Watermelon Summer (22 page)

    When I was first getting to know him, Arvil told me
that I was looking for Greensun and that what I was looking for didn't
really exist.  But as I settled in for my first winter on Greensun
soil, I felt like even Arvil might have changed his mind recently.

 

    True, it might take years to build the
self-sufficient intentional community Glen had dreamed of, and maybe our version
would never live up to my bio-dad's idealistic standards.  But
Arvil had been part of my community before he ever stepped up to the
plate and helped me save Greensun from my greedy sister, and each other
neighbor I'd met had seemed like someone I wanted to learn more
about as well.  Thanks to Jacob's Mamaw, I felt like I had an instant
family here in the mountains—even though I shared the old farmhouse
with no one at the moment, I was a frequent visitor at their trailer,
and Jacob himself often came to help on the farm (and to steal kisses).

 

    And, although he was gone in body, Glen remained part of my
community in spirit.  Weeks after my mother returned to Seattle and I settled
in for the second stage of my adventure, one last note in
my father's handwriting had surfaced.  As I poured the last of the cat food from its
metal tin, out fluttered an oil-stained note with words I hoped to
live my life by.  "Follow your bliss," Joseph Campbell and my
father told me.  This was one parental mandate I planned to pursue.

 

 

 

    Greensun is based on several intentional
communities, past and present, as well as on the remote farm where
my husband and I now live.  So even though my friends and
family may recognize aspects of people they know throughout this
book, I want to assure them that I've changed everyone's character
for the sake of the plot, have merged several places and people into
one, and have exaggerated many negative traits for effect.  (In
other words—none of the character flaws are yours, but if you
want to see yourself in the more uplifting characters, go for
it!)  The average reader will also be heartened to know that the
communities I've met haven't been as troubled as Greensun, and that some
have stood the test of time.

 

    In addition to my own experience growing up in
the outskirts of the hippie migration to Appalachia, various books
colored my rendition of Greensun's intentional community. 
Back From the Land
, by Eleanor
Agnew, is a vividly-portrayed (if depressing) account of why many
back-to-the-landers threw in the towel and moved away from their farms. 
Creating a Life
Together
, by Diana Leafe Christian, records the traits of
the more-modern intentional communities that survived those
difficult start-up years.  And memoirs like Melissa Coleman's
This Life Is In Your Hands
reminded me of facets of my own childhood on the farm before my
parents moved us to town.

 

    Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't take this
chance to thank the many people who helped make my first work of fiction
a reality.  My mother, father, and husband read drafts at critical
moments, and so did various friends—thank you Heather, Swati, and
Frankie!  Sarah Noce from www.sarahnoce.com built the most
beautiful cover imaginable and Stephen Bublitz ([email protected]) cleaned up the text with a
careful eye.  (Any remaining run-on sentences are entirely my
own.)  Equally important were the many blog readers who
encouraged me at all the right moments.  And it helped that our
cats were moderately content to take turns on my lap so the computer
would have a spot to sit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ingredients:

 

 

Preheat the oven to 325.  Melt the butter, then add both sugars and
mix well.  Add the vanilla, peanut butter, and egg and mix
again.  Add the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
and mix, then stir in the chocolate chips.  Spoon twelve large
cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake until bottom is brown
and top is just barely firm.

 

 

 

    To read more about my own back-to-the-land
adventures, visit the blog my husband and I keep
together—www.WaldenEffect.org—or check out the ebook detailing our own
journey to
farm ownership—
Growing into a Farm
.  If you want to branch out into how-to guides,
The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency
,
published by Skyhorse Publishing in 2012, is available in both
paperback and ebook form in bookstores and online.  Self-published
ebooks available on Amazon include books in the Modern Simplicity series
(such as
Microbusiness Independence
,
which would have given Jacob a head start on his online business), the
Working Chicken series (for beginners), and the Permaculture Chicken
series (for those delving deeper into poultry care).