Eons from now, if they dig me up, if they can use their technology to reconstitute me from my funereal ashes, and create an adequate reproduction of what I may have looked like in life, let them designate me and mine Homo Homesteadus: Homestead Man.
High summer, and the homestead is in full swing.
I caught the first salmon of the season off our north boundary rock (late, because of recent travel). We’re beginning to find our favorite mushroom, the king bolete, in the forest, and we see buttons from chanterelles already. I hike up the ridge almost every day, bucking up windfall and standing dead trees by hand for this winter’s firewood. The garden has grown to lushness; we eat salads almost more to keep ahead of the bolting lettuces than for their flavor and nutrition. The garlic scapes have formed, ready for pickling and stir fry. The bushes grow heavy with currants. We had to prop up our cherry tree the other day to support the weight of its developing fruit. The compost cooks away, producing high-nutrient soil for future years.
The homestead grows fat day by day. We focus on Upterrlainarluta (see Upterrlainarluta: “Always Getting Ready”) figuratively making hay while the sun shines, even though we don’t need hay, and the sun hasn’t shone a whole lot this summer.
Not that much, or any of this will likely show up in any future archaeological dig here. At most, we may leave hints of long habitation on the spot, perhaps long enough to prompt a new designation of humanoids pursuing a lifestyle distinctly different from the masses of their fellows: Homo Homesteadus.