We Homestead An Island

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As a result—no matter what we think the next few months' weather might be like-we've learned to stock up in November with enough "boughten" goods to run us through the winter. extra grain for the chickens, pellets (stored in garbage cans) for the rabbits, 30 pounds of salt mackerel and 15 of salt cod (available from fish plants and storable at room temperature), powdered milk, flours, 15 pounds of butter (refrigerated outdoors by nature), rice, raisins, six gallons of kerosene for the lamps, extra matches, saw blades, and radio batteries. All this, in addition to 124 pints of assorted home canned vegetables, 24 pints of wild berry purees ... and heaping mounds of turnips, cabbages, parsnips, carrots, and potatoes.

And a final example: We have an inexpensive walkie-talkie that we keep in good working order and which we use to check in with a mainland neighbor twice a week ... just in case we're suddenly hit with a serious illness or accident that we can't handle alone. So far we've never had such an accident and our relative isolation has kept us far enough away from all the "urban" germs on the mainland to ensure disease?free winters for the both of us. But that doesn't mean we'll be as lucky next year as we've been in the past ... and it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Are all these changes in our schedule to fit the weather and the precautions we take a bother? Yes, they can be. But some people are willing to pay this price and some aren't in exchange for the privilege of living on their own island. We happen to be two of the folks who are willing to "sacrifice" a few of civilization's "comforts" for the freedom and liberty we receive in return. It's as simple as that.

... BUT IT HAS ITS FORAGING BENEFITS TOO!

In addition to the splendid isolation from most of the modern world's cares that we enjoy, our island furnishes us with a great many other forms of wealth. The sparkling blue waters which surround us, for example, abound with I seafood delicacies ... free for the taking!

We can jig with a fishing rod almost any time we want for cod, mackerel, and flounder. And a local fisherman (no, we're not completely isolated!) stocks our frypan with all the herring we can eat, in exchange for our surplus eggs. It only took a minor investment in fins, masks, and wet suits (about $40 per person for the used equipment we bought) to outfit ourselves well enough to feast day after day after day on the scallops, Jonah crabs, and blue mussels that thrive just off our isle's shore. And at low tide, millions of steamer clams just wait for us to dig them out of our property's muddy inlets.

Nor does our foraging stop at the water's edge. Lamb's?quarters, sea blite, beach peas, plantain, and other sea-salted greens crowd each other on much of the land above the island's tide mark. (We can the beach peas and lamb's-quarters for winter use.) Raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, and rose hips all grow wild on our property's meadows ... and they're all free of the roadway dust and leadladen fumes that taint their side-ditch counterparts on the mainland. We harvest all these volunteer edibles (and others!) according to the directions and suggestions in Euell Gibbons's excellent wild food books.

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