Wednesday, June 1, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
One meal at a time
Sometimes we can mea-
sure success in tiny mile-
stones. We had one the other
night, on our little rancho in
the pines. We made a meal
entirely out of our own food.
That is, we hunted the elk,
we raised the vegetables, and
we canned the fruit.
I wouldn’t call it home-
steading, what we are trying
to do, not in the truest sense
of the notion; but I would
call it a deliberate exercise
in reducing dependency and
increasing our ability to sup-
ply our own needs. It’s an
honest effort, and it comes
with frustrating failures and
a steady supply of lessons in
what not to do.
We’ve had waves of
golden mantles and rabbits
— that motley combination
of vicious critters that can
destroy a garden overnight;
we’ve had mid-summer hail-
storms that crush an entire
crop of promising tomatoes,
and an unsuccessful hunt or
two. But even in these fail-
ures we learn something
hard and valuable and time-
less, and we are reminded
just how difficult a thing true
independence is. You have to
work for it, every day, and
you can lose it quickly.
But the payoff, when it all
comes together, even if it’s
only one night out of many,
is a nourishing meal and a
sense of self-sufficiency that
exceedingly eludes us in
many aspects of life. Maybe
you’ve felt that, too.
This isn’t driven by para-
noia — we aren’t buying
surplus gas masks and hiding
out in a bunker, shivering at
the sound of helicopters and
waiting for the jackboots to
knock on the door and haul
us away. It’s merely a con-
sidered experiment in reduc-
ing, maybe some day elimi-
nating, our dependency on
an exceedingly complex, and
increasingly fragile system.
Our grandparents, and
most certainly our great-
grandparents, might even
think what we are trying to
do is nutty, given that much
of what we consider a major
accomplishment is simply
how they lived.
And there is an element
of illusion to all of it. There
is no real threat of starvation,
and we still buy most of our
food at Ray’s or Melvin’s.
But we are moving closer
to goal, and we’re raising a
steer, to fill the freezer even
if this year’s elk hunt fails.
When I was a kid, we had
a milk cow, mom churned
our butter, we had an acre or
so of garden, and we raised
our own beef and lamb.
Those were halcyon days
because it’s harder to do
that now. The larger world
seems to discourage even
the attempt, or considers the
notion of self-sufficiency,
and those people seeking
it, as either ideological nut-
jobs or curious and amusing
anachronisms.
Somehow we got away
from that fulfilling life over
the years, little by little, until
one day we woke up and real-
ized that we weren’t produc-
ing anything at all. Nothing
in the pantry was ours. We
were entirely, utterly, depen-
dent — it happened while we
weren’t paying attention —
and that sort of realization is
an ice-cold bucket of water.
So we started back in
slowly. With tomatoes. We
were lucky to live in a place
then where throwing some
seeds around yields perfect
15
photo by craiG rullMan
Gardening in Central Oregon is hard — but the rewards are sweet.
gardens every year, and we
gave away as much as we
used. We made salsa. We
made spaghetti sauce. We
made just about anything it
is possible to make with a
tomato.
It’s harder in Central
Oregon. Trust me on that
one. There is an entirely
new set of skills to learn, or
remember, and maybe the
biggest of them is patience.
But we’ve been at it here for
a few years now, and we are
getting better, or maybe just
luckier, and the other night it
all fell together like the last
few pieces of a giant puzzle.
We aren’t all the way
there, not even close. But
for now we have started to
assemble complete meals
that we hunted, or raised,
or worked for, outside of
the grocery store. And that’s
proof that we are farther
down the trail. And we think
it actually matters. We know
where it came from, how we
fed it, how we raised it, how
we stored it, and how we
cooked it. And we know it’s
better for us — it just tastes
better.
At the end of the day, it
just feels right, and that is its
own reward.
Jodi Satko & Keller Williams Realty
INTRODUCES…
Oregon Lifestyle
Property Group
Why Choose Us?
• SERVICE! SERVICE! SERVICE!
• PROVEN TOP $$ RESULTS for our clients.
• TEAM OF BROKERS, working for YOU!
• GLOBAL MARKETING!
• OVER 30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE!
Oregon Lifestyle
Property Group
Why have only one Broker working for your buying
and selling real estate needs when you can have a team
of specialists with over 30 years of experience?
Oregon Lifestyle Property Group offers you a
hand-selected team with over $20 million accumu-
lated sales to date. Ninety percent of their business is
referrals from past happy clients. Their consistent per-
formance and negotiation skills speak for itself with
several recent full price sales in Sisters and Bend.
Oregon Lifestyle Property Group offers an unsur-
passed advanced marketing package for global out-
reach and networking with over 124,000 Keller
Williams Associate Brokers across the United States.
Specializing in luxury, resort, ranch, residential, new
construction, log home and coastal properties Oregon
Lifestyle Property Group’s reputation for client satis-
faction and performance is consistently outstanding.
As one client says: “Jodi Satko and OLPG are the
BEST team to help you buy or sell your home in
Oregon...”
Serving Central Oregon and the Coast
We MOVE Oregon!™
Call today for the complete
list of our real estate services!
541-550-0819
Each offi ce independently owned & operated
382 E. Hood Ave., Sisters, OR 97759
541-549-6406 | www.villageinteriorsdesign.com
GENERAL CONTRACTOR – CCB# 78462 | Bonded, Licensed, Insured
Get a FREE ACE ® Salt Water System
with the purchase of a new Highlife ®
Highlife NXT, or Limelight ® Collection spa.*
Fridays 2-5 p.m.
June 3–September 30
In Barclay Park
Oregon-grown
Produce & Plants
Weekly Entertainment
SistersFarmersMarket.com
MAY 27 - JUNE 6, 2016
Call us at: 541-388-0905
visit us at www.OregonHotTub.com
Oregon hot tub reserves the right to modify or withdraw the promotion at any time. Offer valid
only at participating retail locations. The “Salt Water Hot Tub Sale” promotion runs from May
27-June 6, 2016 (promotional period). Spa must be sold during the promotional period, which
ends at close of business on June 6. Consumer must agree to take delivery of the qualifying
spa and register the warranty on or before August 5, 2016. Offer may not be combined with any
other promotion. RESTRICTIONS: Only new Highlife ® Collection, HIghlife Collection NXT or
Limelight ® Collection spas qualify for free ACE salt water system offer during the promotional
period. Other restrictions may apply.