My last stick of firewood was hauled from the woods and deposited along my driveway. Now it remains to be cut up, split and stacked. Normally this takes a couple of days. But this year is different.For whatever reason, I now have two years or more worth of wood piled and staring me in the face. Never, have I had this much wood ahead. And the prospect of working it up seems so daunting that I almost would rather that it just go away. But it isn’t going anywhere, of course.Help is scheduled to come this weekend and barring an unexpected bout of rain, we should get a cord or so finished. The rest will remain for me to pick at as time allows. And then, after that last stick has been secured under cover of my woodshed, I’ll sit back and relax.At that point, I’ll sit back and take an inventory. Food aplenty sits in my freezer and homemade canned goods line my shelves. The cupboards are filled with freshly dried herbs to fight colds and flues. And winter squash are nestled here and there, even on bookshelves.So the day will come, and pretty soon, when I can say, “Let it snow. I’m prepared.”
One night last week, temperatures plummeted to the high 20s. Before that, several nights in the low 30s covered the landscape with a thick coating of frost. That was all it took to transform bitter dandelions into succulent greens. Even better, I noticed that where a truck had dumped a load of sand for amending my garden soil, dandelions had apparently grown up and migrated through the sand in their quest for light. This made them easy to dig, root and all. So with basket in one hand and a dandelion digger in the other, I harvested a late-season bounty of sweet dandelions. Fresh wild edibles are on their way out and soon, snow will cover the frozen ground. But until then, we foragers must keep our eyes open to every fleeting opportunity to reap where we didn’t sow. Groundnuts, Jerusalem Artichokes and dandelions lie waiting for the industrious forager. Enjoy.
Yesterday was garden clean-up day. Weeds, brought in with a load of not-quite-composted cow manure, fought me tooth and nail all summer. And by season’s end, they had won the contest. But now, with most of the weeds pulled and hauled away, the tide of battle has swung my way.Of course all was not bad regarding those “weeds.” Many of them were excellent edibles and I frequently ate my weeds while waiting for the more familiar cultivated vegetables to ripen. Galinsoga, purslane and lamb’s quarters provided many a healthful side dish. By July, though, the weeds had literally outgrown their worth.The culprit, of course, was near-continual rain. It rained and rained and rained. The dry periods between rains were not of sufficient duration to fully dry the soil or the vegetables. This kept me out of the garden and spurred the weeds toward unprecedented growth.But now, at season’s end, all this makes little difference. No one knows what next year will bring and all we can do is hope for the best and act accordingly. One thing remains perfectly clear, though. No matter what, those pesky weeds will return. I’ll utilize them to the fullest extent and if they finally get the upper hand, I might even cuss them. That’s all part of the self-sufficient lifestyle.
Wild is where you find it. My place in Mid-Coast Maine lies only about six miles from the small city of Belfast. And yet, I am more isolated than some of my friends who live in the Moosehead Lake Region. Of course it all depends upon location, and I am located well off of a poorly-maintained dirt road.Situated off the road as I am, I have no neighbors that I can see and only a few that I can even hear. Setting out from my front door and taking a quick right-face, I can walk for many miles through unbroken woodland. So despite the relative nearness of Belfast and a sprinkling of new neighbors up and down the road, I live in a wild setting.A 15-minute hike to the nether reaches of my woodlot brings me to a place of near-perfect tranquility. Visitors here often comment upon the quiet. They are impressed with the absence of traffic noise and with a general lack of sound from commerce and industry. Again, this apparent wildness suites me fine.Little backwaters of nature, cul-de-sacs where the hum of machinery cannot penetrate, exist throughout the length and breadth of Maine. These unsung sanctuaries are anodyne to those whose spirits require peace and quiet. Fortunate am I to have found a wild place all of my own.
Nearly 30 years ago, while cutting pulpwood on a woodlot in the Town of Waldo, the landowner asked me to go with him to try and find a very special tree. He said that in the beginning, he had simply stumbled upon the tree. After that, he had gone back to view it several times and each time, had great difficulty in pinpointing the tree’s location. We had the same problem and again, only found the tree by sheer accident. As we slogged through boggy, wet ground, getting slapped in the face by alders and attacked by mosquitoes, our quest seemed a terrible waste of time and energy. And then, in the middle of a small clearing, we found the “Secret” tree. As red maples go, it was pretty much a maverick. Bent, twisted and at once beautiful and grotesque, the tree bespoke of the amazing tenacity that is built into every living thing. Damaged at some date far in the past, the tree grew down and then back up, a living pretzel. And of all things, the tree had a hollow section on the bottom, large enough so that a small animal could easily pass through it. We marveled for a while, and then went back to work dropping and limbing fragrant, balsam fir to sell to the pulp mill in Bucksport. But the picture of the secret tree remained emblazoned upon my mind’s eye, never to be forgotten. Today, I own that woodlot and in fact, live on it. And the secret tree? It stands on the edge of a little pond that I dug just in front of it and it is the focal point of a small clearing. Over the years, I have planted various perennial plants and shrubs along the little path leading from my house, up a gentle hill to the pond and the secret tree. The clearing, with the pond and tree, are a destination of worth and scarcely a day passes but what I don’t make the short pilgrimage up the hill, to gaze in wonder at the secret tree. So the tree has become part of my life. And to think that at one time, it was all I could do to even locate it. But now I am familiar with the tree in every season, from soft, pastel spring to crimson fall and into stark, black-and-white winter. The tree is mine now, and I am its.
Animals have regular habits, which makes them predictable. They sleep, eat, hunt, mate and travel according to a timetable which, in turn, is pretty much dictated by the changing seasons. At one time, when we as a race of beings were more attuned to nature, humans followed a more-or-less regular routine. This, I believe, is healthy and good. Most people today have long since deviated from any nature-related or dependent schedule. Regular mealtimes, or lack thereof, are a prime example of how far we have departed from what was once the norm. When I was young, we ate breakfast around 7 a.m. and had what was then termed, “dinner” at 12 noon. Supper, what people now call dinner, was set at no later than 6 p.m. Lunch was more properly termed, “a” lunch, meaning a snack. This was taken at any time. For whatever reason or reasons, I never outgrew the regular meal schedule that I had become accustomed to as a youngster. In my circle of friends, I am pretty much alone in this, at least to the best of my knowledge. Anyway, if I miss an occasional breakfast it’s no big deal. But when noontime rolls around, I really feel hunger pangs and must eat. And to miss supper sets the stage for feeling not-so-red-hot the next day. Many of my friends are of a habit of dropping in to visit around 6 p.m. and no matter how I plead with them to share my meal, they refuse. Back at home, most of them finally sit down to eat at 9 p.m. or even later. Anyway, these evening visits result in me putting my food away in the refrigerator, uneaten, and hungrily waiting for my visitor to leave so that I can finally sit down and eat. But by then, the much-anticipated, whatever I had prepared, has lost much of its appeal. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older that I tire in late afternoon. But I don’t think that completely explains it. My best working times, and that goes for mental as well as physical work, are in the morning and early afternoon. So any mid-morning or early afternoon distraction, be it visitors or phone calls, detracts from my productive time. Yet, I see my friends doing their work, whatever it is, at all different hours. It just seems that this cannot be good. My buddy, who works in the woods with me cutting firewood on my woodlot, likes to start the workday about two hours before pitch dark. For me, that’s when I’m winding down. He wonders why I am rarely enthusiastic about going out and doing physical labor at this time of day. Again, I think that this isn’t good. Late afternoons and early evenings are for relaxing. Of course everyone hasn’t the luxury to follow my suggested routine. All I’m saying is that I see a marked difference between my habits and times of doing things and those of my friends. It all boils down to this: I live a different kind of life than that experienced by most people. I still act and respond according to natural rhythms. And those natural rhythms tell me that a somewhat dependable, predictable routine is a good, healthful thing.
Consult any field guide to mammals and it will indicate, among other things, the average home range of each animal species. This does not mean that the animal might not stray much further, but rather delineates the day-in, day-out territory the critter covers in its regular travels. Humans are much the same. We all have a home range, and I consider that the territory that we cover on foot rather than by any mechanized conveyance. For some, that home range or territory is no larger than their house and yard. For others, it can cover many miles. For me, it’s easy to pinpoint an exact size. It’s ten acres, the size of my woodlot. I walk around my woods on a regular basis. If something is amiss, I’m quick to see it. Changes are quickly noted and I feel about as “in charge” of my home range as anyone could ever be. That’s not to say that I exercise much control over things, but only that I am aware of what goes on. For instance, I am aware that a huge, ancient white pine has died. This, along with some others, was irreparably damaged by the ice storm of 1998. And only now, are these powerful giants of the plant kingdom finally relinquishing their grip on this earth. Of course there’s nothing I can do to bring my tree back. So instead, I’ll cut it and haul it to a nearby sawmill. There, it will go toward pine boards to be used in building a planned addition to my cottage. Taking this home range idea a step further, I heard a radio interview with a man, an author, who wrote a book about his circle experiment. He took a map showing his property, placed a saucer over it with his house in the center of the saucer and drew a circle. Then he proceeded to identify and date every house, mill and historic site within the circle. My home range project is not as ambitious. It only involves identifying all the plants growing on my range. On the other hand, keeping track of everything that grows and everything that happens on my ten acres, entails considerable effort. But it’s fun and more to the point, it’s rewarding. If I can describe my home range in detail, then I really do have some kind of relationship with it, something deeper than simply paying Caesar his due, in the form of yearly property taxes. I suggest that anyone can learn a lot by taking a closer look at their home range.
