Nice, but....

I've seen it. In fact, I see it every day here, every day when the Shoshone and Bannock come into the library from the reservation. With 45% unemployment they "roll their own" or die, slowly, from taking handouts.

I've dealt with the guy who, back in the '70s, moved to Alaska to "get back to the land." A year later I saw him again and asked him how it was going. He told me he was working as a programmer for Sohio (petroleum company, now defunct) -- "You gotta work at least 14 hours a day, man! Screw that!"

Or the guy who insisted that we get books on home slaughtering and butchering so that come Fall he could "do" his own pig. We did and when the day came he was ready. Later, I asked him how it went. "Took it to the packing house." "I thought you were going to...." "Look! Them things ain't empty, okay?"

But then, there have been the days when I've eaten the veggies I've grown myself or foraged, the berries I picked and my mother canned, the game we shot and dressed ourselves, the fish we've caught....

But then, when growing up we had damned little money -- for my family, a rifle behind the door meant meat on the table; a knowledge of wild mushrooms and how to feed chickens and grow potatoes meant the difference between just enough and not quite.

But don't get bogged down in romance. As everyone who has been there knows, it's hard work.

And no, I haven't opted out of the "homestead" ideal. I've just realistic about it.