woman relearns the "old skills" in preparation for homelessness

[Liberal_in_LA]

Family surrenders to homelessness

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She's stopped looking for work to concentrate on preparing this bungalow for the next owners, and to prepare her family for the future. She's been teaching her two grown sons and her grandchildren what her mother and grandmother taught her - the "old skills."

How to can fruits and vegetables.

How to sew.

How to gather acorns from the tall oaks along the street and grind them and bleach them and make flour for biscuits and bread.

She points across the street at an oak tree.

They've already raked up its acorns, she says, and walnuts from that tree over there.

She's already canned and stored the summer's strawberries, cherries, apricots, sweet corn, tomatoes. They buy in bulk from restaurant-supply stores. She uses canning equipment passed down from her grandmother to her mother to her.

She hunts for herbs in the country - for sage, wild mustard, all the mints ...

The city plants sage in the median of 27th Street, she says, so she just walks over when she needs to and snags a few leaves.

Neumann is 55. Few people younger than her know the old skills.

A few years back, as the economy started to dip, she started to relearn them, checking out library books on botany, fishing, hunting, meat preservation. She studied her grandma's old recipe books. One, from 1870, was passed down to her from her grandmother's grandmother, a Cherokee who'd walked the Trail of Tears.

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Her dream

She sees a village of homeless people like them, living in campers and tents, floating down the Missouri together on a big barge.

She sees the people on the barge forming a community, each one using their skills for the common good. She sees herself teaching the others the old skills.

She sees, if things get worse in this world, more people learning the old skills, too.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_c3f89942-d250-11de-b1d9-001cc4c03286.html

[optimator]

1. I think she is a little too optimistic

the future isnt that bright

[Hannah Bell]

2. this doesn't make sense. how do you can foods when you're homeless?

if her son is going to move into the house & take over the mortgage, why don't they just park their camper in the driveway there? why do they have to be homeless?

her husband is a contracting agent for usda.

these people aren't homeless people. they're refurbishing the "cottage" for their son, for the love of pete.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. says husbands office had 9, now has 2 - I guess she's assuming he will be laid off

Regarding their living arrangements, for whatever reason they will leave house when son moves in.

:shrug:

But I agree that something's weird about the story... Husband is still working but they had to sell a car to pay the mortgage. Doesn't make sense.

[petronius]

4. I got the impression she was teaching canning to the kids who are going to live

in the house. But you're right - the story is unclear at best. It sounds like a somewhat forced attempt to romanticize "the old skills."

[Liquorice]

8. I agree. It sounds like they have some sort of mental problem rather

than a housing problem. They're selling their stuff and letting their son move into the house, and they're going to go homeless and live in a camper. What kind of son would move into the home of their parents and makes the parents move into a camper? It's crazy, and I don't believe it.

[Oregone]

5. Last time I was in the states, I helped move a friend into a tent

This was a self-employed business woman who lived modestly. Between a divorce and medical bills, she went into default on her home and it was eventually short-saled.

We set her up nicely with a military tent, a raised wooden platform, and a stove. Though, her naive optimism may let her down when the winter comes. Fortunately for her, she has a lot of friends to call on if there is a problem.

Its sad to see this happen. She is twice my age with less than nothing and a tent in the frigid Southern Oregon hills, yet she played by all the rules, as she said. Bipolar capitalism sure leaves a lot of heart-wrenching carnage in its wake when its coming off an over-exuberant high. When you put dollars aside and count in the human toll, what is the real benefit/cost of capitalism?

[Hannah Bell]

6. can i ask where it's possible to put up a platform + tent in the woods & not get run off?

is she on private land?

[Oregone]

7. Yes

Living on friend's land. The reality is that she could probably have a real roof over her head if she needed to, as she has tons of friends. Partially, she is too proud, and besides that, this is some sort of symbolic rejection of the society she feels failed her (or she failed at). Thats my take at least.

[Hannah Bell]

9. thanks.

[dusmcj]

10. crackpot /nt

[HillbillyBob]

11. I have/had Depression Era grand parents.

They were pretty self sufficient, and did canning, drying, freezing.
My partner and I were next best thing to homeless in 2002, we did not have a motor home. Not to be mean, but it is called a Motorhome.

We were thinking that the economy would take a dive the year before it did.
So we bought what was then an abandoned modular home to fix up, it was in our price range and the place was pretty much whole but it was in need.

We collected heirloom garden seeds and are learning to grow and preserve food, we even plan to install a solar water heater(when we get the balance of system and a structure built to house it) I was sick and in hospital so it did not get done this year and there just has not been a budget for it.

I don't think it is crazy to learn what is in your food and to be able to preserve it after you have grown it. Whether it is psycho or not the food does seem to be better tasting.