Possum Living

Possum Living, How to Live Well Without a Job and With (Almost) No Money, by Dolly Freed

The author of this book is amazing.  The foreword indicates that Dolly Freed is a pseudonym, but whoever the author, she has a very similar mindset to me.  She dropped out of school in 7th grade, with her father's permission, and spent the rest of her time learning things she needed to know from the library.  She and her father bought an old store, renovated, and converted it into a house.  She learned plumbing, electric wiring installment, masonry, heating and insulation, and tax assessment (or re-assessment) from the library.  In 1978 dollars, they spent $1163 on two people for the entire year.  They raised rabbits for meat, hens for eggs, and converted their backyard to a garden.  They lived with very little waste; everything had a use, even the scraps.  If the harvest was too big, they canned, dried, pickled, smoked, or froze what they couldn't eat for the winter, when there would be less available food.  They got good clothes at Goodwill, which I can attest is actually probable.  They lived in a nice, suburban neighborhood, and gave homemade wine as gifts for their friends.  At the age of 18, Dolly wrote this book as a How-to-Do-What-We're-Doing book.  If she didn't know how to write or become published, she went to the library to find out.  As she grew older, and the book became fairly popular, she decided she wanted to become a NASA aerospace engineer.  Then, she got up and did it.  If it seemed like she had hit a dead end, she created her own opportunities to get where she needed to go.  After meeting her husband at NASA and deciding she needed a career change, she created opportunities and became an environmental educator.

Why am I telling you about the author instead of the book?  Because I really connected with the author.  She had the right amount of witty-sarcastic comments, paired with a very clear and concise account of how to practice the skills she had learned (such as how to skin a rabbit or set up a solar heating system).  Most of all, I like her because she is self-educated.  I can give myself credit for 87.5% of my high school education, which I accomplished on my own through a correspondence school.  The ability to learn independent of a teacher other than "life" is a trait I value in a person.  I might not live exactly the way that is laid out in the book (read: I probably will never raise rabbits in my basement for meat) but there are plenty of good tips found in the book which I intend to put to use.  One in particular is the importance (and ease!) of canning the extra produce you have for use a few months down the road, when those canned goods might not be as readily available.  I have already put the advice to good use by making wineberry preserves and dill pickles from items I picked in the backyard.  Although this book will not be the "frugalists' bible" as some have suggested it might be, I will definitely refer to it often for things I need to know how to do.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a quick and easy read, likes my kind of humor, has an interest in moonshine, has no job, or likes the idea of sustainable living.