"A Time of Hunting and Gathering"

The wood stove.

Fireplace.

Hearth.

It's been around a while--a safe place to contain fire indoors. We've been bringing fire indoors for as long as we've had a thing called "fire" and a place called "indoors" which is a pretty long damn time in my estimation.

There was a time when a man's worth was measured by how well he could build a stone fireplace, and how well he could build a house around said fireplace. Before radio and television the fireplace was the center of the home. For thousands of years we have gathered around the warmth and safety of a hearth of some sort.

It's a wonder then that so many people these days don't know how to start a fire without the aid of some sort of petroleum based accelerant.

Many people have never even seen a real wood stove. Most have seen decorative heat sources that look like wood stoves but burn natural gas piped magically to one's home as long as they pay their utilities.

It has been many years since I have had to burn wood, but the ripple effects of economic meltdown have finally slammed into Alaskan shores. A tsunami of businesses have shut down.

As a result things are tight and getting tighter...

This year we install a wood stove.

The installation of a wood stove heralds a returning to my roots, of sorts. The beginning of a regression back to a simpler yet inherently more difficult time.

A time of hunting and gathering.

We had a wood stove when I was a kid. Pretty much everybody did back then. All our summers were spent gathering firewood for the coming winter. I remember my dad darting out into the forty below ice fog barefoot and in sweatpants to snag a few logs off the wood pile. He slept on the couch so that he could keep it going all night (and so mom wouldn't have to hear him snore).

I remember one fall fire, after the wood stove had been cool all summer long, when the cat decided to jump up on it to have a sit and maybe groom herself. Boy, was she surprised. So shocked, in fact, she stood there for most of a second before one of my parents shoved the cat off the hot stove. She'd burnt off all of her pads, poor cat. I think her name was Tasha.

Back then our house was built out of damaged or slightly twisted lumber and other construction materials pulled out of the dumpster behind Spenard Builder's supply, back when you could do that sort of thing. (Now they cut damaged materials up and you can't access their dumpsters anymore.)

We ate potatoes and rabbits and when my dad wasn't cleaning one of the two bars he worked at, or working for the fire service, he was selling Doberman Pinscher puppies for extra cash.

Potatoes and rabbits for dinner may be on the menu again this winter. Rabbit and Dumplings, Rabbit Stir Fry, Rabbit Pot Pie...Rabbit Burger Helper? I have plans drawn up in my head of the rabbit hutch I need to build this summer.

My great grandmother lived during the depression. That woman made everything and hoarded everything. It was all hoarded in a nice organized OCD sort of way though. Shelves and shelves of storage bins containing everything from empty sunny delight bottles to candle making supplies. For a while she even made Alaskan clay pottery to sell.  She grew a huge garden every year well into her eighties. She had absolutely no problem eating road kill. None at all. She raised rabbits for food just like we did, except she lived in town. Access to a grocery store just didn't seem to factor in for her.

I went over to her house one day with a pair of pet guinea pigs I'd just gotten in a cardboard box.

"Look, grandma! Guinea pigs!"

She looked at me, blinked twice, and said, "Can ye eat 'em?" in her thick southern drawl.

She used to make fireweed jelly. I haven't had fireweed jelly in twenty years so I think it's on the list of things to make and preserve this summer. I've already canned some spruce tip syrup. High in vitamin C, good in tea, smells like squirrel piss (and Christmas trees).

I'll be canning a little bit of everything. Salmon, raspberry jelly, cranberry jelly, strawberry rhubarb jam, carrots, tomatoes, pickles, salsa. I have a fair amount of root crops planted this season as well.

Soon I'll be harvesting blueberries. Blueberries are gold. Blueberries are good barter for moose meat, salmon, or  honey.

Chokecherry wine is on the to-do list. Raspberry leaf tea. Labrador tea.
Handmade hats.

Dog milk soap...

Just kidding...

Maybe...