Open Magazine - Index

Open Magazine - magazine - Index

Little
Bundles of Sunshine
S
By Cynthia A. Moyer
omething strange happens to urbanites
when we move to the country. I’m not
quite sure if it is the lack of civilization,
the “living off the shopping mall grid,” or the
fact that no matter how far one looks in the
country, there is not much to see except land
and sky. For some strange reason, we feel
compelled to throw ourselves into our new rural
lifestyle with a degree of “over-do-it-ness.”
The first to go are French and Italian cuisine recipes; quickly
replaced by the “Thousand Ways to Make Road Kill Taste Like
Chicken” cookbook. Next, all “city-ots” (a nickname given to
urbanites who move to the country) must make a pilgrimage
to the local TSC store for black rubber boots (the red stripes are
quite fetching). Armed with proper footwear,
official head attire (baseball cap) and outer
wear (any old coat, aka “barn coat”),
the urbanite is ready to begin
foraging the local vegetation for
supplies.
I can still see my neighbour, sitting
on his porch, watching my husband
and I drag a poplar
24 Open Magazine Summer 2008
sapling out of the bush. “It’ll never live!” he hollered
from his chair. His comment only served to fuel our
purpose and prove him wrong. The sapling grew for
20 years until it had served its purpose (to make a
point) and overgrew our lawn.
I’m sure the people who drove by and waved
as we scoured ditches and bushes burned up their
party lines with gossip when they returned home,
wondering what the crazy city-ots were doing in the
swamp. Did they not know that willow furniture was
in vogue in the 1980s? Since it grew in wild abandon—
why not? The bent willow chair that I didn’t finish ended
up in the burn pile along with about 100 finishing nails.
My husband loves to conveniently “remember” the willow
furniture project whenever we have family or friends over.
Anything that grew was fair game in our ditch and bush
explorations. We collected baskets of wild apples (threw out
more than we kept), endured Kamikaze mosquito attacks while
picking wild raspberries and collected beautiful dried flower
arrangements of wild flowers and weeds in the fall. I do not
recommend bringing cattails into your warm home during
winter months unless you want a “white Christmas” all
through your living room. Cattails tend to burst open in