It was determined that a garden would be a good idea, to help provide food for the family. The garden site was already fenced and had been cultivated. Mom came out and looked at it, and decided that she was ready to plant it- almost. First, we would have to hoe all the weeds. We weren't happy about this, of course, but it had to be done...so we spent hours hoeing the weeds out, and exposing the soil underneath to the sky. We were pretty relieved when we'd finally turned it all. A week or two went by, but no garden was planted. The soil we'd turned had exposed dormant weed seeds to the warmth of the sun, which germinated gleefully. Mom came out, looked at it, declared we hadn't done our job well enough. There were still weeds! We would have to hoe it all again, until no more weeds came up. I know now that this was nearly impossible. At the time, it just seemed like the most acutely frustrating exercise on earth. We quickly developed an aversion to gardening.

The garden never got planted, so there were no vegetables. Mom turned her focus to the plentiful countryside. Rosehips grew everywhere and were fantastically expensive! We must find and harvest some, maybe we could even sell them! George took us out to look for them. We finally located a rose bush in bloom, and he showed us the hip. It was teeny and green, a small rounded growth beneath the sepals of the flower. It looked nothing at all like the red rosehips Mom used in her tea. We shrugged, threw it away, and trotted off to build forts and climb trees. Next, it was lamb's quarters. These were the common weeds that grew all around the house and in the failed garden. We ate them as salad. As food became less varied, we ate lamb's quarter salads almost every day. She got alfalfa seeds and starting growing alfalfa sprouts, three jars in three stages of development, so that we never ran out of them.
We weren't as short on food as we thought, but we were used to having whatever we wanted to eat, more or less. We didn't know much about cooking beans or whole grains. We didn't know how to make bread from scratch, or about brown rice, or making cream soups with the fresh milk and the lamb's quarters. We didn't know that we could cook the lamb's quarters and use them like spinach. We didn't know that it wasn't the end of the world if we didn't have eggs and meat and potatoes at breakfast with our hot cereal. We weren't used to eating what I could now call plain food, basic food.

So we felt like our lives had been saved when John White called Dennis one night. A 2 year old moose had charged a train (the moose lost) and we could have some of the meat if Dennis would come and help with it, which he did. It had to be processed right away. John, Dennis, and two other men butchered the moose and split it, with each man taking home a fourth of it. We got a hindquarter. That hindquarter filled up an entire freezer. I was dubious about moosemeat, since venison, elk, and goat (which I hadn't actually tasted) hadn't impressed me much, but we were in for a surprise. Moosemeat is excellent! It is better than beef, with a rich, full flavor. Mooseburgers became a family favorite for dinner, topped off with alfalfa sprouts. We thought we were such rugged, rustic country people.

Meanwhile, religion was quickly taking the center stage in our lives. Dennis decided that the word "Amen" was based on the Egyptian god "Amen Ra", and that ending dinner prayers with the word "Amen", meant that we were consecrating the meal to Amen Ra. He and mom fought loudly about this over the meals. He was tending more and more to agree with Randy Weaver about using the name "Yahweh" instead of the title, "Lord". We stayed home from church more and more and worshipped at home. Dennis would read from Isaiah, Malachi, and other dire sounding books, and play Messianic Jewish records. There was discussion about discontinuing the consumption of pork and other "unclean" foods. There was talk of Sabbath, and of Easter being a pagan holiday. There were a lot of fights about these things. Mom said it was legalistic and that God looks at our hearts. Dennis said it was idolatry to worship using the wrong names and to celebrate pagan holidays under the guise of Christianity.

As for me, I was becoming depressed. Life under Dennis's regime was oppressive. I was sick of hearing how my dad's family was evil. I missed them, I missed my dad's organ music, I missed my Uncle Charlie. I wanted to go back, but one condition of going to live with my mom was that it was my only chance. I could go back, but if I did, he wouldn't let me return to see my mom again. Having spent virtually my entire life away from her, I was reluctant to consent to such a drastic aggreement. I didn't tell them I wanted to go back...I just said that I missed it sometimes. My mom became worried that I'd want to leave. She wanted to know why I was silent, why I was sad, what she could do. Finally, they decided that I would be allowed to listen to the music of Keith Green, a Christian artist that my dad had played the entire time we'd lived with him. It was a small thing, but very comforting. Dennis hated Keith Green specifically because my dad liked the music, but he grudgingly made this exception. I also turned inward, towards my art, towards writing in code. I started drawing things differently. Instead of drawing things whole, I fractured them like puzzle pieces.Between the pieces, I put black or white margins, depending on the color of the subject. It it was a black horse or dog, the margins would have to be white to contrast, and vice versa. I started drawing most things fractured like that, as though the world were made of fragile stained glass.