Chapter 32

The room was hot. Well actually hot was an understatement. Hot would have been nice. The room was an old classroom in the local middle school building. On the wall behind them a clock ticked loudly, bringing back nostalgic, though not particularly happy memories for Bryan. Many an August afternoon had been spent in just such a classroom.

Bryan wiped the sweat from his brow. The people in front of him were all dressed as lightly as they could muster and retain their modesty. From the smell of the room, deodorant had run out sometime recently.

Introductions had been made and the group of twenty, which encompassed at least three generations, was settled in and ready to hear what Bryan had to say.

"So do any of you have any background with farming?"

A few hands shot up.

"Any of you with your hands up there actually plant, maintain, harvest, and eat the finished product?"

All but one hand dropped. Bryan looked at the man, who was at least ninety years old. Moving on, Bryan made note of the old man and resolved to learn from him as much as he could. Likely he had knowledge that surpassed Bryan's by leaps and bounds, whether he knew it or not.

"Ok, so who here has ever eaten a wild plant that they identified, picked, and ate?"

Two hands shot up. One was an older woman. The other was a teenage boy with thick glasses. Bryan nodded.

"Any of you ever raise an animal for food?" A few hands went up in the back: likely members of the local FFA chapter from the look of them.

"Any of you ever actually butcher said animal when done raising it?"

All hands fell.

"Uh, is anyone squeamish enough that the thought of butchering is just too much?"

Two hands went up; surprisingly enough from the same group of boys that had claimed to raise livestock.

"Alright then," Bryan said. "Follow me and you will all see what we are after."

He opened the door to the overstuffed, overheated classroom and headed down the hall. As many doors and windows as was possible were open and there was a stiff breeze running blowing down the hall. As they stepped into It the group gave a collective sigh at the temperature change.

Turning left at the first set of double doors he walked through the breezeway to the next set of double doors, leading into the old elementary school building.

From there he took another left which led him into the cafeteria area of the school. It was an hour before lunch was ready to be served so the room was empty. But there was a table set up, covered with prepared food.

Bryan stepped over behind the prepared table and waited for the rest of the group to settle into place across from him.

"You were all told that I would be here earlier today and a few of you seemed irritated that I appeared in that classroom a bit later than you intended." There were a few sheepish looks and a few averted eyes to his comment.

"The reason for my tardiness is this." He waved his hands out, displaying the table before him. "I have been in town since about five this morning. I set some snares and caught four fat rabbits."

He pointed to two platters full of meat. "I fried two like chicken, and two were baked, something like a turkey or a roast."

He pointed to a large bowl of greens. "These I picked all over town. They grow in your yards, your flowerbeds, and sometimes even in the cracks in your driveway. Most of them you probably didn't know were edible."

Next was a bowl of berries. "Mulberry, raspberry, blackberry ... Unless you are making a prize winning jam they are pretty interchangeable. They are sweet, and relatively edible just as they are. If you know where to look, they can be gathered very quickly and efficiently at the right time of the year."

Next was a large pitcher of what appeared to be lemonade. "This is a tea that is made by boiling the seeds of sumac plants, not to be confused with poison sumac. The seeds are covered with hairs that are coated in ascorbic acid. In other words, very high in vitamin C. I used a little bit of the berry juice to give it a berry flavor, then sweetened with honey. I think you will like it."

He stepped further down the table where there were loaves of bread. "These were the hardest parts, mostly because I didn't have time for them to leaven properly using anything but rapid yeast."

He put his hand on the largest loaf, an elongated oval. "This was a pile of wheat down on the railroad siding this morning," he explained. "There is enough grain in seven rail cars to feed the town for months, and it has been completely overlooked because nobody thought to check it out."

He paused for effect, hoping someone would ask the obvious question. He was not disappointed when a short woman in the front raised her hand. He nodded toward her in acknowledgement.

"I thought we were here to learn how to grow food," she began tentatively. "This seems like you are telling us where to find food already growing."

Bryan nodded and held his hands up. "Guilty," he cried. The group chuckled. "Actually this is a demonstration to prove that food comes from nature."

He looked around the faces, making sure everyone was in agreement or at least understanding. "Now, that may seem like an elementary thing to say but quite honestly big agriculture has convinced most people that food is a commodity. They have taken nature completely out of the picture. Agriculture in America has become a 'scientific' industrial process. You plant apple trees to get apples. You plant corn to get corn. All these things are tested and retested and if you just use these chemicals and these hybrid genetics and etcetera, etcetera then viola you have a crop."