An Outdoorsman’s Journal: Farm living is the life for me

Hello friends, This week I am writing my annual column about hobby farming/independent living and how engrained it is in my way of life. Shortly after I write this column, I will be loading the pups into the GMC Hotel and heading to the Montana mountains to spend a few days camping, hiking and ATVing with my daughter Selina, who is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The entire 35 years that I have been writing this column, I have heated my house with wood; grown a garden that would make my friends, the Mennonites and Amish, proud; and harvested enough fish and game to give my body and brain the energy it requires to keep plowing through life.

This summer, at least until mid-July, gardening was a challenge as it simply was too wet and cold. As often happens, persistence and a good plan is paying off and this week I made my first 18-quart batch of chili. I freeze the chili in 1-quart bags and between now and next August, the five Nescos (90 quarts) will be very real and simple food for myself and Selina, as well as friends and neighbors.

This first batch (which is going to Selina) is almost entirely grown from seven different types of peppers, tomatoes, onions and corn grown in my gardens, and given protein with bear, venison and elk meat. This is also the corn growing season and I grow four crops, of which the final one will be ready in mid-September. I freeze one-person servings all the way up to 1-gallon bags and it is another staple in my life.

Potatoes, squash and onions are a must, and I grow about 400 pounds of Yukon Golds and Red Norlands, with my goal each year being that I have enough until the next year’s harvest.

Heating with wood, it kicks my behind sometimes, as in dropping large oak trees, hauling, splitting and stacking. But I am addicted to it and it is very cool when I walk in my house at the end of the day in the winter, which is generally about 8 at night, open a can of beer and just relax in front of my wood stove right in my living room. I am 63 and have lived a hard life, but I attribute, at least in part, wood heat and soaking in the bathtub every night as the reason I have zero pain in my body unless it is from a recent injury.

I raise three steers each year and sell them to friends when they are ready for slaughter. In the cold season they reside in my gardens, which is probably the main reason I have very healthy yields. To be honest, I do not make a dime raising cattle and right now in the last month of this group’s lives, it costs me $500 per month to feed them. When they are young, my feed expenses are about $200 per month. I raise cattle for the garden and as a way of saving money for my retirement plan. Just as importantly, I have always wanted to be a rancher and in my simple mindset, having some cattle helps me to feel like I am meeting that goal.

I also have a pond, or should I say “Lake Matilda,” which I named after my girlfriend Michelle Chiaro who passed away 26 months ago. I have been working on that project for 15 months and like so many parts of my life, it absorbs me in thought, action and financially. Lake Matilda is 15 paces out my front door, a direct view from my living room and bedroom, and literally a dream come true. I planted fatheads’“minnows”in it in April, bluegill in May and now I have some unfortunate news. The bluegill, of which some of them are over 9 inches, are biting me when I swim, and I am serious when I say it hurts. There are about 35 gills and in September I am purchasing about 100 perch, which do not bite. The gills are going to be caught and consumed. When they bite, it hurts, and I am putting a stop to that before there are a thousand in the pond.

This time of the year, when I am home, I am outside until between 10 and midnight. I end the outside experience sitting on lawn chair by a fire and looking at the pond with Ruby and Red by my side.

Time to load the truck and head to Montana! Sunset

Mark Walters