Little House on the . . . Suburban Prairie?

I grew up reading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. One of my favorite parts of US history is the pioneer days, maybe because I'm the type who ventures outside of my comfort zone and appreciates the results that come from lots of hard work. When I bought my little house (a fixer upper) 10 years ago, a friend helping me with the clean-up stumbled upon a like-new paperback set of the entire series hidden in the garage attic. I still read them in the evenings as a way to get away from my hectic, technology-filled life and go back to a simpler time.

But was it really simple? I'm sure if those pioneers were alive today, 'simple' would not be a word they'd use to describe their way of life. Many were farmers trying to tame a land they could grow fields of wheat, corn and oats on. Some were store owners and hoteliers trying to build a city. All pioneers worked from day break to sun down. Families who lived off the land generally made do with what they had, buying only the barest of necessities. Everything was reused and repurposed into something else: curtains from dresses and old sheets, dolls and toys from fabric scraps and scrap wood, old pie tins into graters.

I was born and raised in the SF Bay Area, a far cry from a prairie, even farther from having to live off the land. I grew up living off the grocery store and mall. The curtains in my room were from JCPenney, never from my mom's old dresses.

I actually thought it odd in the 1970's when my grandpa recycled bottles and cans, reused his cooled cooking water to water his garden, "threw" his egg shells and banana peels into his backyard dirt, mixing it with a shovel every few days. And as long as I can remember, he always kept a neat pile of scrap wood and metal in his workshop.

But I thought it incredible that he could take pieces of old wood from his kitchen renovation and turn it into a dresser for his clothes. All of his outside Christmas decorations were handmade of wood and scrap metal and lasted for years. He could've easily ventured to the store and purchased store-bought decorations, he had more than enough funds to purchase an all-out display. But why when he could make it himself with scrounged stuff? He hardly threw anything away - if it wasn't recycled or composted, it was repurposed into something totally new.

And did I mention that his apples, plums and grapes from his composted garden can't be compared to the hauled-in stuff at my major grocery chain? Sigh. Looking back now as an adult homeowner I used to think he was a man ahead of his time.

But was he? Or was he a man from that same waste-not-want-not pioneer mindset? Now, as I read and reread the Little House books, I am more convinced he was a pioneer. He did come to the US from another country and started new with his young wife and kids. But he came over with much more than the pioneers did and his family really never wanted for anything. And he still recycled, reused and reduced, something many folks my age think is a newfound "save the environment" concept.For him it was never just about saving money, it was also always about never wasting anything.

Fast forward to this past Saturday afternoon. I punch down the second rising of my sourdough bread and place it in the bread pans. I pick lemons from my tree to make lemonade. My daughter is watering our small backyard lawn and garden. She laughs at me while I mix in egg shells and coffee grinds from the morning's breakfast next to our tomato plants and lemon tree. But she was also amazed later that evening when I made a costume for her sister's school play out of leftover fabric and junk jewelry I had from prior projects. Money is tight this month and my pantry is slim pickings so I grab apples from my neighbor's tree branches hanging over my fence, something I've only started doing this year. (They always tell us to help ourselves and I give them lemons in return.) We also collect more twigs and branches from our yards, and our neighbor's to use in our fire pit during summer nights of marshmallow roasting. We have always planted tomatoes and herbs. This is the first year we planted corn and watermelon.

"We're living off our land!" that same daughter said. I survey the 6 tomato plants, 5 herb plants, 6 corn plants, 1 watermelon plant, the growing pile of twigs and branches and have to laugh -- it's certainly not a crop by a pioneer's standard (or a garden by my grandpa's standards.)

"Yes, I guess we are." I reply as I think to myself, we're "Little House on the Suburban Prairie." I still live off stores (outlet and thrift as well as grocery and mall, mind you), but still... my grandfather would be proud. And I'm sure Ma and Pa Ingalls would be too.