The Need to Know

I understand now what I was in the bushes to do and it workrd. I have been changed forever. it might have had something to with the birds and the bees but God wispered in my ear the most. Tammy wake up, He said. And so with the long winter and the even longer summer I slowly became a believer. This is not an easy task, Loving Jehova with all my might. But by putting him first I took comfort in  knowing that he would help me with the challenges to come. I have sinse learned to go to him through Jesus Christ, my savior after all. And that is when it all came crashing and thundering down all around me. I will be switching it around now. A perfect 180, a sweet turn around for the love God. Bless you all.

p.s. the best part is when I asked god to find me love.

Feather of a Jay

If I were a noise how would I sound?
Like the squawk of the Stellar's Jay
Until yesterday

But that was old and very very cold.
Meaning choked
Growing old

Now just the hum
Of an eternal drum
Beating

If I were a picture
whiteness
only
Om

If I were a word
Feather, comes to mind
Soft and careful and kind

A thought
A world bending
At my door

I choose
Just one thing
To be

Me

a big bath: update

Spring is here. The real deal. The mother of all bathtubs is good till late October.

The trees are alive with toilet paper

I just want to share with you some of the planet-destroying, oil-drenched items and packaging that we have found we can happily live without. Bathroom items mostly. The shit that we all get suckered into buying, 'cause you need it.  Little pots of goo, really. So here goes. Make-up, hair products of any kind even shampoo and conditioner. No more dyes, spays or gels either. Sun screen, nail polish, tooth paste, razors (for me, Dennis still has to look presentable), shaving cream, hand sanitizers, perfumes, deodorants, if in doubt, wash. Ointments, bug spray, cotton swabs... I could go on, I've seen what people hoard in their bathroom cabinets.

Why didn't I just tell you what I do have in my cupboard?  Toothbrushes, dental floss and toilet paper.   But now we can add toilet paper to the list of things we live without.

See, the other day during a walk in the swamp with my baby and our water dog, nature called out to Dennis in more ways than one.  Old man's beard. It was hanging from every tree on every branch. And when he came back out from hiding he was raving about his most excellent adventure. This amazing ass wipe. "Better than toilet paper, absorbent, durable." So the obvious question? Why do we use toilet paper then?

The walk turned into a collection. With the sun shining and gleaming off each beautiful strand. We excitedly collected enough for a few days. Yep I've since been using it and I agree. It even works well for a chick and a pee. It's green too. No really. Not the Sheryl Crow, one-square-per-use kind of green, that's just gross. But we don't even have to kill our trees to wipe. The trees just grow the stuff for us.

What have we done with the store-bought, dead-tree variety? Our 15 year old quickly claimed it when we shared the good news with him. He told us that he would be buying the toilet paper from now on.  But ya wanna know something funny? When I went out to the outhouse this morning I saw that he'd already been dipping into the green shit.

I'm just waiting now to see if it can handle a blood flow. I'll keep you posted.

Shitty morning

Actually it didn’t snow. We’ve been having Merry Christmas (sweet as an apple...) mornings when we want to see the summer comin’. But yesterday the sun shone. Which is why I went walking. This, you see, is going to be literality. With regard to shit. 
Herman Drescher, our buddy down the road, organic farmer, fumer over GMO atrocities, had given us a number just the day before for free manure. So that was kind of on the list I would have had if I but made ‘em. Go to the poo place and get some. 
But first things first cause it’s Tuesday. Sleep-in day after start early/work late day. It’s the day after production to any who have ever played the weekly newspaper game. So I get to walk my dog.
We went the sun way, of course. Down alongside the open fields that were ours too in the childhood commune hippy days. And the snow’s goin so fast now, gone in the fields. So we ditch the road, the dog and I. And Rufus too. The black lab, the white man and the little black cat with the walkin’ blues.
There are a lot of reasons to look up while we’re walking down the field. The mountains, the treetops and the sky. At some point I look down though and if I may once more be literal: holy shit. Twenty pounders. Daypack loads of pure manure. It’s a minefield. A gold mine.
I’m going to be a little later than my normal Tuesday late. I need my wheelbarrow and I don’t need Drescher’s buddy's number anymore.

A forest line

 I love clothes lines. I love the freshness. And I love where my line (our old climbing rope) is situated. Down in the gully near the water source and near my toilet plunger ready to go to work. Yep, I said toilet plunger. It is an amazing washing machine if you provide the muscle.

 In the old days with four to six small bed wetting kids the muscles needed were enormous and the 'fun of it' sent us to the local laundromats. I can still hear the soul-destroying dryer's whir.

Now. With just myself, Dennis and one big kid, albeit a piggy one. I can't think of a more Zen like way to do a batch.  Don't even have to wring it out, the water is way too cold for that. Drip dry, that's what I say. Talk about a small, small footprint in the world of laundry. Something to smile big about.

This little dude was bellowing for more sunflower seeds. I walked around the tree to see if in fact he did need more. Sure enough he had cracked them all open. Yup, I'll go get you some more, for a few pictures I told him. Just hang tough. It turns out he loved the attention and forgot about the seeds.

 

Tammy Stranack

Back to bush time

What did you find there? Did you stand a while and stare? Well, lemme tell you. I stayed. I saw. I saw some more and looked around. A lot. Because home on the range has gotten a little strange, in the unusual sense. At least in the daylight hours. Which is to say I've had to go down to the lowlands, down to the town, and take me a job. A strange and innovative way to top up the coffers to the level still required as this project, which is to say, this fine life we are livin' gets under way. So I thought I might as well get a good one and do shit that I love to do. Which has all been a little engrossing for the past couple months, involving those oft cited evenings and weekends and the required willingness we often see attached to them. But it's all coolin' off now and this weekend I got to get back out on the spring mud and participate in home a little bit.  Tick a few things off that list that rides to town in my head every morning and updates every evening as I pull up the driveway. A bit of an adjustment though, it turns out, to go from going places and doing other things while thinking about the list to being here and actually damn well doing something. Where to start? With the first step, as my old friend Ken Chapman used to say. Which first step? Which project? Which of so many things I've been dying to do. So I stared some more. Looked around. Finally took Tammy's advice and quit worrying about it. Went with the stand around and the stare. Sure enough, focus followed. Elsewhere fell away. The late snow quit, the sun warmed the good spring mud and some shit started getting done.                    
                                                                                                                                                       -D

He's my Whiskey Alexander                                                                                                                               Tammy Stranack

Put the load right on Tammy

Almost hiking season. I'm gonna be ready, not whiny. My plan? To throw the dog food or flour bag and some weights into my pack. Forty-five pounds or so. And shoulder it while doing my chores. My outside chores. Firewood, water and laundry. For a two-hour stretch. Yikes. Yeah, I was nervous. Wasn't sure if I was tough enough. Splitting wood with a pack on. Carrying five-gallon pails of water, or just squatting down to pick up the split wood, assuming I could swing the heavy splitting maul above my head. But if I am tough enough to do that for a while? I'll be able to groove out like nobody's business when I get hikin'. Pack? What pack? Too easy.
So what bothered me the most at the end of my brutal two hours wasn't my wobble knees or the unstable snowy trails. With an extra 106 pounds (water bucket included) sinking unexpectedly is a little bit dicey. Makes one breathe out in a loud grunt. Nope it wasn't my racing heart or my dead arms trying desperately not to drop the rounds of wood as I walked them several hundred metres down the road or through the trails. It wasn't even my whiny, hungry cat, who followed behind or even underfoot. In fact we were both hungry. And, no, even that didn't bug me the most. Maybe it should have been when I had my first fight with a knotty piece of spruce, draining energy, near puking with hunger. And it wasn't even when I fell over backwards while filling my water bucket. Yes, it would be very easy to make that up. But I fell over backwards. Just about had to take off my pack for that one.
And it wasn't the second fight with the spruce. When it won. I landed my feeble blow right in the middle of the block. Damn. It stuck, and when my drenched, drippy, hungry, sore, bruised, sobbing self finally pulled it out, only the handle came free. Good, I thought, I was done anyway. Oh, Baby, if you're reading this, we need a new splitting mall.
So what the hell would piss me off more than any of those things?
My baby toe. If I hadn't been able to focus on a baled up piece of sock wearing a painful blister in my toe, I think I might've grown a brain  and thrown that heavy bag down the outhouse hole or something. Instead I can live to do it all again. Thanks to my fucked up little toe. Yay.

Castro's Cuba

Again. We have an excuse this time. But yet again, we have run out of firewood a wee bit early. We landed our asses back out here in October and did our best to store away a winters supply. And we came close thanks to the much reduced space we needed to heat. But ahh... Hmm.

Well there are still a few rounds out there, I pack in what I need for the night. But I guess I'll have to buck up some more. Except it's too bad I can't start the chainsaw. I'll just pack this one a little closer to the house. Maybe get busy, real busy with the axe, hatchet, saw or whatever else might work.

-Tammy

Good-bye snow angel

There are a few days every spring when you can dance on top of the snow. After the melt starts. And in the morning, after a night below freezing. It is a  funtastic time.

You can wonder randomly in and out of the trees. Anywhere really. Go ahead, jump up and down. You won't come crashing down through three feet of snow. But do get out early 'cause every day now, it turns into a mucky mess by noon.

I wasn't aware that the time had come until one morning seeing  my goofy husband flapping and jumping wildly, grinning toothedly, it dawned on me what his excited game of charades was trying to spell out.

It is time to run and skip or lay on top of the snow.

He had to leave for work but made me promise to get out and walk this snow. Magic melting freezing snow.

Bathing hole

A bath, a big bath. I can't wait. Our favorite place to scrub up on the way home. Just use fish friendly soap.

-Tammy

Bobbie Burns bears

So yes, I do pack the bearspay. And man oh man I don't ever want to have to use it.

A long run down the wilderness roads, by myself, is a bit scary. I am used to being with Dennis and I am used to him packing the bearspray.

OK, I have my dog, I'm not sure if he would be a good or a bad thing but he  comforts me.


None of this matters though, not even a bear attack when you are churning your legs as fast as you can up the most beautiful scenic dirt roads. The sun warming my face. An hour in and I'm overlooking Mabel lake.



Yup, I stop worrying about bears at around the 4k mark. Nicely warmed up and feeling the love for these little guys, photographed on one of our local logging roads.

-Tammy

Get it up

Pumping, running hills
Morning till night
Fifty-two sleepy lows
Recharged

Time to get'er up
Ready, excited, she starts reving on her own
Soaring to new heights
A daring 191

A work in progress
That's what she is
Pack on 40 pounds
Always testing, hope she don't tank.

-Tammy

A SAR girl's purse

I've never been a purse lady till now.

Years ago Dennis bought me a  small black leather purse for Christmas. It was a handy place to keep all the birth certificates and health care cards for the whole family but I rarely took it with me.

Now I am a full-blown purse lady. Or maybe I'm a bag lady. With my big leather bag full of everything I might need, but hopefully not. Oh and it matches my boots.

First I dumped it out, I did. You only do this, I'm told, if you are about to clean out your purse.  I have also been told that husbands sometimes do this if they need the nail clippers but that it's not a good practice. I was ridding mine of crap. See, I'm not even sure what most women put in their purses. I've always been a little curious but never saw one being dumped out before. Mine doesn't count cause if any female had been there to witness this dumping they would've questioned my femininity on the spot.

My sensible bag needed sensible things in it.

Out of the pile on the bed I grabbed my License. I don't drive and my hair is turning grey. Soon the IDing thing has to stop. I take it just in case. I settle for one lip gloss, the vanilla flavored one. My sunglasses. And that's it? A big bag for three tiny items. keys? Nope. Money? Bankcards? Credit cards? Nope. Make-up? Nope. I don't have any of it.

I need more stuff.

Bear spray. No. I wear that on my hip. To hard to unzip and dig around in a purse, 'please mister bear I know it's in here somewhere' meanwhile all that's left is my bucket of water pouring out mixing with my blood.
Oh, my knife, I might have to stab said bear or cougar or human. I string this onto the strap of my purse, on my chest, right where I hopefully won't need it.

My reflection in the mirror sets off an explosion of inspiration 'cause I look cool.
I set myself up with the purse to kicks ass on all purses.
First, My pager for my pages.
In goes my compass, complete with map and whistle.
A candle, matches and a lighter and cotton balls soaked with Vaseline.
A lightweight backpacking saw.
My hatchet, no no I'm joking about the hatchet. I slide that next to the bear spray I'm wearing on my pink hankie. Hip style.
Dental floss, it might come in handy.
A toque, gloves, extra socks. Come on, how many times have you been out and about and you get cold or wet feet? wool socks are the best.
Toilet paper. Kinda bulky, I can just use snow.
My headlamp and an extra flashlight.
A notepad and two pens.
And one emergency feminine hygiene product. Or diaper, as I like to call them.
Good to go I'm thinkin'.

The thing is, if I need this stuff, it most likely means I'm missing. I'm in trouble and I'm no dumby so I take out my note pad and pen and write a little note to the would be searchers, detailing the route I am trying to follow, my poorly flagged property line. And laugh if you want to, I can take it, but I have a big yard and I'm not even sure where it is.

-Tammy

Culling the list

I know what needs to be done, a list is a fun way to plan time.
Four buckets of water
Two loads of laundry.
Sweep the nights remaining chips of wood fanning out from the stove door. Cedar dust.
Dishes, something that is forever on my list, we like to eat, and I like to cook.
Cook.
Tonight I have a Jamaican style bean medley that Raene brought. She says she has no time for such slow cooking.
I'll add chicken or bacon and make some chapatis. Sour cream on the side.
And it's a bread day. Save some dough for fun things like cinnamon buns. Fats loves to make those. Mostly though he loves to eat them.

Burn that which needs to be burnt. We're not talking cooking or baking anymore.
Garbage. Burn the garbage.

Then wipe down the house with sunshine till it's basking.
Wash myself, Oh this is not really a list. Wash my mouth out.

Keep the home fires burning.
The radio on about local gin and vodka.Not for me. Instead, let me taste some lavender in the beer. Have you tried that local beer? Have you tried to make your own?

To hear the morning show's host give the weather details, you'd think it was cold out there.
Give me local mittens and toques.
'Cause it is. Minus 20.
Wind chills, it's all the rage
Biting shrieking shrills. Eat you up in seconds.

Sample tonight's feast, sadly not from here. Cheap oil a-la- king.
Should not have got on this flight tonight. Sham-wow organic lettuce, California style. That's the taste of Not From Here.

Home is good. Yours or mine, but home.

Was he cold? Did he dress? Where were his slippers?
Did he bring his cat?

Not tonight, not yet, I had no invitation.

Still, I invite, a need to finish my list.
Come when the sun is warm, planting.
Warm your face and tell me stories.
Close your eyes and breathe.

We are the same, you grew into me

Pull don't push
Love don't laugh
Pause don't cry

Breathe don't die   

-Tammy

To cow or not to cow

Dennis has described to me the joys of a Jersey cow. An almost spiritual experience. Milking in the cold, dark winter night. The smell of hay and soft cow, mixed with the sound of chewing and deep breathes as you lean your head against her big round belly and squirt foamy milk into your pail. A dreamy contented connection with you and nature.

It has to be a Jersey, They are the sweetest, he tells me. And the richest milk. Damn near half cream.

The romance is most definitely romantic. I think in spite of all my hesitation, we will be rich with milk. Milk that we think is disgusting and won't drink. We've been forcing down the the throats of our six children organic soy, for years, much to their dismay. Not ever converting them,  no, they love the big full glass of the cow.

Cheese, however is a thing we can get behind. Dennis almost lives for cheese. Yogurt is delightful and who doesn't like sour cream on a baked potato?

To make our own cheese? To have rich cream for baking? The undoctored raw milk just as it should be, full of nutrients and goodness, just might be worth the commitment.

The commitment is huge. No spur of the moment backpacking trips. No whimsical overnighters. Nope, she needs you every night and every morning. We'll need to have people for sure, so good thing all six of our kids love milk.

What I'm starting to realize though, is this, I just might need her. If the milk in the big box stores (from gross factory torture chambers) stop arriving by truck/oil, what on earth will I do? If a life without cheese freaks me out, maybe it's cow time.

 If I can head into the barn on a cold winter night and feel a connection with a beautiful pet/friend and make ice cream for the grandkids or Dennis, then maybe it's time. Time to settle down, to get connected to the land and grow my own food, no matter what the commitment.

No chemicals, no watering down, no bureaucrats telling me what I can and cannot eat or drink. Just me, in the old country milking my Jersey. OK, me dreaming about the old world and the way things were before we really started screwing it all up.

Yep. To Cow.                                                                                                                                   

-Tammy

Count your drops

Four, five gallon jugs. That's what I can use. As much as I want. I huck it out the window when I'm done with it. A light shade of grey... not black. Black is the color when it's hard earned. So now, with the little stream a few hundred metres from my doorstep, I revel in the new lighter shade of grey. Grey water. That's what it's called.

I wonder what next. A tap? A waterline? One that goes up the path up the steps into the kitchen? Not the bathroom cause if I turn around I'm in the kitchen. Duh. I know most of you have several faucets, but I find myself  shunning even one. If I have taps I'll turn into a user and an abuser. I will turn on the tap and brush my teeth watching the water drain. Draining, a thing that goes well with the flow.

If I lug and tug my bath, heave it out and down the steps, it most certainly seems like a lot of water. But to pluck a rubber stopper or to simply flip the switch? Oh where oh where does our water go?

I'm just sayin' if I can pack or slide my buckets across the snow. Why wouldn't I? My stream won't run dry. I wonder how long till the tap would hiss and suck and drain all there is to drain. I wonder how lazy I would become, How careless, How thoughtless. I live in the Okanagan. A dry, dry day, and they bitch and sneak to keep their grasses green.

It is thoughtless to build house after massive house with not one or two, but 15 pipes with a twisty turn-on flow valve. And the pool.

I know what you're thinking. It doesn't matter the number of taps a house has, just the number of users in it. And how they choose to use or waste. Imagine though if you only allowed the use of one tap. Say the laundry room. I'd pick that sink because it's big. Go there with your five gallon pail and pack it to the toilet or tub. You'll cut your wastefulness big time and get fit doing it.

I'm youngish...

Ok I feel younger than I am. 38. It is a bit of a challenge at 4 buckets a day. When I'm 80? who knows. maybe I'll settle for a hand pump just outside the back door near the salad garden. Eighty is a long ways away.

-Tammy

On bush time

I'm not quite sore this morning, which means I almost worked hard enough yesterday. Hard enough for muscles to feel pleasantly used, though, and for a massive old fire-killed cedar snag to be stacked in the woodshed, blended with a smaller, sweetly-cured dead spruce.

Our return to the bush was too sudden and late in the season to allow for anything really resembling preparation. Now the hastily assembled woodpile has been pretty much taken apart. We've been promised a late winter buried in snow and gripped by savage cold. So far we've just got the snow, but February lies ahead. So for the past few days it's been wood. Yesterday's haul took me four hours with a lot of help from Tammy and a little help from Fats. Fats is our youngest kid, Kelty. Fourteen and fat as a toothpick.

If four hours sounds like a long time to haul home the bucked-up bounty of two logs then you, like me, live close to your wood. A normal, practical rural dude would have done it without help in less than half the time. Except that a normal, practical rural dude would never have allowed such a situation to develop in the first place. Only a fuckin' retard would.

Oh well. There I go again.

Actually, I could have done it that quick as well, and I usually do. By being practical and using my truck to haul the wood. The normal practice. Actually it's an infestation of those dudes that partly inspired my decision to be ridiculously slow. Cause logging is especially busy on our little road this winter. Some years there's nothing, some years a bit. Right now there are four trucks running, seems like four loads a day each. Empty, loaded that's 32 times a day the whole damn slippery little strip of twisty gravel is pretty much blocked by towering tons of truck and trees coming at you fast and without a lot of regard for anyone so unbusinesslike as to not even be calling his kilometres. Did I mention the highways department took over this former forest service road 30 years ago?

I've only had to burrow into a snowbank twice so far this year, though. And who likes a boring drive?

Anyway, to cut firewood like a normal person in winter ('cept they don't), the first thing you have to do is drive up a tree-lined road that's plowed. There are only two reasons anyone plows a road way out here in January. One is that it's a public road like the one described above. The other is that it's a privately maintained active-hauling logging road which is infinitely worse. Driving those, in a winter of heavy logging, is one thing. Parking on them while you set about butchering and loading up a few trees is something slightly more. Not that I haven't done it, but it's not exactly fun.

The other reason that I wanted to use my body instead of my truck to shift a couple tons of  wood is kinda the same as the first only simpler. It's just more fun. And more exercise. And...turns out the other reason isn't really that much simpler. Okay.

For example, did you know that if you use your body to pack firewood out of the bush in three feet of snow, it's condiditon improves? And if you use your truck for the same task, it's condition deteriorates? That's not a practical consideration, though. If you've got no time and lots of money. Don't let a splash of sarcasm confuse you. I remain a hopelessly impractical fellow. It's just that I've got all day.

Of course, it's much better for the poor old environment if you use your body instead of an internal combustion engine to move heavy objects from one place to another. Only it's not really. Because I tell you this, in the pompous prefacing of the Lizard King, this human race that you and I belong to isn't going to stop burning oil until there isn't a drop of it left. Unless we wipe ourselves out before it's gone. If you doubt that you just haven't been paying attention.

Anyway, there were a few good standing dead trees out past the outhouse and the future building site and through the ravine where the nameless little stream runs about 10 months out of the year. 

Here's how it works. You wade out there with your saw, ass deep in snow, shifting it's 25-odd awkward pounds from one protesting arm to the other. You knock the trees down, limb 'n' buck 'em, and backtrack with the first block, bellowing for reinforcements. By this time there's starting to be a bit of a trail. Oh, and your sweating, breathing hard. Feeling good. Turns out there are volunteers. Off the three of you go, then. By the time you're all headed back, you're actually walking on a pretty damn fine trail. It's still warm for January. There's a light snow falling, but the clouds are high and there's the odd bit of sun coming through. And it's looking like a pretty damn fine afternoon. 

Building site? Yeah we've affectionately referred to this place as the 'guest suite' since we gave it a bullshitectomy and set it free. We'll be the guests most of the time cause... that loft. Who wants to sleep all the way inside for most of the year? We've already had a taste and we like it. That whole, massive semi-outdoor space, in particular, remains forever part of a fluid future living arrangement that has come to include a separate little cabin at some future point. Mostly we just want to try some different things. And we've got the perfect spot. We're more sure of that than ever. Cause we walked right through the middle of it 30 or so times yesterday, stopping often. It's good to rest. And take long looks around. Figure out which trees we'd have to take out to get that view down the valley. Which we'll get to keep and which we'll wait and see about. More than firewood got moved a little closer yesterday.

Water got moved a little closer too. Sorta. We haul in all our water here, from nearby creeks. Yes in the damn truck. Or nearby snowman banks. But not since yesterday.

We got tired of stepping over the trickling little creek with our woodblocks, briefly discussed using it as a water source before writing it off as too small, bridging it with a couple planks. Then someone spotted a wider, deeper hole. So we took a break from wood and picked up shovels, dug it deeper and wider. Rigged a little plywood deck beside it. It was never practical to hand-bomb water from that little creek in all the years we were roaring right by better sources in the truck every damn day anyway. And of course a normal, practical rural dude would have drilled a well and backhoed a water line and tacked on some taps a long time ago. Which is what we used to think we oughta be getting around to. Why? Well that's still sorta out there somewhere.

There's a lot of wood still out there, too. Time to get a little more of it into the shed. Just a little, though. Cause there ain't no slower way to get it done. A glorious waste of time.

-Dennis

Blackened forest ham

What do a pound of butter, a pound of delicious unsliced bacon and half of a perfectly roasted roast beef have in common? One bad dog. All three items being readily available, near the top of the cooler, not far from a dog bed. A dog that was left at home by his lonesome and feeling sorry for himself. Castro, our black lab, has gotten used to us being around. Oh, and the ham at the bottom of the cooler would've had that dog in common too. Except for 20 or so barf spots with butter foil all over the yard.

There is apparently too much of a good thing.

There's not a lot can send me over the top.But when I stepped out of the truck and saw the remaining chunk of butter still in it's wrapper and next to that a package from, oh my fucking god, the bacon. I looked at my  bloated, farting, puking dog, I grabbed the butter and threw it repeatedly in his face. Yelling and screaming till my voice hurt. I hadn't yet noticed the roast missing. I had plans. Yummy fucking plans.

But my story is really about a ham. The one piece of meat that Cas' big bulging gut isn't trying to digest.
We try to console ourselves, Well at least he didn't eat the ham. I run at the cats who are joyfully licking the plate where the roast used to be. Well at least the house is warm, Dennis offers. Which means the door latched properly before we left. Castro has been known to do the downward dog lazily off the couch just as we are arriving home. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that he won't close the door behind himself.

Oh yeah, the ham.
Castro is banished to the outdoors, me snarling at him each time I go out to the cooler to set about cooking said ham. Something that will feed us for three days. We'd had enough meat to feed us for six or seven. Grrr, I say to Castro won't look at me. Slamming the lid down and heaving the propane heater on top of that. Mumbling something like fucking asshole as I protectively cuddle my ham and go back inside.

Just after Christmas... a Dutch oven jam packed with turkey. Turkey for days. A heavy Dutch oven with a lid, the one I cook bread in, the same one I cooked the roast in and the one I am now preparing to bake a ham in. A well-oiled machine.

It was miraculously nudged off the table by the same dog but we had just forgiven him for that. He's old and we love him - old not being an excuse to eat all the meat and butter, but rather we'd be sad if he died of a broken heart in the night. Se we better hurry up and forgive him again. Not tonight though. And at least we still have the ham.

Now, I don't know how it happened but the ham that I baked for two hours in a woodstove, drafts closed and not much going on inside came out - potatoes, salad and peas waiting for the big moment - mean and ugly. Smoking. Couldn't tell if there was much of anything left in the Dutch oven, just a burnt-black stink that quickly filled our little house. Squatting on my haunches in front of the stove poking a shrivelled chunk of charcoal proved to be to much for me. I headed off to my bed, the words at least we still have the ham a taunting memory. I cried myself to sleep. Well, actually Dennis rubbed me to sleep.

The Dutch oven was set outside for two days before I decided to see if I could clean it up, bring it back to a loving, happy life. The mean smoke was long gone and with a less emotional examination and fork poking I could see a lot of pink-colored meat. My ever-happy baby offered to clean 'er up, and out of the substantial and tasty remains we skipped to our usual last meal using a ham, pea soup. And, yea, even unto the last lovin' spoonful, we saw that it was good.

Tammy

Untapped, unthawed

The following recipes are only guidelines. Snow is not always capable of balling up. With drier snow be prepared to use up to ten times the amount called for. 

Coffee for two- approx 24 wet snowballs. Bring balls to a full boil. Pour in 3/4cup coffee. Continue to boil for ten minutes then perform the smack down. Two hard hits, pot on stove. Let the grounds settle for a wee moment and enjoy.

Teeth brushing- Two to three snow balls, melt before attempting to rinse.

Shower- One snowman's head will give you a sufficient amount to get squeaky clean. I recommend saving a few snowballs to cool your water in the event that you've left it heating for too long. I also recommend saving your bath water to wash the clothes you were just wearing. Generally I find my skin to be cleaner than my clothes.

Dishes- One snowman's head oughtta do it. Although in the old days with six kids we used to use the whole snowman, ass and all.

Cooking- Just have three or four pots on the go at all times. Eight to ten snowballs in each. In the course of a day you may find yourself using up to one big belly of a snowman. I like pasta. This will give you hand washing water while you cook. Very handy where there are no taps.

Animals- We have a lab and two cats so not a big deal but they need about two head's worth in a day.

Laundry- This is a tremendous effort so don't be shocked that for two to three people you'll use up to eight snowmen. Now I realize nobody, not even me, wants to wash that much laundry in a day, so if you can reuse the snowman's head from your shower it will save you time. One load, and a very small one at that, will run you up a head a pop.

Drinking- One or two heads. Melted of course. Do the melting before you get thirsty.

Toilet flushing- OK I don't have a toilet but I know how they work. And I've done the math...kinda. I figure this is where you'll want to get the kids involved. It won't matter where they find the snow. Unlike your coffee or cooking water. The edge of the road, even the dog run will do. Maybe even preferable. You don't want to keep flushing your drinking water down your toilet. I figure eight to ten snowmen in your bathroom at all times. That will last a family of four maybe two days. So with each new dump get the kids making those snowmen. Your gonna need 'em.                                                                              

-Tammy

What we did to the house

If you're driving off into the sunset on Highway 6 between Lavington and Vernon and you squint off the road at the right moment you"ll see the last, low light shining right through a barn. The lovely old building has wide gaps between the planks that clad its walls and the baking light widens them and blurs their edges, lighting up the whole structure as if it is about to collapse in a heap of glowing coals.
So when Tammy said she wanted to rip all the drywall and insulation out of two thirds of our old hippy house and let the light stream in I didn't say are you fucking crazy. I said oh y'mean like that barn? And she nodded without hesitation. Yeah. Like that barn.
Our curious castle was built thirty years ago. The vision was my dad's, as was a lot of the labor. The rest of the work, and a lot of expertise, was contributed by whoever happened to be around. Which is quite a list, dominated by visiting remnants of the hippie thing. And we, of course, the kids.
I noted above the approximate time in which our house was built. I should have said almost built because it was never quite finished. My parents finally moved to town once and for all before the place was quite complete.
To their immense credit they've occasionally made serious noises about selling out in town and finishing the story  back out here. It may well have happened but for their differing definitions of a comfortable life in the bush.
My dad, who will be 81 in a few months, would gladly end his days taking his bedtime toke beside a yak dung fire under a tarp before rolling off to sleep in a pile of dry leaves with a dog and a couple cats snoring at his feet. My mom prefers an additional ammenity or two, although she's totally down with the dog and the cats. So they visit. Mom's coming next week.
Comming to see what we did to the house. We've tried to describe it but I don't think it quite took. They've no doubt heard whisperings from baffled grandchildren. I'm pretty sure the kids think we're crazy. Specifically about the house. In more general terms I know they think we're crazy. Except Kelty. Cause he's crazy too.
Anyway, I never batted an eye. Cool, I said.
It was almost as much work as insulating the place and drywalling it in the first place. Rippin' it all back out. Ten years later. Many dump runs. Many snide debates with my favorite enemy the dump lady. Tammy did most of the actual rippin'. I loaded, unloaded and drove. It took about a week, in the final glow at the end of another glorious Indian summer. To tear away the earnest effort and expense invested in a very different time. Till there were a lot of cracks in everything. Till the light came streaming in. In horizontal ribbons that swarmed with settling destruction dust.
Normally I let those song references drop without a sound. It's a bit of a disease. But indulge me while I labor  the Leonard lines for a moment or two. Cause here's what you have to understand about what we've done to the house. It is a repudiation and a belated repair of what we tried to do to it the first time around. Which was to make it, yes, a Perfect Offering.
We've painted house for money for many years and we get the good ones. Million dollar mansions. Monolithic monuments to rampant consumption and waste. Seven thousand square foot abomonations often occupied by two little retired people hogging way too much money, energy and other resources. Two little people who could live comfortably in something half the size of their garage. Say, the half that holds the RV. Something that could be built with what they spent on their countertops. Or, for that matter, they could live comfortably in the RV. We don't work on those new houses anymore. We do little repaints for real people in real homes. Cause it's real.
But  still not our idea of real. Though, we realize, that is what we were trying to in some measure recreate with all our townie finishing. Trying to cover up everything we're here for. Pretending to live this life while busily tacking on a tacky apology.
Now, if it seems like I'm being a little hard on drywall and insulation, it's because that as far as we got. There was to be a lot more tacking on to come.
Let me be clear. If you try to survive a Canadian winter, heating only with wood and without insulation in a 1200 square foot house with 24-ceilings in some places, you'll either die or change your mind. And drywall is a damn efficient way to finish an interior wall. Talking time and money both. And, yes, with all those kids we really did need all that space. The bullshit isn't so much in what we did but in why we did it and where we were headed from there.
But we no longer need the space. And we never needed the bullshit.
So now the winterized portion of the place totals about 350 square feet. Easy to heat. Open-windows-in-a-cold-snap easy. One upstairs bedroom, kept cozy with a large metal vent in the floor and the handy tnedency of heat to rise. The walls are unfinished as yet. When they are, it'll probably include some drywall.
The rest of the place is a big, wooden three-season tent. Eventually we'll pull the rest of the windows out (we've relocated a few) and let the rain fall in if it wants to like at the Honolulu airport.
There's tools out there, a week or so of firewood in a cozy stack, photos stapled all over the walls. The dog and cats sleep out there. In the warm months, so do we. Up in the loft. with a good roof and a good view. And now windows. Just big square holes where they used to be. And cracks. That's where the air gets in.
It's a workshop, a studio, a mighty porch. A place to play music, write, file a chainsaw, hang a deer, can some beets, barbecue or just hang out and be cool. Hell, do whatever you want out there, I don't care. Decorate, maybe. Visitors are encouraged to bring artifacts. Antlers, axe heads, odd-looking bottles. You name it.
If there's one lesson I should have learned from all those hippies I grew up among, it's that if you're going to be a weirdo, you might as well not piss around.
We'll definitely never again piss around trying to turn this place into something it's not. Something so much less than what its roots deserve.
We've seen where that leads. We ran screaming. All the way home.

                                                                                                                                                 -Dennis

Mountains o' things

I have three pairs of La Sportivas, a very expensive pair of mountaineering boots, a pair of rock climbing shoes and a sweet pair of running shoes. I have a pair of Sorels which I found in Value Village for $25, brand spankin' new except for what would have been a $200 price tag. I have one pair of Salomon hiking boots. I also have the female whimsical black leather boots, two different pairs. I have one pair of heels, black. My son recently bought me a beautiful pair of moccasins and that is, holy crap, a lot of footwear for one person.
I like to buy things, so that brings me to the reason behind me thowing out far more than my share of things. Filling the dump with my garbage.
Sometimes over the years of kids and mess I've longed for just one pair of boots and a backpack all the while creating more garbage in my wake.
I hate clutter. And with six kids all of whom bring more than their share of crafty things home from school I am proud to say I've managed to hang on to a handfull of treasures. These treasures being what I call survivors of housecleaning rampage.                                                                            
Since moving back to the bush, the dream of providing for ourselves has led me to a new realization that almost anything can be useful. Especially when you only buy useful stuff. So I keep it. No garbage. I'm thinking of ways to use things I don't even have yet.
What will I do with the rabbit fur? What can we do with the chicken guts (we don't have chickens yet) dog and cat food? What about the ashes from the stove? Soap. The soapy water can settle and go the garden. The rain? The snow? The trees?
If we don't buy it chances are we won't have to throw it out.
My food packaging will be a root cellar.
We have a year's worth of garbage out back overflowing, car parts, paint cans, metal, old shoes and plastic. Can't wait to get it out of sight out of mind, because that's what we do with garbage right?
When I look at it my first thought is 'wow' followed by 'why on earth did we buy that'? Do all six kids need a camp chair? Do all six kids need a bike for every year? Do all six kids need that much freakin' plastic?
And really, how many couches can one family go through? I counted and we've had more than 20 between the two of us. And don't ask about the electronic crap that no family should ever have to live without.
I feel a dump run coming on.
Kids equal garbage.
No I didn't call them garbage, just everything they touch. Skittles anyone? Gold?
My kids are gone. People keep telling me that your kids are never really gone. With regards to turning our things into garbage? Yup, they're gone.
My new thoughts to live by hold a world of magic for me.
First off, I won't forget about my local cobbler. I have a lot of good boots.
Second I don't feel pressure to buy much of anything and as time goes by I will have that root cellar.
And a helpful little thing to remember is to darn your own socks, mend your clothes, refinish that bench, use those cans, buy things in bulk, get a cover for that ratty old blanket. Lay your own eggs and grow your own food.
The one thing I won't use is mine or Dennis' (or your's if you visit) crap, although some do. Y'know, human compost. That's just gross.
It's done, like dinner.                                                                                                           -Tammy

Sufficient unto the day...

Outside the hastilly installed window, the snow is deep but sagging and the trees are bare. We're in one of those January warm snaps that happen every year now, although everyone still pretends to be surprised. It's raining.
To the right of the window, Tammy is sipping a coffee, reading a book. To the left are bookshelves. Laden mostly with books but also with wine. Theose cheap four-litre boxes look like elegant encyclopedias among the real books and the reds stay somewhere near the right temperature. Tacky plastic taps potrude convenientlyover the shelf below. The whites are chillin' in the outside part. Where we got weird with the house.
On top of the bookshelf are canned goods. There's no root cellar yet. And not much space in here. But it's all, in roughly the words of Arlow Guthrie, comin' around on the gi-tar. The question, of course, is what 'it' will look like. 'It' is, of course, self-sufficiency.
Winter, in the cozy mythology surrounding rural life, is a time to rest and reflect. To enjoy, including quite literally, the fruits of the warmer months' toil. It's a mythology we believe in and we're heading in that direction.
But in the meantime the canned goods atop the bookshelves are from the Superstore. President's Choice, No Name, Unico. Fair enough for this year but that can't continue. And the wine boxes aren't that cheap. Justifiable only when you're wise enough to understand they're a grocery item. One of your crucial food groups. But when you make it yourself it's also practically free.
Freedom is the whole point. Freedom to be where we want to be. Doing what we want to do. We used to drive to town every day and work our asses off. We made gobs of money but we never had any of it. And we had no asses.
We know we'll have to continue going off to make money for a little while yet. Got some old debts and some things we want to buy. There'll always be things we want money for, in fact, but our goal is to get to the point where we don't need it. Where, from the perspective of comfortable, contented survival, the state of the economy, or its continued existence for that matter, is irrelevant. This is partly out of preference and partly in preparation.
Weird times loom. The double-edged sword of peak oil and climate change is about to begin slashing great bloody chunks out of everything some of us are still dumb enough to take for granted. And if not, if we're the dumb ones, preference remains.
First and foremost, we're back out here in pursuit of self-sufficiency because neither of us can imagine a finer life. And, yes, we're still imagining most of it. We showed up late, and winter's like that for us homesteaders. We're in a bit of a holding pattern. Enjoying the fruits of the Superstore. Resting and reflecting.
Reflecting, among other stuff, on precisely what is meant by the phrase 'self-sufficiency'. As uttered by us. Here it is then.
Self-sufficiency means the ability to grow, raise, pick, kill, gather, preserve, prepare and repair everything required to sustain our lives in a style that the vast majority of the planet's population would envy.
Simple. Not that we'll probably ever do all those things at the same time. But at some time.
The point is to be able to.
And we'll do most of the things most of the time. Cause we can't imagine a finer life.
Except once in a while when we imagine a road trip or a flight to somewhere far or a distant mountain that's just gotta be climbed.
Any volunteers to water the garden and feed the chicken's while we're gone?
                                                                                                                                              -Dennis

Waxed at Welkmart

The guy who owns Welkmart holds up a small plastic bag containing about a pound of shaved wax. Cinched off with a sparkly twist tie. He proudly tells us it comes with a pre-cut wick.
We had come into his extremely cluttered domain expecting to find big bricks of wax.
Dennis, with approximately 10 metres of wick in his hand, outlines our true quest.
Do you know where we can buy it in bulk?
He stops to think although he doesn't have much time for us. He's got to get back to barking orders at his employees.
Those are new, stack 'em at eye level. I want to move 'em quick.
Eye level in many cases, is less than half way up. Cool crap is stacked to the ceiling. Heaped in heaps. Piled in piles.
Well there's a place in Winnipeg, he finally offers, it's not parafin wax, it'll cost you, not cheap.
Dennis tells him you used to be able to get it. Big chunks of it.
He's got no time for that.
Well you used to get a lot of things in bulk.
Started as a retort. Ended in a nostalgic pause.
He's done with Den, though. Looks at me, assessing. Were we hippies? Yuppies? And it occurs to me now that he could most likely smell us. We were newly returned to the house in the bush and were having stovepipe issues. Dennis has been asked if he works at Helmut's Sausage. But I think what he meant was this ain't 1910, you bozos. You can have these for 27 cents each. I got them from the Bay where they were selling them for five bucks.
Dropping the tiny bags back into their box he turns and walks back to his duties as boss.
Where does he get all this stuff?
I picture him during one of his visits to the Bay, some back office with a bigwig. Holding up one of those little bags of wax.
I know these aren't moving. I'll take 'em. Ten cents a piece.
The Bay manager, rocking and thinking.
How do you know they're not moving?
But he gives in.
Another deal sealed. I imagine the King of Welk Mart patting the Bay guy on the shoulder.
It's the Bay, I hear him saying mercilessly, nothing moves in here but clothes for old ladies and housewares.
Out behind the store, giddy over his purchases of do-it-yourself candle kits. He'll move 'em.
Dennis is moving toward the box, almost holding his nose. Twenty-seven cents. He looks at me.
There's quite a few in here.
I roll my eyes, too good for Bay wax kits.
We take 'em all.                                                                                                                         -Tammy

Not even the birds

Wait. Come back.
The first to peck at the walls looking for snug bugs.
But now find only cracks, open and airy.
Nobody understands what we've done to the house. Not even the birds.
Come around the corner. You'll love it. I saved you all the fat.

Now I see them, two of them. And whiskey jacks.
Why are they on the wrong side of the house?

My feeder still hangs untouched.
The chickadees won't go near it.
The squirrel leaping from tree to tree has better things to do.
He could have it.

Today, even Stellar's jays
I stare at my feeder. Nothin'.

Greys with red heads.
I don't know them and they don't know me.
high above my feeder in towering trees.
I sneak over to the window, they flutter off. Black and white wings.
Gone.

Twenty minutes and now not a peep.

Dropping tiny chunks of snow, filling my little pot.
Thinking about mountains, climbing, altitude sickness and water.
I stare past my feeder that has yet to feed anything.
My mountain calls. The trail that will take me past creeks, valleys, up through the morning fog, and birds.

But first, my tea.
Maybe tomorrow. I'm talking to my bird feeder.

-Tammy

Approach the dandelion?

I was awakened, occasionally, through the night, by the uproar.

Louder every time. My dad and his buddy Dan, an hour from town and out of everything else, had expropriated my gallon of gently curing dandelion wine. Doomed to be finished before it was done. A long, loud night.

What's this?

Her name was Jackie, that was asking, from California. Santa Cruz. Californians popping up wasn't at all rare on this earlier homestead in the waning days of the hippy thing. All kinds of Americans. And city people, just as exotic, from Vancouver, maybe, or just Prince George. Town. Three hours away.

Oh, those are dandelion roots. Dennis is drying them to make coffee. My mom, in response.

Then Jackie again: You mean Denny?

Denny's my deeply strange, hippy uncle who lived on the land with us, he helped buy it after all, during most of the hippy thing. He would eventually manage to drown himself in a boat bailing accident off his home on some remote island in what's now known as the Salish Sea. One of a handful of times I've cried as an adult. 

No. My mom gestured at the skinny, scruffy 11-year-old that was me. Dennis.

Oh. Jackie is surprised. Good for you. Addressing me.

At least I got to drink the coffee stuff. It was, is, delicious.

And, of course, like so many people, we ate our share of dandelion greens in salads. There are no stories attached to those, however. No childhood experiments or youthful exploits. They too, however, remain delicious.

Finally, there's Bullseye. Or DDT or Napalm or whatever ghastly poisons city dwellers soak their surroundings with to keep them beautiful. To exterminate everything that isn't part of the plan.

We don't understand the plan. Fair enough. We've got another one. Oh, and we've got the land. The most precious gift any parents could bestow on thoroughly unworthy kids. Just under 80 acres of forest and field and stream. The one chunk remaining from several that came and went during the hippy thing. Used to be 160 acres but it was subdivided after the commune broke up. Lost a few more acres when the road officially became a road and the highways department took a few acres as right of way. They paid for it, of course, the downpayment for my parents place in town.

We actually lived on the place, Tammy and I, for 10 years. Moved out here with a bunch of vague notions and a pack of little children. The vague notions came to nothing. We loved where we lived but we didn't get to spend much time there. Had to go off and make money. 

The pack of kids came to considerably more. They all grew up decently and then they started to disappear. Let's see, as of this writing there's one in Vernon, one in William's Lake, one on Vancouver Island, one in Edmonton and one in Vietnam. Oh, and one still with us. Occasionally. 

We moved back to civilization about the time the kids started disappearing. Thinking that we were burnt out on this life. That we needed a change. This was an absolute disaster that lasted less than a year. Civilization is a great place to visit. But we can't spend too much time there. Cause we truly don't get the plan. We stayed just long enough to figure out that the change we needed was not to live elsewhere but to truly live here.

So we're back. Back (yes damn it) to the land. And maybe, to paraphrase acoustic folk-blues genius Kelly Joe Phelps, we can get it right this time. Getting it right, to us, means reaching a level of self sufficiency whereby we only leave here because we want to. That's it. That's the plan. Simple. With a lot left to figure out. Luckily we've got some time. Our approach to the little old dandelion will help. Letting it live to provide us with wine, coffee and salad greens. And a cute little symbol of all that we want and don't want. Our new mantra is: we've got all day. Not quite every day, yet, but that's where we're heading. And with any lucky we have a lot of days ahead.

-Dennis