"Urban Farming" ... Good Memories

My daughter and I have been talking about our "urban farm" in the middle of the city, and having a laugh because giving a title to our endeavors would never have accured to us.  When we moved into a beautiful 1906 farmhouse with a quarter acre that once owned  miles of land between a freeway and an old highway,  our excitement mounted to learn about it's past.  This was pretty easy since only one family had owned the house (grandparent then the grandson and he was 70+ years).

The house was three stories with the fireplace going up the middle with built in shelves on either side, with a plate rail going around the room, paneling below done like frames.  We painted them eggshell and put cream with little blue flour above, it looked very period.  The porch on the front was so deep (5 ft) and ran the whole front of the house with 4 river rock pillars, we spent a lot of time sitting out there on a swing.  When this house was built, it had no bathroom, no modern sink with plumbing, a wood cooking stove (because there was a metal plate in the wall for a vent into the chimney) and no inside stairs to the basement. All was added by the grandson; the bathroom was a small narrow room, the wall behind the sink was cut out to make room for the kitchen sink and stairs were cut into the floor of a walk in closet.  She was a beaut!

In the backyard was a very big shed with windows down one side.  We decided to get chickens, 7 of them.  We found some one that sold fertilized eggs so we bought equipment to hatch them and had the good luck to have every one survive.  Our daughter loved hearing the peeping and watching the hatch.  We did not think of city ordinances and our neighbors loved to watch them.  Much later we found out the the laws allowed 3 (which is more now).  We rescued the old garden with the richest, blackest  soil and dandelion roots that were huge and multiple. We ate very well from that garden all summer.  I didn't have a compost pile but practiced trench composting all winter and fed scraps to the chickens in the summer.

We did all this without the intense library one can have or the internet (it didn't exist yet),  we learned as we went along and found advice at the feedstores.  There is so much information now I might have been scared off.  Anyway that how we started.

Chicken Keeping

Note to self  . . .  an easy and lighter way to move chickens to exactly where you want them:
Poultry Schooner @ Living the Frugal Life

Looks like a good design and easy to use, deep shade could be added with a small tarp at one end.

Thoughts on Life

I came across an article on self-sufficiency and a book review.  Amazing how close to my thoughts and beliefs, like mind reading. In a Countryside magazine article (jan/feb, 2010), regarding Jd Belanger's new book "he admonishes people to think of their frugal lifestyles as a business", "a business must be more efficient and less wasteful than a hobby, self sufficient living cannot tolerate waste". It's an "investment in a minimalist lifestyle  that can be just as profitable as investments in the stock market".  The Complete Idiot's guide to Self-Sufficient Living.  Definitely will get this book.  I am not a complete beginner, but being self taught in most areas of gardening and animals, a library of books for reference  is important.  Jd Belanger has been writing about homesteading for 30 years, that's a lot of knowledge.

'voluntary simplicity' . . . . .  I like the way it sounds!

I have kept track of eggs gathered per day, food bought, the few dozen sold to a neighbor and the year the chicks were bought. Should have also kept track of the dozens given away to family, and the price of the chicks.  It wasn't hard, I kept a paper for counts on the side of the fridge.  We also kept track of expenses for 4H horses, considered as part of the responsibility of the kids projects each year.  For home schooled kids, this is great for math lessons (gardening and animals), even the youngest can help with counting, weighing, writing the numbers, etc. Real life math makes more sense. While in high school and not understanding algebra, switching to bookkeeping saved my grade point average.  A light went off (in my head!), 'this is algebra', it made sense because of real life applications.  I feel that kids are not helped to understand why they must know math, especially in high school.