Keep the Home Fires Burning

Although the scythe isn’t pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants’ revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome. –Terry Pratchett

I was catching up on reading Lawdog’s blog just a day or so ago, and the linked post resonated with me.

Our DNA is rebellious outlaws that were kicked out of the mother country because Great Britain couldn’t deal with us. We took the hit-and-run warfare of the Native Americans, and we made it our own.  WE LIKE TO FIGHT.

Bittersweet truths the man speaks. It isn’t in any way the future I want to see. I can’t say that often enough, or loudly enough. I do not want it. Do. Not. Want.

But would I be ready should we come to the bitter end? Yes.

I have a peculiar background. And I don’t mean that in just ‘you’re weird, Cedar,’ although I won’t deny that, either. I’m also, I hasten to add, not boasting here. I’m about to lay out plain facts more for myself than for you, first of all. I tend to downplay myself. I’m more comfortable that way. I’m also not laying out my whole CV here, just what seems pertinent to the discussion of this particular leg of the pants of time (Terry Pratchett, the brilliant sage of our time, talking about the forks in the path of history as being akin to pant legs). I’m talking about it because while I’m peculiar, I’m not alone. When I say peculiar, I mean deliberately set apart. There are reasons I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories, survivalist or ‘prepper’ rhetoric, and post-apocalyptic fiction in general. I’m not going to get into that here on the blog. Catch me in person sometime when you have time and an alcoholic beverage if you really want to know.

Lawdog talks about the American past and present when it comes to fighting. I’m no warhawk, although yes, I’ve been accused of that too. Not on the blog. Mostly here you see me at my motherly apolitical best, but let me put it this way: when attacked, I am of the opinion that we ought not hold back in our retaliation because yes, violence does solve problems. Pratchett, again, says it very well.

“War, Nobby. Huh! What is it good for?” he said.
“Dunno, Sarge. Freeing slaves, maybe?”
“Absol—well, okay.”
“Defending yourself against a totalitarian aggressor?”
“All right, I’ll grant you that, but—”
“Saving civilization from a horde of—”
“It doesn’t do any good in the long run is what I’m saying, Nobby, if you’d listen for five seconds together,” said Fred Colon sharply.
“Yeah, but in the long run, what does, Sarge?” –Terry Pratchett in Thud!

My first instinct when I contemplate the awful possibility of a second civil war, bloodier and more terrible than the first (and do not forget I also dabble in history and am very well versed on the first), is to lean toward my gun cabinet. But today when I read Lawdog’s pungent and inspiring words, I brought myself up short and realized something. I can’t do that.

Look. I was raised by parents who were very interested in self-sufficiency, and who were poor enough that it wasn’t a ‘getting back to their roots’ game. We really did have to know how to garden, hunt, trap, and fish in order to survive. Among my skills I count the ability to be a hunter-gatherer although God, I hope we won’t throw ourselves that far back into the depths of history. I can build good dirt, I can garden according to organic principles (otherwise known as farming the Old Way, or farming with one hand tied behind your back). I can milk, and more to the point, I can keep goats alive because the myth of them surviving on tin cans has it all wrong, goats are delicate freaking flowers especially when you throw pregnancy and kidding into the mix. I know how to shear, although I haven’t done it. I have, however, cleaned fleece, dyed it with natural materials, spun, woven, and crocheted it. I spent a couple of years as an apprentice shepherdess. I can ride a horse, and more to the point, care for it. I know how to break horses in at least two ways. I can train dogs – and let me tell you, dogs being man’s best friend has absolutely nothing to do with ’emotional support animals’ and anyone who keeps stock will tell you that.

I can cook. I can cook, can, and clean with no electricity or running water. I can cook broadly with wild foods or what comes to hand and make it tasty and varied fare, and again, that’s a skill that is underrated but if you look at the stories of the early settlers and explorers, food was monotonous and… dangerous. Which is where my other special skills start coming into play. I’m a chemist and microbiologist with special interest in toxicology and infectious disease and parasites. I’m no doctor, but I have enough training for rude medic. I know how to handle and treat food so people don’t start dropping like flies from botulism or salmonella or cholera. I know how to dig an outhouse pit – and even more important, where to put it versus the house.

I have training in search and rescue (also usefully reversed to escape and evade), special training in leadership, and if it came to it, I know how to teach military drill and marching. We’d have to be in a very bad way to get me pulled into that, but I was trained in it and can train others. I used to play survival games in the woods for fun, including tracking and surveilling, just for giggles. I know how to build deadfalls and a number of other interesting obstacles to put on my trail that would make someone following me have to think twice. I know what plants are good to eat, and what to put in an enemy’s water to make him regret life. Weapons aren’t always physical. The most potent one is between your ears and it has amused me over the years to play at ‘what if?’ and read extensively on the same.

I’m not special. There’s a lot of us out here in rural America. But that’s what our job would be, if it came to it. To keep the home fires burning while our husbands, sons, fathers, and friends are out on the pointy ends. To keep body and soul together so they have hope to come home to. Because without hope, war becomes even more terrible. To some men, combat is a seductive mistress, and unimaginable horrors come when hope dies at home and they have no one to save themselves for, body and soul.

My job? If it comes to it? It’s to keep the hearth fire warm, but not only for my family. It’s to teach anyone I can how to survive this new and inimical world. I don’t give a flying flip who they are. Because the mewling quims who advocate for the abrogation of liberty that will lead to this mess have no idea what they are bringing down on themselves. They have no idea how long it will take for civilization to recover, if ever, and they have no idea that by wounding our nation, they would leave us crippled to the hyenas that circle looking to pull us all down into hell at the slightest opportunity. I have no illusions. If it comes, life as we know it will never be the same. And that means I have an obligation not to fight with my hands, but to use my head. To teach. To pass on dying arts that we can all live again. To keep the love of liberty and human rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness fresh in the minds of those who remain, that one day the dream we live in can again be a reality.

I pray the day will not come. I fear that it may. I stand ready to put the wood on the fire and to keep the embers banked until they come home, if the call for Liberty goes out across our land. I never swore an oath to the Constitution, but I was born under it, and by God, I’ll die under it.

Related posts:

The Hooky Trap Myths The Peril of Niceness Inertia