Here I go! (At least to the garden....)

Ahem.

Ta da! I am officially unemployed--or, rather, officially employed as master (oh, eek--mistress? Really?) of ye old homestead. Wow...my first day of freedom, and I largely spent it chained to my desk, writing away at my last assignment for this semester. *sigh* I knew that it wouldn't get done early, but a gal can dream--and if I would just finish and turn it in, then I'm done until October!
In any case, I managed to get to the farmer's market this morning and did some overdue harvesting in my own sadly neglected beds just a while ago. It is so nice to have a cool day, even if the mosquitoes are ridiculous and I now reek of questionably effective herbal bug repellent. Anyway, aside from grabbing bright red tomatoes when I see them, or the occasional head of broccoli just before it blooms, I haven't been able to get much time in my garden until today. I consider this a pretty voluptuous haul for one day--a big heavy bag of potatoes, scallions, onions, several types of tomatoes, green beans, and a huge bouquet of collard greens! I brought home local bacon, chorizo & jalepeno brats from the market this morning, as well as some peppers, squash, sweet corn, goat cheese, and super-nutty bread. This is, truly, the time of year to luxuriate in the delicious food that is everywhere. (And it is yet another reminder of why those "vine ripe" tomatoes in February are simply NOT worth buying. Sorry, pet peeve of mine, and one that I always break at some point and then regret when I'm trying to swallow flavorless, pale pink, mealy tomatoes.)

This was my first time harvesting potatoes, other than my earlier adventure this spring when I felt around and pulled out some new potatoes (that were absolutely fantastic steamed with fresh peas and a little butter, salt & pepper.) I have learned several key points for next year--mainly that I need to grow them either in significantly raised beds or garbage cans so that I can keep heaping up the dirt around the plants and get a larger harvest. As it is, I need to weigh what I got from the twelve plants that were ready to harvest today--I would guess that I averaged five good sized potatoes per plant, and next time I would give them more space because the ones in the middle didn't produce as heavily as the ones on the ends that had more room to sprawl.

A few nights ago I finally got around to deadheading my calendula and echinacea in the front herb garden, which was a chore that I knew would entail a huge collection of mosquito bites and most of my evening. I was right, but it wasn't too bad, and I have a bunch of dried calendula to make into potions for Jason's eczema. The little cheapo food dehydrator that I picked up for twenty bucks at Aldi did a great overnight job at drying out the sticky flowers--which makes me excited to dry other things like tomatoes and fruit puree for fruit leathers. My garden projects are starting to creep in along the edges of our home: a countertop covered with tomatoes in the kitchen, the patio table covered in collards rinsing off in the rain, the spare bedroom closet a jungle of drying echinacea, garlic, and onions, and the garage floor covered in cardboard and curing potatoes. Now, with time to work, I am so excited to see how much food I can get cheap and fresh--whether from markets or my own garden--to put by in one way or another. How stocked and cozy this little house will feel by the time cooler weather comes!

the month that never ends

Remember back when you were a little kid and it was almost time for summer vacation? It didn't matter whether you loved or hated school--each May was an exercise in patience, no matter how successful. I can still see the windows along the side of my classroom, open as far as possible with the glimpses of green and warmth and light beckoning me outside. Months of freedom to bike ride and explore and tramp around the neighborhood with friends--just out of reach.

Not to make the obvious connection with too heavy a hand, but....


Time is acting funny these days, and even though I know that August 1 will be here before I am prepared, I feel as though I am not making any progress. Ending a business, it turns out, is as exhausting as starting one, and so my hours at the office are very off-kilter and bittersweet. The relief when this is done will be considerable--for better or worse, it will be finished and I will be able to move on ahead. I've never been good with living in limbo.

SO. Anyway. I am up to my eyebrows in library goodness these days, spending evenings immersed in ideas and plans (rather than tackling my last paper for this semester, due 7/31. Arrggh). One of the first things that I think I want to tackle, aside from the chicken situation, is a wood-fired brick oven in our backyard; it is too damn hot to bake in the house, and yet bread is easy and so much better from scratch. The separate summer kitchens of old suddenly seem perfectly reasonable in my mind, since our little house doesn't have central air. We put in a small window unit at the beginning of July that we had but never used last summer, and it is such a relief after the stifling June weather that I refuse to heat up the oven. With any luck I can convince a friend of ours who has built several ovens for himself to come over and share his wisdom--maybe in exchange for some garden overflow or another swap.

Most of the research & writing & whatnot happens in my office, tucked away at the back of the house with a view to the graceful Japanese maple out by the fence and a busy mommy robin with a nest in a low-hanging branch of the giant hackberry that dominates our backyard. Plenty of avenues for distraction, even before Colby takes up residence as a purring expanse of fur next to my laptop. I love how the boys are just around; I am never without one of my little familiars. As daunting as it seems to anticipate spending so much time at home, I should remember that I will certainly not be without company!

I think my first non-profit interview will be with a wonderful place called the Earth House Collective, since I have been there a couple of times over the past month--once for a worm composting workshop, and a week later for contra dancing (which deserves a post all its own). It is a space that is used by many other non-profits and small groups and seems like a good place to start my foray into green and progressive happenings in Indy. The collective is housed in an old church building, complete with a defunct baptismal font, dark red carpeting and a motorized chair for the elderly and handicapped that lurches alongside the stairs as you climb to the sanctuary. Ah, memories of my PK youth!

Depending on how these last few days of running an office go, this may be my last post for a bit. I want to get some pictures posted of the garden and lot, so you have a frame of reference for the space that we have to work with, but I also need to write my last paper and get through my remaining time of commuting to the burbs. Oh, and figure out a chicken coop if possible. Oy!

No turning back now!

Ok, well. I officially crossed over an invisible line last night. I ordered chicks. They will hatch on August 2 and be here shortly thereafter. I always thought my destiny would lie more along the lines of the crazy cat lady at the end of the block--but no, no. I am going to be that woman who keeps chickens.

The little puddin' to the left is a Partridge Plymouth Rock, a rare version of a classic American chicken--I mean, come on: Plymouth Rock? I also ordered a Silver-Laced Wyandotte, an Easter Egger, and an adorable little miss of the Australorp persuasion who will be boarding with me and officially belonging to my friend Amy and her four-year-old daughter, Teagan.

I am feeling pretty confident about this whole chicken venture--the public library is a beautiful, wonderful institution. If you are a reading junkie and book lover like myself, the library is the only way to indulge without needing to build an extra room on the house for books. I also tend to use it as a way of determining which volumes I really do need to own for myself. This winter, I rented a ton of chicken guides and plowed through blissfully--now many of the same are once more on their way to my local branch! It is time for a refresher!

So, why did I choose the breeds that I mentioned? I wanted hens that are winter hardy, lay a goodly number of eggs each week, have a docile temperament, don't mind being confined to a pen, and are an heirloom breed if possible. Since most heirlooms are dual-purpose birds (i.e., kept for eggs as well as meat) the trick is finding breeds that still produce enough eggs to be a logical addition to a small flock. The pretty girl above is a Silver-Laced Wyandotte, and I think she is going to be a wonderful tenant at the Hanna-Goeglein Farm.

I am interested to see how the delivery-process happens. I ordered my girls from www.mypetchicken.com because they have developed a method where they can safely ship as few as three chicks. Other hatcheries require minimum orders of 25 chicks because the babies must rely on each other's body heat to survive the trip--My Pet Chicken, however, has supplemental heat included in the packaging. The only folks who will ship chicks are those wonderful people at the USPS; somewhere around August 5th I will be receiving a call from my local post office to come pick up the peeping box they have for me! (At which point I will probably have to jump up and down a few times before composing myself and grabbing the car keys.)

I should point out that keeping chickens from a homesteading perspective is about much more than providing super-healthy eggs for our use. Chickens are also fantastic at gobbling up unwanted shrapnel from around the house and yard: kitchen scraps, weeds from garden beds, insect pests, fallen fruit from berry bushes & fruit trees, etc. Since one goal of homesteading is to be self-reliant, the chicken manure the ladies will produce is a fabulous resource for my garden--I hope it will alleviate the need to buy compost and fertilizers each year, or at least reduce the amount we purchase.

Well, this city girl is on her way--to being a chicken mama! Thanks to all of you for your kind comments and general support toward this new adventure. Mark August 5th on your calendars--I'm sure there will be some adorable photos to post!!

Reason No. 2

I didn't lie. I do want a record of this new adventure and decided therefore to blog about it. But I have another motive: my big experiment is to create an urban homestead, and by its very nature, such a lifestyle requires community. This blog, I hope can be a tool in developing that.

Self-reliance in a city is both better and worse, easier and harder, than self-reliance in a rural setting. What I will lack in physical land space, more rigid ordinances, and accessible supplies can be supplemented by living close to lots humanity--and by finding among them people of like minds. With each other as resources, we can find ways to buy less, make more, and be healthy as a people and a planet.

With that goal in mind, I have set myself an ongoing assignment: to explore the non-profits and other groups already working toward these or similar goals in the Indianapolis area and to share these places with you here. I want to talk to anyone interested in local foods, heirlooms, responsible resource use, recycling, urban homesteading, beekeeping, organic gardening and landscaping, backyard chickens, earth-friendly building and civic planning, living simply, social justice, edible schoolyards, fighting climate change, permaculture, community gardens, herbalism, walkable communities & well-planned public transportation, community art, and food preservation. I want to talk about ways in which we can do more for ourselves so that we take less from the Earth.

While I admire and participate in many of the high-tech achievements of humanity over the past century, I feel that we are losing much of the earlier knowledge that made us so wildly successful as a species. Every creature on the planet has fundamental needs: food, shelter, water, and sex. If civilized society failed tomorrow, most of us would have trouble finding anything other than sex, which is arguably the least important. I like to think it is a celebration of my humanity to learn how to take care of my own needs and those of my family.

More personally, I grew up with a mom who made us good food from whole sources, who dried the sheets on the clothesline, and preserved tomatoes and peaches each August--who made a home for us that was built upon good books, lots of laughter, music, Sunday-night popcorn dinners, and unconditional love. OK, and occasionally sitcoms, movies, and processed foods--no one is perfect! My point is that I already know that--if your basic needs are met--the good life isn't tied to wealth--I am now in the pursuit of quality over quantity.

And I really really really want chickens for the garden and the omelets. :)

A pre-inaugural hello

Well, this is new. A blog. What a weird word.

This is not, however, an official first post, because the next chapter of my life is actually still a few weeks away. I will be losing my job and going on unemployment. I will also be trying to finish a master's program in the next year while conjuring up some sort of income to fill in when the unemployment checks stop coming. This is the big tipping point. I am on the verge of the new, and it is a wild feeling, a sort of quiet avalanche of fear, excitement, panic, and impatience that threatens to take over occasionally when I contemplate what's ahead. I went back to school in order to get out of the career and industry that I've been in for the past eight years (which all started by accident) and into something that I love. Here goes.

I want a record of this process to look back upon. Hence the blogging.


I am beginning this blog with a great dearth of bloggish understanding--I don't really follow any and hope I don't make huge blunders. I have, however, always loved to write & have done a lot of it. Bear with me, please, as I learn....

My name is Maggie, and I live in a little house in the city. I am losing my job at the end of July. I am going to spend my time working on school, working on getting to know like-minded people in my community, and working to make a home. That last bit is a bit difficult to say out loud to people and not feel like some 1950's housewife or a person with suspiciously fundamentalist tendencies. But I have long held the opinion that an interest in the traditionally womanly arts and a soundly feminist perspective are not at all mutually exclusive--I think it is sad to completely sever ourselves from the skills of our grandmothers in the name of liberty. What an amazing amount of knowledge, wisdom and experience is being lost! Of course, I dare you to tell me that my world is limited to these pastimes--but I ask that you allow me to cherish them as I am able.

Well, it is late. I had meant to talk about school and flesh this all out some more, but my brain is getting foggy. I'll be back for more soon.

And, voila! First ever bit o' bloggin, done.