Free Spirits Parkman family leads a self-sustaining life

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As a batch of cornbread cooked on a nearby wood stove, Christina Holloway and her young son, Zackary, huddled on the floor of their shingle Cape working their fingers over dried corncobs to remove the hard kernels.

Dressed frontier-style, in a long skirt and warm sweater, Christina explained that the colorful Indian corn had been gathered in the fall from fields already harvested by farmers in this Piscataquis County town.

Christina, 30, and her husband, Ed, 41, salvage the corn and other vegetables left behind on the cold ground each year to help sustain their seven-member family through the winter. The produce is dried, frozen or canned and the seeds are either ground for cooking or dried for planting. Nothing is wasted. Spoiled veggies and cornhusks are fed to farm animals and the corncobs are used as kindling.

Avowed scavengers, the Holloways trek twice a month to a Skowhegan health food store, where they are given outdated goods and leftover organic food, ranging from spaghetti sauce to mushrooms.

Another person’s waste is treasure to the Parkman couple and their children from previous marriages: Amara Brown, 5, who lives year-round with the Holloways and is home-schooled by Christina, and Zackary Fields, 10, and Rebecca Holloway, 14, who spend weekends, holidays and summers with the couple. Ed’s oldest son, Tim, 17, is in the process of moving out to live on his own.

In addition to retrieving others’ leftover crops, the back-to-the-landers grow some of their own food. They raise farm animals, make medicinal remedies, and reuse clothing and furniture obtained free from a local recycling center.

“Part of the reason for it [lifestyle] is our want for a better life,” Christina explained, “and part is out of necessity for lack of funds.”

An attractive brunette, Christina had never scavenged before meeting Ed two years ago. She used to wear fashionable clothing and high heels. She smoked and enjoyed parties. None of the men she met, however, made her happy. She found Ed through a personal advertisement he had placed in the Bangor Daily News. A church youth leader, Ed sought a soul mate who had the same morals and values. After talking to one another by phone several times, Christina visited Ed’s 100-acre farm in Parkman and never left. Three weeks after meeting in person, they were married.

Christina says the transition to her new life was hard at first and she “hated it for eight months.” But she was determined. She stopped smoking, studied herbal medicine, improved her sewing, taught herself to knit and became more self-sufficient.

She found that she could make puzzles of odd-shaped rocks and ornaments from discarded light bulbs and sell them at craft stores.

“I pray about it, my ideas and visions come from prayer,” Christina reflected. “It just comes and I listen.”

Christina takes woolen blankets left at the recycling center and transforms them into capes lined with tablecloths. Tablecloths also become skirts and the sleeves of discarded sweaters are turned into socks, leg warmers and mittens. She can outfit the entire family with another’s discards.

She follows no patterns for her creations.

“I’m too free-spirited to stay with instructions, I’ve just got to do it my way. I make up the patterns in my mind as I go along,” she said. “Actually, I feel I’m following what God’s told me to do,” she pronounced, between sips of nettle and rose hip tea prepared and brewed by Zackary.

It is her love of God and her determination that has helped sustain the family after Ed hurt his back about a year ago. A local physician recommended that a neurosurgeon examine him but with no insurance and no paycheck, he has been unable to raise the required advance fee.

While he is somewhat limited work-wise, Ed helps his wife as much as possible, as do the children.

Zackary finds the task of popping off the dried kernels a “cool” job. “It works your fingers a lot so they get stronger,” he said, with a wide smile.

The kernels are placed in canning jars to be hand-ground for corn meal or for planting in the spring. They share shelf space with about 200 different home-grown herbs, produce and medicines in the family’s quaint and homey kitchen.

“I had to make a kitchen – he was a bachelor. It’s not very fancy but it works,” Christina said, spreading her arms wide. “I decorated for free.”

In addition to forays for second-hand clothing, Christina attends country auctions and combs yard sales, finding odds and ends artfully recreated in her home.

Different-shaped wooden boxes are arranged as kitchen shelves on a counter covered with vibrant ceramic tiles. Baskets, polished pots and pans and batches of dried herbs hang from the walls and rafters. Books discarded by others line a bookcase. Handmade candles, a byproduct of the family’s bees, grace the table.

In addition to bees, which supply them with honey and wax, the Holloways raise about 30 chickens, three turkeys, five pigs (one of which weighs about 900 pounds), nine goats, a sheep and many rabbits, including Angora. From the animals, the family gets milk, meat, eggs, wool for sweaters and hats, and cheese and butter. They also have two dogs and hope to add a pony for Amara.

Some of the animals are shown by the children at local fairs, where they garner ribbons and cash prizes. The money is used to purchase craft supplies. And, occasionally, a critter is sold at auction so the couple can pay the mortgage or power bill.

Electricity, a refrigerator, freezer, washing machine, flush toilet, well and running water pumped to the sink – amenities many take for granted- are the family’s luxuries. But electricity may be replaced with solar power in the future, because it is too expensive.

“I personally think we’ve got it easy – we’ve got power and a faucet to turn water on,” Christina remarked. Her prized possession is her washing machine. “If I had to wash clothes by hand, I’d cry.” She does not mind drying the clothes on a rack near the wood stove, the only source of heat for the two-story house.

Christina’s entire day seems to revolve around the wood stove. She keeps it stoked to heat the small home, cook meals and heat bath water. “People don’t understand how much work that involves,” she said.

Nor do many understand her devotion to herbs. In the fall, the house resembles a jungle with all the harvested herbs. Some of the dried plants are combined with 100-proof vodka to make tinctures. The herbs steep in the liquor on the windowsill for two weeks. They are then strained and used to treat a variety of illnesses. In addition to the herbal concoctions, skin-moisturizing salves are also made.

Christina scoffs at her workload but admits to missing female companionship during the long winter months. “There are not many women who want to come over and keep me company while I clean out the pumpkins,” she said.

Summers, however, are crammed with gardening, family outings such as visits to old cellar holes where collectible bottles can be found.

Overall, Christina embraces her lifestyle.

“I think it’s more just creative living, honestly,” she said. “I guess if you have all the easy things, you take a lot for granted, and I think by working harder you appreciate a lot more.”

Zac Fields grinds corn that will be used over the coming winter.