Living Wild in a Domesticated Society

Growing up, large portions of my summer were spent working in our garden. When I say garden, let me lay this out so you understand a little better. This wasn't your standard vegetable garden that you see in somebody's back yard with a little fence around it and a cute little scarecrow propped up in the center. Our garden was big. It varied a bit over the years, but on average it was about 30 yards wide and 50 yards long. We grew pretty much everything that would survive in Michigan, from asparagus to zucchini. We had your standards like green beans, potatoes, and tomatoes, but we also grew okra, tomatillos, and kholrabi. There were melons, squash, and root vegetables.We made our own pickles, spaghetti sauce, and relish. We canned beets. We froze strawberries, rasberries, and corn. Our garden provided a very large percentage of our food throughout the year. 

Besides the garden, we also foraged. We'd hunt for morels in the spring. We would pick black raspberries and blackberries in the summer. We collected hazlenuts and walnuts in the fall. By the way, if you've never spent a day cracking black walnuts with a hammer, consider yourself lucky. 

We raised chickens and rabbits for eggs and meat. We hunted and fished for additional protein. Also, we were blessed that my grandpa is a beef farmer so we nearly always had some cow meat in the freezer as well. 

I bring this all up to point out that it is extremely difficult to live such a lifestyle in our current society. I do not have a garden this year. My wife and I both work full time and we have been unable to properly maintain one the last several years. I could complain that I'm just too worn out at the end of the day, but my dad would often work the garden after putting in 12 hour days at his regular job. The truth is that it's just too convenient to buy my food rather than put in the work of growing it myself. My parents didn't have that option. They had three boys, fairly close in age. The garden was essential to ensuring we had enough to eat. 

On top of the ease of buying food, the cost to hunt or fish to add to the freezer has passed the point where it is prohibitive for many people. Licenses and essential gear alone can easily exceed several hundred dollars for hunting. Add to that the diminishing access to huntable land, which means traveling further in order to hunt or paying a landowner for permission to hunt their land, and you're easily beyond a dollar amount that midde to low income earners can shoehorn into their budgets. 

I still enjoy growing or foraging my own food. I am beyond blessed to be able to hunt and fish regularly. But I don't do any of them because I HAVE to in order to make ends meet, like my parents did. I think that is one of the biggest unseen shifts in our society over the last generation. Now people that hunt, fish, forage, and garden are generally doing so because it's a healthier lifestyle as well as more environmentally responsible. That's not necessarily a bad thing, either. I just don't want to see a way of life ended because it has become a pursuit of the well to do and the people that need it most can no longer afford to do so. We need to celebrate, encourage, and (most importantly) ensure access to the "living wild" lifestyle that allows people to supplement their food stores and even income in some instances. That is why Grizld Outdoors will occasionally do videos featuring these things, even though we know they aren't going to get many views. We want others to know that these options exist and are accesible to many. "Living wild" is a big part of what we consider to be the Grizld Lifestyle and we want others to enjoy it as much as we do.