The Hungry Barbarian

I figure today is going to be a mellow day, which is fine by me; my body and mind have already taken far to much abuse for my liking.  It’s been a battle to light any sort of fire, but that should be about it.  I’m pretty much counting down the minutes at this point…or the best appromixamation on my sundial:

However I wanted to give everyone a heads up that I’ll be blogging for the rest of the week as a wrap-up.  I want to look back at some of my favorite comments, posts that never went up and some other stuff as well.  Obviously I’ll have pictures tomorrow, likely of me  stuffing an egg sandwich down my maw two at a time.

Additionally, I’m already thinking ahead to my next adventure.  While my family and friends will likely chastise me for even putting the thought out there, frankly life is too boring, and this too interesting, to not plan another great escapade.  There seems to be a loyal readership following my travels and it would be a shame to not include you as well.  

So if you’re interested, shoot me an email (hungbar at gmail.com), and I’ll put together a list.  Otherwise there is an automated email subscription list on the right sidebar.  Obviously it will only be used for this site, no spam or anything of that sort.  I just figured we’ve gotten to know each other (you by reading, me through your comments) and it would be a shame to let that die.

So if you’re interested let me know; I’ll be hungrily waiting.  

Oh yea, I rule the cheesy puns!

So my cousin Vincent turned 16 today and his younger brother Nicky turns 12 next month. As avid readers, and cheerleaders, of the Barbarian, that deserves a special mention. Hell anyone who writes the following comment has a special place in the Barbarian’s heart…and stomach:

If you were to do another man vs. wild event, i would follow it as closely as i followed this week’s. I am sad that the week is over, but i am happy for you to get some real food to eat. i was just telling my dad today that when i grow up to be your age, i want to do an event just like this. It is just too exciting of an event to pass up.

The Hungry Barbarian: “Shaping tomorrow’s youth and undermining today’s parents, the world over.”

Apparently some members who have been following the blog (i.e. the less intelligent ones) are freaking out over the fact that I have garlic.  It seems they are implying I obtaining it through dubious means.  While generally I’d let accusations like this go and settle it afterwards, its my last day and I want it to be a nice pleasant one.  

So if you will draw your attention to the aftermath of my night ops raid you will see that I came back with not two, but three varieties of vegetables: tomatoes, onions and garlic.  All this was clearly documented.  

When I got to the farm, I grabbed a bit of everything; Augustus Gloop let loose in the Wonka factory.  I wasn’t going back, nor was I going hungry anymore, anything I could get my hands on was going in the bag.  

The sad part is, its not even good garlic.  But when you’ve got nothing, something is always better.  And anything is better than mussels, I do mean anything.    

I know that from experience.  

Last night, as one of the commentators noted, was a cold night dropping down into the 50’s.  While in the past that wouldn’t be an issue, I had a nice coat of insulation, the sleeping bag that doesn’t zipper made me constantly battle between making the ground tolerable or being cold.  I miss my pudge already.

By the way, the ground I’m on is one of the worst sleeping surfaces I’ve ever been on.  Even worse than couch beds which have that lovely bar that goes right into your lower back.  It only took me 7 days, but I finally realized that tree roots criss cross the grass where my tent is.  My neck is so stiff I can barely turn it, limiting my peripheral vision, meaning I have to turn my whole body to look left and right.      

In addition, my hands smell like a combination of conch, killies and mussels.  With them in my face all night its like something out of my worst food nightmare.  

Naturally I haven’t been sleeping well.

Last night I woke up in the middle of a dream, a particularly strange one.  Have you ever seen Super Troopers?  If not you’re missing out.  There is one character in particular, Farva, who made an appearance in a dream last night.  Here’s my favorite Farva segment.

In the dream, he told of his first instance of getting to where he is today (chubby and bitter).  A young Farva was at a friend’s BBQ and decided that he liked the sausages so much he was going to take two home with him.  When he got back however he didn’t want his father to see them, so the fridge was out.  He improvised by cutting a small hole in a couch cushion and placing them in there.  Later on he went back and noshed away.

There’s nothing symbolic in that dream.  Nope, nothing at all.  

I now dread the night.

Soon after I passed out last night, I woke back up to my entire tent being fully lit scaring the crap out of me.  

Martians?  CIA?  Farmers wanting revenge?  Would they kill me over a few onions?  

Unfortunately it was soon obvious that the thunderstorm had finally arrived.

So today would be a quiet day in comparison to yesterday’s Delta squad raid on the local farm.  With the rain clouds still dark on the horizon  in the morning, I knew it was going to be a full day of reading in my 4×6 tent.

Once upon a time a fire-pit full of water and a soaked wood pile, would have made me alternate between weeping and yelling in frustration until the neighbors called the cops:

But not today!  I could care less as I was dining on the breakfast of champions:

Slices of tomato layered with fresh onions is priced at about $8+ at Peter Luger’s steakhouse in NYC; the only cost for this meal was my dignity.

When done, I felt the most unbelievable sensation. I was full. So full in fact that I couldn’t finish the one onion and one tomato that I had sliced up. For a man who had once downed 60+ McDonald’s chicken nuggets in one sitting, this blew my mind. Was I dreaming? For the first time in 6 days, I was actually full. For a minute I had though that sensation was indigestion, because it was so foreign.  I likely had a bit of that as well.

Immediately afterwards I had to batten down the hatches and jump back into my tent because the heavens decided to ruin my victory parade. Looks like I’d be spending the rest of the day alternating between reading and staring at the ceiling of my tent, a full time hobby.  My family on the other hand was inside dining on a Father’s Day feast of pasta, fresh bread, ricotta and homemade cake.  That’s was ok as I only had 2 days left and enough solid food to tough it out.  At this point I’d take my situation over theirs.

I might be lying.

Soon after their dinner was over though, the sun came out and promised to give me enough time to have the first hot meal that didn’t cause me to gag (specifically mussels) in days. Today would be the leftovers from breakfast with some garlic thrown in:

Along with that I boiled an onion. There was so much food I didn’t have enough room on the grill!  Holy Cow!

It turned out to be good, so good that both grandfathers reached in and grabbed a taste.  I guess they weren’t full from dinner. I could share though; I had eaten breakfast for the first time since I started this madness and couldn’t even touch the boiled onion as it would have burst my stomach.   It seems I had breakfast for tomorrow.

Tomorrow by the way is the last day of my adventure.  Despite accusations of stupidity from my parents (and my girlfriend’s), there’s no turning back now.  I smell, I’m tired, but I’m going to make it.    

I just have to keep my eye on the prize, tough to do when the Crave is calling me.

I finished one tomato while riding my bike back, and would have another down before the night was over. I was excited. No more mussels or killies. Finally, something substantial. I almost wept surveying my bounty:

I was not the only one happy that night; my family was ecstatic. It was plain on my face all day how badly I was feeling, but they also knew there was nothing they could do about it. They were finally content that I had something, and the fact that it was all traditional Italian ingredients was not lost on me.

I could barely go to sleep, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Recipes danced through my head where sugarplums should have been.  I was gonna make it.

I finally have a goal, and formed a plan to go with it. I waited until 9 pm, so the sun would be down, and jumped on my bike with a backpack ready to collect my bounty. I described my plan to the cameraman (Mike) who came along for the ride (all videos of the operation are pretty much in the dark, so consider them audio files):

I had brought little equipment with me in order to have as much room in my bag as possible: a flashlight, used only to identify what I was grabbing (though NV goggles would have been nice), and a knife in case I needed to open any bags. Hopefully it would be enough.

The following video is a bit long, and I don’t have video editing software out here in the wilderness to break it up. It covers the operation in its entirety though:

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I will be settling up for borrowing this food when everything is over. My conscious wouldn’t let me do otherwise.

Fate had stifled every attempt I had made to get out of my current predicament, I fell into a rut. It seemed all was lost. What was I going to do now?

I decided to take a bike ride to sort things out. I was hoping a little bit of exercise would clear my mind.

I passed a farm I had seen before, and having nothing to do, decided to investigate it again. The plants were just put in, meaning there was nothing edible around. While this was nothing new, it did however reaffirm my current position:

The cursory glance had given me nothing, but having time to kill I ventured further into the farm, closer to the storehouse and shop itself. Peering around, there were people around, but nothing of interest. This appears to have been a bust as well.

Until something caught my eye. Onions! Bags of onions, hiding in a overhang! Could it be the break I desperately needed? My luck was finally turning. But there were people around, how to take them:

I decided to come back at night, those vegetables would be mine.

Oh yes they would be mine.

 It was time to kick it into high gear.

I had found what appeared to be a squirrel nest, which meant I had a chance.  Starvation and visions of red meat filled my eyes:

When you haven’t eaten anything substantial in 5 days, and even then only once every 24 hours, this would be a feast.

I circled, looking for the best point of entry.  There were about 5 of them hanging around.  I had to get at least one, right?

My aim was actually dead accurate, but my timing was off. I hit where the squirrel was, rather than where it was going to be. One inch made the difference between dinner and despair:

Having gone this far, I decided that I couldn’t just give up. I had to give it one more chance. Seeing one in the tree, I circled looking for the path of least resistance. Finally I gave another heave, praying I saw a stunned squirrel tumble out:

Instead, disaster struck. Wunderstick had broken in half, diminishing its abilities greatly. I mourned its passing:

R.I.P Wunderstick
June 10, 2008 - June 14, 2008  

Getting desperate, I searched around in another place where I knew rabbits hide, but there was nothing around. In a last ditch effort I decided to try fishing one last time, but to no one’s surprise that was a complete failure as well.

Time to cook dinner then, the usual mussels and killies.  Today I spent far more time preparing everything, hoping to make it a little more palatable; the fish were scaled, split, and gutted.

I decided that I would cook in the cast iron pan instead of boiling. Anything for a change of pace at this point:

At least there was a nice char on everything, which would hopefully make the difference between gagging and not gagging.

It looked good (relatively speaking):

But did it taste good?

If choking the whole way down is your idea of delicious, then it was a 4 star meal.  Unfortunately the spine still got caught in my throat, which meant I had to use the usually method of eating everything; pinch my nose, drink some water and then swallow everything down whole.

At least I had a little bit of energy.  I needed to do something.

Squirrel hunting.