Dandelions and a Little Salt Pork

Three frosts had blanketed the woods and pastures around Chain Golden's camp. Camp Sapphire had become a home away from home till times improved and life returned to a more normal state before The Blast that had decimated the large northern city several hundred miles north of her Deep South home and had forever changed the way all Americans viewed themselves and their position in the world. The dress of Lady Liberty had been ripped and torn by the horrors of 9-11, but the nuclear blast on unsuspecting citizenry had raped her. America would never be the same and in a harsh way, it was a blessing in disguise.

An early frost in October and two by mid-November had sent Chain back into the woods for more firewood. She had been living at Camp Sapphire now for two years and hadn't decided exactly how much firewood it took to have a comfortable winter. Early frosts meant the wood pile would empty sooner than expected and Chain hated being cold when she didn't have to be.

Though in her early fifties now, Chain Golden was a strong woman with many talents for surviving the harsh realities a solitary life in the woods brought. She lived a simple life of working with the land to stay alive and healthy another day. She took no more than the land could support losing and often gave back, so the forest and it's animals would enjoy easier lives after she was gone into the dust she had came from. She had planted pecan trees, blueberry bushes, plum and pear trees so the animals would have food many generations from now. She didn't realize at the time that she was also making her life easier when the stores would close for months and the military was rationing MREs like they were gold.

Her tipi was getting on to three years old now. She had made it herself after studying several books on creating a comfortable and useful tipi. It had been a project she had always been interested in, but never found the time to create. After her fiftieth birthday, she made it a point to do some things she knew that she had better do before she was too old to do them. Building a tipi had been on the top of her list. Learning to scuba dive had actually been fifth.

Chain cut the slender pine poles and peeled them by hand. Made the liner as directed by her favorite book on the subject The Indian Tipi by Reginald and Gladys Laubin by the light of her Coleman lantern. She made a mosquito net around her ozan which kept her safe from the West Nile virus carrying mosquitoes. Chain carved cedar pegs to close the tipi in the front and smaller ones to aid the rain water running down the poles and behind the liner. She used persimmon wood pegs to keep the tipi cover secure to the ground during high winds. She bought and used natural fiber ropes to age and stretch with the fabric as time played its role in seasoning it.

Chain dug a six inch trench under the tipi floor and laid a two-inch metal pipe to the firehole from an outside port to aid the fire in burning hotter and with less soot. She wrapped metal screen wire around the outside port to keep spiders and other vermin from using the pipe as an entrance the tipi. She dug a trench around the tipi to keep rain from running under it. She used fist-sized stones from a nearby creek to weigh the liner down and keep out drafts. Being prone to sore throats, Chain had to keep the tipi as dry and snug as possible.

Chain studied the books she bought and traveled to many websites gathering information and the work paid off. Her tipi was warm in winter and comfortable in summer as long as the sun wasn't shining directly on to it. When that was happening, her and Bubba would retreat to the hammock for rest in the shade. A mosquito netting around the hammock made it a safe place to sleep in summer when it was too warm to sleep in the tipi comfortably.

She kept the fabric treated and painted to prevent mildew and UV light damage the sun was famous for now more than ever. Shaded after the noon sun passed, the tipi had become an adequate home for her and her cat Bubba the Cat.

As time passed and The Blast put America on a course it had never really planned for, Chain and Bubba became a clan of two and needed no more than that.

When Chain drove the tent peg down beside her ozan outside the bed of willow and cedar, she latched the sturdy hemp rope around the cross sections where the tipi poles were tied and firmly tied the loose end to the large peg. The tipi was finished now. The outer fabric pegged to the ground, so it wouldn't flap and now the poles were pegged down as well. She would add the floor coverings later. She would choose a durable brown bisquin tarp which she would cover with salted and unstretched deer hides as she harvested them.

"Bubba, hand me that stirring spoon. Don't want these dandelion greens to clump up too bad."

Bubba the Cat looked at her when she spoke and gave her a concerned look. Chain, I hunt and fish, but I do not cook. That's your job. His golden brown eyes smiled at her and she winked at him.

"Of course. I forgot. Excuse me," Chain stood and reached for the long handled wooden spoon carved from a willow tree used to make her bed and smiled. "The cat does not cook." She stirred the young dandelions in the cast iron pot as the boiling water seasoned with salt and a little fatback gave a wonderful fragrance to the camp.

Of course, Chain. You are completely forgiven for the little faux paw. Now when the cooking is done, I will take that little piece of fatback off your hands. Bubba watched her as she stirred the pot of greens and inhaled the smokey flavor of the fine meal before him. You eat the greens and I'll eat the pig. Sounds fair to me. Besides, I like my greens raw.

The dandelions were found with leaves less than six inches long and growing along a row of saplings lining a depression at the back of her property. It had been quite the surprise to find them so late into autumn and Chain walked back to camp pulling a cart filled with firewood and returned later with her digging stick. The ground had been softened by a light rain a few days earlier, so the digging wasn't too hard for the sharpened stick two feet long and curved on one end.

The three inch long roots looked like shriveled white and knobby turnips as she plucked them from the dark soil. "You know, Bubba, I read that this tiny blanched part between the root and green leaf is the best part." She pointed to the root and Bubba observed the narrow streak of pale dandelion leaf without comment. He sat beside her as she dug up six more plants that were very leafy and dark green. "These plants have lots of vitamin A, too. Good for my eyes."

As she moved to the next plant, Bubba observed how carefully she dug around the root and eased the plant from the damp soil. "The root can be dried and pounded and made into a hot beverage though I suspect it would be bitter like chicory. I'll give it a go though. Might be good for me. I'll read up on this plant in my plant book I keep under the bed." She placed the plants together and observed how some were actually twin roots.

Gathering up her herbal find, she petted Bubba and stroked his back with affection. "It's just you and me now, boy. Tough times coming for you and me." She looked northward where The Blast had occured and wondered if the fallout was still affecting crops though it had been two years and two hard winters. "I've got the geiger counter back at camp and if these greens are safe, I'll have a good meal in a little bit."

Bubba and Chain had endured much hardship since The Blast. Alone when the madness struck and the burning panic that drove people away from major cities like rats off a burning ship, she had to walk to Camp Sapphire from the city she had lived in in a slide-in truck camper. Chain was frugal by nature and had saved the insurance money from a burned home till she decided where she was going to retire.

Chain left in the night carrying what she thought she would need and encouraging her surviving cat to stay close to her at all times. A one hundred mile journey took nearly a month as they avoided dangerous people and endured a harsh environment while helping those they could without becoming victims of a murder or robbery. A stray horse that let them ride him the last twenty miles to Camp Sapphire had made the difference between life and death though Chain would never know it. When she dismounted the small horse with Bubba in her arms, it whinned, turned quickly and ran off into the forest at a hard gallop. Chain whispered the word Zebulon - a gift from God. She never saw the horse again.

Those days were behind them now as Chain and Bubba settled into a new routine of living off the land and using as little of the grid as possible to remain free of cities that were more like prisons than communities of people and industry. The Blast had frightened Americans and sent them in a panic across the country seeking safety in small towns not likely to be targeted by suitcase nukes.

The first UN soldier she had ever met had shot at her thinking she was a looter though all she wanted was clean drinking water for her canteen and water containers. He had apologized in broken english, but the damage was done. He had offered her candy bars, but she refused them. She filled her water containers and canteen and never came back to a public watering station again.

Chain did everything she could to stay away from large cities and lived alone with Bubba learning a new life that made her healthier both physically and spiritually. In a way, The Blast had been a blessing for her and those like her who knew deep down in their hearts it was coming sooner or later. The nation had gone Godless and that always brought the worst kind of troubles.

Chain poured clean rain water over the greens in the small white metal wash basin and cleaned the sandy loam from the two-inch long roots. With dried grass as a mild abrasive, she washed the remaining dirt clinging to the plant. With her sharp hunting knife, she cut the plant from the root at the white line where root met the rosette of leaves. In a small camping cook pan, she place the cleaned greens and covered them with cool water to keep them fresh. She had enough for a meal.

Light breezes from the west blew through the oaks and sweetgums surrounding Camp Sapphire as she built up a fire in the large ring of field stones and let it burn down to hot, glowing embers. The smell of woodsmoke always made her happy and especially if she had a meal to cook. Taking her cast iron pot from under the bed, Chain placed it next to the campfire and washed out the dust and a tiny spider web on the bail wire disappeared in the cleaning, too.

"Bubba, let's see if I know how to save pork with salting and smoking." Chain had made a log smoke house from the eight-inch thick logs of hickory six feet long. Notched and sealed with straw and clay, she smoked a pig she had killed the early spring of that year after salting the meat in a brine solution. "I followed the directions carefully, Bubba. Prepared the brine solution exactly as the book said to do. Injected it in the joints of the hams and soaked the salt pork heavily. Now is the time. The salting and smoking, if I did it right, will have preserved the meat for times such as these. Let's open the door and see."

Bubba walked with her down the path to the tiny log smoke shed as she named it and waited as she pulled out the oak pins holding the door tight against the walls. "We'll know in a minute." Chain lifted the door and set it on the ground.

"It's okay if a little fungus grows on the quartered pieces wrapped in the cotton bedsheet I sacrificed. We can cut that off. It's the meat deep inside that matters. It can't have a fungus or any bad odor at all."

The light scent of salt and hickory smoke greeted her nose and scented her hair as she leaned into the smoke shed and looked at the meat hanging and the small oak barrels she had filled with salted pork. She wanted salt pork, so taking up a small, wooden barrel about the size of a ten pound coffee can, Chain broke the heavy wire seal and popped off the lid with the large screw driver she had put in the smoke shed just for that purpose. She put the screw driver back between the two nails acting as a holder, so she wouldn't lose it.

The chunks of salted and smoked pork glistened in the light of the noon sun through the shady forest around them. The odor wasn't of rancid meat, but a familiar one she had smelled as a child in the country homes and shanties she had visited and shared meals in. The meat was dark and hard to the touch. Not soft and mushy like rotting fatty flesh, but firm. Chain's heart was warmed with the anticipation of a familiar flavor from her childhood.

"Okay, Bubba. Passed the sight, touch, and smell taste." Chain pulled out a chunk of meat about the size of a deck of playing cards, but a little larger and put it to the side on top of another similar box. She resealed the container just as strong and put it back on the shelf.

Two hams hung nearby draped in a smoke colored cotton sheet swung as she accidently bumped one and it bounced off gently on the other one. The earthy, smokey smell they gave off made her mouth water. The rest of the pig had been eatened over several days and the scraps fed to the coyote female that had vistied her camp nearly starved and wimpering on a bended shoulder showing submission. She had lost her pups and couldn't find her companions. They hadn't returned home from hunting and she was desperate for food. Starvation had started to follow The Blast survivors and anything with meat was killed for food. Even coyotes tracking in the night for deer. The deer that were becoming scarcer each day as men poached what they could to feed their families.

Bubba followed closely at her heels as she carried the smokey, salty prize back to her work table. The delicious scent trail was easy to follow when one loved the taste of bacon.

Camp Sapphire was a small camp at this time and her work table was an old red wood picnic table painted a jade green. She had bought the table years before at a yard sale for $5.00 American. In time, Chain would add a small plywood smoke house for fish, another work table, and a lathe for shaping wood into tools and handles. The earth oven was built last and baked the bread she would make from wild grains and acorns.

Sitting at the picnic table, she took her knife in hand and slowly cut the stiff meat in half. It resisted the sharp knife and this pleased Chain. It meant the pork was safe to eat. Bubba and Chain inspected the lines of fat and meat soaked in salt carefully. They both sniffed and Chain tasted a small piece of the meat for rancidity. There was none. "It's dryer than store bought fat back, Bubba. But store bought had always been frozen after salting. This is old-fashioned salt-pork my grandmother would have used. We'll soak it in warm water first then fry it up. Render, I mean. Salt pork is rendered. You put it in the bottom of the cast iron skillet on a low heat and let the heat soften the fat and it sort of melts."

They let it soak for half an hour in warm water and then poured off the water from the cast iron pot and put the piece of fat back in the bottom. The smell of frying pork made both of their mouths water. "This is going to be a treat, boy. I can tell already." Bubba was enchanted by the bacon fragrance and you couldn't have run him off with a stick at that moment.

What she eats, I eat. She always shares. Bubba confirmed this fact to himself from all the meals they had shared alone or with the other cats now dead by cancer or misadventure. He knew he would get a portion of the wonderful meat rendering slowly in the cast iron pot. His belly growled with a rich anticipation of the meal.

Chain rendered the salt pork till it was half the size it had been when she removed it from it's box. Pulling the sizzling piece of pork out of the heat of the pot, she poured cold water over the melted fat and let the water return to a boil again. She tossed in some ground pepper to taste.

"With dandelions, Bubba, you boil them twice when they are a little old. These leaves are young and tender. They might be a little bitter, but no bitter than a grapefruit. The hot sauce I have made from hot peppers and white vinegar will cut the bitterness as will the salt pork."

The crispy brown piece of meat cooled in her coffee cup to keep it safe from Bubba's claws as Chain brought out cornmeal and dried buttermilk from her larder. She mixed the dry first and then added just enough water to make a thick batter. Taking her smaller cast iron skillet, she dropped the piece of pork into it and let it render even more. The bottom of the skillet was slick with the hot grease as she spooned out the cornbread batter and let it rise slowly. She flipped the small cornbread cakes and let it cook as well.

Bubba wondered just how much she was going to cook the salt pork down to when she pulled the small piece from the skillet. Now no larger than his paw, the smokey taste it gave the food would barely give him a nibble of meat to chew, he complained with a meow to Chain.

"I know, boy. That piece is yours. All yours. Let's let it cool down first though."

The dandelions boiled to an edible tenderness in the cast iron pot as the cornbread rose to a browned perfection in the skillet.

Chain retrieved her plate and fork from the tipi and spooned the dandelions on to it after letting them drain. The cornbread slid in beside the greens and sopped up the juice. The water would be a little too bitter to drink alone like a soup, but Chain didn't mind. She had a fine meal before her. "Next year, I'll plant mustard greens, if I can find some seed. But, for now, this is excellent."

"Bubba, " she said, offering the cooled piece of pork to him. "Enjoy."

Bubba carefully took the piece of meat in his teeth and dropped it onto the table to grasp it better for chewing. She had cut into the meat in several places to make it easier for him to chew and he appreciated her thoughtfulness with a cat kiss later on.

They ate the meal in peace and with gratitude to God for the simplicity of it. As camp fire smoke rose and swirled over Camp Sapphire, Chain completed the meal and gave thanks to God again in deep gratitude. "You really are taking care of me, Sir." She petted Bubba as he made it clear he wanted a piece of cornbread. "Both of us, God. You are taking care of both of us." She petted the cat and broke the cornbread into smaller pieces so he could share the meal and confirm again in his heart that he finally had a family that would never leave him.

They laid in the hammock a little while later feeling full and comfortable. She had made the hammock after learning how to make a cast net for catching minnows. They rocked slowly and watched the smoke drift through the tree tops. Gold and red sweet gum leaves, browning oak, and yellow paper myrtle leaves rose with the smoke as she heated water to clean her dishes. They lived a simple life and were simply grateful for it.

"Bubba, tomorrow isn't promised to anyone. The life you live today might not be the life you live tomorrow. Be grateful for what you have because it can all change in the flash of a suitcase nuke and we both know that. Don't we, boy?"

Bubba looked across the forest floor and through the horizon turning red as the sun was beginning to settle in for the night. He understood her tone and treaded lightly on her stomach with his claws then stopped when she spoke to him.

I have today. I have right now. I learned to appreciate the importance of the moment when I lived on the pallets stacked outside a run down convenience store. For you, this was your first Blast. For me, it's my second time around. I will teach you what I learned, Chain. Appreciate the moment and hope for a better tomorrow. Accept what is given to you with gratitude. Don't take anything for granted and don't hold on too tightly to this world. If you have one friend, you have all you need. And Chain, you are my only and dearest friend.

"I love you, Bubba," Chain said, as she held the gray cat a little closer as the night temperatures cooled around her shoulders and legs. "You're my bestest friend in the whole world."

Down in the dark forest, an owl waited patiently in a familar tree for the moon to rise. The starving coyote female had to move many miles before joining a small pack of coyotes also torn apart by the hunger of men. The streams and rivers flowed cold towards the Gulf of Mexico carrying secrets as Chain and Bubba made their way to the tipi to snuggle in for the night. What tomorrow would bring, no human or animal knew for sure anymore, but what they had at the moment, they were grateful for in their own way.

END