Will this be another Mother Earth News type blog?

By Nathaniel Hoffman ⋅ June 11, 2009 ⋅  Send ⋅  Print ⋅ Post

Once upon a time, this website was purely political; an Idaho news aggregator with a leftist-sarcastic tilt. People would ask me what PaleoMedia meant, and I’d say it was a description of my politics and that someday I’d write about it.

Future Farmers of Backyards

Well, I have a secret. The main reason I live in Idaho, the one thing I dream of every night, my goal for the rest of my career and into my pending retirement, is to strive for a simpler, more paleolithic existence. More caveman.

I say that sitting in my wooden house blanketed in fiberglass insulation typing on my PowerBook G4 and fully aware that I have pathetic facial hair and, while not perfect, a decent posture.

But I yearn to cut myself off from cheap plastics, processed foods, things that society tells us we need (insurance, investments, gasoline). And I yearn for DK Donuts and Hagen Daz and an iphone.

This is paleomedia: absolute relativity, the obliteration of contradiction. Online Luddite. Stem and seed eater who has a burger and fries for dessert. Total paleomedia is what you will find here.

At this point in my life I am failed big game hunter and lame fisherman. I am growing some lettuces and onions in my backyard, but the plot is rife with weeds and I let my chickens chew up the Asian greens. My pile of sheep and elk hides is starting to decay. It is time to get serious in my cave.

Join me in this journey, dear readers. I will need help. So I will turn to books and local experts to make me into the caveman I yearn be. Soon it will be my birthday. In the next year I plan to accomplish the following, and you, especially you boor bastards who don’t live in Idaho, can accomplish the following too and even make snide comments along the way, here, at PaleoMedia.org.

Here is my cave list for the next four seasons:

• Put up enough ginger pickled radishes, eggplant and bean “chopped liver” and stewed tomatoes to last through next winter.
• Tan the hides I’ve collected in the last year and make something useful from them (baby blankets and sheepskin vest to wear to the Legislature?)
• Shoot an elk or a deer with my heretofore ornamental bow.
• Keep my young flock of chickens alive long enough to make the ultimate caveman omlette (stay tuned for this one).
• Teach the 4-year-old to catch, clean and fry a fish, consistently, and maybe from the Boise River.
• Write regularly about these activities for the less fortunate.

Anything I missed? Probably. But it’s time to crack another beer and brainstorm ways to make my own beer by this time next year.