I admit it: I spend far too much time thinking about zombies. Here\u2019s what happened: I was working on building a row of garden boxes near the property line fence, when I was stopped by a sudden mental image, one that I confess was a little bit unsettling in its clarity and detail. I imagined a horde of the ravening dead who, having dispatched my neighbors, were busily dismantling my fence so they could come over and eat my brain and trample my lettuce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I promise you that that I know zombies are not real; but I imagine there are myriad other things that could bring about a full or partial breakdown of our social and economic infrastructure. If this should happen, would we in rural Alaska fare better than others in, say, the major urban areas? I do love to rattle on about all the wild foods I collect and process. I have cases and cases of jarred fish (I have finally learned not to say canned fish, because these fish are in jars, <\/em>not cans.) Yes, fish is an abundant wild food, but the fishermen who catch these creatures use fossil fuels and sophisticated technology, while I utilize a freezer, propane, glass jars, a pressure cooker that periodically needs new rubber gaskets. . .could I safely prepare my fish without any of these conveniences? I rather doubt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am also quite proud of my annual berry harvest. I have cases and cases of jelly, jam, and even a batch of ketchup, made from salmonberries, thimbleberries, cranberries, and huckleberries, while other boxes are full of rhubarb sauce (it makes a great substitute for store-bought applesauce and is crazy easy to make). I have learned to freeze single-drupe berries on a cookie sheet, and then dump them into a freezer container. Done this way, the berries are loose, and I can easily grab a handful here and there to put on my yogurt. They thaw quickly and do not taste at all like they have been traumatized. Could I do something like this if I had no freezer? I might try drying some berries this year, but I bet they won\u2019t be as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My zombie obsession notwithstanding, I plan to do some subsistence experiments this summer. I am going to grow some potatoes and see if I can store them long-term. If that works, who knows? I wonder what sun-dried rhubarb would taste like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I admit it: I spend far too much time thinking about zombies. Here\u2019s what happened: I was working on building a row of garden boxes near the property line fence, when I was stopped by a sudden mental image, one that I confess was a little bit unsettling in its clarity and detail. I imagined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[186,438,17],"class_list":["post-1049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-gardening","tag-wild-food","tag-zombies"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1049"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1049\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}