Ted Kaczynski’s 1974 Journal
Series III, #5
I made, or this time I should rather say rebuilt, another jackknife. It was easy this time, as I had nearly all the essential metal parts. I congratulate myself on having done a lovely job. But it must have cost me nearly a dollar to make the thing, as I broke a 55-calt drill-bit in the process....
Aug. 3: Strawberries are fading now, but I’m getting as many soapberries as I can to use. The berry season is about the only time of year when my appetite for fruit is properly satisfied. Today I went running on Humbing Contour Rd: Saw somebody drive in my direction a long way off so I turned off the road — necessarily into a logged over area. They saw me when they got closer and stopped to watch me, but at least I didn’t have to meet them. While I was out, I found a new edible plant — a member of the mustard family, as I could tell from the seed-pods and the odor of the crushed leaves. …
Evening of the 1st: I was down at the Lees: After I had gone some distance on the way home I found that their kitten was following me. It must have followed the wrong person by mistake, as it began meowing as if frightened. When I got home I coaxed it into the cabin and gave it some milk, after which it became friendly. I put it outside for the night, thinking to take it home in the morning — and if it wandered off and got lost meanwhile, tough luck. I wasn’t about to let it spend the night in the cabin as I didn’t know if it was housebroken and it had a persistent preference for getting up on my bed. In the morning it was gone. This morning when I got home, I heard something meowing in the brush near the cabin. The kitten, of course, who had spent 2 nights lost in the woods and seemed very disconsolate. After some coaxing I got my hands on it and brought it into the cabin. I gave it some milk, but it only drank a little. It seemed much more interested in getting up on the bed and rubbing itself against the blankets and against me, and it was soon pruning loudly. I then took it back down to the Lees. As soon as I took it outside it began meowing again and struggling to get out of my hands. It gave me a lot of trouble — took flight at things and bolted into the bushes twice, and I got scratched a little. When I finally got it to its home it jumped out of my arms and ran into its box.
Soap berries I think are one of the prettiest of berries to look at.
Aug 4: Concerning the new edible plant I found yesterday: While picking green gooseberries this morning here in Florence Gulch, I found several more plants of it, and again it comprised about half of my large luncheon salad....
Aug 16: Today I found a species of the mint family that I have not previously used — field mint ...
Aug. 23: I have just identified a mushroom ...
Aug. 24: Another example of the kind of incident that has been occurring so much this summer that it sometimes frustrates me to tears. This morning, despite the cold and wet, I went to get huckleberries near the power-line that runs up Baldy. Just as I came on a splendid patch of berries, I spotted up ahead, on the very crude road that parallels the wire, some guys doing some kind of work connected with the power line. Of course, as usual, I was raggedly dressed and wearing foolgear consisting of the soles of an old pair of sneakers, held in place by elkhide thongs, so it would have been unthinkable to meet them. But I wanted those berries so very badly that I started picking anyway, where they couldn’t see me. But I heard them working closer and closer, and when they got too close for comfort, I left. So I only got one cup of those big fat lovely berries. This kind of thing hardly ever happened the first summer I was here. This summer it seems to happen almost every time I go out, unless I get well away from even the crudest roads, and there aren’t many places left where you can get away from the roads. My supper tonight was just boiled potatoes from my garden, with a few wild herbes thrown in — except that I washed it down with 3/4 of milk and some extra mint tea that I made at lunchtime.
Aug. 25: Bulk of my supper is again my own potatoes.
Aug. 26: Early this morning I went back to that huckleberry patch. The guys were working elsewhere now so I could pick undisturbed. I spent some hours and got over 5 quarts out of just that little patch. Lovely picking! Also I shot a squirrel up there and got some salad on the way back. My supper tonight only cost me a nickel — for the .22 cartridge for the squirrel (inflation!) it consisted of potatoes from my garden, wild greens, the squirrel, and huckleberries for dessert. This was quite good.
Aug. 27: Damn it! Yesterday was a beautiful day — just one beautiful day. This morning — rain again.
Aug. 28: There was just that brief shower in the morning yesterday; then the weather cleared up and was fine until evening, when there were clouds and thunder and a touch of rain. I went up on the ridge and shot 3 squirrels and a grouse, one shot each, of course, dug about 1 1/2 pints of yampa, and got a good bagful of onion flowers. Those guys were working on that wire again, so I couldn’t pick huckleberries. Grouse seem to become available on the ridgetops at this time of year, but, apparently, only in fair weather: I had a supper of which nothing was store-bought but a pinch of salt: a salad of yellow-monkey flower and brooklime; a stew of 3 squirrels, onion flowers, my own potatoes, and a small quantity of miscellaneous herbs, and huckleberries for desert. A good meal! Today for lunch I had: salad, bread, oil, legs and back of grouse, and a quart of huckleberries. Yesterday and again today I ate a handful of the berries of red osier dogwood....