The following is a speech Rod wrote for a Rotary luncheon dated December 10, 1985 (just shy of his 36th birthday). It gives great insight into why Rod chose to live as a naturalist or a conservationist as some people called him. I hope you enjoy reading this journal entry as much as I have.
Good afternoon, Gentleman: Back to the Basics
Have you ever had your basic survival challenged? I have several times. There are three events that most people seem to have forgotten that have so threatened my well-being that I have found it necessary to seek a new direction in life.
Rod goes on to describe three events (or “bombs” as he called them) that occurred:
- Have you ever gone to a grocery store and found the shelves empty?
- Have you ever waited in line for hours to fill your tank with gasoline only to find the pump had run dry before you got there?
- Have you ever gone to the grocery store and overnight watched the prices of even non-essential items double or triple?
Plus, one more, have you ever had your savings outstripped by inflation?
I have. I was living in Seattle when not the Russians, but my fellow Truckers, broke the sacred trust and stopped putting food on the grocery store shelves: The Trucker’s Strike of 1975.
Have you forgotten about the Arab oil embargo of 1973?
Remember the great coffee price explosion? How everyone quickly tried to hoard coffee and the price skyrocketed?
I don’t know about you, but I can’t just sit back and forget about these things. They were no longer theoretical threats like a nuclear holocaust. They actually happened. My survival was for a moment threatened. Fortunately, those threats did not last for long, but it was a warning.
There I was, a biologist, a man with a fair understanding of the land, sitting behind a desk writing Government Impact statements on the environment, and I was totally dependent for my survival on grocery store shelves like everybody else.
Could I survive extended threats of these kinds? I started searching the library and bookstores for the Euell Gibbon’s Handbook of Edible Wild Plants type books. Reading was not enough; I had to challenge myself and prove to myself that I could do it.
I went to the mountains for 30 days with nothing but a survival knife. I was delighted to learn that, not only could I survive, I hiked over 300 miles in rugged mountain terrain, got in fantastic physical shape, and gained 10 pounds besides. That was in October. The roots were full of starch, berries were easy to come by, and trout were easy to catch.
Then I went to the Everglades and spent a winter living out of my canoe. I spent 30 days in the Baja desert to test my drought survival skills. The desert almost got me.
At any rate, I had concluded that I could no longer assume that grocery stores could be totally depended on. My fellow humans in the richest nation in the world had let me down, but the land never did. The land provided.
My relationship with the land grew. I found myself no longer content to be able to survive on public land. Jim Watt clearly showed me how easy it is threatening public lands.
It was time to acquire land of my own. I sold my beautiful house in the city and quit my city job. I could only manage to buy 20 acres, but it was my 20 acres. I am now working to be totally self sufficient on my own land.
In less than three hard working years, I transformed an abandoned farmstead and cornfield into a place that can provide 100% of my physical needs. I pay no rent or heat bill, and I could easily derive 100% of my food and clothing and shelter from the land if I needed to.
This was not just a hobby. It was my retirement program.
We are a meat and potatoes culture. Some would rename it a burger and fries society.
So, ask yourself: 30 years from now, what are potatoes going to cost you? How much will you have to pay for tomatoes and meat?
Ask me and I say potatoes and tomatoes will cost me the same next year as this year, and it will be the same for me 30 years from now. My potatoes take 75 days of sun to grow, 120 days for winter keeper. Tomatoes take 60 days of frost-free sunshine, always have, always will.
Conclusion: Now I can truthfully say if the Arabs kept all their oil, I’d be okay. If all the farmers went broke and produced no more food, I would survive. If a storm or worse took out my electrical lines, I would still be snug even in the winter. I may never be rich, but I think I’m doing just fine.
List I found of Rods titled: Harvestable from my land – 20 acres:
- Animals: beavers, bison, deer, elk, foxes (gray, red), frogs, groundhogs, minks, muskrats, opossums, rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, turtles
- Fish: bass, bluegill, catfish
- Birds: ducks, geese, partridge, pheasant, turkeys
- Fruit and vegetables: apples, asparagus, cherries, grapes, mulberries, plums, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries
- Firewood: Oak, walnut, maple, green ash, boxelder
- Other: arrowhead, bees (honey and pollen), burdock, cattail, maple syrup
Rodney was also able to tan hides, sew buckskins, make moccasins, make home trapped and tanned muskrat mittens.
Other notes I found in this journal:
I try to live on the land without depleting it.
I have found my connection with the land.
Rodney Schmidt Legacy 