Getting organized

So, the reality of the challenge is starting to set in, and I figure I'd better start figuring out what we're going to eat for the next six weeks.

So, I'm taking a look at my assets, so I can make a plan.
First up, eggs:
We have plenty of eggs. We have about 18 chickens, so we get 10-15 eggs a day. Probably more, but that's how many we can find!

This morning, we had gluten-free pancakes for breakfast.

We used the last of the GF Bisquick that I'd bought as a treat.

I'm sure we can't have pancakes very often.

We've got one bottle of maple syrup and about five pounds of sugar. So even if we had enough flour, pancakes would be out. I guess we'll have scrambled eggs a lot.

We have one big bag of rice. Probably 25 pounds left out of a 50-pound bag.

Since it's only a six-week challenge, we could use five pounds of rice a week and be fine -- I think we're going to be eating a LOT of rice.

Coffee is going to problematic. This is all we have: A three-pound bag from Costco. I have my teenager in charge of grinding coffee and making coffee every morning. He likes the job, and it's a "grownup thing," I think, to make coffee every day.

But he wastes some. The bag is upside down because he opened it from the bottom, and he spilled some getting it out to grind it this morning.

That's going to be an issue. We are going to be hurting if there's no coffee in three weeks. And I have no idea how long three pounds of coffee lasts at a pot a day. I guess I should look it up or figure it out!

This is the "regular pantry," in our mud room. It's the go-to pantry for everyday use. We've got canned goods like salsa and green beans, jars of sugar, honey, spices, just regular old food here.

I'm thinking it's going to be empty in six weeks. I hope I'm wrong -- maybe I can keep a stocked pantry with no money. I keep saying, "We'll see," to keep myself from panicking and thinking about whether my kids are going to have food issues their entire lives because I forced them to eat cold canned tomatoes for three weeks at the end of the experiment.

See the boxes on the top right?

That's the key to this whole thing. I have three cases of coconut milk creamer. With sugar in it. That's what's going to keep us alive. I can have coffee every morning, with creamer, and no one will have to suffer from the effects of me not having coffee.

Here's one of the small freezers (I know. I have three freezers. That's why I can even consider doing this challenge.)

This one is mostly soup bones. I think we'll be eating a lot of soup.  Potato soup, beef soup, cabbage soup. Egg drop soup?

The long skinny freezer is my house freezer. I don't know what's in here. Leftover corn chowder.

Peas from Costco. Odds and ends of meat and old cookie dough. Nothing you can really cook from.

Which brings me to the "real" freezer.  And when I look at it, I'm convinced the challenge will be easy. I mean how much food can five people eat, right? But do you know what most of that is?

Frozen bananas.

About thirty pounds of lard. 
Some meat, sure -- hamburger meat. A standing rib roast (seriously, I can't feel very sorry for myself when I have a standing rib roast in the freezer. I'm not even sure what that is or how to cook it, but it sounds fancy and delicious.)
Some old cranberries. Lots of loaves of terrible, awful brown rice bread that no one will eat, but I might use for bread crumbs or to make meatballs or something.

Tomato sauce that I froze a million years ago thinking it was OK to freeze it without a lid and in a jar. But now I'm sure it's freezer-burned, but I don't want to throw it out.
I can't decide whether this is an amazing amount of food and this is the whole point of doing this challenge -- to show how much food we waste -- or whether this is just ridiculous and really, I can't expect my kids to eat terrible brown bread and pork lard for a month.

And now we come to the "paranoia pantry." This is really the heart of where this challenge lies. Everything here is something I came by for free or in trade. It's either veggies from Gleaners, canned goods from Gleaners, or stuff that I've grown, traded, or picked from my own yard. Applesauce, jam, pickled peppers, cans of food that we wouldn't normally eat but I save for an emergency, pickled garlic.

Lots of salsa, applesauce, and jars of stuff that are unappetizing and weird, which is why they've never been used.

If something's been down there for a year, there's a reason.

The jams and jellies and pickles go fast -- they're tasty. But the jars of "weird sweet sauce that was an experiment because we had too many plums," are somehow not going as fast as I had hoped.

Jars of canned plums, with the pits still in them.

No one's going to eat those. Same with mushy cherries, though I guess I could make pie or cobbler.

If the sugar holds out.

I'm one day into this. I have hamburger meat thawing in the fridge, with avocados and tomatoes from Gleaners on the counter.
I don't know if it will be tacos with rice and beans, hamburger helper with rice with a Mexican theme, or hamburgers with no bun -- I never decide until it's time to make dinner.
​But at least for now, we have plenty of options.

The Paranoia Pantry

Well, there's no point in getting prepared for a zombie invasion of you never test out out your preparedness plan, right? 

When I first met Mark, a lifetime ago in another state, he was very cute, 32-year-old bachelor who owned his own home. It was the first house he'd owned, and it was as boring as a house could possibly be: On a cul-de-sac, with sidewalks, in a dull neighborhood with small yards. A small kitchen, three tidy bedrooms with almost no furniture, and a small pantry.
After I'd checked the freezer for body parts of ex-girlfriends and convinced myself that Mark was, in fact, legit, and actually was the stuff of legend (a man over 30, never married, steady job, not crazy, good income, and no bizarre sexual fetishes, could actually hold a conversation and WHO WAS TALL AND HANDSOME AND SMART -- seriously, this was too good to be true!), I checked the pantry.

There was NO food.
Three boxes of pasta, and a couple cans of chili.

Well, I wasn't having that. If he was going to own a perfectly good kitchen, and I was going to be spending time there, then we were going to have food.

So we went and bought groceries, and I cooked, and he was happy.

And then he said, "Don't buy too many groceries for the house. If there's food there, I'll eat it."

That blew me away. 

I grew up with nothing.

And I mean that in a literal way. There were times when we had plenty, of course, and a beautiful house and lots of toys and amazing, brand-new clothes.
And there were days when we lived in a hotel and ate pea soup out of a crockpot for three days straight, and we owned nothing except the clothes that we were wearing.
 If there was a pantry, I was going to fill that sucker up.

And there was going to be food in that pantry, and we were going to eat it.

Nineteen year after I met Mark, I have one hell of a pantry.

I have a room that's about 15 feet by 12 feet, in the basement, lined with shelves.

The people who lived here before us called it "the fruit room," but it's really a root cellar. It has a hole in the wall near the ceiling for ventilation, to keep it cool all summer, and it's got a stand-up freezer at one end.

We've lived here two years next month, and I think I've got it down.
We have jars filled with applesauce that I made from apples we picked, either from our trees or from friends. Jars full of blackberry jam, pickles, salsa, green beans and all sorts of other goodies.
The freezer in the basement is full. We've bought an eighth of a beef cow this year, and half a pig. I froze some veggies that I didn't can. And we've had the Gleaners Pantry to give us stacks of corn tortillas and gluten-free tortillas.
I have the house freezer, also full of good food: Soup bones, jars of black beans, frozen veggies from Costco.
And I have a pantry full of spices, potatoes, bags of tortilla chips, sugar, gluten-free flour, some coffee.
It's enough to last us a year, I think, with some satisfaction, and some of the gnawing "it's not enough! We need more," has finally died down.
But now, Mark has lost his job.
And I have decided that I don't want to move. I want to wait it out. I want to live here forever. And to do that, we need to live frugally for as long as possible, to give Mark as long as possible to land another job.
He will probably find one soon -- he's a good engineer, and reliable one, and he has friends up here who are working on it.

But I've decided to test out my preparations, and act as if the zombie apocalypse is upon us, and eat what we have.

From now until June 1, which is about six weeks away, I'm not going to go to the grocery store.

Here are "the rules" I've set for my challenge:

1. We can only eat things that are from my pantry, from the Gleaner's Pantry, or that I trade for locally.
2. I can't set foot into any traditional grocery stores, nor spend money there.
3. Anything I have already is fair game and can be used for trading or eating.
4. When I run out of something we have, we have to do without. Unless it's coffee and I can't find a place to trade for it. Because then the deal's off.
5. The two things that are not "in the challenge" are taking my four-year-old for an ice cream once in a while (because I only have six weeks left of ever having a four-year-old, ever, and it's ICE CREAM,) and having a drink or sharing a meal with friends while I'm out (which will probably be twice in the six weeks of this challenge.) For the purposes of our zombie experiment, we will eat every meal at home.

Now, lest you say this isn't challenging enough, since I have access to free produce and a fully stocked pantry, let me explain our food restrictions:

1. No gluten. This means that all of the bread, doughnuts, pastries and goodies at Gleaners Pantry are not available to us. So once we run out of the two or so loaves of GF bread in the freezer, we're out, unless I make my own.
2. No dairy. My two boys can't have dairy. So no cheese, milk, yogurt, butter or cream. We will, actually have goat's milk soon, but I don't even know if the boys can drink it.
3. No sugar, starches or grains. One of my sons has a hard time digesting sugar and starches. So he eats a ton of fruit, veggies, meats and soups. And he hates eggs. Most of the time, he eats things made with coconut flour or almond flour, and those are NOT going to be easily replaceable when we run out.

However, we do have a lot of advantages that makes for a challenge that might actually work.

Our assets:

1. A fully stocked pantry. Pecans, olives, cans of tomatoes, gluten-free flour, gluten-free oats, sugar, salt, baking soda, spices, tomato sauce, coconut oil, lots of stuff like that. Probably not six weeks' worth, though. We're about to find out.
2. Canned goods. I have about 200 jars of stuff that I've canned myself. Some of it is stuff that I know we'll use: Salsa, applesauce, jelly, pickles. That will all be gone by June 1. The other stuff? It'll be interesting to see how long we go before we use it. Jars of plums that I was too lazy to pit before I canned them. A couple of jars of chicken meat that I canned as an experiment. Canned cherries that are just a little on the mushy side. We'll see.
3. Three freezers. There's at least one turkey and one ham in there, and probably about 20 pounds of meat besides that. Hell, that right there is about four pounds of meat per week if I rationed it right.
   Will I ration it right? If I make hamburgers or meatballs the first week, does that mean that it's all soup from soup bones the last two weeks? I have not idea. None.
   We also have some frozen veggies, some freezer-burned tomato sauce, and lots of weird stuff I've forgotten about. But I'm not throwing any of it out.
4. Eggs. Lots of eggs, every day. Probably about 10 a day, easy. So we could survive on scrambled eggs and custard alone, if the sugar holds out.
5. Milk. We will have a goat that has babies in just a few days. If we don't manage to kill her or her babies through our bungling as new farmers, she should have milk to give every day. Can I do anything with goat's milk? I have NO idea. That's another wild card.
6. An herb garden and a regular garden. I don't know what will be ready in six weeks, but I know I already have chives, parsley, mint, oregano and some other things coming in.
7. Pecans. My aunt has a pecan farm. She just sent me a big box of pecans. Since they were here before the challenge started, I have no qualms about trading pecans for other goodies. Like coffee.

And that's where we are. The challenge started tonight. Pasta, sausage, tomatoes, fresh herbs, and some canned tomato sauce. It was delicious. The only thing I'd bought at a store was the GF pasta.
Tomorrow, we'll see how it goes!

A visit to a strange place

The first thing to say, I guess, is that Mark got laid off last week.

Yes, that kind of laid off -- the kind where all money stops coming in and the husband is home every day stirring about as if he's retired, except without the retirement part.

It's possible that Mark will find a job next week.
He's like that.

It's also possible that he'll never find a job, and we'll be homeless and living in our van, after we sell off our cows and eat our goats and tell our kids that we have to give away the dogs and cats. (This is not as likely, but it's *possible.* And it's where my mind goes.)
And because I was born into a life of chaos and uncertainty, this is my home turf. This is familiar to me, as familiar as the feel of tears when it's been years since you've cried.
I *know* this place.
We're now visiting the land of chaos, where future might be dark. The future might be light, too, but it's not going to be what you planned. And it's no longer in your control. This is land where you are dumped, never with a plan or any advance warning, on a random Tuesday, by illness, accidents, turns of fate, drunks and people who are crazy.
It's like visiting a childhood home -- I might not want to be here, and I might not want to admit that I grew up here, but dammit, I've got to admit that I am at home and comfortable and I know my way around. And I might as well use that knowledge to my advantage.
I know how to do stress.
I know how to do uncertain. It's the "happily ever after" that I've been doing for about the last two years that was strange and foreign. I was hoping that I'd find chaos and uncertainty to be forgotten and mysterious, but they greeted me as old friends, with a loud, "Welcome HOME, friend!!"
But now, I have so many things that I didn't have when I was ten and lost in this world.
And if I learned how to navigate these dark waters without a compass, an iPhone or a flashlight, when I was a young girl carrying three small sisters on my back, I can certainly navigate them now.
I have friends, now, and some of them have been here before. Some even grew up here and know the language. Hell, some of my family members LIVE here.

This time, I have a companion.
And Mark does NOT loiter in the land of chaos. In fact, I'm not even sure he recognizes it as a place -- more like a puddle to jump over on his way to somewhere else.

I am different than Mark, though.

I tend to get stuck here.

After all, it's familiar -- it's not safe, but better the devil you know, right?

But this time, I will not get stuck.
I have things waiting for me on the other side.
And I know the way out. Or, rather, I know that there IS no way out -- not for people who tend to get stuck.
What there is, instead, is a trick.

You just keep walking. And walking. And walking. Even when you're sure that you're walking in circles. And one day, you're no longer in the land of chaos.
Instead, you're in a different place. A better one. And it's not at all the place you expected to go. But most of the time, it's a pleasant shock that the new place is better than you'd ever dared to hope for.
So, for now, I will keep walking. I will not be tempted to stay here. I will remember that when you are on the other side of the journey, the paradigm shifts and everything is different.
And, perhaps, one day, it's the "happily ever after" part will feel like home instead.

Ten things your daughter should know by age ten

That's my daughter, Scout, in the picture above.
My sister and I are both raising girls, and yesterday, Nora sent an article entitled "Ten things my daughter should know by ten."
And it was fine. In a WASPy, mall-culture, school-centered sort of way.
My kids, though?

This is not what I want for them.

"Explain to them in no uncertain terms that no drugs are safe to try even once"?
What kind of bizarre thinking is that?! Caffeine is a drug. So is alcohol. So is aspirin, and Tylenol. Do I really believe my kids are never going to try caffeine or alcohol or marijuana?
I want my kids to actually believe me when I talk about drugs. Telling them lies about how safe they are is setting them up for trouble. Marijuana is safer than tequila. That doesn't mean I want my kids using either one as a substitute for courage, affection or confidence. We will talk about drugs, in a real, honest way.

Appearance is important? You should be able to make a sandwich? Everyone won't always be nice? These are things that my four-year-old girl already knows. She can make a tuna fish sandwich, though I have to open the can for her. She knows that you brush your hair before you go out in public. And she has two brothers -- she knows they're not always nice. And neither is she. I have higher hopes for my kids than making a sandwich or eggs at age ten.

My list would be very different.
What do I want my daughter to know by age ten?

I want her to know her rights. Her rights as a human being, as a citizen of the U.S., and as a female. I want her know she has the right to walk into any public space without being harassed, regardless of any men who think differently. I want her to know that women suffered and went to prison to give her the right to vote, and that her great-grandmother was born without that right. I want her to know that she has a right, and a duty, to free speech, and to public assembly, and to protest against whatever she finds to be wrong. She has a right to human dignity. A right to wear a short skirt just because she wants to, or a burqa if she so chooses. She has a right to not be beautiful, or sexy, or cute, and to be as dowdy as she pleases. And she has a right to glam up, wear high heels and twirl around in a princess skirt. And no one has a right to stop her, or make her feel ashamed of her choices.

She has a right, when she gets older, to not have sex with anyone. Or to have sex with anyone she chooses. She has a right to use birth control, and to be informed about how her body works. She has a right to have as many children, or as few children, as she plans.
She has a right to a free, appropriate and public education.
Those things are her birthright as an American girl. And there are women and girls all over the world who do not have those rights, and she needs to know how hard-fought those rights are, and that there are people who are trying to erode them. 

I want her to know how to be proud of herself.

The easiest way to be proud of yourself, and to have confidence, is to know that you're a useful human being, with a skill set that matters. Shakespeare is fabulous, and knowing how to use "their/there/they're" is critical, but it doesn't matter much when what you really need is someone who can change a diaper or cook an omelette.

According to one of my favorite writers, Robert Heinlein, every competent human being "should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

I have always agreed with him, and have tried to do my best to make sure my kids have a broad knowledge of real-life skills.

Will my daughter be able to do all of this by ten? Nope. But I want her to know that it's the goal. My son Sawyer, who's 14, can cook, do the laundry, mow the lawn, hang a picture, give first aid, save someone from drowning, groom a dog, put air in a tire, write a short story, put together an IKEA cabinet, help with plumbing, raise a batch of chicks, make and can applesauce, help butcher a hog, trim goat hooves, sail a boat, man a kayak, shovel manure, raise vegetables, decorate a birthday cake and rappel down a wall. He just won blue ribbons in the county fair for cobbler, applesauce and gluten-free bread he made from scratch. I expect nothing less from Scout.

I want her to know how to say, not just no, but "HELL, no!"
As in, "What are you thinking, my parents will kill me, no way in hell, I'm OUTTA here." To drugs, to sex, to hurting people, to bullying, to seeing a movie she knows she'll hate. I want my kids, but Scout in particular, to be able to simply walk away from bad ideas, bad friends, and bad situations. When she says "No," to me, I listen. She is four. If she doesn't want to wear that pair of pants or wear her hair that way or eat that bite of dinner, I say, "OK."
Because the minute I tell her that her opinion and wants are worth less than mine, and that her "No," really means nothing, I am inviting her into a world where she has to beg to let her voice be heard, and where she has to say, "I'm sorry, but I don't really think that's a good idea, but if you really want to, I guess I will," when she should be saying, "Good GOD, what a terrible idea. I'll see you later!" If I control her choice of clothes now, teaching her that she doesn't know what she likes, then I'm setting her up for a world where fashion magazines and friends control it later. If she learns now, "It's my body, and I'm going to wear what I like, what's comfortable, and what I think looks good," then later, she'll have the confidence to be her own person.

I want her know how to be kind. 
I want her be kind to people who are less fortunate. But also to those who are more fortunate. I want kindness to be a verb. A way of life. A guiding principle.
"Be kind, always," is our family motto, along with, "You're either weird or you're boring." Those two phrases and the ideas behind them have taken us a long way. "Be kind, always," innoculates girls against bullying, against turning into a mean girl and against a whole lot of bad decisions.

I want her to know how to learn, and to follow a passion. This is the very crux of the reason we homeschool. Because I don't believe that schools create students who know how to learn. That list of skills above that Sawyer has? None of them were learned in school. He's been homeschooled his entire life, and learned those skills from Boy Scouts, from living with siblings, from reading, and from following his passions.
Scout's too young yet to know what her passions are. But with cows, goats and chickens on the farm, a library of 3,000 books, a father who's an engineer and a mother who's a writer, all doors are open to her (well, except maybe singing. She was born into the wrong family if she wants to sing.) Whatever she loves, she will have the freedom and the support to learn about it and follow it. My younger son loves animals. Sander has followed that path so far that we now have a farm and a 4-H club. I'm sure Scout's passions will go just as deep.

How to love, and how to accept love and compliments.
I want her to know that loving someone is actions, not words or gifts. That it's staying when you want to walk out. That marriage is hard, and family is hard, and having children is hard, but it is, in the end, entirely worth it.

I want her to know that you can fight with people you love and still be kind to them. That it's OK to be angry, but it's not OK to be cruel. That she deserves someone who loves her completely, just as she is, and who comforts her and holds her and loves her not in spite of her faults, but because of them. And I want her to love someone that much.

I want Scout to know that she deserves someone who loves her the way her father loves her mother. I want her to know that she will grow up and love someone who makes her as happy as her parents are. And that she should never, even for a minute, settle for anything less. And I want her to accept love as much as she gives it.
And when someone who loves her says, "You're beautiful," I want her to simply say, "Thank you," and to believe it.

I want her to know how to live outside her comfort zone, and why she should -- often.  Even when she's ten, I want her to do the hard things. I want her to talk to homeless people. I want her to be able to approach the cashier who was mean and discuss it, and ask for an apology, or talk to the manager. I want her to know that not everyone is white, or straight, or even comfortable with being male or female. That most of the people in the world are not Christian. Or white. Or American. That there is an incredible difference in how we live and in how many of the people in the world live. I want Scout to yearn to travel, to see different lands, to want to know more. To be able to sleep in a tent, or to travel without complaining, and to see the world with open, questioning eyes. So that when she's ten, she can travel with us, and when she's twenty, she can travel alone. And so when she's thirty, she still questions, still welcomes a new perspective, still wants answers, still questions authority.
I want her to have friends of all races, creeds, ability and background. And I want her to learn from them, and have something to offer them. 

I want her to know to how live in a family.
Because soon enough, she'll be living with a roommate, or with friends, or with a husband. And I want her to know that good manners, and saying "Please," and "Thanks for doing the dishes," and "Good morning!" make a person much easier to like, and to live with. Talking in a calm voice about how to resolve something goes a long way. She'll have to know how to share. She'll have to know not to leave dishes in the sink, or dirty towels on the floor, or wet laundry in the machine. Sharing a living space with other human beings is hard, and it's harder if you don't have the skills going into it to ease the transition (I didn't, and my college roommates brought me up to speed, fast. And painfully.) Having siblings is a good start toward having roommates, and a husband, and children.

I want her to know how to let go.

Too many people spend their lives miserable over past grievances. Over pain caused by fathers, mothers, ex-boyfriends. I want Scout to learn early to forgive. Not because the person wronging her deserves it, but because she deserves to have a life free of the baggage of hatred, resentment and anger. That's the path to drugs, to misery, to unhappiness. Scout only gets one life. It's too short to be angry and bitter.

If she can learn to let go when she's young, and let insults slide off of her, because she doesn't base her self-worth on the the opinions of others, then she'll be far ahead of the game. I want her to know that her appearance doesn't matter (except, of course, when it does,) and that she can let go of what others think of her and her looks. And if she wants to play the game and follow a life where looks matter, let her realize it that is a game, and a tough one, and let her be prepared well to play it. But if she's able to let go, then when she's ready to move on to something else, it will be easy.

Most of all, though, I want Scout to know herself, and to be herself. I want her to know where she comes from, who her aunts and cousins are, and to accept herself the way she is. It took me until I was 45 to be able to embrace my quirks and my differences (probably because I have so many,) and now that I see them as part of what makes me special, instead of "areas I need to work on," I am happier than I've ever been. I hope Scout can learn a lot of these lessons earlier than I did. From the looks of things, she's well on her way.

Free food

There is a huge apple tree in my yard that is at least 50 years old, and the tree, crooked and drooping, with an actual hollow trunk for leaving notes in, is famous in my neighborhood. Cars will pull in the driveway, and someone will get out and say, “I always come by for a bag of apples. I used to know the last owners — can I still have some?” 

And at first, I was like, “Dammit, this is MY tree, and I want to make applesauce, and what if I don’t have enough?”

And then I picked apples.

And then picked some more. And more. And finally got to the point where I just go do an insane apple-picking dance where I jump as high as I can, grab a branch, pull it as hard as I can, and shake it like crazy, avoiding the falling apples and closing my eyes. I get hit on the head a few times with each shake, the apples falling down around me and landing in the soft grass.

The horses across the road know this drill. When they see me doing the crazy-apple-lady dance, they line up behind the electric fence. At the very least, they expect the windfall. Did you know that's a real thing, windfall? It's the fruit that the tree drops on the ground because of wind. And the horses feel that the least I can do for them is throw apples across the street.

There were at least 1,000 apples on the tree -- possibly more. I lost count. But the apples are green and soft, and they're sort of mealy/mushy. They're not that great for eating. But the neighbors all said the apples were good for sauce, so I picked a bunch of apples, made some applesauce, and OH MY GOD it was good. Fabulous. Best applesauce you've ever had.

So, now I was on a mission. There is FREE FOOD in my front yard. We're trying to save money, right? And live on a budget, right? So clearly, the number one thing to do to cut down the budget is make applesauce. Not cut down on travel, not cut down our huge phone bill. Forget going vegetarian, or, God forbid, simply sticking to a budget. FREE Applesauce will do the trick. We’ll be rich in a month!

So, I've put up a bunch of applesauce. Like, 20 quarts worth. And I think, "There is no way in hell that I will ever eat this much applesauce. I don't even like applesauce. I'm done."

And my friend Sheila, who is more frugal than I am (well, hell, Kim Kardashian is more frugal than I am on a bad day, but really, Sheila is frugal,) says, "But if you have the applesauce in your pantry, you'll use it. You'll use in baked goods, on pancakes, in desserts. Put up as much as you can."

Fine, says I, and I wipe the sweat off my forehead, put my hair back up in the ponytail, and go back to work.

But then the blackberries become ripe. And there are acres of blackberries, surrounding the house on all sides. And these are devil-bushes that take over the entire yard, and I hate them, and all of the sudden, they're throwing fabulously delicious fruit at us. There are blackberries by the car door in the morning. They're over by the chicken coop. They're by the mailbox. And they're under the apple tree.

So, I have everyone pick blackberries, and I make blackberry wine, and blackberry jam, and I put up some pie filling. But they're hard to pick, because there are ton of sharp thorns on them, but they're tasty and sweet and it's FREE FOOD, I'm telling you, so I go and make more.

And then my neighbors come over and ask me for some apples, because of the magical, famous applesauce this tree makes, so I give them each a bag, and then I put on a trading list that I have extra apples, and someone comes over picks apples and gives me two jars of blueberry jam and some quail eggs and some duck eggs, and that's what finally gets me hooked, and I am on a roll: I must preserve food. I must make more applesauce.

So, by this time, I'm making applesauce in my sleep, and there are still more apples, and the blackberries are only beginning to come into season, and I'm starting to feel like it's the last week of school and finals are just around the corner and I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get done, because, you know, FREE FOOD.

And then the squash come in, and I'm like, "Oh, HELL no," and my son's friend comes over with four squash that are the size of my thighs, and let me tell you -- I do NOT have small thighs. And so I look that up, and it turns out you can't can it, and you have to freeze it, so I'm grating it to freeze it, when one of the ladies who picked apples says, "Hey, there's a plum tree up the road that needs picking," so I get in my car with my kids, and because clearly, I have lost my mind, we pick 64 pounds of plums.

Because, you know, FREE FOOD.

And of course, they're tiny, wee little plums, that are completely fussy and require all sorts of work, and I've still got the apple tree throwing apples at me, people are sneaking squash onto my porch at 2 a.m., and the blackberries launching themselves in my path to remind me they're still there, and while I was, just last week, thinking that it was so bountiful and amazing that the earth was throwing food in my direction, I'm now feeling like the free food is being hurled at me with great force and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to catch it all.

But I must.

Because there were days, when I was the age Sander is now, that there was no food.

There were days when there was one pot on the stove, with pea soup in it, and a couple of ham hocks, and we had that for dinner three nights in a row, and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and school lunch. And on the third day that we had pea soup for dinner, out of the same pot, while the soup grew thicker every day as it congealed, my mother cried because we deserved better, and went to the store to write a check for groceries out of a closed account.

And I was so glad to eat something besides pea soup that I did not care one bit that the potato salad and rye bread and deli-sliced ham were technically stolen. And I knew that I would not have children until or unless I could provide food for them.

And now, it seems, with three children in the house, it seems that I can’t stop providing. If the Earth is going to throw food at me,  I’m going to catch it, dammit. And I’m going to make sure it will last us through a long, cold winter, whether the winter is metaphorical or real.

So today, I finally changed my jam-stained clothes, took a long overdue shower, cleaned up the kitchen and went to the county fair with Mark and the kids.

And we had an absolute blast. How could you not? Tilt-a-whirl, the dairy barn, quilts on display, curly fries, and both boys had a wristband for all the rides they could ride in a day.

We went on a mission to find out as much information as we can about local 4H clubs, and to ask questions about raising pigs for meat, and about how to show animals at the fair.

I have this idea that we're going to have pigs for meat, and maybe raise chickens for meat, and we bought three turkeys last week, and we need to see if we're brave enough to eventually murder them, or if we'll end up with turkey pets.

So in the dairy barn, we met up with a woman who we know from Boy Scouts. Since everyone in Whatcom county knows everyone else, I'm going to call her Nellie Olsen. Nellie's a homeschooling mom who has a passel of children, and she is as nice as she can be, and she is as diametrically opposed to me as is possible in just about every area, except the fact that we're both American, homeschoolers, female and live in Washington.

Nellie's one of the moms whose family is leaving Boy Scouts over the fact that they're going to let gay children stay in Scouting. She believes it's wrong. I've also seen her give the Cub Scouts a good scolding because they weren't saluting properly when they had a flag-folding ceremony, and she gave them a lecture about "how people have died to protect your right to fly that flag." Which is true, but people have also died to protect their right to not have to respect it as well.

And she has a license to carry a concealed handgun, which tells you something. I'm not sure what it tells you. But I know I wouldn't want to mess with her dairy cow at 2 a.m.

So, the kids and I ask Nellie questions about 4H (as much as I want to hate her for being so close-minded, she's really quite pleasant to talk to and friendly to my kids and me,) and off we go to the exhibits.

This is what I really want to see: Where other people who have been infected by this insane disease of putting up food are now showing it off to the world. There's a whole bunch of fruits and veggies on plates, all of which have ribbons on them, and now Sander wants to show veggies next year.

At this point, we want to enter our chickens, our turkeys, our tomatoes and apples, Sander's collection of "cool stuff," because he saw that a collection of Beanie Babies had a ribbon, my knitting, and perhaps some pickles.

And I have now completely had my brain taken over. Because really, how, exactly, am I saving the world by entering pickles into the county fair? How is this good for me, or for my family, to take my knitting and have it held up for judging? What the hell century is this? What am I teaching my daughter about feminism and equality by putting up applesauce and holding it up for inspection?

Just as I am contemplating how silly, really, all of this is, in an age of internet and international travel, for me to even contemplate entering plum jelly, I see it: The rows of jams and jellies with ribbons on it.

There's only one applesauce entered, so it has a blue ribbon. One blackberry jelly, so it won, too. One corn salsa. In fact, there are a ton of jams and jellies and sauces, but one woman was clever enough to enter things into categories that no one else entered, so that she ended up with EIGHT blue ribbons.

I'm sure you can guess who it was.  Yep. That gun-totin', gay-hating, dairy-cow owning bastion of homeschooling motherhood. Nellie Olsen.

And all the way back to car, like some pod person, I ranted. "Next year, I'm entering applesauce, and pickles, and a turkey, and jam, and a chicken, and we're going to show that Nellie Olsen who's boss. Next year, it's MY turn to win eight blue ribbons!"

This, people, is what it looks like when nature has hit you in the head with blackberries and apples one too many times.

Clearly, I need a dose of fast food. Or a job that involves wearing clothes and leaving the house.

In the meantime, however, I'm going to fantasize. Next year, Nellie Olsen, those blue ribbons are MINE.

Butchering Time

“Then one day Uncle Henry came riding out of the Big Woods. He had come to help Pa butcher. Ma’s big butcher knife was already sharpened, and Uncle Henry had brought along Aunt Polly’s butcher knife.
Near the pigpen Pa and Uncle Henry built a bonfire and heated a great kettle of water over it.
When the water was boiling they went to kill the hog.
Then Laura ran and hid on her bed and stopped her ears with her fingers so she could not hear the hog squeal. “It doesn’t hurt him, Laura,” Pa said. “We do it so quickly.” But she did not want to hear him squeal.
In a minute, she took one finger cautiously out of an ear and listened. The hog had stopped squealing.
After that, Butchering Time was great fun. It was such a busy day, with so much to see and do. Uncle Henry and Pa were jolly, and there would be spare-ribs for dinner, and Pa had promised Laura and Mary the bladder and the pig’s tail.”

— Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder

The butcher's truck backed right up to the barn. The kids and I were nervous, but also really curious about the process.

So, today it was time for Poppy and Petunia to be turned into bacon and sausage. 

This was our first time raising pigs. I had watched my father raise one pig, a big old mean guy named Redneck, on our farm when I was about 8 years old, and I still remembered the day Redneck was butchered. 

I knew it would a visceral experience, literally, and it should be. 

I try to buy only "clean" meat for my family, for many reasons: Health, both for the animals and the people who eat them. Sustainability. Kindness. A belief that antibiotics and hormones have no place in our food system. Snobbery, because I think meat raised with care and thought tastes better. 

But clean meat is expensive, hard to find, and not always available. I am not a traditional farm wife, out in the wilds of Nebraska, 50 miles from town. My kids and I drive through the local coffee shop and get gluten-free sausage-and-egg breakfast sandwiches every so often. We eat at the breakfast buffet at hotels, and my kids load up on bacon. Sometimes I'll even buy cheap supermarket bacon, simply because my kids like it.

Poppy is the red one. Petunia is the black-and-white one. They're a Duroc-Berkshire mix, which is supposed to produce fabulous pork.

So we thought we'd come up with a source of clean meat for our family, a way to raise income for the farm, and a way to show our kids where their food comes from. Everyone who eats meat should know where it comes from, and what it looks like to raise an animal and eat it. 

And so, last September, we bought two ten-week-old pigs from our neighbor, Allen. We have come to adore Allen and his pigs, and we're lucky to have him right down the street.  He sold us two little fat pigs, who were very cute.

And very soon, Poppy and Petunia were NOT cute, and were not little. They were big, and they were scary, and it was time for them to go.

Poppy and Petunia's final picture.

Getting pigs in winter, of course, was just plain stupid: You have to buy most of their food, it's no fun to carry water out when the hose is frozen, and slipping in slushy pig mess is straight out of the sixth circle of hell.

And pigs are not lovable once they hit a certain size. They knock over food bowls and spill the food into the dirt, and then pee on it. They knock over their water. And they make it very clear that if you fell over while retrieving their water dish, they'd happily trample you and then eat you. There was no illusion that these two could ever be pets. They were not meant to be captive animals -- pigs in captivity have one purpose: To grow to market weight, and then be eaten.

The pigs that had been done this morning before ours.

So we were ready, we thought, when the truck showed up, but when they opened up the back, the reality set in: These were pigs that had been oinking this morning, and Poppy and Petunia were going to look like this very soon.

The reality is, that while we knew we raising animals for food, these were the same creatures that we'd been protecting and feeding, and scratching their noses, and keeping them safe. It was hard to admit that we were going to slaughter them.

But the guy with a gun was here, and he knew what he was doing. Two loud noises, one tiny squeal, two dead pigs that were being dragged out of the barn.

And after that, there was no going back. Squeamish or not, the pigs weren't coming back to life. It's time to figure out how to think of them as meat instead of pigs. And from here on out, things got pretty graphic.  

Two loud noises and it was over.

The dead pigs were dragged out of the barn, into the snow, by the back of the truck. The truck had everything a serial killer's dreams are made of: Hooks, chains, sharp knives, a pulley system and a hose with a water tank to make all of the evidence go away. These guys have done this over and over again, and the expertise shows. The process was quick, professional and fascinating.

Petunia.

This was probably the worst part: Watching the pigs come out of the barn, dead.

Because they still looked like pigs, and we felt like we murdered them. There were a few tears and a little sniffling at this point.

After the guys shot the pigs, they immediately gashed a hole in the throat and let them bleed. It was hard to watch. 

And then the skin started coming off, and we were all too intrigued to even be upset anymore. 

The butcher used the skin of the pig as a tarp, to prevent any of the meat from coming in contact with the ground.

And the minute he sliced open the skin, it became clear that it was, in fact, meat. It stopped looking like a pig, and started looking like ribs, bacon and ham.

Scout was the most enthusiastic of them all. "This is awesome!"

The feet came off, and then carefully, with a knife the butcher sharpened over and over and over again, the skin fell away expertly toward the ground.  And then it was time to hang the pig up, take out the guts, and finish the job.

Sander wanted to hold the heart, and we wanted to look at the guts, and Scout wanted to see the brain, and it was all interesting in a clinical, anatomical way. 

But later, when it was all over, Sander sat on my lap and cried and asked about pig heaven. And he asked if he should feel guilty about holding the pig's heart and being interested in it.

And I told him what I truly believe: That everyone who eats sausage, or bacon, or who goes to McDonalds, ever, should hold a pig's heart. That they should know, exactly, and viscerally, what meat costs. That they should know that the cost of meat in our country is artificial: If you can buy an Egg McMuffin for 99 cents, and it has sausage on it, where do the pig farmers cut costs? If you're eating bacon at the hotel buffet, and one pig only has a few pounds of bacon on it when it's alive, how many pigs does it take to generate that amount of meat?
Ham doesn't come from a can.

“As soon as the hog was dead, Pa and Uncle Henry... hung the hog in a tree, took out the insides, and left it hanging to cool. When it was cool they took it down and cut it up. There were hams and shoulders, side meat and spare-ribs and belly. There was the heart and the liver and the tongue, and the head to be made into headcheese, and the dish-pan full of bits to be made into sausage.”

— Little House in the Big Woods

Pork is NOT a white meat. It should be expensive. It should be a treat. It should be valued. And there's nothing wrong with a little awe in the process. People have eaten pork for centuries. Domestic pigs exist only because they're tasty. 

And it's important to know the toll that factory farming is taking on our planet, and if raising pigs helps my kids understand a little bit more about why going through the drive-through is almost always a bad idea, then we'll keep raising pigs.

But not in the winter. Because raising pigs in the middle of winter sucks.

So, we're done with our first round of pigs. We sold two halves, and we kept one whole pig for ourselves. The butcher will take the pig and turn it into hams, bacon, sausage and chops. I had to decide whether I wanted nitrates or no, spices or no, what kind of chops, smoked bacon or not. Next time, I might keep one half myself and see if I can break it down, and I'm already planning to make an old refrigerator into a meat smoker.

This has been a huge learning curve. But in the end, I think, it was something well worth doing.

Hauling the pig up

The men can work better when the pig's off the ground, and it's way more sanitary.

Ready for gutting

This is where expertise comes in: It's hard to get the guts out without making a mess.

Absolutely gross. And impossible to look away. It was amazingly cool and awful at the same time.

Sander wanted to hold the heart. Then cried about it all afternoon. 

A chainsaw to the crotch. When people talk about buying half a pig, they're not kidding.

This is beautiful in a horrific way.

The final product. We had two pigs. Four halves. And off they go to the butcher for processing, just like that.

Choices and habits

Poverty is caused by bad choices. Good choices and good decisions and habits can get people back into the middle class.

That’s the most recent message of Dave Ramsey, who is a great guy apparently, and who is very good at helping middle-class people get out of debt. He is wrong about it, and, I think, a smug bastard. But he says that three things cause poverty:

1. Personal habits, choices and character;

2. Oppression by people taking advantage of the poor;

3. The myriad of problems encountered if born in a third-world economy.

And he explains why habits matter, and that rich people listen to audiobooks and poor people don't. And that rich people keep to-do lists and goals, and poor people don't. Also, rich people don't each junk food. Oh, and poor people aren't goal-oriented, and that's probably holding them back.

Except that it's all wrong, even though it’s entirely accurate.

Of course poverty is caused by personal habits and character. And of course it's caused by oppression.

But here's the thing:

Poverty has NOTHING to do with how much money you have.

Poverty is about unfairness. It’s not how much money you have in your wallet, or your bank account.

There are plenty of people with very little money who are insulated from the unfairness of poverty. They grow up without much money, but because they have parents who make good decisions, a good family, and a tight network of people, it’s not poverty. They’re not hungry. They don’t get evicted. They don’t have drugs in their life, or alcohol problems. That’s how most Americans lived for the last two centuries: Humble, hardworking, steady, without a lot of extras.

 It’s not inherently bad, and it’s not what I’m talking about. People who grow up with no money, but with a network and insulation – that’s the way most of the world lives.

I’m talking about unfairness and poverty in America, where it’s not supposed to exist. I think my favorite part of Dave Ramsey’s article is this quote:

“There are others who have far more than I do. The talents and treasures on this earth are not distributed equally, and that is not fair—or is it? God has chosen to give most of you better hair than me, to make Tiger Woods a better golfer than me, to make Brad Paisley a better guitarist than me, and to make Max Lucado a better writer than me. With God’s grace, I am fine with that. I am not angry at them, and I don’t think they have done something wrong by becoming successful. As I’ve matured, I’ve come to realize that God is indeed fair, but fair does not mean equal.” 

That’s the real issue here. Fairness and equality.

Poverty is this: Being told that you are equal to the people around you. Being told that if you work hard and do well, you will succeed. Believing in the American dream. Watching it work for the people around you, the people on the same playing field.

It’s about slowly realizing that the game isn’t what you thought it was. The game is rigged.

Here’s the deal: Some of the players are born with shackles on their feet. Some are visible – those are shackles of racism and bigotry that we claim don’t exist. Others are shackles that are just born there: Abuse. Neglect. Hunger. Drugs. Alcohol.

These weights, these huge manacles around the ankles, they’re invisible. And so it looks like all the kids are the same! Everyone gets a fair shot. You start out on day one learning to walk, and the world is cheering you on! The teachers, the coaches, they’re telling you to run! Go! The goal is to get as far as you can down the playing field – at the other end is success!

And the other kids who are playing believe in the game. They’re succeeding! They’ve been told that if they work hard, they can get ahead, and they have! C’mon, girl, work harder! Run faster!

They can’t figure out why you’re not keeping up with them. Clearly, you must be making the wrong choices!

But some kids are so slow, so weighed down, surrounded by chains so heavy, that you never even see them. By the time you’ve figured everything out, you’re a quarter-way down the field. And everyone tells you that you don’t have shackles on. In the US, everyone is equal. In school, everyone is treated the same. Even if you were weighted down, you’d be treated the same.

Except that really, good habits, trying harder and listening to audiobooks isn’t going to help.

Poverty isn’t about money.

Poverty is about trying to do a stupid diorama of a Beluga whale for your sixth grade science class and not having any supplies at home. So you find a shoebox from the garbage and do something on the bus. Everyone in your class has projects that look like an artist did them. You’re living in a hotel and can't even find a pen and paper. Your teacher says she’s disappointed in you.

Poverty is about the fact that 30 percent of a grade in most of your classes is homework. Your teachers expect two to three hours of homework a night if you’re going to do well.  You work at a bakery every night from 4-10. You take your three sisters to school at 7 a.m. Your buddies don’t understand why you won’t join their study group. You’re just not studying hard enough.

It’s about not even bothering with homework after a while because you know you’ll be in a different school next year after you get evicted again.

It’s about always having a stomachache from worrying.

It’s about knowing that in a family with money, a divorce is a survivable tragedy. But in a family where the children are already hobbled, a divorce is a grenade you can’t run from, filled with shrapnel that leaves deep, ragged, invisible wounds. The children walk around for years, barely breathing, in constant pain, and no one can see the pools of blood that drip at their feet. The kids stop moving forward. The coaches yell, “C’mon! You can do it! Study hard!”

It’s about how none of your friends understand why the first of the month is so important, or what happens on the sixth if the rent’s not paid. It’s about none of them having even met their landlord. You have to go out and talk to him once a month, because your mom won’t.

It’s about eating pea soup every night for a week, from the same pot on the stove, while your mother cries because there’s no food. Then there’s suddenly a lot of food in the house, and you don’t care what she did to get it. And you hate your friends for having mothers who never steal.

It’s about never having enough food in the fridge. And sometimes having a ton of food in the fridge, and having a feast, and having friends over, because it’s grocery day and you feel like you can pay them back for all of the times you’ve eaten at their house, because they always have food.

It’s about having the highest PSAT score in your school, and knowing it doesn’t matter, because you’ve figured out that it’s never going to happen, this college thing. Your family needs the money you make after school. Your mother can’t do it without you. You know you’re not going anywhere. Your friends tell you you’re a slacker – why do have such awful grades if you’re so smart?

It's talking to your landlord about why you don't have the rent, and telling him that your mom is upset about the sewage on the floor in the bathroom, but he says he’s not going to bother fixing it because you're about to be evicted.  Your friend complains that her life is so boring and nothing exciting ever happens to her.

It's about the goddamned black garbage bags that are your whole existence, over and over again, every time you move. You never want to see another black garbage bag or box full of clothes, ever. Your friends tell you it must be exciting to get to move so much.

It's about never, ever having a car you can trust. Or really, anything you can trust. Everything you own falls apart. Your car that you share with your mom has a bungee cord holding the hood on. Your girlfriend gets a car for her 16th birthday and complains because it’s five years old.

It’s about knowing that teeth matter. That if you need braces, the shackles will never, ever come off. And knowing that if you have a toothache, you’ll have to choose between $50 to pull the tooth and $300 to fix it. And you’re terrified that your mom might choose to pull it, because at 17, you’ve still vain enough to care, and to know that your looks are one of the things that helps lighten weights. Your friends complain about their braces while your sister cries because she can’t have them and she looks ugly with crooked teeth.

It’s about a drug dog finding something in your car while you’re in your chemistry final, and when they pull you out of class and find out it’s just a sandwich, they won’t let you retake the test. Zero tolerance. But the other kid whose car was pinged, the one whose dad’s a lawyer? He gets a makeup exam.

It’s about watching your cousin apply to college – 15 applications at $35 each!!! – and crying yourself to sleep. You moved to two states and three houses your senior year. You didn’t apply anywhere. Not even for the ones that offered you a PSAT scholarship.

It’s about your mother crying on your first day of community college, because you deserve better and she wishes she could be picking sheets out for a dorm room. And then she takes your tip money.

It’s about slowly casting off the weights that your parents gave you, and picking up speed as the load lightens, and being so, so careful not to pick up more. No drugs. No cigarettes. No alcohol, real relationships or talk about the future. Not until you’ve caught up.  The load lightens. You can see a way clear. This is not permanent, not for you. You WILL move ahead.

It's about wishing you could help your sisters lighten their load, and knowing there's nothing you can do until you learn to manage yours better. You let your sister borrow your ID and Social Security card so she can start work at 14. Maybe she'll have better habits and choices than you did.

It’s about dating a guy for two years because he has a truck and you’re sick of walking to work in the snow, and he goes to the same community college you do. So you have a ride to work and to school. Funny, though – your friends who have money, they date for love.

It’s about knowing that the only ways out for you are education or marrying someone. When someone offers to help with school if you change your major, you jump at the chance. Follow your dreams and take eight years to pay for it yourself, or get a degree you’re not interested in and it only takes two? Sure, you’ll sell out. No problem. Who thinks you can make money in archeology, anyway? Clearly, journalism’s where the future is.

It’s about graduating with honors, and when your family comes (your mom’s in jail and can’t make it,) they ask why you don’t have the honors sash. You tell them you couldn’t afford the $26, and they say they would have helped with it, and you’re so surprised you don’t know what to say. Five years of waiting tables at Pizza Hut to get a two-year degree, and this is the help they want to give. A sash to walk across the stage. Huh.

 It’s about having friends who work at topless clubs and make $800 a night, and you wish you had the guts and the body to do it. And hearing about how exciting it is that your cousin who went off to college when you did just started law school.

It’s about having your water turned off, and then you need a deposit to turn it back on, so you get a hose, attach it to your neighbor’s house and wash dishes with that for a month. And shower like that, too. Your friends want you do go on a ski trip with them to their parent’s condo in Vail, and don’t understand why you never want to have fun.

It’s about knowing that while you’re showering with a hose, the cousin who went to college the same time you did is now done with law school and is now on a rowing team, competing for the world record. Once in Argentina. Once in Scotland. A family member takes you to Europe to go watch. It’s the first time you’ve been overseas. Your cousin has rowed in 25 countries, lived in Ireland, and has three gold medals. Her mom asks why it’s taking you so long to finish college. Maybe you're not making good choices, she says. You can try to work harder. Like her daughter.

It's about how you can always scrape up $3 for Funyons and Diet Coke from your tips every day, but you can’t scrape up the $87 to turn on the gas at the house to cook. Your family wants to know why you don't eat better.

It’s about watching other cousins get cars when they turn 16, watching them be loved and cherished and taken care of, watching them turn in applications for college, and wondering where you’d be on the playing field if you hadn’t been hobbled. And feeling guilty, because you know that everyone has the same opportunities, and that if you'd just worked harder and made better choices, you'd have done better, too.

It’s about needing $200 to fix your car or lose your job, and knowing that borrowing the money comes with a lecture, and swallowing your pride, and if they ask, “why can’t you take the bus?” while they spent more than that for their purse and this is life and death to you, you need to shut up and be glad they’re around to lend it to you and be grateful. Because you know not everyone has someone to lend them the money.

It’s about believing in doing what’s right, and still using white privilege, the crying girl privilege, boob privilege, whatever it takes to get out of a ticket, because that $200 will be the end of you.

It’s about trying to get rid of the weights, and knowing that you can’t help anyone else who’s stumbling. Not yet. You can barely figure it out yourself. And yet you see so many people you love just stop trying. They sit down, stuck where they are, and they develop weights of their own that will never be shed. A baby. A bad relationship. Their own drugs or alcohol problem.

It’s about recognizing people who get it. About being able to tell at a glance who’s fighting along side you, and picking up travel companions. You want someone who’s learned to pick up their weights and sprint alongside you, not someone who complains about how heavy it is. Someone who will shake their head with you as you both pass someone who was born unshackled, but who has now weighted themselves down. You and your travel companions, you can share the loads and speed up the trip. The going gets easier, for the first time.

It’s about watching your sister go to jail for years because she couldn’t take one more step with weights on. Her load never lightened. She got more shackles of her own. She had a son, and you watched him learn how to walk with shackles on his feet, and you wished to God that you could remove them from that poor little blonde toddler.

It’s about seeing your fierce, beautiful blonde sister with a hole in her leg from where the spider bite went septic and the prison guards wouldn’t let her see a doctor.

It’s about seeing people you love who were born free make bad decisions and be insulated from them. They make some of the same choices you made, and they bounce back. Traffic tickets, bad teeth, mouthing off to a cop – these things miraculously go away when there’s money. When there’s no shackles.

Slowly, slowly, the weights drop off, one by one. And because you’re made stronger by carrying those weights, you can move fast. You’re nimble, you’re smart, and you catch up.

Hell, you even blend in with other people, the ones who never had weights! You even marry one, and have kids. And your kids are born free, and at some point, you even manage to run over and find your sister’s kid on the playing field, and you do your best to take as many weights off him as you can.

They were right! You can do it! Once you get rid of the weights, you can go as far as you want!

But the scars are still there.

They’re there when I look in the fridge.

You know what I see in the fridge, full of good food? The possibility that tomorrow it will be empty, and I'll be unable to feed my kids. I have months and months worth of dried beans in my pantry, because I know how long you can survive on pea soup.

Poverty is having a pantry full of food, a fridge full of food, and a bank account with money in it, and still being aware every single minute that it could all be gone tomorrow.

It’s asking my husband, who has been by my side, steadfast and stable, for 17 years, "Are you going to leave me?" because I have to ask, because I know what divorce does to children.

It's waking up with nightmares that I have to tell my son that he has to give away his cats because the landlord won't allow pets, and waking up sobbing until I remember that we own this home and we're safe.

It’s being involved in my children’s education so that I know they are prepared for this world. It’s seeing police officers and wanting to hide, and being afraid that CPS will come take away my kids, even though I’ve done nothing wrong.

It’s the moment of panic when the gas light goes on in my car, until I remember that I now have money to fill up the tank.

It’s reading this woman’s excuses for why poor people make bad decisions, and understanding every one of them, and knowing that she’s right, but it’s not the whole story. 

Fair does not mean equal, Dave Ramsey says. I’m sorry, but he’s a sick bastard if he really thinks being bald is the same thing as being born into a family where there are drugs and mental illness and abuse. Bald is not a life sentence to poverty. Being a bad golfer is not a shackle. I don’t think he understands a thing about what it’s really like to be poor.

What you need, he says, is to have better choices, have better habits, and to grow your character.

No. What you really need is help. A coach who can see the shackles, and who can explain them to you, and who can lift them for a bit while you gain strength.  Someone to make sure you understand how the game is played, so you don’t add more weights to yourself.

You need an aunt. A friend, a teacher, a mentor, an uncle who went to a good college and can help you with the application. Someone who knows how to help.

One person who will say, “Here, take my hand. I’ll help you. You really can do this. Even if it’s hard, and even if I can’t take away your burden, I can help carry it with you for a while.” I paid for college, with student loans I’m still paying off, eighteen years later. $167 a month, every month, since 1995.

But when I was in college, my aunt would bring bags full of treats: New sheets for my bed in my dorm room, candy, groceries that my roommate and I could cook in the microwave. New underwear. She’d pay for the dentist, so I didn’t have to have teeth pulled. A nice haircut once in a while, instead of Supercuts. She'd take my roommate and me to Costco and we'd spend $200!! We lived like royalty. And then, when we got back to the dorm, she'd give us each a $20 bill, with the warning not to spend it all on beer.

She was the difference between making it and not making it. 

One person can make a difference. One loan, to get a car fixed so someone can get to work. Even better, one gift to the car fixed. One trip to the dentist. One trip to the grocery store the week before Christmas, so the Christmas bonus can be spent on bills instead of gifts, and the whole family can catch their breath.

Anyone who says that there is an even playing field is wildly ignorant and stubbornly, willfully blind.

These are the things that help: Medical care, mental health care, counseling. Food stamps. Housing. A school system that doesn’t penalize kids for not being able to do homework. A school system that doesn’t reward kids for having parents who help. Teachers who care about students and not grades. A kind word, said at the right time.

These are things that don’t: Guilt. Shame. Being told to work harder. Being told that it’s your fault. Being told that setting goals is the answer. All of the to-do lists in the world weren’t going to help my journey. Being goal-oriented wasn’t going to help, either. And I listened to plenty of audiobooks, but I don’t think that was what saved me.

What got me out was being willing to take the help that was offered. Sometimes it’s hard to take help when it comes from people who don’t understand. They know so little of the real world, even though they run it. But if you want to know how to function in their world, you have to befriend them instead of blaming them. It goes both ways. It’s not their fault they were born free.

I have three sisters. Two of us are out, unshackled and walking freely. One is still struggling, but is learning to lighten her load. Another gave up a long time ago. I still have hope for her. She’s been given help but can’t see her way anymore.

I have a farmhouse now, out in the country. I have apple trees, and chickens and pigs, and a husband who doesn’t understand me even a little bit and who adores me anyway. I have three children, and they are thriving. I make them do chores. They make me laugh. They ask, when the apple tree is ripe, why I have to use every apple. Why I have to make 68 quarts of applesauce, why I have to donate the rest to the food bank. Why can’t I just leave the apples to rot, the way the neighbors do?

Because it’s a shame to waste food, I reply, while there are children out there tonight who are going to bed hungry.