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Ted Kaczynski’s 1974–75 Journal
Series III, #5
May 31, 1974: 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-cent drill-bit in the process. The pivot holes in the blade I drilled out to a larger size. When the bit broke I put the handle-end of a small triangular file in the chuck of my drill, and found that the end of the file made an excellent bit. I then used two machine screws at the end of the handle, and put epoxy on the threads to keep the nuts from working loose. In order to keep the nuts and screw-heads from digging into the wooden side-panels (which I made of service-berry wood) I embedded segments of a nail in the wood, which brace the nuts and screwheads against the metal panels. From some brass that I saved from a broken clock, I filed a gizmo with a hold in it which I built into the knife in such a way that the knife can be tied to a string. I varnished it. I wanted to thin the varnish to make it soak into the wood, but I had no thinner, so thinned the stuff with some Thompson’s Water-Seal. The main blade of this knife was still functioning which I took it apart to rebuild it, but the bottle-opener and can-opener blades were broken off, and one of the side-panels had come off. Also, the main blade was getting a little wobbly. As I rebuilt it, it has a main blade and a can-opener blade. The can-opener blade was from that old knife that fell apart.
June 1: I am getting my stuff ready for a hike in the “back country” (N. of highway 200). Yes, this place is getting [UNCLEAR, POSSIBLY ‘more’] crowded all the time. This morning I was picking wild greens up by Humbug contour road, but had to quit and go home because I heard a pickup truck coming. Again, I remind the reader that for practical reasons it is hard to avoid being ragged and dirty here, and even if I weren’t ragged and dirty, the sight of someone squatting by the roadside picking “weeds” and putting them in a bag would be sure to excite curiosity and questions. Some people aren’t bothered by that sort of thing, but I am not one of them. Also, from the tracks I have seen, it appears that someone has been [UNCLEAR, PROBABLY ‘regularly’] driving along Humbug contour. I seem to be getting hemmed in on all sides by crowded places.
June 5: Weather has been unpropitious for starting my hike. Talk about this place being crowded. On the other side of Stemple pass road, between the road and the National Forest land, there is a strip of private land. They have just put up a fence along there with signs: “Keep Out — Private.” Cuts off my access to the National Forest land on the other side.
June 24: Yesterday I got back from 2 weeks in the back country. See small notebook. Will probably go back there again soon. My rebuilt penknife (the second one) served me well but got a little rusty. The canvas holster got holes worn through it all over whenever it rubbed by the corners of the pistol. The braided elk-hair strings that I used (on holster, as string on knife, and to hold my keys) held up very well. The string does not hold a square knot well, but half hitches in series work very nicely. Very few mosquitoes around here, compared to the situation on the other side. I have just identified some blue flowers I see growing around here as a penstemon — probably blue penstemon, Penstemon cyaneus. I have looked up those striking little blue flowers that sprinkled the alpine meadows; they are Alpine Forget-me-nots — Eritrichium elongatum. Also, another plant I saw is unmistakeably [sic.] recognisable [UNREADABLE] pictures in the book as Lomatium macrocarpum, or biscuit-root — being in the same genus as the biscuit-root, or [UNCLEAR], Lomatium utriculatum, that I have eaten.
June 25: By the way, I got the better of Sears Roebuck on a little deal here. The little hinge-thing on the ash door of my stove broke off, so I ordered a new one. The girl who took the order said they would not charge me for postage on this, so I only paid $1.75 — the price of the door itself. When I got the door, I noticed that it cost them $1.90 postage just to send me the thing. Hope this won’t force them into bankruptcy.
June 26: Just took a little stroll around and found the first wild strawberries of the year. They aren’t anywhere near ready over on the other side of Copper Creek — severer climate there, I think. [POSSIBLY “This is a lovely little gulch. It’s home — and it’s good country around here”] too. I would be tempted to spend the summer around here, but I’m getting so hemmed in by civilization around here that I feel compelled to seek the wilder areas on the other side. Yesterday and today there has been machinery working down around where those other people have moved in — I think they’re putting in electricity or something.
June 27: I thought I heard machinery working up the gulch as well as down it. This morning I found that they have dug a big hole up at that mine and put a fence around it. I suppose they are going to recommence mining operations.
Aug. 9: On Aug. 5 I got home from 5 weeks (34 nights, 35 days) in the back country — a very satisfying hike, for which see small notebook. Next day Dave and his friend Joel arrived. They wanted to take a hike, so we took over night hike to lake above Cooper Lake. Nothing worth mentioning about this hike except that (a) Joel is the most helpless creature I ever encountered and (b) I caught 2 very large cutthroat trout — all the meat I wanted for supper. They were very tasty. Had mountain sorrel for salad, of course.
Aug 10: Drove to Lincoln to mail a letter today, then drove on to the place on Sucker Creek where I departed for my hikes. There I parked and went to the hill to pick huckleberries. The berries were a little sparse in distribution, but still I got nearly a gallon; about 1/4 cup short. Put 1 1/2 qts. in attic to dry, ate nearly a qt. for dessert after supper. Probably will eat the rest fresh tomorrow.
Aug 11: Took stroll up gulch in late afternoon got just [PAGE CUTS OFF] serviceberries. Made the currants into jam and had on some bannock this evening. Good! Have started reconstructing my pack. Big job.
Aug. 12: Went up the ridge today with my trusty .22 rifle. This spur seems to be a regular hangout of grouse. Found a whole flock. Shot 2 — one shot each. One of these was full-grown, the other obviously immature. I suppose the big one was the mother of the brood. Hope they will be able to get by without mama. They are pretty big and fly well, so I suppose they have a pretty fair chance of survival. They had been eating serviceberries and grasshoppers. [ADDED LATER “I”] Also got some wild greens — mostly dock. The big bird, after being shot, was unable to fly, but still run well along the ground, so I had to run it down. That rifle seems almost noiseless compared to the pistol, which is quite noisy. Late afternoon I went and dug about 2/3 cup yampa — I have noticed there’s quite a bit of it a little way up the gulch. Even some growing right on our lot. So had an all-wild supper (except for a bit of salt and pepper in the soup). A soup of grouse, wild greens, and yampa. (An excellent soup. Yampa is certainly one of the most delicious foods, and the grouse was tender and tasty.) And then I ate that quart and a half of huckleberries that I had put in the attic to dry. The weather has been cloudy, and they had been drying too slowly, so I thought it better to eat them now than risk having them get moldy. A very satisfactory supper. Just had a terrible cloudburst with enormous hailstones.
Aug. 14: Yesterday I [PAGE CUTS OFF] got 3 1/2 cups black currants and found an excellent crop of black elderberries. I probably would have had more than a gallon of these last if I had finished separating the berries from the stems — which I did not, for reasons that will appear shortly. In late afternoon I had a fine meal — that little grouse, which was extremely tender and delicious, boiled in a soup with greens, rice, etc., black currant sauce for dessert, and 1/2 cup elderberries eaten raw with milk and sugar. They didn’t taste very good raw, but they are supposed to have a high vitamin C content, of which I wanted to take advantage. About a half an hour later I became nauseated, and half an hour after that I puked it all up. Then I experienced nausea, with intermittent vomiting and diarrhea for some hours afterward. What bothers me about this is not so much the discomfort I went through as losing that lovely, delicious little grouse. I ascribe this to the elderberries, because a couple of days ago I ate a mouthful or so of these in later afternoon and was nauseated next morning, though I didn’t vomit. So my first act on getting up this morning was to throw out all the elderberries. Donald R. Kink (Wild Edible Plants of the Western U.S.) says of Elderberries: “Some people experience nausea when eating the fruit raw, but cooking renders it safe to all.” So maybe I should have saved those berries after all, and tried them as jam. But, really, I don’t have much inclination to experiment any further with them just now. Some years ago, I used to eat modest quantities of [ADDED LATER “raw”] elderberries back east, and I don’t remember having any discomfort as a result; but there are several species of elderberries and that [CUT OFF, POSSIBLY “must have been a different one.”]
Aug. 16: Went up the ridge yesterday to look for meat, but got none. Saw several grouse, but they were all very shy. Couldn’t find any squirrels cutting down pine cones. But I did find some fine yampa — digging in the meadows on the ridge behind Baldy. It is a joy to wander through these incomparable parks and meadows, and to sit and gaze at the mountains on the other side of [UNCLEAR] Creek. Anyway — I had nothing to dig with but a pointed stick, but I nevertheless got almost a pint of yampa. I had this for lunch along with something over 1/2 cup serviceberries that I found and some civilized food. Large areas of meadows up there are chock full of yampa, but it is practical to dig for it only in a small fraction of this area, because elsewhere the matted grass roots make digging too difficult. Luckily I found some more soft, wet ground with lots of yampa in it. This morning I went up the ridge with pick and spade to get yampa and did much better than yesterday. In a lovely park I scared up a flock of immature grouse, and nearly slew two with one shot each. One of these was so inconsiderate as to get stuck up in the tree when it died and I had to climb for it. A tricky climb. Then I spent at least maybe 4 hours digging yampa, which effort netted me one quart of those tasty roots. I worked shirtless in the sun and enjoyed just being there. I grow fonder of that ridgetop all the time. On the way home I got some wild greens and onion tops, and about 2/3 cup Oregon grapes, from which I extracted a little less than 2/3 cup juice. So I had practically an all-wild supper, which actually served as both lunch and supper, as I missed lunch. First I boiled that quart of yampa, then in the same water I boiled one grouse with the greens and onion tops, and a little salt and pepper. Also, I had a handful of [PAGE CUT OFF] leaves for salad, and, of course, the Oregon grape juice for dessert, with maybe 1 2/3 heaping spoons of sugar in it. That sugar, and a bit of salt and pepper was the only civilized food I had. It was a square meal, and I have maybe 1/2 cup of the boiled yampa left over for tomorrow. The more time I spend in the woods, the better I like it. Also, I brought back a little Alum-root (Heuchera sp.) for next time I get an upset stomach. Alum-root is supposed to cure diarrhea. Forgot to mention that yesterday I finally got around to making those black currants up into jam. Sealed up 2 one-cup jars of it with paraffine, ate the rest last night and this morning.
Aug. 17: This morning for breakfast I had mashed yampa mixed with soybean oil (a delicious combination reminiscent of coconut) washed down with cocoa. Then I finished repairing my pack. Now have it in good shape. Next, I went across Poorman Creek (by the devious route that is now necessary) to look for Oregon Grapes. Found that there is nothing like the magnificent crop of these berries that there was last year. But I did get rather more than a pint of them, from which I extracted about 1 3/4 cup juice, and I got some wild onions, wild greens, mint for tea, and a few serviceberries. Scared up some immature grouse but got no chance at them. Lots of grouse around this year! Had a very fine lunch: That [sic.] lovely, tender little grouse, boiled, a soup of ride, barley, lentils, greens, seasoned with wild onions, salt, pepper, and the Oregon Grape juice for dessert.
Aug. 18: Yesterday I took advantage of the abundant crop of [PAGE CUTS OFF] [...] right by the cabin and picked a quart in about 15 min. I’ve had enough of black currant jam for now, so I spread these in the attic to dry. Black currants have a strong, peculiar odor. They are good when cooked as jam — up to a point. Then they pall decidedly. Two varieties grow around here — the smooth and the hairy. I consider the hairy slightly better. Some bear has lately been feasting on black currants in this gulch, as I see from his turds. Anyway, after that I took a leisurly [sic.] ramble up the gulch just for the pleasure of it, and I brought back one cup of serviceberries, and a (mature) spruce grouse that I chanced to meet and killed with one shot. I had to make haste in cleaning the grouse and cooking my bannock for supper, as dark was coming on. Washed that bannock down with delicious mint tea and had the serviceberries for dessert. This morning I went running on Humbug Contour. Did 4 miles very comfortably, felt very light of foot even though I haven’t run for weeks. Rambling over these hills keeps one in excellent shape. I kept 3 of Gehring’s cows running ahead of me most of the way. They ran surprizingly [sic.] well for such lumbering animals. At the end of the road I found a patch of seeds of some member of the mustard family of a kind that I used a little last fall. I gathered some of these, but to gather then efficiently I’ll have to go back with my light pack so that I can pull up the whole plants and stuff them in. I also got 1 3/8 quarts of oregon grapes, from which I extracted not quite a quart of juice. And I identified a new plant — one which I’ve seen often before but never identified — Snowbrush, [UNCLEAR, PROBABLY “Ceanothus sp., sanguineus or] velutinus. Of course I had the grouse in a soup for lunch with greens, etc. Drank the whole quart of O. G. juice for dessert.
Aug. 19: Had sore legs from yesterday’s unaccustomed running, so stayed around cabin today. Got about 4/5 pint serviceberries up the gulch, which served for today’s fruit ration. Have been having lots of delicious mint tea lately.
Aug. 21: For some reason, beans have been affecting me adversely of late. They cause excessive gas, belches of a most repellent flavor, and after some nausea. This all occurs many hours after the beans are eaten. Had no meat the 19th, so ate beans for supper, and had the unpleasant symptoms yesterday morning. Never-the-less, I walked to the end of Humbug Contour yesterday morning and stuffed my light pack full of those seed-bearing mustard plants. Could have got more if my pack had been bigger, but I got the greater part of the crop, anyway. So I now have a big pile of the stuff drying behind the stove (the weather has been rainy). On the way home I shot a big old blue grouse, one shot. There certainly are a lot of grouse around this year! Also, I found a couple of handfuls of huckleberries still hanging on the bushes and picked just barely short of 1 quart of Oregon grapes. That grouse was big enough for 2 days’ meat, so I had just the back legs, wings, and giblets in my soup for supper (with wild onion, yellow monkey flower, rice, noodles) and saved the breast for today, That grouse had a lot of fat on it, and seemed particularly tasty. Oregon grape juice for dessert, of course.
Aug. 28: Just got back from 6 nights out — hiked to Granite Butte, for account of which see small notebook. When I got back I observed that there was a fine crop of [ADDED LATER “ripe”] serviceberries on the bush next to the cabin. This bush seems to be the best one around, with regard to both quantity and quality of Berries. So I picked from that bush and the nearby ones, and from the bushes a little way up the gulch, and got not quite a pint of serviceberries, which served as today’s fruit ration. I might mention that my home-made machete sheath, Jack knife, and wallet have all been holding up and serving well.
Aug. 31: Evening of day before yesterday I saw something very repulsive. I noticed a mouse that was so slow and listless that I concluded it was sick. I caught it by putting an overturned pot over it. Actually, the mouse ran for it good as I brought the pot down, so that its neck was caught under the rim, which killed it. I soon found that I had done that mouse a great favor by killing it. Attached to its underside were 3 or 4 bizarre and disgusting parasites. Each was like a fat brown grub with leathery skin, the largest about the size and shape of the last joint of my little finger — a pretty big parasite for a tiny mouse to carry around. Each had bored a large hole through the mouse’s skin and had latched onto the flesh underneath, presumably to suck nourishment from the mouse. Naturally, I burned that mouse and all its parasites.
Yesterday I went out foraging. Got no meat, but I found that the shaggy-manes were out in masses already, and I picked as many as I could use. Also, I got 5 1/2 cups of Oregon Grapes (from which I got a quart of juice), and about a cup of chokecherries, and I took some mountain ash berries to try as jelly. I made about a cup of this jelly. It has a marked bitterness and is not very good on bread. But it tastes pretty good eaten alone — makes a good appetizer to begin a meal. In taste it resembles jellied cranberry sauce. For lunch, of course, I had lots of mushrooms cooked with cornmeal and cooking oil.
This morning I went up the ridge with light pack, spade, and rifle. I encountered a large flock of grouse, which were pretty shy, but I got a young one, anyway; one shot, of course. Just below the first peak east of Baldy along the ridge I found excellent yampa digging and in 2 or 3 hours I got 5 1/2 cuts, no less, of this nourishing and tasty root. Stopped off to get a bag of mushrooms on the way home. The weather had a bit of autumn in it today and I enjoyed just strolling home through those pleasant parks of Douglas fir. There is a joy too seeing new country, as I did so much this summer, but there is also a joy in seeing the same old familiar country over and over again. Anyhow, I had mushrooms-and-cornmeal for lunch, naturally, and some mountain-ash jelly too. I am now making for supper a soup of grouse with mushrooms, a couple of handfuls of greens, a few wild onions, and a pinch of salt; and I am boiling about 3 1/2 cups yampa, saving the other pint or so for tomorrow. Also I have a couple of spoonfuls of mountain-ash jelly for an aperatif [sic.] and I expect to have a pint or so of oregon grape juice (left from yesterday) for dessert. Later: So I had a nearly all-wild supper. Only civilized stuff was a bit of salt in the soup and several spoonfuls of sugar in the O. grape juice and the bit of Mountain-ash jelly. Heavy rain now. I certainly was lucky with the weather. Almost no rain on my recent hike. I just happened to hit the [UNCLEAR] spell between 2 rainy spells.
Sept. 1: Snow on top of Stonewall and adjacent mountains this morning. Autumn is coming. A fairly substantial part of my food supply today was yampa left over from yesterday, both the pint that I didn’t cook yesterday, and some of the cooked stuff that I didn’t eat yesterday. I find it best to use plenty of water in cooking yampa to be sure that it comes out tender. Today I picked a lot of chokeberries (close to home) and made, I would guess, more than a quart of jelly from them. Only trouble is, the stuff hasn’t jelled yet, and I suspect it’s not going to. I was short of pectin and I guess I tried to stretch it too far. But the stuff has excellent flavvor and a rich, deep-red color. Guess I’ll just have to pour it over bread or bannock and eat with a fork. I sealed up 4 jars of it with paraffin. Weather has turned clear again now.
Sept. 2: Went running today, down to the end of Humbug Contour Road, as usual. On the way back I looked for Oregon Grapes but only got a little less than a pint. But the mushrooms were still out in great masses and I took a bagful of those. So when I got home I had a fairly large quantity of mushrooms-and-cornmeal, with Oregon grape juice for dessert. A good meal. Then a good nap. After that I went up to the little road that goes by the cabin and cleaned out and deepened my little ditches up there. I expect to start looking for employment soon, and while I am gone I want the water to run off the right way instead of washing out the road.
October 10: Sketch of my latest misadventures — seems I always have misadventures, of late in my relations with civilization: There seem to [UNINTELLIGIBLE] the woods [UNINTELLIGIBLE] I found employment pretty promptly through a want-ad. Job at service-station attendant at Raynesford. $2.00 per hour. The employer — a salesman type with a huge belly — gave me a lot of B.S. about how much extra money I could make in bonuses for fixing tires, selling air fitters, and the like. I figured he was exaggerating, but the situation turned out to be even worse that I feared — one could make only a negligible amount in bonuses. I did not like the work, and, especially I disliked the boss. Usually he was repulsively oily, and sometimes he was rude. I am not one to stomach rudeness, so I quit — purposely avoided giving advance notice. I just didn’t show up for work one morning. Later I sent him a self-addressed, stamped envelope for him to send my check in, which he did because he had to, though he probably didn’t like it. So I made altogether $22600 after taxes — better than nothing, anyway. In the mean time, my Chevelle was getting so bad — it was costing so much to keep it running — that I decided I would have to get something else, transportation being practically a necessity out at Raynesford. As long as I was doing that I thought I would like to get a used pickup, because I wanted to try my hand at cutting posts and poles in the hope of making more money. Also it would be very desirable to be my own boss. Of course the venture was questionable — one hears very conflicting stories as to what kind of money one can make at post-cutting.
But I find it so humiliating and so galling looking for a job (the job-seeker is always more or less in the position of a suppliant) and so reluctant to go back to the big cities (it’s hard to get decent wages in Montana.) And I thought I would gable on it. For $37300 plus my Chevelle I got a used pickup — for $9000 a new, small chain-saw. Ever since I got that pickup I have had nothing but trouble with it. On top of that, the chainsaw won’t function properly. Bouma post-yard gave me a place to cut up near Dalton mountain, accessible only by an incredibly bad road. Yesterday I was coming down Dalton Mtn. Road with my first load of posts, when the engine on that truck decided it wasn’t going to run any more. Occasionally in the past the engine on that truck has died, and then has become flooded before it would start again. One then has to wait half an hour and the thing will start. But this time I waited half an hour and the thing still wouldn’t start; tried again with same result. By this time dark was falling, so I went a little way into the woods and camped for the night — then I felt comfortable and at home again. Of course, I was tired, hungry, and thirsty, had only one thin blanket, and had nothing waterproof of any kind with which to keep off the rain of which there was some possible threat. But that’s nothing. That kind of problem I know how to deal with, and what’s more, I can deal with it without having to mesh with other people or with civilization in any way. Spent a somewhat chilly night, but slept reasonably well anyway. In the morning I tried the truck again. It still wouldn’t start, so I hiked home cross-country. Being tired, angry, and discouraged, I haven’t done anything about the truck today, and don’t know what I will do about it tomorrow. But I can see that, even if that truck were functioning well, I could make very little money at that game. The truck was certainly overloaded — the back end was way, way own, the tires partially flattened, the backward tilt of the truck so great that the load was tending to slide off the back. Yet I figured out the value of that load, and that came to $16.68. Might be OK if one were close enough to the post yard to make 2 trips a day, or if one had a bigger truck, but as it is it’s no good. This makes me hate society all the more. Why? you ask. Ain’t society’s fault that I gambled on buying an old, beat-up truck to get into a business I knew nothing about. True enough, but the whole underlying problem is brought about by an organized society. Without suck society, I would have been living from birth the life I want; or if things were still sufficiently uncrowded so that one could simply go into the far northern woods, build a cabin, and swat, or I wouldn’t need so much money to get myself a place; or if this place were not getting so infiltrated with civilization, I wouldn’t even need to go north. As it is, it is very difficult to escape permanently from the necessity of living in crowded, unwholesome conditions and spending one’s life as some employer’s flunkey.
Note: At approximately the same time that I came to that Raynesford service station, two other new employees were hired there, and it is interesting that all of us were, in some degree at least, trying to escape civilization. One of these 2 was an unpleasant fellow, whom I disliked. I was told he wanted to like back in the country, with horses and all that. The other was a girl from Tucson who had come to Montana and was living with some people she knew in Stanford. She said she wanted to work with animals in the country and all that kind of stuff. I liked her very well, but she was a dumpy thing with no sex appeal whatever.
Nov. 2: Last couple of weeks I have been cutting posts and paying Glen Williams to haul them to the post yard with his trailer. It’s not very lucrative, but I am earning something, anyway. When Glen hauled in the first big load for me, he says the buy at Bouma post yard said “It looks like a good load” [quality-wise — i.e., uniform lengths, no undersized ones, etc.]. I have now got that patch all cut out and am investigating a couple of possibilities for more stumpage. Yesterday in this connection I saw Paul Olsen, the ranger in charge of posts and poles, and he said he was there to inspect my patch (with regard to the way slash was piled, whether stumps were short enough, etc.), and he said “It looks good — real good.” Ha! You see, I always do everything right. Being careful takes time, of course, so the posts don’t get cut as fast.
Nov. 20, 1974: The post cutting business having petered out for me for the present, for reasons which I need not get into here, I got myself a deer tag, though there were only 12 days of the season left. Got my deer on the 18th, the 5th day that I hunted. First 4 days there was no show. First 2 days I hunted up around Baldy without seeing deer. Third day I hiked down to the mouth of Cottonwood Gulch, [...]
Nov. 21: Straight meat for supper. Venison stew — just Rocky Mountain venison and Rocky Mountain stream water — nothing else, no salt, pepper, or any such thing. Yet it made a most delicious and nourishing stew. Perhaps the best part was the rich broth. This deer had lots of fat on it and the meat was taken from the fat parts. [...]
Nov. 22: Had almost nothing but venison to eat [...]
Dec. 20: Nearly all-wild lunch today — porcupine bacon, porcupine meat, fir-needle tea (with 3 spoons sugar), handful of raisons for desert.
Winter Solstice: Chinook this morning — snow all melty, balmy temperature. The Chinook, and certain similar winds in other parts of the world, are reported to have a psychologically disturbing effect. It always gives me an urge to get out and move. So I took a walk this morning. Just before I got home there was a sudden change in the weather and I found myself in a blizzard, which has been blowing off and on all the rest of the day.
Dec. 22: Went out and got 2 rabbits in 2 or 2 1/2 hours this morning, just around home gulch here. Right here seems to be where the best rabbit hunting is this year. [...]
Dec. 23: Took a long hike [...] snow in most places was considerably deepr than at the cabin and I wished I had taken my snow shoes. It was 12° when I left the cabin, but over in the area of the walenness springs it felt much colder. Bet it was around zero. I didn’t have proper foot gear for such weather and my toes got all numb. I stopped off at one of the 2 water cress springs — the smaller one — and got a little water cress — just a handful, as the cold made it inconvenient to get more. It is remarkable that those springs don’t freeze over in such weather. Perhaps the water comes out at a temperature well above freezing. I also got a good gathering of rose hips. I located a porcupine by following its tracks a short way, but couldn’t get it because it was so concealed that I couldn’t get a decent shot at its head, and no amount of banging on the tree would make the sleepy beast stick its head out. I am planning to treat myself food wise, to some extent, on Christmas, and it occurred to me on the way home that (a) I would have but little meat on Christmas if I didn’t kill something before then, and (b) Hunting tomorrow is not likely to be particularly good because clear skies promised no snow (it was a beautiful day); so instead of going straight home I went up in the thickets south of the cabin. As usual, the maze of trails made for terrible tracking, but I followed some of the trails through the thickets for a couple of hours, until at last I had the good fortune to spy a couple of [UNINTELLIGBLE] ears sticking up. I shot the bunny thorugh the head and so will have meat for Christmas. I eat about a rabbit a day unless I have porcupine or something else. Anyhow, all the time I spent made me miss lunch, but I made up for it with an ample supper. While I was out I noticed in an open prairie a lodgepole pine of extraordinary form. It has a straight central trunk like other lodge-poles, but it was short and stunted, and the side-branches were thick and heavy like the boughs of a deciduous tree, so that the tree had a rounded full siloutte.
Dec. 24: Yesterday on my way home I picked up a rabbit trail probably a good quarter mile as the crow flies from the cabin and followed it across our lot into the thickets on the other side where the rabbits hang out. When one trails rabbits, they usually go a good deal, less than a quarter mile (as the crow flies) before the double back, keeping with what is presumably their familiar territory. But exceptions such as the above are not uncommon — sometimes I have trailed them 1/3 or perhaps 1/2 mile as the crow flies. Now I read somewhere — I think in Ernest Thompson Seton’s Leaves of the Game Animals that each snow shoe hare has its own territory within which it stays. If this is supposed to mean that the whole area is divided up like a checkerboard into territories whose boundaries are faithfully observed by the rabbits, then I don’t believe it. Their territories can’t be a quarter mile in diameter, because there are too many rabbits for such large territories. In an area of thicket [...]
Christmas Day: Gave myself a Christmas present — I mean in addition to indulging myself food wise. That deerskin belt I made for myself didn’t have a schlimzicket, the schlimzicket being the part that holds the belt down flat after it passes through the buckle. So I made one from a scrap of copper tubing — did a very neat job of it, and put a high polish on it so that it qualifies as an article of jewellery. Copper has that lovely rich color. I just finished making it today, and put it on the belt.
Dec. 27: Yesterday, I went and tracked down that porcupine that I mentioned on the 23rd and killed it with a shot in the head. Cleaned it the same day. It was big and I now have lots of meat on hand.
Dec. 29: That latest porcupine was very big and meaty, though not very fat for a winter porcupine. [...]
New Year’s Day, 1975: Today I went rabbit hunting and got two. First I went up through the thickets [...]
Yesterday I went up on the ridge in an attempt to poach a deer with my .22, since I am now in serious financial straits and want to conserve my food supplies as much as possible. I found a substantial herd of mule deer up there (2 dozen?) keeping a little group of trees between me and the deer I sneaked to within maybe a 100 yeards of them, but could get no closer as there was no more cover between me and the deer. Could nonetheless have got one with my 30–30 or 30–05, but didn’t care to try at that distance with the .22. Later I found myself within about 50 ft. of a deer. The [UNINTELLIBLE].
This, and the fact that it let me get so close, made me wonder if it was sick. I shot it in the chest with a hollow-point bullet. It went a few steps, stood a moment, then keeled over dead. I looked it over and found it had performed a messy-killing. The animal was extremely emaciated and had a large tumor — not much smaller than my fist — on the right side of its face. I just left it for the coyotes, as I felt nervous about handling the meat of such a diseased animal. By the way, an interesting thing happened just before I left for California, which I haven’t yet put in this journal. Glen Williams and I drove up on Dalton Mountain to cut a load of firewood, for which he paid me a few bucks. While we were working, a tall, rugged-looking old fellow of perhaps 50 summers came walking up to us from out of the woods. He gave his name, but I don’t remember it, which is just as well, since I wouldn’t want to blow his cover by revealing it. For convenience, I will call him Mr. Bonaparte. One was immediately struck by the look of suspicion in his eyes. After some commonplace introductory remarks Mr. Bonaparte stated that the battery on his behicle was dead, and he requested us, on our return to town, to stop at a service station where he was known and ask the proprietor to come up with a new battery for him. He described himself as “retired military” and explained that “after being shot at for 20 years” it was about time for a man to “set himself down in the woods for a while”. Mr. Boniparte therefore intended to winter where he was camped, a short distance from where we were working. This led me to suppose that Mr. Bonaparte was a man after my own heart. I informed him that I myself had spent a couple of winters hole up [PAGE CUTS OFF] sympathetic with his intentions. IN this way I apparently won his affection, because he now became decidedly conversational whereas he had previously been somewhat distant. Much of the conversation was of a routine nature not worth reporting here. THe interesting part was a series of astonishing revelations that Mr. Bonaparte made to me in a low, confidential tone — out of the hearing of Glen whom he perhaps did not regard as fully trustworthy. Mr. Monaparte proved to be a veritable mine of secret information on Russian espionage activities in the United States. He commenced with the allegation that [UNINTELLIBLE] Ranch is “crawling with Russian KGB.” He suggested that I ought to report this to the local sheriffs deputy, “but I don’t think he’ll do anything about it anyway — I think he’s kinda chicken.”
He mentioned that there were about 25 KGB agents around Lincoln. Wishing to show polite interest, I asked him what the KGB were doing there, and he said “they’re gunning for MY ass, that’s why I’m up here. But if any of them come up here, they won’t go down again, I’ll guarantee you.”
He went on to describe some of the atrocities committed by the KGB. Most shocking was the fact that the KGB had entered the homes of certain persons and assassinated them, then, putting “this plastic stuff on their faces to make themselves look like the regular people”, they had assumed the identities of the assassinated persons, so that nothing was suspected until the KGB was gone and the corpses were found in the basement.
Mr. Boneparte evidently was well qualified to speak on these matters. By his own account he was formerly a Texas Rnager and the Rangers have been among the [UNINTELLIGBLE] schemes of the KGB. Moreover, it would seem that during much of his military career Mr. Bonaparte was pitted against the KGB. He claimed to be the man who started the Moscow ritos of 1956 in which (he said) the KGB headquarters were torn down. And after certain generals and other highly placed persons had sold ambassadorships to a group of KGB agents, “We cleaned out a nest of them [KGB]. We just cut their throats and sent their ambassadorship papers back to Moscow [...]. It was flattering that Mr. Bonaparte judged me to be worthy of such confidence. Still, the look of suspicion never left his eyes, and I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable in his presence. He was carrying a pistol, and neither Glen nor I was armed. In a lifetime of fighting the KGB, Mr Monaparte might have become over zealous. He might be inclined on insufficient grounds, to suspect Glen and me of being KGB agents, and accustomed to the bloody in-fighting of the espionage business, he might be a little too precipitous in defending himself. I therefore made every effort to seem interested in and concerned about his revelations. Among other things, the KGB has killed 7 or 8 hundred children in the United States; 2 local residents whose appearance was described to me are KGB ; high officials of the Fish and Game Dept. illegally kill elk and sell them to eastern restaurants; the Texas, Wyoming, Tenassee, and other states Rangers are sent to Nepal to train with Nepalese Ghurkas; an air force base recently “cleaned up” had harbored 108 KGB; and Nelson Rockefeller is the only man around who has more money than Mr. Bonaparte. Furthermore, Mr. Bonaparte knows another [PAGE CUTS OFF] worth, namely, 600 trillion trillion dollars. All this information certainly makes the state of the nation seem frightful. Next thing you know, the KGB will make Mr. Bonaparte out to be a dangerous paranoiac and have him confined to an institution.
March 27: I am now a regular gold-bonded, certified deer-poacher. This morning was ideal for poaching. Quite cold and windy and poor visibility because of the flying snow. The sort of morning when nobody but [...]
March 28: -6° below zero this morning at dawn. Lunch and supper yesterday and breakfast this morning were almost all deer, and I still have enough fat stuff left for more all-meat meals.
March 29: I find I was mistaken in describing that deer as lean. It had very little fat layered under the skin. But I found lots of fat around the eyes and ears, around the pelvis, parts of the ribs, and other places. [...]
March 30: Yesterday my only civilized food was salt and pepper, 5 dates, 4 heaping spoons sugar, 2 of powdered milk, and half a one of cocoa. Rest was deer, rabbit, fir-needle tea and a sprig of sage brush. This deer is on the tough side, and alas, my poor old teeth are barely up to it. The upper molars get sore around the roots from chewing tough stuff.
March 31: Yesterday my only civilized food aside from salt, pepper, and parsley flakes (which didn’t seem to affect the flavour of the soup anyway) was 5 dates, a small can of mandarin oranges, 4 heaping spoons of sugar, 2 of powdered milk, half a one of cocoa. [...] have a visitor, a very old man named [UNINTELLIGIBLE] McCann, with whom Kenneth was talking about the old days; mule and horses and so forth. Kenneth said he always thought he had been born 100 years too late, and McCann said he felt the same way. McCann expressed himself in a much more educated way than Kenneth. Kenneth said he was the last of the real old-timers left around here. Anyway, after McCann was gone, I went and got the venison for the Lees. They seemed glad to get it — in fact, before I mentioned the venison Irene had been telling me that they were running out of meat and she would have to buy some. Of course, my motives were not entirely altruistic. I figured they would offer me some of their surplus garden vegatables. And indeed they did — and fed me a good meal besides — I took home 2 large jars of home-canned sourkraut, 9 or 10 lb. of potatoes, and 3 large stamps. So if you figure that deer — leg as given in barter for the vegetables, I will be getting a lot more free eating for that deer than 3 1/2 days worth. So I sat and played pinochle with the Lees for a few hours, then went home and had a bedtime snack of cold boiled venison washed down with vinegar and sugar-and-water, a tasty drink. This meat was frm the back; it has aged some now and is quite tender, enough for my poor little teeth. Good eating!
April 1: 2° above zero at dawn.
April 2: Fresh bobcat tracks not far from the cabin this morning. I didn’t bother to trail it far because the snow was so crunchy that I thought there was almost no chance of seeing it. The chipmonks out of hibernation, though it is a late spring — still lots of snow. Have been having some very good steaks of venison, sauerkraut, potatoes, and turnip trimmings (the main part of the turnip I eat now, for vitamins). [...]
April 3: Went up on the ridge today to fetch down the rest of the deer meat. It was still frozen solid. When I reached the end of the long climb up the [TEXT OBSCURED] the beauty of the scene. Forested hillsides and bare, open ones. Close to where my venison was buried in the snow, there was a herd of elk grazing peacefully. I cooked some of the foreleg meat today and found it fairly tough, unlike the tender back-meat that I have just finished eating. This may be partly because the meat would probably age more slowly while frozen solid. I am still living mainly on meat and the Lees potatoes. Heavy on the meat.
April 6: For the last 10 days, including today, most of my food has never seen the inside of a supermarket. The main exceptions are: the 6 spoons of cooking oil I have used each day since the fat part of the deer ran out (there has still been some fat on the meat I’ve eaten since then), and the can of [UNINTELLIGIBLE] that I have had every other day. The rest has been mainly venison, and the potatoes, turnips, and sauerkraut from the Lees. [...]
April 8: Except for the back meat, I have hamburgerized all that venison because it is pretty tough. I now have it all eaten up except a hind leg that I salted and hung up to cure. [...]
April 11: My deer meat is nearly gone, so I went hunting today. Brought back nothing but a modest quantity of watercress. But I did track a badger to its den. I have never yet seen a badger, the animal being characteristic of the open prairie rather than the woods and mountains. [...]
April 12: Went hunting again today up on the ridge and brought back one grouse [...]
April 15: Made a new snowshoe trap from an old belt that was no good as a belt any more. Finally I had a success at trapping! [...] This morning I found a rabbit caught by a forefoot in my trap. Its coat was already turning brown in patches. It made sqeaks of fear having a Donald-Duck tonal quality. I felt very sorry for it, sitting there, far hains no doubt, with its foot in the trap. But I suppose I will soon get callouse to it — I recall having felt very sorry for the first carp I ever shot with an arrow.
Today I went to Helena on the Lincoln Transportation Company truck to get licence plates for my pickup. While there I invested 12 bucks on a meat grinder: Hamburgerizing the tough stuff with a hatchet is very time consuming and chewing it unhambergerized is too much for my miserable teeth.
April 16: Today I was out hunting for 5 1/2 hours. There was some snow yesterday, so tracking was good [...]
April 18: Using the same method as last time, but in a different place, I trapped another rabbit. So, it worked twice in a row.
April 20: Went across Poorman Creek, violating the No-Trespassing signs as is now necessary, to get to the good porcupine country. [...]
April 21: Today I ground up my porcupine using my new meat grinder, which turns out to be worthless. By the time I finished — or nearly finished -grounding up that meat, a certain part on the grinder had worn down to such an extent (an incredible extent — there must be something wrong in the qualities of the metal) that the thing is no longer useable. This is extremely frustrating and enraging. Time after time after time things go wrong in one’s dealing with society — one gets cheated, crowded, taken advantage of, tied down with rules, regulations and red tape. And of course one is prohibited from attempting to retaliate. There is a guarantee on the grinder, but I’ve had too much experience with such [UNINTELLIBLE] in the past. You have to send the thing back to the factory. Of course I would have to hike to Lincoln to do that and the postage on a heavy thing like that will be a dollar or more, and then there’s a very good chance that the new replacement will be no better than the old. So after you have sent the thing back and forth a few times, you will have spent price of it in postage and the cost of trip to town.
April 23: Spring cleaning today. Have the place all nicely put in order and [UNINTELLIBLE]. This morning I went and got some watercress, then had a first-class lunch: porcupine meat, [...]
April 25: A large and stately old tree on the edge of our property, across the stream, just fell. I saw it fall. I figured it was going to fall soon. The trunk was badly split, and there is a heavy snowfall going on right now. The tree was getting heavily laden with snow and I could hear it cracking from time to time.
April 26: [UNINTELLIGLBLE] heavy fall of snow yesterday and today [...] Since the temperature was only about freezing, the falling snow was wet and I got soaked to the skin. Still, it was invigorating in a way and I am feeling pretty cheerful sitting here in front of my nice warm stove, even though I don’t have any meat. Oh well, I like beans anyway.
April 28: It took me 6 hours of hand hunting to do it, but there’s no shortage of meat now! I got one rabbit, one blue grouse, and one good-sized porcupine. [...]
April 30: Good hunting continued again this morning. [...]
May 1: May day! Beautiful morning! Lovely blue sky and sunshine for a change. I sneaked across Poorman Creek and cut myself a couple of pieces of straight juniper — one I will probably make into a pick handle, and I thought I might as well get the other while I was there and let it season, so I can use it when needed. Parts of the inner wood are rose-coloured. The wood has a beautiful fragerance. After I cut the wood I went for a short walk, just because everything was so fine outside. Now, unfortunately, it is clouding up again. Wish that sun would stay! May first and still the ground is entirely covered with a thick layer of snow. This is getting ridiculous!
[...] I had a practically all-wild lunch: porcupine bacon, [...] (civilized foods: bit of salt and pepper, 3 spoons of sugar in the fir-needle tea.) This lunch satisfied my hunger thoroughly, which is more than I can say for some of the lunches I have around here.
May 3: Spring is here at last! (I think.) Good deal of cloudiness, but the sun is also breaking through a good deal, and, best of all, there is a lovely warm breeze. Later: in the afternoon I went down to see the Lees. I figured they would give me some potatoes that they said last time they were just going to throw out anyway, and they did — 12 or 15 pounds. Also, I wanted to call Kenny Hoeffer about getting a job with him this summer, but all I could get was a busy signal. So played pinochle with the Lees for a couple of hours. Well, fuck it. I don’t need any god damn job. I would just as soon spend the summer back in the hills living on poached venison.
May 4: Snow again today, damn it!
May 5: Shot a rabbit today.
May 6: On a number of recent occasions I have heard the noise of some rodent chewing on things somewhere around or under the cabin: I suspected a certain squirrel as the culprit, but wasn’t sure if it was chewing on the cabin itself or merely on some scraps of plywood I have around. Today, however, I definitely caught that squirrel chewing on the understructure of the cabin. Such behaviour seems uncharacteristic of squirrels. Anyhow out came the old .22 and I plugged it through the chest. Can use the meat. I don’t like to shoot animals by the cabin, because I like to have them come around so I can watch them; but of course I can’t let them eat the cabin out from under me.
May 9: [UNINTELLIGLBE] weather the last few days! Rain on wet snow — falling most of the time, snowshoing conditions hopeless [...]
May 11: At long last, yesterday and today it didn’t rain [...]
May 12: This morning I went to another place and got more onions and dandelions, [...]
May 14: The most wonderful weather the last 2 days. [...]
May 20: Yesterday with lunch I had a fine vegetable-squirrel soup [...]
May 22: Today I am 33 years old. I had my trap set under the cabin because I have had continued trouble with squirrels gnawing on the underpinnings of my cellar. This afternoon on returning from a short walk for wild vegetables, I found a rabbit caught in the trap. This was too bad. I don’t like to kill rabbit at the cabin, because I like to watch them when they come around. Besides, this was a pregnant female that would have produced 3 more bunnies. It had grey summer coat already, though felt still very white. But the meat will be very welcome. The snow is off near the cabin, but there is still enough around to be a great obstacle to any longish hunt and anyhow I have been occupied to some degree in trying to get my [UNINTELLIBLE] out and so forth. Made a trip yesterday to Helena with Lincoln Transporation Co. and got a stupid battery for $10, so truck now [UNINTELLIBLE]. Anyhow I have been hungry for meat — use my jerky very sparingly, as I don’t have much left.
May 30: Today I discovered a good patch of bitter root on the face of Baldy, and had a pretty fair quantity of it for lunch, boiled with dried venison, and an assortment of greens [...]
June 1: Today I went out a-roving and shot a blue grouse up on the ridge. Access to much of the high county is still barred by snow banks. [...]
June 2: This evening I went out salad gathering, took my rifle just in case, and was glad I did because I got a blue grouse. [...] I got my money back on that bad meat grinder and bought one of a different brand, which so far seems to work OK. But it cost me 20 bucks.
June 3: Had the most delicious lunch and supper today. [...]
June 23: Just recently I was out camping for about 10 days altogether. This trip was pretty much a failure. I was driven home first by sickness (some strange fever that lasted only 3 days), then again by a rainy spell so bad that one couldn’t hunt or do anything so that it wasn’t worthwhile to stay out. Last few days I have been watching a birds nest on the ground in the yard. A few days ago there were 4 speckled eggs in it — now baby birds that are putting on feathers already. Weather has been disgusting ever since late March. Fantastic amount of precipitation — terrible floods in the valley — the road was closed for a few days. I don’t mind heavy rain, but when [PAGE CUTS OFF] keeps up for 3 months with very few clear days, it starts to get you down.
July 6: Weather has been fine now for somedays. This morning I went up to run on Humbing Contour Road. On the way back I found a porcupine, which took refuge under some logs. I had no gun, no rope, pack or other convenient way to carry the animal home, and I was unable to get the porcupine out of his refuge. So I blockaded him with logs and sticks in such a way that I figured he could not get out without prolonged effort. I had visions of delicious porcupine meat balls. I went home and got my gun, pack and some matches in case I might have to use fire to get the porcupine out of there. As I was walking back up to Humbing Contour Road again, I saw someone driving up the road in a pickup. That of course screwed up my plans. It would be possible to get the porcupine without being seen by the guy, if I could get across a certain open area without being seen, but the route is ardous, and after running 4 miles, walking five, with almost nothing to eat, I didn’t much feel like undertaking it. I explain again why I am so anxious to avoid meeting people in such situations: for practical reasons I can’t be other than ragged and rather dirty and in other ways my way of life makes me a curiousity — freak. Which doesn’t bother me in the least as long as I don’t have to answer questions about it or be stared at. But, beyond that, having to meet people — civilized people, that is, which is the only kind left — means that I haven’t succeeded in severing connections with organized society (Oh, Kenny Lee is alright, [PAGE CUTS OFF] himself). This, you know, is the crux of the whole matter — I will not be part of organized society. This is both a matter of principle and due to the fact that organized society deprives me of certain profound satisfactions that I have found can be obtained when one severs connections with it — as I have been able to do only temporarily and incompletely, of course. But now I am unable to escape civilization even to the extent that I did the first year or 2 here — things are closing in all around me. The latest being the post-cutting and some Forest Service activities going on in the saddle by Humbug Contour.
July 11: Yesterday I found the first wild strawberries of the year — a good 10 days late, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] ordinarily find them by July 1, or before. Today I sneaked past the NO TRESPASSING signs to go on the other side of Poorman Creek. Brought back 1 1/4 cups camas, a couple of squirrels, and some mint. I have been having lots of mint tea lately — I love it. Also I’ve been having salads of Yellow Monkey Flower. No meat but an occasional squirrel. Things seem so closed-in around here now it hardly seems as if there’s any place left to hunt. 3 little successes: (1) I had a blocked skin gland that kept forming plugs of wax. Last few months it usually had a red, irritated appearance, so I thought it should be removed. Doctors are expensive, so I made a small scalpel by cutting a sliver from a razor blade and setting it in a wooden handle. I boiled my instruments, then (this was in May) taking some snow from a lingering patch, I put a snow pack on the spot to partially numb it and reduce bleeding; then I cut out the spot. It healed nicely, no sign of infection, and now it’s just a little pink scab. (2) I found [UNINTELLIGLE] I had a welder cut out one side and cut a 6” hole in another side. I obtained a piece of sheet metal from one of these old cans around here, ut it to shape by a makeshift process, and made a door for the thing. So now I have a nice little stove that I will put in a little hut that I plan to make as a winter camp. Hope it will work OK! (3) In winter I can eat beans OK, but the last two summers I found that [...]. Following a hint I read somewhere, I tried swallowing several small pieces of charcoal, like pills, every time I eat beans. (Charcoal absorbs gasses). This seems to solve the problems completely. At least, I’ve tried it twice, and it worked both times.
July 13: Was out today, got caught in heavy rain, shot one squirrel, [...]
July 15: Identified a new plant [...]
July 17: At last — I have had ample meat yesterday and today. I shot that rockchuck that had taken up residence in my outcrop, because I figured Williams or Mason would be likely to shoot it anyway (and leave it to rot), and I have been hard up for meat. It was pretty fat, and meaty.
For yesterday’s supper I had a stew of [UNINTELLIBLE] a miscellany of herbs, and ground rock chuck meat, then 5 1/2 cups of wild strawberries, the last part of them sweetened with 1 spoon of sugar. Today for supper [...]
The strawberry crop is particularly abundant this year. While I was picking them today I saw some people coming along picking them — I think guests of those Mason cocksuckers. I don’t know whether they had yet seen me or not, but they weren’t looking my way, so I stole away quietly to another part of the field where they wouldn’t see me. The picking was not nearly as good at the new place. Then later, 2 peckers rode by on a trailbike on Humbug contour road, not far away.
July 24: This strawberry crop is just fantastic. I keep thinking the crop has reached its peak and will begin to fade out, but every time I go up there the picking seems better and the berries sweeter. [...] A couple of days ago that jerk Glen Williams asked me to go out and work with him the next day. I figured I ought to do it because I am so short of cash, so I did and made 24 bucks, which is unusual because I generally make very little when I go with him. But I didn’t want to go the next day because, first, there was a very good hance I would make much less $ the second day (as usual), second, I had projects of my own in hand that I hated to put off, and third, I find that guy’s company very unpleasant. He is the most insufferable bore — talks almost constantly, droning on and on about inconsequential little affairs of his — he paid so and so much for a bearing and it took him so and so many hours to put it in — and I have to sit their and pretend to listen. He also has a habit of scornfully running down anyone who is so low that Glen can feel superior to him. He got mad when I told him I wasn’t going with him the second day. I guess when I agreed to work the one day he developed fond visions of a semi-vacation for the rest of the few days it will take him to finish this patch of posts. He organizes his work inefficiently and I haven’t yet seen him put in a good square days work, except maybe once. So altogether I find it very unpleasant to work with him.
Aug. 1: I identified a new plant today — “butter-and-eggs”, Linaria vulgaris. In recent weeks I have been having some especially good lunches — yellow monkey flower and other herbs for salad [...]
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 13: Yesterday I went up Field Gultch to get huckleberries. THe berries were just at their peak, the picking was superb, and I brought back a gallon. Also, I got a spruce grouse on the way home. It was such a beautiful and joyous morning to be out! But unfortunately, a short while after I started picking, some people pulled in there to cut firewood. I don’t think they saw me, so I just stayed in my little corner of the logged-over area and kept picking, but of course my fun was spoiled. I had wanted to get two gallons, but the presence of these people made me nervous, so I quit when I had one gallon. I can’t escape the impression that these woods are getting more crowded and frequented around here. Within reasonably convenient distance of the cabin there almost seems nowhere to turn. It gets me upset. But by the time I got home I was in a good mood again because I had a good haul of wild goodies. For dessert after supper last night I had a whole quart of huckle-berries. I had a sumptuous lunch today, a large salad, grouse, home-made bread, [...]
Aug 15: Yesterday I went across Poorman Creek to look for huckleberries on nearby hillside [...]
Aug 16: Today I found a species of the mint family that I have not previously used — field mint [...]
Aug. 17: Today I identified Indian paintbrush, Castillya miniate. Some of these plants I mention that I’ve identified I have very likely identified before, and then forgotten.
Aug. 18: I had two salads with lunch today, the usual one and another consisting of the flowering heads [...]
Aug. 19: Today I found brook lime much more abundant further up the creek, and I had a large salad of it with lunch. I like it. The weather turned very wet again [...]
Aug. 21: Some of the Irish potatoes that the Lees gave me last spring were sprouting, so I didn’t want to eat them. Instead, I planted them — some around June 1 and some around July 1. Today I dug up one of the plants from June 1 and found four lovely, perfect, fresh, crisp potatoes — 4 medium-sized and one small. It seems almost like magic that such large chunks of food could be produced in such a short time. If the other plants all produce as well, I’ll have a pretty good quantity of potatoes. I am cooking these potatoes with supper. Later: I cooked some of those potatoes with my beans, some I boiled with a quantity of the flowers and seed pods of wild onions. Both these concoctions were delicious! From time to time this summer I’ve had some with mashed potatoes — but they surely do not compare with the fresh article. When you haven’t had potatoes for a long time, a plain boiled potatoe is quite tasty! Good, good, good!
Aug. 22: Today I went up on the ridge hoping to get a grouse, but with other plans in case I didn’t get a grouse, but I dug one even quart of yampa, gathered some of the very abundant onion-flowers up there, and, to my surprise (since I thought the huckleberries were all gone) I found a nice little patch of huckleberries and brought home almost a quart of them. I was out 7 1/2 or 8 hours, despite the miserable rainy weather, so I had a very late lunch. Had those delicious huckleberries for dessert after it. For supper I am cooking the yampa. This continued rain, day after day, gets very tiresome after a while. It is hard to believe. One almost wonders if human activities haven’t in some way screwed something up in the weather. We did have some nice weather in the latter part of July and earlier part of August, but other than that, ever since March — nothing but wet. Our little stream, usually reduced to a trickle by this time of year, is running as full as it usually does with the melting snow in the spring.
Later: my supper consisted exclusively of Yampa. Now, if I had just had some meat with it... But even so it was a pretty good supper. The flavour of Yampa is unquestionably “sans peur et sans reproche.”
Aug. 23: I have just identified a mushroom, Agaricus silvicola. Says, A. Hanchett Smith: “Not recommended, though most of the variants are edible and choice, some cause mild poisoning in some people.” I don’t think I’ll mess with it, since it doesn’t seem to be abundant enough to be worth the trouble of the careful experimentation which I would consider necessary even without the “mild poisoning” remark, since misidentification of a mushroom could be pretty risky.
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. These are bitter, but nevertheless, mildly pleasant to eat. Weather was nice this morning, but now it’s pouring rain again. I have to eat up my huckleberries pretty fast, because they are already beginning to have a fermented smell (perhaps because wet when picked?). Later, I had a large, tasty, and satisfying supper consisting entirely of wild stuff, except for a pinch of salt. The breast of that spruce grouse, salad of brooklime and yellow monkey flower, boiled onion flowers with 2 small puffballs and a small quarterly of wild herbs, mixed in, boiled yampa, soup consisting of the water in which the grouse, yampa and onion flowers were all boiled (each separately); and a quart of huckleberries for dessert. A very good meal!
Aug 31: Day before yesterday the bulk of my supper was my own potatoes. Yesterday morning I went out and shot 3 squirrels and for supper I had a wild salad dressed with nothing, a delicious stew of squirrel, potatoes, and a few wild herbs, with a little salt and pepper, and for desert a juice extracted by boiling dogwood berries, to which juice I added 2 spoons of sugar, which made it almost palatable. Wild salad is getting hard to find now. The yellow monkey flower has mostly faded out. There was a good patch of Brook lime up at the old cabin near Himbug Contour, but the cows have trampled through that now.
Sept. 1. Gloomy weather, but no rain, and on the whole, fairly pleasant. I went up on the ridge, shot 2 squirrels, gathered a bag of onion flowers, and, pretty far along the ridge, down on a spur ridge, found excellent yampa digging, so that I got I think at least a quart and a half and maybe nearly 2 quarts (haven’t measured it yet). It was a good day and I was enjoying it, until —
As I was getting to think that I had nearly enough yampa, I heard a couple of trail bikes on the ridge. They sounded close, and as if they were coming my way, so I hurriedly got myself and my stuff out of the open meadow and into the woods. (I have already explained why I don’t like to meet people in the woods.) Then I found that in my hurry I had lost the rag I use to pad my hands against the top of my root-digger. The bikes sounded as if they had taken another direction, so I went back to look for the rag. Then suddenly I heard the bikes loud and close again, so I scampered for the woods. Then the bikes went away again.
They never did come into the meadow where I was, but I never did find that rag, though I looked for quite a while in the intervals when the bikes did not sound close. I cannot describe to the reader how terribly this upset me. You may think it a minor incident, but you have to see it in context. I keep working harder and harder to escape from civilization but it keeps closing in more and more until I just have nowhere to turn. This incident took place up on the ridge tops, as far from roads and regular trails as one can get in a one-day excursion from the cabin. Until today, these ridge-tops were the one place where I felt secure from intrusion by this kind of garbage; this area was my last refuge, the last place I could turn to within reach of the cabin. And now... I was so terribly upset that I believe that if those cock-suckers had come into the meadow where I was, I would have shot them. To top it off, after I got home some cucksucker rode right into my yard on a trailbike. I went out there with my 30–30, wondering if I would have the nere to shoot the son of a bitch, and intending at least to scare him, but by the time I got out there he was gone. Later I spiked a big heavy pole across my road to block it, and I painted a Keep Out sign that I will nail up tomorrow.
But I just don’t know what to do or where to turn. I can’t just hole up in the cabin all the time, and there seems to be nowhere left where I can hunt or gather roots or berries without looking over my shoulder all the time to see if the vile emissaries of civilization are about to break in on me. As for returning permanently to civilization — I would rather die. I never thought civilization would close in on me so quickly — I thought this place would be good for a few years yet. But this summer it seems that about every other time I have gone on a long walk I have been frustrated in one way or another by the presence of people. Where did they all come from so quickly?
Sep. 3: Yesterday I had an all-wild supper, except for a little salt and pepper — squirrel, boiled onion flowers, and a quart of yampa. But there was little pleasure or satisfaction in it because I am still upset about the wretched occurrence of Sept. 1. I feel like a religious person must feel about the desecration of his church or temple. I found, by the way, that I had 5 1/2 cups of yampa — a little less than I had expected, but still quite a good gathering. This morning I had the other cup and a half for breakfast — mashed and mixed with 3 spoons of oil. The bulk of my supper was my own potatoes. I harvested all my potatoes today, as the plants were badly injured by frost last night, and I found one potato much chewed by a mole. At a guess, I would say I get about 15 lb. Counting what I ate earlier, I might have had a total of 25–30 lb. I suppose thats not bad for a first attempt on a little plot about 11’ x 11’.
Sept. 14: Just returned from 9 nights camping out. When I dug my potatoes, I only partly dug up the plants, and I put them back in the ground. Now I find the plants largely killed by frost. I dig about half of them up with a spade and got another 2 or 3 lb. of potatoes. Some are old ones that I missed first time around, but some are little new ones produced by the plants in the mean time.
Sep. 15. This journal is about to be deposited in a safe of my own invention. It consists of one of those army-surplus ammo cans that I used for gas cans, buried next to a well-worn path on our lot. One can get into the safe by digging down in the path, there is no vegetation there to be disturbed by digging, and any loose dirt will soon be trodden down into the path, so that the place will remain secret.