Journeying Earthward
Note
from Anna: One of our readers kindly sent along a copy of his parents'
homesteading memoir several months ago, and I promptly passed the book
on to my mother, who enjoys memoirs a lot more than I do. She, in turn,
emailed me a review, which I'm including in slightly edited form below.
In reading Journeying Earthward
by Edith and John Rylander, I was sort of transported to their
Minnesota countryside more than to their way of life. But partly because
the way of life was more known to me, while the place is so new. As I
read amazing facts (about the long winters, for example, and all the
returning birds in spring), I kept, in my soul, looking upward, as if up
along the trunks of the remaining 2% of white pines, and actually
breathing in the wonderful piney smell.
Their life story as both English teachers and writers, is partly comparable to the Nearings, but so unique because of their own
personal experiences in their youths. John helped his grandfather bring
in the hay when he was five or six, driving the horse-drawn haywagon.
Then he worked, at about age 15 or so, in lumberjacking logjams on the
Upper Mississippi. Edith's was the cannery experience for five summers
in Sunnyvale, California, where she learned from her co-workers that
education was the answer because "they can't take away what is in your
mind." She also learned to distrust and resist the regimentation of
mindless, menial work in a factory setting. Working that way, she "sold
her life," and it was this that made her want to try the "Walden
interlude" in Minnesota.
The
authors must be at least 85 and 80 yrs old by now, people who have
earned a role in their choice of location because they have carved out a
unique place in it. Back when they were experiencing the adventures
that gave rise to the book, the Rylanders had a purpose: starting a
small farm from scratch, with chickens, rabbits, and later sheep and
pigs. Pumping their water!
Edith and John chose the
site for their earth-sheltered house on the winter solstice. But they
had lived in that area for many years, and knew the whole pattern of
weather, with the terrible five to six months of hard winter. The fact
that their underground house only needed about 2 1/2 cords of wood the
whole winter, compared to about 30 cords of wood for their first,
uninsulated house, is amazing. But, so too, is the awareness that of all
the white pine forest, the Big Woods of Laura Ingalls Wilder, there is
barely 2% left.
Note from Anna: The title doesn't appear to be available as an ebook, but used paperback copies can be had for $4,
including shipping, at the moment. If you'd like to immerse yourself
into an authentic back-to-the-land adventure, Journeying Earthward is a
great read for a long, cold winter night. Alternatively, you can enjoy a
photo tour of the Rylanders' underground house on this site, from which I stole the photo in this post.