Eversprouting: Optimism, Mushrooms, and Spam

Mushrooms: I think it’s a sign of my country madness that I am even excited about the possibility of gleaning mushrooms from the countryside. I’m not particularly fond of mushrooms, but part of that has always been the insane prices in the markets for fungus. Free is always a good price to me, and so I dream about recognizing the tastier varieties, and even try to look up the ones that appear audaciously in my own backyard. (Once, I had one that really looked like a morel grow up through a crack in the basement floor -- but of course, I was too cowardly to eat it!) And the prolific rain combines with the fertile spongy soil, apparently, to create Oregon fungi that in some places stretch out for 144 acres! (That one, a Honey Mushroom, is too big to start with, definitely; I will try something smaller). But most likely I will start my gleaning with items that I easily recognize: fruits and nuts. It will be interesting to see if they are left on the roadsides like in suburbia or if the country folk share the same value I do. And who can get there faster.

Optimism: One thing that comes out in great quantities, like oil slicks -- or mushrooms -- after a heavy rain, is your friends’ optimism. Of course there’s always one who has a ready list of imminent dangers, but in general, my complaints about the intricacies of the real estate process, and the confusions of home ownership in general, is met with a wave of sunny optimism, behind which I sense a backwash of “better you than me!” The original closing date is already a month in the past? “These things happen -- nothing to worry about!”. The new closing date is just before a holiday that shuts down the country - except for shopping -- for four days? “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” I am amazed - flabbergasted (love that word - how does one flabber a gast? or is it gasting a flabber?) by their steely confidence in the face of my concerns. But I guess that’s what friends are for: to sit at their tables, firmly ensconced on their settled kitchen floors, and encourage me with great gusto to set out for parts unknown. Where would I be without them? Probably more to the point, where will I end up with them? At this point, somewhere left of “Hic Sunt Dracones” [Here be dragons]…

Spam: The other thing that comes out in vast numbers before, during and after a move, are the advertisers who target you as someone desperately in need of their services. It’s uncanny -- scary, really -- how they know you have just moved in to town, or are looking to renovate something. Of course, if you’ve used a US Post Office “moving notification form” recently, you might begin to suspect the prime culprit. It literally took me five minutes to find the actual moving form in the incredible welter of offers and “helpful” forms for services now crammed into the “moving packet”… the only kind of packet that thing qualifies as is a Spam Packet. Speaking of which, my spam filter used to be full of Rolex watch offers and Viagra deals (apparently assuming women like to be pro-active?) -- now I’ve got message after message offering me free hardware store shopping sprees or consultations with interior decorators. I’d go to an interior decorator about as fast as I’d take a pet to therapy. These “room whisperers” might have some use in the big cities where you desperately need to know whether you are in your own apartment or the identical box next door, but the house of a writer usually has one décor anyway - piles of papers and books (and books are -- after all -- just a more compact pile of paper). Even with the advent of computers, we produce enough paper printouts to create shredded bedding for an elephant. So interior design consists of stacking those papers in slightly different configurations, mostly to find a chair(or make a chair!)for a guest. And since the majority of guests to a writer’s house are other writers, what they most look at are the bookshelves and the fridge -- generally areas not a focus of your typical interior design wizard. Writers can sometimes proliferate like mushrooms...but I digress.

Please Don't Eat the Green Acres...

It is the pipe dream of my generation: go back to the land, eschew commercialism in all forms and get down with the earth… and the Earthlink, of course (how else will the world at large know about the wonderful rural, non-technical life you’ve created??)

I fell for it in my 52nd year… signed the counter offer on the house on my birthday, on a house that was created in 1955, just like I was (such signs are portents, or else really silly reasons to buy an old house)… in a town with such a cute name that I cringed when I told my savvy city friends (and was astounded at how many were immediately envious), a town with one main street… a town without a coffee shop! (alright - one drive-through espresso place… but for us metro Oregonians, that’s like the only rib joint in town being a Tony Roma’s!) And I grew up in New Jersey, so I know what you guys are thinking about now -- stop laughing! Espresso is a necessity. So immediately, I made a list of all the things I’m giving up (and how far a drive they actually are… just in case). I listed all the things I’m gaining (the opportunity to personally weedwack the waist-high weeds on this neglected place being near the top ten -- yes, country air has already addled my brain), and compare the two, ostensibly to be sure it’s balanced, but really just to smirk at my foolish friends who feel chained to their lifestyles (this will come back to haunt me, I predict).

But the road is never smooth -- first things I run into are the well and septic issues. I was looking for a place that was as independent as possible (with an eye to being mostly off the grid), and this place is great for that… but the well has bacteria and the septic tank is cracked… I know the leak wasn’t too bad, because the inspector confessed to me that he’d eaten all the remaining raspberries before he realized they were growing over the tank and we have not received a lawsuit. We are now in negotiations to get all that dealt with before I take ownership, but just to be sure, I’m getting a water filter and reading up on septic systems -- I suppose all of this appeals to the engineering part of me, the part that does like to tinker with (simple) machines. Before they went nano, I used to switch out my own computer hardware, tho I never built a system from scratch, and I understand the basics of a car (minus the computerized crap), a house electrical system and plumbing. I just know that I’ll be learning a lot more soon…

Anyway, welcome to my new blog about the joys and insanities of living a self-sufficient life!