On the verge

You know that feeling of anticipation, like being at the top of a hill on a rollercoaster about to plunge down and around, screaming with delight?

That's how I feel right now. We've been in this house nearly 5 years now. I've cleaned and scrubbed and demolished and built. I've scrubbed some more and dug up useless landscpaping that was plopped in inappropriate places. It seemed like a never ending project. While I'm sure there will always be things that need done around here I believe I've begun to see some results.

Grape cuttings waiting for the rain to stop

                             Container-grown strawberries. I am soooo looking forward to these.

                                     Asian pear trees are producing for the first time. Woo Hoo!

                                                                 Happy Rooster

                              Happy chickens. The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

           White broiler chicks. They're almost 4 weeks old and they are little white eating machines.

                   Elephant garlic and egyptian walking onions (they are related to shallots. mild and tasty).

  Black raspberry vines are covered in buds and blossoms. Last year there were just enough for a full batch of jam. This year there will be plenty to share the the CSA subscribers.

 We've hatched our own peeps this year. The yellow ones are purebred White Plymouth Rock.

 The colored ones are White Rock crossed with my best Ameraucana hens. The cross chicks are larger, more active and are developing much faster than the purebred chicks. This is an extension of the epiphany I had a while back. As we become more self sufficient we eliminate the need for external inputs. So long as I have hens and a rooster I need never buy chicken or eggs in a store again. What freedom!

Now we can call ourselves a proper CSA, with 20 shares available and deliveries starting next month. After all the hard work this is the exciting part.

I didn't get photos of the potatoes just beginning to bloom or the newly grafted apple trees. I didn't get a photo of how the front yard is being converted to edible landscape. Nope, the rain cut my celebration short.

I'm coming to the end of the initial garden creation/landscape renovation part. There will be plenty more refining and adjusting to come as I learn from my mistakes.

Take a deep breath. Here we gooooooooooooo.

L'Chaim!

To Life! I love that toast.
Here on the Not-So-Urban farm life is exploding in all its springtime glory.

The Asian pears have bloomed for the first time. Various pollinators have bellied up to the bar so we're hoping to taste sweet fruit this fall.
Mr. Man (I know, not very imaginative) has been growing bigger and bigger. He's now 8 months old and he's well aware of how beautiful he is.

Everything in the garden is growing like crazy. I planted potatoes back in February. The early planting forced me to wait patiently for green sprouts but now they are full and leafy. There's two beds each of lettuce and cabbage and a full bed of spinach. Onions, shallots, garlic, and peas are all growing well. 

New life is everywhere.

We'll start delivering for this year's CSA in Mid May with twice the variety we had last year. I'm so looking forward to seeing our friends and clients on a weekly basis again.
We have a Facebook page now. Mamas Garden on Facebook, come on over and say HI. I've been collecting some of the best Local Food/Slow Food/Urban Homesteading pages so check the left sidebar for some great pages, awesome people and latest news about good, healthy food and the people who produce it.
While you are there, post your favorite pages and links.

Now that a few warm days have brought us all back to life, what have you been doing outdoors lately? Post your links so we can cheer you on.

Unexpected but welcome

It seems most folks are either cat people or dog people. I've thought of myself as a cat person, not willing to get a dog for fear the cats would eat it.

I'm not sure which one of these characters would do the deed but I was convinced they would never tolerate a D-O-G in their house.
Then one day, about three weeks ago we spied something that made me pull off the two lane highway and stop. A dog was running frantically from one lane to the other, confused and unable to get off the road. It was pouring down rain and the little guy was not going to last long unless someone did something. My daughter and I got out of the car, convinced the traffic to stop and gathered up Mr. Cold Wet and Shaky. We checked the neighborhood to see if anyone recognized him. We placed an ad on Craigslist. We refused to give him a name because we were not keeping him.
No one claimed him. We waited.
Then...

This happened

Who knew?

So now he has a name. Meet Hamish, the mystery terrier.

We have a dog.

A Community of Faith

There is a movement in this country. It is an extension of a movement that was alive and well forty years ago, carefully preserved and nurtured like an heirloom apple tree by a small but dedicated group of urban and not-so-urban farmers/homesteaders. A few years ago this movement began to grow again. It touched something in the deep dissatisfaction many of us felt from living a suburban life where our hands were always clean and our food came in plastic.The urban homesteading lifestyle burst into the mainstream. People with little more than a postage stamp of a yard found a way to produce real food and take some control over their own diets. Those of us with a little more land took inspiration from them and incorporated some of their techniques into our own small scale farming enterprises.

But now there is a family trying to control the words we use, claiming ownership of this entire movement. It is not right and it deeply saddens me as I had admired this family's efforts. The news is all over the web. The Dervaes are laying claim to the phrase Urban Homesteading along with many other phrases that have been in use by individuals and organizations for many years. They have trademarked these phrases are are doing all they can to prevent anyone else from using them. Facebook has received "takedown" letters and many pages related to our movement are gone.

The authors of this book have found themselves unable to promote it. After all their hard work they can't even write about their own book anywhere on the web. A book that was written BEFORE the D family trademarked the phrase that is the title.

I believe we all deserve to make an honest buck, even the Dervaes. But this is wrong. I am not an articulate writer so let me offer you some links to people who do a much better job of expressing themselves.
http://www.rootsimple.com/2011/02/urban-homesteading.html

http://www.seasonsinthesoil.com/index.php/2011/02/20/how-to-destroy-your-business-and-goodwill-in-one-easy-step/

http://stitchandboots.com/home-ec/around-farmhouse/urban-homesteading-you-cant-own-who-we-are/

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/riding-fences-urban-homestead-trademark-complaints

and here is the Facebook page for Take Back Urban Homesteading.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Take-Back-Urban-Home-steadings/167527713295518

Please join if you feel offended by the Dervaes actions. The authors of this book have asked that, if you feel you'd like to help please make a donation to EFF (the organization in the 4th link from the top) so that it can continue to defend free speech and fairness on the web.

For many of us pursuing self sufficiency by growing our own food has become a spiritual activity. We've rediscovered our connection with this Good Earth. We've found that quiet place inside ourselves where our connection to a Higher Power lives and thrives. We display our gratitude by being good stewards of the soil. We also claim our independence from the domination of corporate (or D family) greed.

I personally will not be linking to or visiting any website run by the Dervaes family nor will I support their enterprises in any way.

Anticipation

It's 24 degrees outside. The roads are clear now but the ground is still covered with 4 inches of snow. The weather channel promises that the temperature will rise to 41 degrees today. AND we're supposed to get a full week of nights above freezing! Woo hoo!
Earlier this week it all looked like this.

Now I'm hovering over weather.com, waiting for the temp to rise above freezing so I can pull the row covers off the spinach and see what survived.
I can't tell you how I long for spring. Winter has always been something to "get through" for me. I'm sure this week's taste of spring will lift my spirits and have me feeling like myself again.

Carpool nightmare

Please lend me your advice. How does anyone survive a carpool? I've got girls who don't want to ride with me because I make them wear seatbelts. Hello, its the law. So they tell their moms stories so they can phenagle a ride home with a cute boy.
Sigh.
If I were rich I could just drive my child everyday myself. But I'm not so I can't.
Anyone wanna buy some fertile White Plymouth Rock eggs and contribute to the Help-Elly's-Mom-before-her-head-explodes fund?

nnnnnnnn

We Are Fully Chicken Operational

The eggs keep rolling in...update on chickens.
Last summer I purchased 25 white plymouth rock chicks with the intention of putting them all in the freezer. They grew nicely and all but one rooster gave himself up to feeding us. But then life intervened; the freezer looked like it might not last and between college and work I just plain ran out of time. The chickens received a procrastinator's pardon and they've been happily scratching up the back yard all through the fall and winter. Actually I had an alternate idea in mind. I've learned to always have a Plan B. I found the Ameraucanas weren't giving enough eggs for us and the CSA so I was hoping the White Rocks would provide.

They have really outdone themselves. The new girls began laying about 4 weeks ago. Just a few at first, little pullet eggs. But now we're collecting 10 to 12 big brown eggs every day! So yesterday I bought one of these.

Yes, okay. So I swiped that photo from a website. But its a Little Giant styrofoam incubator. Not the fanciest one on the market but I have some friends who have one and are willing to walk me through the process. I did get the egg turner, too.

Hatching chicks seems like the next step in a natural progression. But today the concept really sunk in - I could conceivably have an endless supply of meat and eggs for my family. I can cross two things off my grocery list - PERMANENTLY. Unless I get a yearning for another breed (or the unthinkable happens) I need never purchase a chicken from the store. So this is how this sustainability thing works. This is how we get off the treadmill. Oh yes, I save seeds from each harvest to plant the next year's crops. But this is much more tangible.

And very, very satisfying.