There was no question in my mind that I could do it. I sat in the back yard, behind the dog pen, hunched inside of a makeshift tent that was constructed out of heavy wooden beams and a big, black tarp, something my dad had brought home (read: stolen) from the rubber shop where he worked. I had in my hand a small mason jar full of ripe red raspberries, picked only minutes ago from the row of bushes that ran along the north side of the chain link fence that was the dog pen. I was attempting to make raspberry jam, using a spoon and smashing the raspberries into a thick, gooey pulp. No sugar needed. These babies were plenty sweet. Not necessary to cook it. Plus, I wasn't allowed to play with fire. And who needed toast? It was a jam good enough to eat with your fingers, right out of the jar.
This was all part of a plan to prove to myself that I could live off of the land.
It seemed to me, even then, that it wasn't completely necessary to have grocery stores. After all, everything that you could buy at the store could be made or grown at home. Well, with the exception of bananas and baloney. But I could live without bananas and baloney.
My thinking was this: I really needed very little to survive. First off, I was pretty skinny. I had been a skinny kid since the very beginning, and had worried my parents because I "ate like a bird." They would take me to the doctor, who would assure them that I would eat when I was hungry, and then he would assure me that he would marry me someday, and let me choose a reward from the treasure chest (I always chose a ring, so I could say that it was from the doctor who was going to marry me someday). My great-grandfather, who we called Big Grandpa because he was very tall and was married to Little Grandma, who was very short, would shake his head at me at every family gathering. "You look like a bird! You're going to dry up and fly away!"
But I really don't think it's fair to say that I didn't eat, because I really did. I loved fruits, vegetables, bread and bacon. I ate a lot of stuff. And I ran around a lot. And I think it's because of the things I liked to eat that I came to my conclusion that I could live off the land.
After all, what could be better than a fresh carrot, straight from the garden, plucked from grandma's vegetable plot before it was big enough? Well, a tomato, of course! A red, sun-warmed, juice-drips-down-to-your-elbow-burning-the-scrape-on-your-arm-from-the-bike-accident tomato is one of the best things that can ever happen to a real, garden-loving kid. There's no store-bought tomato that could even pretend to be more than a tasteless water balloon. And corn! Well, if a kid could start a fire (once she was allowed to use matches for more than burning the trash once a week) and boil some water, corn would just be the best thing in the world to eat! And since I was such a dairy addict, I certainly had to have a cow. With a cow, I could have milk, and butter, and ice cream. None of those required matches. And what did cows eat? Grass! How hard could that be to grow? Given all of this staggering logic, I knew that I never really had to have a job. I could eat fruits and veggies straight from the garden, sleep in my tent, and drink milk and make butter from my cow who only needed to eat grass. It was a flawless plan. Sometimes, I still pull elements from it. This is why I needed to know how to make bread from scratch, or how to knit a scarf, a hat, or a pair of mittens, how to milk a cow, how to raise a goat, how to butcher a pig, how to make yogurt. This is why things just don't feel right if there isn't a garden filled with herbs, veggies, fruits and weeds in our yard. This is why I've made homemade horehound drops, why I read books by Gene Logsdon and Wendell Berry, why I get so excited about mulberry season, and why I have a get that goofy nostalgic look on my face when I see a row of red raspberries, gooseberries or currants. Because when I was seven years old, I had a plan. And I was sure that I could live off the land from that moment on. It would work. How could it not?
As long as it stayed summer all year 'round.
