This House Protected by Poverty

“My heroine was the Little Red Hen. 'I will do it myself, she said, and she did.' And I did.” Recently divorced, the author puts a down payment on a piece of land and moves her young children into their new home— a singlewide trailer that has seen better times. Unable to find work, she falls back on skills learned long ago in 4-H, raising a vegetable garden, chickens, goats, sheep and pigs to feed her family. Amidst patching the roof, fixing fences and looking for a job, Mom soon learns what it means to be poor in America. She confronts society’s prejudices and unrealistic expectations with plenty of sass and backtalk. That’s when she discovers her ultimate survival tool—not a bunker stocked with canned goods and a generator, but an indomitable sense of humor. Inspired by a vision of an abundant homestead and wholesome, sustainable country living, she soon finds out that her children would much prefer to watch TV and eat boxed cereal, Top Ramen, burgers, and fries with ketchup. And the road to self-sufficiency is littered with obstacles. She becomes a human guinea pig, testing the safety net for families who fall through the cracks in the system, to see if it works. It doesn’t. But this only fuels her resolve to find a way to support her family. Life is hard and then you die, but the author takes on the challenge, turning it into an adventure, and an unforgettable journey of the heart.

Fran Ransley grew up in south central Wisconsin, and has a bachelor's degree in English from University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. She moved to California at the age of twenty-two. An award-winning poet and essayist, she participated as a writer-in-residence with the University of California Davis Bioregion Project, and has in her possession a letter from one of her literary heroes, Wendell Berry. A passionate gardener and sustainable living advocate, she lives on the homestead where she raised her children, in the foothills of Northern California's coastal mountain range.