So, um, you're doing...what?

This is the "page" entitled "The Wherefore" in the column to the left--I wanted to explain a little more about why I'm doing all of this DIY business.  So, here are my thoughts:

 

I am sitting in my back yard, listening to the breeze in the tree branches and the peeps peeping in their pen.  It is a gorgeous Fall day of warm sunshine and cooler temperatures; the garden is quiet and green-yellow-brown and the world seems unutterably lovely.  Fat, floppy butterflies keep wafting by.  It is noon on a Thursday.  Shouldn't I be at work?


I am 33, unemployed, living in a house that I don't own, racking up student loans for a master's degree, I am legally single and entirely childless, I haven't contributed to my paltry 401K in two years, I don't have cable, and I live in a two-person household that only owns one car.  A small one.  I didn't eat cow, pig, or chicken for almost a decade.  I get irrationally angry with people spraying their driveway weeds with Round-up, and I once got teary at the sight of a wind farm.  Someone called me a hippie in a derogatory way last month, and it had nothing to do with patchwork skirts, dreadlocks, or BO.  Although, come to think of it, I am barefoot right now & haven't combed my hair yet today.  Uh oh. 

And now I am blogging about chickens and some intangible thing called urban homesteading (which, my overly-talkative neighbor must be thinking, is probably socialism with a new coat of paint).  Do you really want to know more about such a weirdo?  Aren't you worried that the children might come across one of my posts and go running out to join the Peace Corps?  Well watch out:  I hope that they do.  At the risk of embracing the hippie slur, come on people now, smile on your brother....  OK, OK, I'll stop.

The concept of urban homesteading is fairly simple--homesteading, or working to provide what you need from your own land (however you define own,) done in the middle of a city (ok, fine:  or suburb) rather than in a rural setting. There are obvious limitations to urban life that affect how viable it is to attempt self-sufficiency--and to be honest, the goal is to increase self-reliance (which is possible) rather than to be fully self-sufficient (which is neither possible nor desirable.) There are all sorts of common, ordinary ways to increase your ability to fend for yourself:  grow a garden, make compost, harvest rainwater, keep bees, cook, bake, sew, become a handy-person, collect well-made tools.  Find ways to reuse what you have rather than buying something new.  Be crafty.  Be frugal.  Be kind and build yourself some community.

Why?

There are lots of reasons why buying less and making more is a good choice (wow, I can hear the economists sharpening their knives & picking up their stones as I type this).  The biggest impetus for me is also the least tangible:  it feels satisfying and deeply human.  The whole point, after all, is to dig into this life in a manner that makes you feel worthwhile and alive.  I ran across a fantastic quote the other day by Howard Thurman:

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

...and there we are.  Finding ways to do it myself, to close the loop a little, makes me feel alive.

However, there are more concrete reasons for this exploration as well, ranging from the practical to the frugal, the ecological to the apocalyptic. Here are my thoughts on the first two of these--in the interest of length, I'll post the last two as a "part two" so it doesn't take all evening to muddle through my lecturing!

The Practical:

This is a simple one.  If you enjoy being outside (and particularly in the Spring, who doesn't?), then with some good planning, a small garden can provide you with great food without a ton of bother or time.  Honestly.  Good dirt, a soaker hose, a deep mulch, and some plants that like your area will only require you to turn on the spigot occasionally and remember to grab your harvest on your way to cook dinner. There are tons of books and websites out there for your winter reading--check out my reading list for some of my favorites, if you'd like.

Or what about healthy food?  Pre-packaged processed foods are going to be the death of us--it doesn't take brilliance to see that.  And yet cooking from scratch is so impractical, right?  Well, yes.  Sometimes.  But what if you set aside a cooking weekend with family or friends; what if cooking is a labor of love that you try to make fun?  Again, with some thoughtful planning, you can make and freeze easy, easy dinners for the many times no one feels like cooking.  It kills me to buy an organic frozen burrito for $3.99 or whatever, when there is a little voice in the back of my head reminding me that if I had just made a few extra the last time we had a Mexican dinner night & frozen them,I wouldn't be plunking down four bucks for something less tasty now.  Crockpots are beautiful things for busy cookers as well--not to mention how the house smells by midafternoon.  Another essential tool is sitting down and summoning the discipline to plan a weekly menu and grocery list.  I am lucky if I remember to do this--and yet it simplifies everything when I do!

The Frugal:

Frugality is a lost art, but more importantly it is a means to an end.  The less that you have to fork over in cash to live happily, the less you are dependent upon procuring more cash.  [--And from what I have read, it seems that as you become a more accomplished wizard of the homey arts, the more you are able to make money, if you choose, from the abundance of your garden, your hands, your time, your heart.]

I was in my herb garden the other day, realizing the money I have saved by starting perennials from seed last spring.  I have ten echinacea purpurea plants and two echinacea augustifolia plants, a hyssop, and several clumps of native monarda that will be blooming and vigorous next summer.  The seeds were $2.50 per packet.  Healthy, sizeable perennials are, what, $5-$20 per pot, depending?  There is the hidden expense of the greater difficulty of starting some perennials, not to mention the time spent nursing the babies all spring (which is better than Prozac, actually, for my winter blues and cabin fever)--and yet this is still one less reason to be in an office, working for a paycheck.

I am learning to look at being frugal as a way of paring away excess, of working to have a less cluttered life with fewer impersonal tugs on my emotions by marketers, and of being given the urge to more honestly prioritize where I spend money.  I am kind of amazed to say that I haven't been in a Target since the middle of June, at least according to my bank records--but I know at least one reason is that I've learned I can't go in there without spending a bunch of money on cheap crap that will be in the trash sooner rather than later. The Target people get me, and so I've been avoiding them.

Which, of course leads to the Ecological, and "Part Two."  I'll be back with that tomorrow....

Aack! Falling off the Blog Wagon....

OK.  I am starting my New Years Resolution today, which is to be a more frequent blogger (not that I actually make NY resolutions, but...).  I will say to my credit, however, that harvest time is a busy time for everyone--particularly the local foods people I would like to be interviewing.  And then there is my own garden to consider.  Two words:  green beans.  Good lord.

I also need to get over my blogging perfectionism--there is no grammatical firing squad with itchy trigger fingers waiting for me to click "publish post."  I vow to stop being so neurotic and start just writing and sharing what's going on in my world.

Applesauce!  Canned!  Woo hoo!

I have been busy with all sorts of tasks and visitors, whether homesteading-related or not, and I am leaving this afternoon for a week-long residency for school.  This is the last big event on my calendar for a while, thankfully, and I can't wait to be back and ready to dive into the many projects sitting around our house in various stages of completion.  The interim chicken coop will be replaced by the permanent one.  The cold frames will be built.  The berry bushes planted, and the saved seeds stored away for the spring.  I will be better about taking pictures during these projects so you can see my processes.  My nonprofit interviews will be scheduled--in ink--and the related blog posts will ensue.  I will build a picnic table, and the rain barrels will be completed.  The crawl space will be converted to a root cellar.  The knitting and Christmas projects will commence.  And, damn it, I am going to make cheese.

What?  Um, well, of course.  Yes, there is a good chance that life will get in the way of a few of these projects.  I can still dream, right?

The temporary coop--gotta love pallets!

 I will say, however, that I have been quite successful in some arenas around the house, especially in the kitchen.  I have virtually stopped buying bread products and am instead baking them at home.  Sandwich bread, hamburger and hotdog buns, flatbread, tortillas, and crackers--and yes, organic, whole-grain homemade is cheaper and wonderfully better.  Even better, I am continually improving my management of the refrigerator--the amount of food that we throw away or compost has significantly decreased, a feat of which I am quite proud.  It is such an awful feeling to buy healthier organic (and pricey!) items and then find yourself throwing them away, intact and moldy, a week or two later.  I am beginning to feel as though I am truly managing my household, rather than having it manage me.  My house and I are developing our rhythm.  Progress!

I have also become a Craigslist and Freecycle enthusiast.  [A more limited income pitted against unlimited projects requiring raw materials will do that to a girl!]  In the process of meeting and swapping stuff with these strangers, I find myself delighted and reassured that people are basically good, kind, and worthwhile--something I easily forget.  How, after all, can we sustain consuming less and fighting the environmentally-good fight if doing so results in feelings of isolation and insurmountable odds?  People do care...and then they give you free lumber for the chicken coop and cut you a fabulous deal on berry bushes.  We shall overcome.  Never fear.

And so, off to school I go.  These residencies never fail to grace me with a renewed sense of purpose and a deep gratitude for the opportunity to know these people, learn these beautiful concepts, and be given the chance to go out and put it all into action.  How good to know:  I am where I need to be.  (And I come bearing very tasty crackers!)

Making hay while the sun shines....

Buckwheat, shortly after sprouting

One of the unexpected lessons of my garden this summer has been the ins & outs of a funny little tri-cornered grain called buckwheat.  Those of us who like our breakfast foods fried on a griddle probably know of buckwheat pancakes, while the organic gardeners amongst us know of buckwheat as a quick cover crop which excels in loosening poor soil, crowding out weeds, and making nutrients available for future plants.  I planted a row in the garden last spring when I just couldn't face the idea of digging and working one more inch of ground in preparation for more finicky vegetable plants.  I planned (operative word) to follow directions and cut it down before it went to seed, then plant warmer weather stuff in its place.

A flowering jungle of buckwheat and bees.

If you are convinced that you have a black thumb...plant some buckwheat.  No, really.  It should be a poster-child for instant-gratification-gardening.  The seeds sprout within days, and the plants zip through their entire lifecycle (seed to seed) in 6 weeks.  (Attention chicken owners:  the girls are enormous fans of the sprouts!)  The white flowers aren't big or exceptionally pretty--but the pollinators adore them, and your garden will thank you.  If the soil-prep and pollination help aren't enough to convince you, there is one more gift from the buckwheat plant:  you get hay out of the deal in the end, if you'd like!

I would love to claim that I planned from the beginning to plant buckwheat and harvest the hay for winter bedding for my flock, but when I planted that original row, I had no idea that I would be unemployed & a chicken-wrangler by the end of the summer.  Rather then pulling the buckwheat and using that bed for veggies, I let the plants self-sow freely (due to lazy gardening, primarily, although this was easily rationalized as I watched the bees happily humming among the flowers).  Much to my surprise, this accidental crop will save me at least a few dollars in purchased litter for the girls and allows me--albeit in a small way--to close my homesteading loop just a little more.  One more way to provide for our needs without leaving home!  Hurray!

Drying the hay

While the plants pull up easily, I quickly found that cutting them off at the ground eliminates getting a bunch of dirt mixed in with the plant material--and leaves a little of the goodness to decompose back into the soil.  I piled up the buckwheat on a tarp to dry, occasionally taking my garden rake and flipping it over to expose it all to the sun.  And then, I got an old plastic tub and some garden twine and made a bale!  I positioned two pieces of twine across the width of the tub and one across the length, anchoring the ends underneath the tub to hold the twine in place.  Then I compressed as much of the hay as I could into a roughly rectangular bundle, dumped it in the tub, and stepped on top to crush it.  I repeated this until the tramped-down-hay reached the top of the tub, tied the twine tightly, and lifted out the bale (with a great deal of pride!)

Who knew this was so easy?

I ended up with two bales roughly 3'x1.5'x1.5'--and if I had been focused on cutting the hay every six weeks all summer, I am sure I could have easily tripled that amount on a 4'x18'  garden row, if not much more...another thing to track and measure next year!  In the meantime, I have a cheap & easy source of fresh green appetizers for the chickies all winter--now that I know how easily buckwheat sprouts.  Maybe next summer I'll try to harvest some of the grain and we'll have those buckwheat pancakes after all....

Foraging Part Deux

Ok, need to work out the glitches of my technical ability here--the picture of the apples was sent from my phone with the intention to add text later.  That is not proving to work out well, so here we are!

I had never considered the role that foraging might play in my urban homesteading adventures--to be honest, it sounds a little like dumpster-diving to me, and I am not ready to go there.  I appreciate the ethic, and I know first hand how much completely pristine stuff gets tossed from grocery stores daily or weekly, but I am just not ready to start pulling food out of dumpsters.  --and my family & friends give a huge, collective sigh of relief-- The chickens are already giving me a reputation.  To my possible future offspring:  sorry, kids, I am going to be an embarrassment when you are in middle school.

And then I walked by an apple tree with a friend the other day.  Said apple tree is right around the corner from our old place, on the route to a nearby walking trail, gym I used to frequent, local foods produce stand, and several good diners--I've been by this apple tree a lot.  And every Fall, the apples all rot on the ground and generally get waspy and nasty.  All of this info, of course, is one big excuse for picking a few even though no one was home.  (Ahem.)  Not sure if this counts as theft, and from now on I will make greater efforts to ask first, but I am not feeling much guilt.  It doesn't help that I've recently read how many old, ignored apple trees are dotting the country, still faithfully producing from a generation ago when people were more interested in growing their own foods.  Just waiting to be discovered.  By me.  Around the block from my old place....

Now here's the strange part:  these apples had quite a renegade aura to them.  When was the last time that you ate free food?  Food that no one paid for.  Not a gift, not something made from scratch out of purchased ingredients, not a potluck dinner paid for by a church or group--not even a homegrown head of lettuce from a purchased packet of seeds.  This was anarchy in a small, shiny red globe.  It felt like arriving at college and not having a curfew--washing and admiring and biting into that apple, breaking the rules.  I expected it to be wormy, for there to be a nasty surprise with that first bite...and no, just pure white flesh, red skin, the usual.  But with the added flavor of flipping off the Corporate-Food Man.  Wow, delish.

So, I looked up urban food foraging.  Found a great online map locating different accessible fruit trees, berry patches, nut trees, etc on a website--for the Portland area.  *sigh* Why does the Pacific Northwest get this stuff so many light years ahead of the Midwest??  Huh??  So, I will be making my own personal map, or at least making a mental note when I see a sidewalk covered in walnuts, or another fruit tree that is so obviously neglected.  I might throw out to the craigslist/freecycle world an offer of cleaning up the fallen mess under the tree in your front yard in exchange for whatever usable produce I can lug away.  I know that you can make cider and vinegar out of apples you wouldn't want to eat...hmmmm....

In other quick news:  the chickens are the size of small pigeons now, and they are a handful.  They have officially grown big enough to love food scraps, particularly the remains of tomatoes and leftover cooked spaghetti.  The spaghetti looks enough like worms to create an enormous amount of peeping and begging--and the one that gets the first "worm" immediately is chased all around the pen by the rest.  I am still working on balancing free time with hawk-protection, but I have to say that there is nothing quite like gardening with the girls.  They are hilarious, and while I'm harvesting beans above, they are happy to scoop up any bugs living below.  Good times, good times.

Craigslist and freecycle have yielded more fantastic finds--we went this morning and picked up five 2yr old blueberry plants, two blackberry plants, and a grapevine--for $34.  The guy also gave me some organic fertilizer and an old chicken waterer for no charge.  The plants are big and extremely healthy--this is, by far, the deal of the garden so far!  We also picked up some free wood from another person this morning, managing to contort everything into fitting in the Honda.  Productive morning, for $34 and a bit of gas money!

And now, to get outside and enjoy this gorgeous day.  Happy Sunday to everyone!