ship. I hope they don’t go quietly but leave scalding comments the likes of which she hasn’t seen before. Jenna Woginrich is pure trash. Apparently there isn’t a decent male on the planet, although her girl crush, Taylor Swift, a lesbian, certainly seems to have found one.
Deletecomment
She seems to believe everyone but her is wealthy, had some big financial boost ahead of her.
DeleteDid she really write that? What a bunch of bullshit. I don’t even have enough time today to critique that post… holy hell. Please know not all farmers in Washington County have her mindset…or level of stupidity/ignorance.
ReplyDeleteWe personally know many farmers in Washington County, because we’ve lived there for years. They’re responsible people, and care for their livestock. Jenna is in her own crappy category. That’s why she’s loathed by locals. It has nothing to do with her being a lesbian.
DeleteMore self-serving tripe. She justifies her intolerable behavior, not done as a newbie, but after years of experience. She likely knew better - she didn't bother being better.
DeleteLet's talk sheep.
She had facilities to create lambing jugs: safe spaces in which ewes give birth. But that required work (setting them up, moving ewes, feeding separately). Instead, the faux feral farmer was okay with leaving vulnerable ewes and lambs exposed to predators and elements. Who else remembers when she returned from her favorite bar late at night, and she posted that she was too drunk to check on lambs birthed during a snowstorm? I'll bet she doesn't want people bringing up deaths on her farm.
PDD
PDD. I’ve mentioned Maude being dumped in a wheelbarrow above in a comment. Jenna is a callous, cold cunt.
DeleteWhat is she smoking when she’s writing this drivel? Not only is her grammar and punctuation abysmal, she is leaving out words. For 8 bucks a month she should be proof reading her work. Accepting money means this is a professional gig. Act like a professional darlin’
ReplyDeleteYeah this is the worst one so far. Spelling errors all over the place - spell check exists! Use google docs at least.
DeleteJenna is far from staying sober. She also can’t be bothered to either edit the multiple mistakes, or polish her purple prose.
DeleteThere are only 6 likes and one comment. This post has not gone over as well as the others
DeleteAtrocious composition, subject matter aside. Slapped together, contradictory, tone deaf, and completely washing her hands of her responsibility.
DeleteAnd she thinks WE lack insight and self-awareness?
Agree and extremely repetitive. She could have summed it up in four words IT’S NOT MY FAULT only she would have put a question mark and an exclamation point at the end.
DeleteFarm animals die and it's because of a mistake you made while learning on the job - but if you learned, their death was not in vain somehow, even though you bought animals before you learned wtf you were doing, and you refused more experienced advice.
DeleteStill, ignore the impact and focus on your intention. you didn't intend for that to happen, therefore, not your fault. (even though you said the worst that could happen is that some of them die and you just accept it as normal in farming.)
Jenna isn’t a “Wonder Woman” she’s a blunder.
ReplyDeleteIt's called calling the vet if you're noticing an animal in your care isn't quite right you dumb shit!
ReplyDelete⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
DeleteBut a vet visit would require caring about a creatures’ welfare.
DeleteShe was getting the vet out in the beginning. Then she owed money to all the vets in town and stopped calling them in, or they stopped coming. That's why she doesn't do anything for her animals than call the farrier, shearer, or knacker.
DeleteWe wonder if she’ll be mooching off Pember Patty for free food on Thanksgiving as usual. Last year Wog was on her own, because PP went away for the holiday.
ReplyDeleteI remember her saying in a recent post that what few friends used to invite her to social functions, she pushed away and now they no longer do.
DeleteAnonymous 2:44. No one wants a queer, curmudgeon “coyote” at their house. Jenna has only herself to blame for being a bitch.
DeleteThis post was the biggest pile of shit yet. Not only was it full of errors, missed words, incorrect plurals, incorrect apostrophe use, and so much more grammatically speaking, but the content was pure shit.
DeleteDeny, deflect, lie, accuse. Rinse and repeat. Not her fault, folks, that she is who she is.
Anonymous 3:36. I agree with what you wrote. Her post was crap. Jenna is delusional to say that this is her best writing on Substack. I’d want a refund. But I’m not stupid enough to pay for her worthless words.
DeleteWe also won't forget that one year where she bitched and moaned about a unbearably painful rotten tooth, and went on and on about how she could barely eat and was miserable. And then posted a pic of herself at Patty's Thanksgiving table, acting jovial with a big plate of food in front of her.
DeleteAnon7. Her gaping maw was gross.
DeleteIf anything, Substack is showing how rotten Jenna’s writing really is now. It’s degraded from even recent dispatches.
ReplyDeleteI think most people know that animals die on farms. It's not the fact that animals die at cold antler farm (aka dead animal farm) it's how many, how often, why they died, and how easily it could have been prevented.
ReplyDeleteAnimals died, and she just continues to do all the same things, and what's more she focuses on how hard it is for HER. Oh her critics are meanies, meanwhile the animals she's responsible for are not cared for properly.
Get an equine vet out there to do a wellness check on Merlin and then FOLLOW that advice. Do that and then I'll think about changing my find.
What a vacuous hole.
Exactly. It’s always all about Jenna. “What a vacuous asshole.”
DeleteI'd like to see her address/justify purposely shocking innocent little piggies. What do you have to say about THAT, Jenna??
DeleteWhat are we, just a week into this? Her post quality has taken a steady downhill dive.
ReplyDeleteLooks like she is re-tooling old blog posts to seem like new content. She has written about this before, so she took down the old blog so people won't know.
DeleteThe Wayback Machine still has her old blog: https://web.archive.org/web/20230119133519/http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/
Delete"Compassion is futile. It’s happiness suicide. Don’t do it."
ReplyDeleteWhat? Jenna you sound like a sociopath.
Jenna is a sociopath.
DeleteLaughing my butt off at Jenna posting derogatory stuff about Travis Kelce. I wondered how long it would take her to start in on him. That's right HIM. Jenna's wet dream is flaunting her heterosexuality and Jenna can't stand that she was wrong all these years.
ReplyDeleteShe's probably making a Travis Kelce voodoo doll as we speak...
DeleteWog sounds like a jealous stalker. Reminds me of the crazed fan in the film, "Play Misty for Me."
DeletePDD
She is bitter and surely feels sooooo stupid for years of missexualizing TS. Is that a word? It is now 🤣
DeleteThe whole world is happy for Travis and Taylor. It simply doesn’t fit WOG’s narrative, that’s all. Effing dummy.
"I didn’t have a local sheep-farming mentor that dropped by for advice. Hell, I didn’t even know anyone with sheep in the county well enough to ask for advice."
ReplyDeleteThen you had NO BUSINESS OWNING SHEEP!!!
"If your heifer dies because space trash hurtles towards it from a dying satellite and obliterates her into a black scorch mark; it’s still your fault.
No, dipshit, that is NO ONE'S fault. That is a freak accident.
Whyyyyyyyy is she so stupid?
She is going to have lambs again. Statistically speaking, due to her negligence, at least one will die. Maybe she posted this article to prep her readers (the ones who don't know any better), so there if there is any backlash she can just say "Go read my post about animals dying!"
ReplyDelete