Note from Anna: One of our readers kindly sent along a copy of his parents' homesteading memoir several months ago, and I promptly passed the book on to my mother, who enjoys memoirs a lot more than I do. She, in turn, emailed me a review, which I'm including in slightly edited form below.

In reading Journeying Earthward by Edith and John Rylander, I was sort of transported to their Minnesota countryside more than to their way of life. But partly because the way of life was more known to me, while the place is so new. As I read amazing facts (about the long winters, for example, and all the returning birds in spring), I kept, in my soul, looking upward, as if up along the trunks of the remaining 2% of white pines, and actually breathing in the wonderful piney smell.

Their life story as both English teachers and writers, is partly comparable to the Nearings, but so unique because of their own personal experiences in their youths. John helped his grandfather bring in the hay when he was five or six, driving the horse-drawn haywagon. Then he worked, at about age 15 or so, in lumberjacking logjams on the Upper Mississippi. Edith's was the cannery experience for five summers in Sunnyvale, California, where she learned from her co-workers that education was the answer because "they can't take away what is in your mind." She also learned to distrust and resist the regimentation of mindless, menial work in a factory setting. Working that way, she "sold her life," and it was this that made her want to try the "Walden interlude" in Minnesota.

The authors must be at least 85 and 80 yrs old by now, people who have earned a role in their choice of location because they have carved out a unique place in it. Back when they were experiencing the adventures that gave rise to the book, the Rylanders had a purpose: starting a small farm from scratch, with chickens, rabbits, and later sheep and pigs. Pumping their water!

Edith and John chose the site for their earth-sheltered house on the winter solstice. But they had lived in that area for many years, and knew the whole pattern of weather, with the terrible five to six months of hard winter. The fact that their underground house only needed about 2 1/2 cords of wood the whole winter, compared to about 30 cords of wood for their first, uninsulated house, is amazing. But, so too, is the awareness that of all the white pine forest, the Big Woods of Laura Ingalls Wilder, there is barely 2% left.

Note from Anna: The title doesn't appear to be available as an ebook, but used paperback copies can be had for $4, including shipping, at the moment. If you'd like to immerse yourself into an authentic back-to-the-land adventure, Journeying Earthward is a great read for a long, cold winter night. Alternatively, you can enjoy a photo tour of the Rylanders' underground house on this site, from which I stole the photo in this post.

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.