First Market of the Season!

If you ask me, it's not really summer until we get to go to the Markets downtown again. I was spoiled when we lived in Germany. We had access to the Marktplatz twice a week and they had everything you could imagine. Eating healthy and in season was quite easy. Even meats and breads and cheeses could be got there.

The Martkplatz we visited when we lived in Hanau, Germany. 

The States isn't quite the same. Some markets in some very urban areas are like this, running year round or mostly year round with a wide assortment of goodies. Some sell raw milk, cheeses, butters, pastured meats, etc. Ours isn't like that, and the first month or so, there's not a lot to be had, but hey, it's still a farmer's market and the more we go, the more vendors will see there is business to be had! 

Besides I love getting up on Saturday, enjoying some homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee, then walking downtown with the kids to hang out at the market, get some veggies for the week, and then head to the library for some quiet time. Very nice and relaxed way to spend your Saturday morning. 

But even though our market isn't what I was spoiled on overseas, I know something. I know that Family farms need our support! Family farms have a hard time getting in the biz now that big Ag has taken over. Used to be, you could find corner shops that sold local produce, but they've been put out of business by the likes of Walmart and other large chains stores. And why not? I mean, you can get food so much cheaper there right? But if we could spend half our budget at local farmers markets, you'd be surprised the impact that it makes. Its giving those farms a fighting chance and they need it! 

You know, one reason I like to shop farmers markets is that one, you can find organic food cheaper. Two, even the stuff that's not organic, it's got less pesticides on it, than something from a giant field that is sprayed every week no matter what. Most hobby farms that spray only do so when necessary, and because there's more biodiversity, the need is less than a farm with one food growing, like say, corn. 

Also, the backyard farmer doesn't have access to GMO seeds. They might be using hybrids, which aren't seed savable, but they don't grow GMO. 

There's several things I hope to accomplish by taking our family to the market every week. 

My four children, on our way to the market this morning. 

Give my kids a sense of real food. 

For the last 10 years, our family has lived close enough to the city and it's offerings to walk. We used to walk to a local fast food joint for lunch, then hit up the store for a few days worth of groceries and then head back home. We've changed this routine to hitting up the farmers market for healthy foods, then hitting up the library for healthy "brain food."What I'm after is to associate healthy foods with "being happy". I grew up thinking being on a diet was the normal way of life. That everyone had to be on a diet, all the time because food was the enemy. But it doesn't have to be. Real food is good for you, including things like butter and cheese. 

Let the kids know where their food comes from. 

You know, I see it all the time working around children. There is a real disconnect in where our foods actually come from. My kids were horrified to learn how the meat is made that we use for say....spaghetti night. But I reassured them, its a natural process and that it can be humane, it doesn't have to be like you see with a Feed Lot and slaughter house. 

It really hit home for me when a child I know was grossed out by the thought of food growing in the ground and covered in dirt. I mean really? How did this child think our food was grown? They couldn't answer me but to say indignantly "You get it at the store". YIKES! No, it's grown in the ground, but they just wouldn't have it.

I want my kids to know who's growing their food!

You know, we do grow a lot here, but we only have room for so much. I can't grow everything. Of course, I can't buy everything local either, we can't get milk, cheese, butter, wheat, other grains (unless we want GMO corn), and some things like asparagus and other "not so widely used" veggies and fruits. But what we don't grow, I try to buy downtown. Getting to know our food suppliers is pretty important so we know what practices they use. 

Introduce new and healthy foods that they'll like. 

Getting kids to eat new foods can be challenging, and if we're downright honest, kids can be very picky eaters. I mean, kids crave stability and routine. They need to know that they're loved, and what to expect on a daily basis. Hell, adults need this as well if you get right down to it. But kids just aren't equipped emotionally yet to deal with daily changes, and introducing new foods can be a huge roadblock. One thing you can do is to let them pick something out that week. Then you can take it home and show them how to cook it. There are also plenty of cooking books at your local library if you're unsure how to cook a new food. We all start somewhere right? 

Saturday mornings are no longer reseverd for cartoons and laying around. 

This is what my morning lineup looked like.

Well not for my kids. The 1980's saw some serious changes to our society in the form of consume more, do less, and all with more convenience. Fast food chains really took off and it was quite common for everyone to have a tele and a other modern appliances in their homes. Now, it's unheard of for these things not to be found in homes. 

Instead of letting my kids lay around and veg out (without the veggies I might add) on Saturday mornings with all sorts of crazy cartoons, we get out, get a good walk in and become more active in our food procurement. And don't feel sorry for my kids :) They get plenty of cartoons, but weekends are family time. 

Voting with their dollars. 

One of the most important things we can do, every single day, is to vote with our dollars. If we want healthy, home grown food, without pesticides and without GMO, the best way to let Big Ag know is to spend your money on those foods, and not spend it on processed crap you find in the grocery store. The more dollars you spend locally, the more stays locally and that's good for you and your community.

Homestead Barn Hop

Sustainable City Living

It seems oxy-moroninc doesn't it? How can anyone be self sufficient in the city? The plots are tiny, most homes don't have a sustainable heat source, or water source, livestock is usually regulated with a heavy municipal hand.

I know. Boy do I know. And it's why I want my 50 acres, with a cabin in the woods. I mean, that's the idea right? Dairy cows, a couple of sows for piglets, lots of land for a giant garden......its the dream most of us have, I get it. But you know what? As I've shown you in other posts, you don't have to have 50 acres and a cabin in the woods to be a homesteader. Sometimes, life gets in the way of our biggest dreams and you'll need to bloom where you're planted. Me? Im in the city right now, and that's not going to change within at least the next two years.

And believe it or not, there are some serious benefits to living in the city. When we decided to get chickens, I simply walked the 1.5 miles to our library and checked out a few books on backyard chicken keeping. When I do need to get something at the store I can't grow (like flour) then I simply walk in the other direction 1 mile and hit up our local store. Don't be shy, bike the distance if it's too far! This really saves some fuel costs, which we know are ever rising!

You actually can be quite self sustainable in the city if you plan it it right! Like, really self sustainable believe it or not. And here's how.

1. Learn everything you can about your bioregion. 

What's a bioregion you ask? Great question, I had to look it up too. It's basically your region that's separated by the environment and it's characteristics, not by manmade structures. So ours include the Rocky Mountains, the Sandhills and a couple of rivers. This puts us in a river basin right in the middle of the North Platte and South Platte Rivers, so our soil is much different from just 25 miles either north or south of us.

Not only do you want to learn about your environment, but you want to learn about local laws. Some great questions to ask are:
Can you have backyard livestock? (Chicken/Rabbits/Goats/Ducks/etc)
Can you harvest rainwater?
What do you need to do to put up outbuildings like a coop?
What restrictions on where you can plant food?

Some cities like mine are pretty lax. We have no limit on backyard fowl, but of course, I don't want a chicken farm, Im just aiming for feeding our family. We have no limits on food production, other than blocking traffic views because we live on a corner lot. We are allowed to harvest our rainwater in barrels too, and our building permits allow us to put up sheds/etc without a permit as long as it's smaller than a certain size.

Observation is going to be the key in this first step. And write it all down too! Don't be like me, and think "Hey, I can remember that!" only to forget a week later. You never know where your journey will take you, so even things you think you might not need to know now, you might want to know for later.

2. Grow your own food. 

Growing your own food, is probably one of the most important things you can do as an urban homesteader. As urbanites, we have to get creative when we grow food. Think UP. Not just OUT. Vertical containers, hanging planters, ladder boxes, anything you can come up with to grow up and not out. This year we're growing pole beans. Even though they're a bit slower than bush beans, because it allows me to trellis the beans UP and plant something under that trellis instead of taking up precious space in the garden. 

I've seen strawberries in planters, tomatoes in containers, herbs and spices in boxes and baskets on a porch. You are not limited to places you can till up. Don't use your driveway because you bike/walk everywhere? Turn it into a garden with containers and raised beds. You're going to surprise yourself with how much food you can grow in a small space. I know I did. As long as you provide adequate dirt depth, almost anything can grow well in a container. 

3. What you can't grow, buy local. 

You know have heard me say this before. "Source what you can't grow". And honestly, I can't say it enough. There's no argument that organically grown food is healthier than food grown in a hothouse with pesticides, (think winter strawberries) or that farm fresh chicken eggs are better than what you get in the store. If you have any doubts about this, Netflix, Amazon and youtube are all chock full of documentaries that will open your eyes about the nature of our food industry. 

Not only is buying local and organic better for you, but it's better for your bioregion too. There are farmers markets, local farms that open their doors to the public, CSA's, the list goes on. Local Harvest is a great place to start if you need to find food close to you. 

They say that the dollars that are spent locally have three times the impact than the dollars you spend at big chains. This means that when you buy local, you create and help sustain jobs, you help your city and it's outreach with the city tax dollars collected from those sales, and you are voting on how you want to live and eat with that dollar. 

4. Raise some backyard animals! 

You wouldn't believe the amount of help you can get from just a few chickens or rabbits. We have six chickens. They free range on about 450 sq ft of our backyard (this includes the coop footprint) and the compost pile is back there too for them to dig through. This means I don't give them feed. They eat how nature intended, which by the way is free for me. The exception to this is when the ground is completely frozen and then I do give them a homemade feed. 

Now because I love my chickens, I give them some scratch and treats. They love a good cucumber and seriously, they are pecking the seeds out before I've laid it on the ground for them. I also give them a bit of our homemade feed in the summer time, about a handful that's thrown on the ground as scratch for them, just to kind of round out the diet and make sure they get what they need. And if you haven't seen home grown eggs, let me tell you, they're superior. f

Then there is the bedding and droppings. That goes straight into a second compost pile (not the one they eat from!) to compost into some seriously rich fertilizer for the garden. Chicken and rabbit droppings are coveted to the backyard homesteader because it's abundant and perfect for the garden.  

This brings me to number 5......

5. Compost, compost and compost some more. 

I cannot express enough how much your homemade compost is going to benefit your gardening. Its a way to amend your soil (clays, etc) and it's a way to put back into the earth vital nutrients so that you can grow more in a smaller space (think intensive/square foot gardening) and do so every year without letting any land sit fallow. 

Check out our guide on how to compost and get started today! 

6. Re-discover why the kitchen is considered the hearth of the family home. 

The kitchen is the place to be in my home. There's always some magic or another going on in there. Learning to cook what you grow, eat and cook seasonally and preserve your bounty are key ingredients in self-sustainablity. If you can't cook well, or don't know how to preserve food, start by taking a class! If you can't find classes, let me tell you, the internet is your friend, or visit your local library for books on how-to. Find a friend and learn together! 

Cooking what you eat not only saves you money on food, but will save you money down the road because you'll be healthier and happier. You'll be surprised at what you can do at home. Cheese, wine, artisan breads, they're all something you CAN do at home. With the right resources you can actually achieve almost total grocery store independence, even in the city. 

Freezing, dehydrating and canning are all great methods of persevering your foods. Whether you've grown them yourself or you found a local market or CSA for them. If you have extra, don't waste it! Americans waste almost 40% of the food we buy, and most of it is fresh foods like produce.  Preserve it! What you cannot preserve, feed to your backyards animals and what you cannot feed them compost. Don't let anything go to waste!

And lastly: 

7. Take charge of your energy and water resources. 

Its a common misconception that living in the city is energy heavy because well, in the country, you have room for a clothes line, and a wood stove, and a well....

Well it's simply a myth. If you plan it right, you can really reduce your energy expenditures. And when you need less energy, you're more self-sustainable. Start by sealing up your home. Re-caulk your windows, make sure your ductwork is insulated etc. Then make sure you're insulated. By this I mean, learn to live with the heat down in the winter and the AC up in the summer (or if you can tolerate it, turn off the AC). We turn our heat on about 62° or 63° in the winter. Yes, it's chilly. But that can be fixed with a sweater. We keep our AC off in the summer and only turn on it if reaches 100°+ and then we only turn it on at night so we can sleep. 

Next, try to find some sources of energy. You can put in a passive solar hot water heater, an outdoor bread oven solar dehydrator, and use the sun to dry your clothing. 

Spending just a couple hundred on three or four 55 gallon rainwater barrels (or see if you can find free giveaways!) will go a long way to helping you achieve water independence. We're lucky enough to live with a well on our property, but just putting barrels under the chicken coop, garage and house would yield us quite a bit of rainwater for watering animals and the garden. 

All of these things will go so far in helping you become more self-sustainable and leading a more energy efficient lifestyle. And best of all they are things can be done where you are in life. Even in an apartment, you can grow food on your own balcony or windowsill, reuse gray water for watering your plants, preserve food from your container garden or farmers market, bike and walk as your main mode of transportation, and even have a small compost pile in a rotating bin if you wanted. 

It only take some time and planning to get started and then once you do, you're well on your way! 

Happy Homesteading! 

Backyard Chicken Coop

It started back in January with sneaking around town in the dead of night, foraging for pallets left out by dumpsters. I had to be quick, and tricky, because around here, its first come first serve and you better be there before the sun comes up if you want free wood.

Larger brooder box inside the actual coop. 

I managed to score about 30 pallets, and I was going to tear down our metal shed and put up a wooden chicken coop large enough to house 12 hens, though we only are starting with six. Then hubby came up with the genius idea of converting the shed! If we put enough windows/vents in it, our chickens won't roast during the day in the metal. What a lifesaver! That right there saved me hours of work. So we got right to work on the conversion!

The first thing I did was to build a bigger brooder box. As you can see I simply cut some pallets in
half to achieve this, and gave them a floor (one of the pallets had a piece of plywood attached, and I just reused that). I stapled a piece of hardware cloth over the top of it on one side the other side was left "free" so we could get in and out of the box. This worked really well and the really cold nights, I just took a blanket and covered 3/4 of the top of the box to help keep the heat in. This brooder box is going to stay outside in the coop so if we ever get more chicks, we have a place to put them.

Metal doors are off, chicken run is framed out and you can see just how
much pallet wood I managed to score. 

I took off the metal doors, mainly because they didn't work right. They had plastic slides that were "keeping them in the track at the top" which I'm using the word "keeping" loosely here. The doors had certainly seen better days. Not only that I wanted something that I could close up at night and in the summer, still give them some air. So I came up with the dutch style doors.

The run was the hardest part because figuring out exactly how big to make it, where it would go, etc. was time consuming. Once we did that, it wasn't too bad. Just screwed the wood together with big wood screws (which you can find at any home improvement store).

We took the pallets and use them lego style (just fitting them together) and basically built walls inside the metal shed. This gave us something to screw to for the nesting boxes, ladder etc, and will also give us some insulation through the winter as our winters here get pretty cold.

Chicken run extends out from the coop and also encloses the compost pile.
They use the pile to forage for scraps and bugs. 

Simple nesting boxes being held up with pallets and a single piece of plywood along the bottom. I am now using the
portion under it for 2 large containers, one for un-used bedding and one for our homemade feed. 

Next on the list was to make the nesting boxes. We needed at least one, but I made two anyway. We already have chicks using them both for just hanging out in, so apparently two was the right choice. Some people think you need one for each chicken. Well you can do that if you want, but know that they'll probably only use a few of them, depending on how many you have. Honestly, I haven't figured out why this is. But growing up, at one point we had two chickens and 8 nesting boxes in the coop. They both used the same nesting box every day.

I also made a simple ladder from the pallet wood that serves as a way up and down for them. They can get to both nesting boxes quite easily this way.

Simple window system with a wooden board for propping open. 

Windows. They definitely need some windows. In fact, I might have fabric set aside for curtains.


You can see the one here, there's a matching one on the other side, and soon we'll be putting in a vent in the top to help with the heat build up in the summer. The window was pretty simple. I just took a drill, drilled a hole in the corner, then used tin snips to go around where I'd marked the window to be. Next we used pallet wood to "frame out" the window by simply screwing two pieces together with like a sandwich with metal in the middle. This gave us something to attach the window hinges to, and also kept the sharp metal from being exposed. The window is a simple thing that's just four pieces of wood screwed together with L-brackets and then I used a piece of acrylic  as the "window" part. I got this acrylic at my local home improvement store for six dollars. Cheap and it won't break if we get any hail. Which you know we will. I also have a piece of pallet wood that we're using as a prop to open the window with. I might put in a hinge system later on, for now the wood is working.

Dutch style doors offer protection from predators at night but also give a way to add in some ventilation. 

The last thing to do was the doors. This was the most difficult for me, because I had to build two of them from scratch. So first thing I did was to frame out the sides of the coop door way with wood. This gave a bit more structure to the frame for the doors to have something to hang on to. Next I just built the doors. I first made a rectangle from 1x4's that was as tall as the doorway and half the length of the doorway. I didn't get all fancy with mitering corner or anything. i just overlapped the top middle and bottom pieces over the right and left pieces. I didn't measure the middle piece, I just put it where I thought it looked good. Then I used plywood and measured out a piece to go in the bottom portions of each door. Then I just screwed it in. I did the same thing for the top, but these pieces I used hinges and put on the outside of the door so they open. On the inside, I just stapled chicken wire to help keep out other animals. Then I just used simple hinges to attach the doors to the frame of the shed. Just used nuts and bolts and drilled a hole, and screwed it right in. Viola! We have doors.

So then I noticed, how do I shut these and keep them shut? Hubby came up with the idea of an old style latch system like you see in the picture. I just used scrap wood, screwed it together in an L shape and then attached it to the door frame. Then you can use a piece of wood long enough to go into both of them and covered the middle of the door, thusly keeping it shut!

And now we have a chicken coop! And the chickens are happy.

Grow enough to feed your family for a year!

So in our last post we discussed 5 different ways that you could homestead wherever and whenever in your life that you're currently at. These were the things that every single one of us can do. I wanted to go a bit into depth on some of the issues we talked about, because simply saying "grow your own food" yeah, that's all nice and whatnot, but it can really be overwhelming if you've not done it before, or if you're like me and had a salad garden and that's it. Going from growing a couple of heads of lettuce, some tomatoes and cukes to all out growing almost everything you eat.....well that takes time. And planning. And organization. And all those things that I wasn't good at. :) So I hope you can learn from my failures!

So lets get our hands dirty shall we? It's always a good day when you can play in the dirt!

Number One: Figure out how much space you can spare. 

We have a 1/4 acre lot. There's a large patio in the backyard, the chicken coop and run, the single detached garage and we can't plant anything in the front yard cause that's where the gas/elec/water lines run. The "front" portion of our side yard, contains a walnut tree (which nut trees give off toxins and the surrounding soils aren't fit for growing) and the other front portion houses a pine tree and no sun. That leaves us the side yard. Now you might think this isn't a lot of land to plant.

You'd be wrong! Our garden this year is 65ft x 30ft. That's over 1,900 sq ft in which to plant our food in. Now we use a very intensive growing method of sq ft gardening (where we amend the soil with homemade compost every year to help with nutrients) and so we plant everything pretty close together.

Number Two: Figure out what foods you eat and what you want to grow. 

I don't grow a thing we won't eat. I'd love to grow both cabbage and cauliflower. But we simply can't eat enough of it to make it worthwhile. So we forgo it. Instead I plant lots of beans, TONS of tomatoes, and loads of peppers and onions. We also plant potatoes, which a lot of backyard gardeners don't do because it's kind of land intensive. But we like organically grown potatoes, I feel like they're just so much better than what you get in the store, so I make that sacrifice. What you grow, will probably be changed year by year. I grew cabbage our first year until I realized we just don't eat enough to spend the space root cellaring it.

Once you figure out what you want to grow, planning the garden is easy. You'll have to have some trial and error on figuring out how much of what to plant, as it took me a season or two to figure ours out. But once you figure it out, you can then plant most of what you eat if not all of it!

Number Three: Learn how to Preserve the Bounty of your Harvest.

Photo courtesy of Mother Earth News Mag

There's a few ways to do this. Canning, Freezing, Dehydrating and Root Cellaring. Somethings will root cellar well. Like potatoes, onions, carrots, apples, beets, cabbage, leeks, parsnips, pears, turnips, radishes, dried beans, garlic, pumpkins, squash and sweet potatoes are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Almost anything can be canned. Things you don't want to can are pureed pumpkin, dairy products or mashed beans. Now there are people who do can these things, and like I tell people, you can how you want, what your comfortable with. I personally follow the guidelines given to us by the USDA so I can 100% know that my foods are safe.

Freezing is a great way to preserve things, especially things like corn and green beans that get mushy when you can them. However, this requires energy to keep them frozen and freezer space. I prefer to use the one time energy of canning these items and then simply putting them on the shelf for later. This is just a matter of preference.

One thing that I feel is underutilized is dehydrating. You can dehydrate so many things. Fruit slices, fruit leather, jerky, things like whole peppers for dried use or later rehydrated use....the list goes on. We are building a solar dehydrator this year, and I will be sharing the plans and the materials list with you so you can too, build your own for next to nothing. The only thing you'll need to use it, will be a clear sunny day.

Once you've got these three things down, you're well on your way to growing, preserving and enjoying the fruits of your labor. You'll know exactly where the food came from, what was used on it to grow it, and you'll bask in the greatness that is a 2¢ tomato seed turned into an entire plant that's produced roughly 25lbs of tomatoes that would have cost you about $100 at the store (if you purchase organic for around $4 per lb, which is how we farm here).

The savings are incredible, even though yes, it take some hard work, but the moment when you bite into that ripe, fleshy, and flavorful tomato, you'll realize the appeal of growing your own food.

5 ways to turn your Home into a Homestead no matter the land amount!

Its' all our dream right? 150 acres, tons of trees, big house by the pond with a lean to or barn for the animals. A woodstove to keep us warm while we knit or read books at night. Waking up to the crow of the rooster, and the cluck of the chickens. Doing the days chores on your schedule and your time, not having to punch a time clock, no commuting......

I know.
I.
KNOW.

I want it badly. So badly I can taste it. I spend about an hour a week searching for land back home that I dream we can buy and finally have our homestead. Ok, maybe more than an hour a week dreaming. Lets be real.

What I finally realized is that what makes a home a homestead isn't how much land you have. Or if you have dairy cows or does. Not how many chickens you have, or if you sell produce from your acre garden to the locals. What makes it a homestead is self sufficiency. And this is something everyone can have. Even people living in the city. Even those with almost no land.

So instead of worrying about what resources for self sufficency you *don't* have, we need to focus on you what you do have and making the most with those!

Number one is food. 

Obviously you cannot grow or raise all your own food. In fact, it's hard for any farm to achieve this. Its hard to have beef, pork, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, dairy products, and produce and do it all  yourself. So pick what you can do and do it. What you can't do, source out locally. We can grow most of our own food, and raise chickens for our own eggs.

We don't eat much pork because I don't like it and so we go without. We source our beef and we're trying to find a local place to source out our poultry. Our current chickens will end up in the stewpot when they've reached an age where they no longer lay. We don't have room currently for a goat and cows aren't allowed, so we buy dairy at the store, but are looking for ways to source that as well. That might mean sourcing raw milk from a local **trusted** farmer and making your own yogurt, cheese, butter etc. Or maybe you can find those products already made for you and source them. Either way.

Grow what food you can, and buy what you can't from local farmers. This might be a CSA or the Famers Market. You'd be surprised what you can grow in your own backyard, or on your patio in containers.

Cook from scratch, and get rid of processed crap. If you need faster meals on the weekdays, spend some time on the weekends preparing what you can ahead of time. I try to do things like keep frozen lasagnas in the freezer to just pull out, thaw and cook in the oven. Its takes as much time to prepare one as it does four, so this way I have three more to put in the freezer for the rest of the month.

Number two is water. 

Water is the most essential thing in life. We need both food and water, but three days without water is really bad, you can go up to a month (ish) without food. Having a source of water that you know is clean and without added chemicals will go a long way to your self sufficiency. We have a well on our property, and this year is going to be the first year we're going to get it back up and running. I can't wait! But we'll also use rain barrels to collect water from the roofs of our garage, chicken coop and house. The coop water will be for the chickens. But the rest, we can either just pour it directly on our garden, or we can distill it for drinking/cooking. You'd be surprised what a homemade distiller and a bit of sunshine can yield you in drinking water, and if you have no sunshine, you can simply add heat.  

When a drought hits, and they will, they always do, you'll still be able to water your food and not have to worry about raising prices at the grocery. 

Number three is Go with the Flow. 

Why can we buy strawberries in January? They're most definitely a summer crop. We can, because people grow them for us and we buy them. They're not near as tasty, they don't have near the nutrients, and they feel like cardboard. This goes for everything out of season. There's a reason we have seasons. We plant food, it dies off, and you either till it under or plant cover crops to replenish your soil. You put compost you've made all year onto it in the spring and till that under. And all this will yield you super fresh, great tasting food that you'll love to eat.

We've managed to try to spend our lives running 24/7 365 days a year. Our jobs don't give us the winter off, even though most things are designed to be dormant or resting in the winter. And we see this as normal? Getting up at 5:30 am to feed the chickens in the winter is made better by knowing that my winter days are spent resting and not working near as hard, and shoot, I like that because it's cold out there! Take the time nature is giving you to try to live in harmony with Her. If you work it right, you can eat fresh produce most of the year, about 9 months, even longer if you use cold frames or greenhouses.

I spend my summers working in the garden, doing projects like fixing up fences, or what not. Then in the winter I spend my time working on things like garden planning, or my knitting/sewing for the family. Things I can do inside that keep me nice and warm. Obviously, not all of us are able to live with the seasons. And if you can't, live by your farmers' seasons. Buy your food locally when it's in season, join a CSA, or produce share around town.

Number four is Learn New Things. 

This may mean breaking out the old sewing machine and mending your clothing so you don't have to buy more. Or maybe you wanna learn to knit/sew so you can create your own clothing. Perhaps you want to learn to make cheese so the local raw milk you get can do more than just be for drinking and coffee. Maybe this means learning how to pressure can, water bath can and root celler your garden produce for the whole year. Maybe you don't know how to cook from scratch, a new skill to learn will be to learn how to cook. You'd be surprised at how you can come up with your own recipes when you understand the chemistry behind baking. (And yes it really is chemistry). Or how you can even fix a recipe to suit your needs. Maybe you want to learn to butcher your own animals and those you hunt. 

There's many many things we don't know how to do these days. We rely on people to do it for us, and they do one thing only. There's nothing wrong with using the local butcher if you want to, he needs to make a living too, but if you want to, you can learn. 

When you learn these things, you'll find that the more you know, the more you can do and then the more you'll turn around and try to learn. Soon, you'll be doing everything yourself you can and saving all kinds of money and time. 

Number five is Learn How to Use Money More Wisely. 

Unless you own a money mint, you have a finite amount of money. This means, that the longer you make it last, the more you'll have for things around the homestead. Maybe you're saving up for buying that 50 acres you just can't live without. Maybe you want to put solar on your home and go off grid. Maybe you want to only have to have one income. There's many reasons, but most of all your reasons are the important ones. I'm a SAHM so for us, having one income and one car, means that we live frugally to afford that lifestyle. Homesteading took that a step further and gave us a bit of cushion so we can save up for land and solar energy eventually.

There's many ways out there of doing this, and I won't plug one over the other. The best one is the one that works for you.

Homestead Barn Hop!!! 

From the Farm Blog Hop!

Home Acre Hop #68

8 Ways to Reduce Your Food Waste

So I was reading online the other day, and I came across this article in my Facebook newsfeed.

About 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. The average American consumer wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Southeast Asia — up 50 percent from Americans in the 1970s. Yet, 1 in 6 Americans doesn't have enough to eat, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And food waste costs us about $165 billion a year and sucks up 25 percent of our freshwater supply.

Seriously. 40%??? 

Wow. Why in the hell are we wasting that much food? So I dig deeper. Turns out that we've grown so accustomed to "perfect" food (no blemishes, or odd shapes etc) that we throw things out willy nilly now. Also the old mantra "when in doubt, throw it out" plays a part, because a lot of Americans are completely out of touch with their food, their food sources, and don't have the knowledge they need to make proper food decisions.

Now don't get me wrong, if I pull chicken out for dinner and it smells "off" because I left it in four or five days, then I toss it. But the idea is that we should be organized enough and aware of what's in our fridge and pantry so we don't waste! We also shouldn't cram our fridges so full we forget what's in there, thereby wasting food. So here's some steps to reduce your kitchen waste.

1. Use what you have in the fridge first. This goes for both freezer and pantry items.

2. Plan your meals. This sounds like a no brainer, and I imagine we've all at one time or another planned our meals, but then a few days of harried schedules happens and the meal routine is off. So one good thing is to plan out 21 days of food, that your family likes. Then go over your schedule for the next week and plan your weeks meals from that (I do this on a two week rotation). I try to have several crock pot meals so that if I have a busy day that's unplanned I can simply make a crock meal. This will help you buy only what you need and then you'll use it.

3. Don't buy so much in bulk! Ok, so I'm the queen of bulk, I know. I buy whole wheat flour by the 50lbs bag, and pinto beans in 25lbs. But one thing I won't buy in bulk is fresh items. Now, I totally break this rule if something is on a really good sale Like last summer, cherries.Cherries were 1.99 a lb That *never* happens around here, so I bought 20lbs and canned them. I made cherry jelly and canned cherries in water with a tsp of sugar. So for months we had cherry jelly (it's gone now) and every now and again I make a black forest cake or put some in my yogurt.

4. Use mason jars and plastic screw on lids to store your leftovers. Now this is twofold for me. One, I hate plastic. I really hate it. It gets nasty and scratched up, it gets smelly from things like spaghetti sauce, and eventually you dont wanna put food in it. Plus, you can't see through most of them to know what's in them. So I use mason jars. They come completely clean, I can easily go from pantry to fridge with goods I've canned and best of all I can see leftovers. We don't have as many now that I've started using clear jars.

5. Freeze stuff. Don't be afraid of the freezer! If you have wide mouth jars, you can even store stuff in the jars in the freezer. If you have an abundance of something, freeze it so it doesn't get wasted.

6. Can stuff. Don't be afraid of the canner! There's so many recipes out there, and best of all, you can can things like soups and meats where if you take advantage of on sale items, you can prepare them ahead of time,all at once, thusly using your bulk purchases and not letting them go to waste.

7. Eat your leftovers for lunch or snacks, or have a leftover night for dinner.  Lunch is one meal that's not too planned around here. We do pack our Bento boxes for the kids for school and some days, I have to plan out a meal, but mostly, I just send them with leftovers now. Hubby and I also eat leftovers a lot of days. I'ts easier and cheaper to make a meal for 10 and just eat the leftovers than it is to plan 2 separate meals.

8. If  you must throw it out, put what you can in a compost pile. Even if you just compost for your flower bed, it used to be that humans would eat foods, of course, there were no processed foods then, just whole real food, and then wed toss that apple core or carrot top back onto the ground where it would decompose and put nutrients back into the soil. Now, we grow our foods on commercial lots that are so devoid of minerals and nutrients because they don't use compost, they use chemical fertilizers, and then we toss our "trash" into landfills where they don't do us any good. So see our post on composting if you need a place to start.

If we work hard enough we can reduce our waste, which is better for everyone, including your pocketbook!

14 Ways to be More Self Sufficient

 In honor of International Homesteading Education Month (September) from Mother Earth News(one of the my very fav mags!) I thought we'd take some time to explain how one can make some changes to become more of a homesteader be it in the city or the country. :) Enjoy!


I tend to throw around the word "homesteader" without giving much thought to it's meaning and it's occurred to me in talking to a few people over the last week, that homesteaders are generally seen as "country folks" living in "rural" areas with "lots of land". This could not be further from the truth.

Up until recently in history, homesteader was defined as above. I imagine the Homestead Act of 1862 had a lot to do with this But recently, we see that homesteading is in it's essence a word used to describe self-sufficiency. And anyone can do it. Obviously, unless we want to hermit ourselves away, true self-sufficiency is not possible. One must still use the roads, the local hospitals when something bad happens, or even supply the farm or urban homestead with tools. But there's no reason even an apartment dweller cannot strive to be more self-sufficient and then support those local vendors for things they cannot produce or provide for themselves.

So here's a primer of sorts designed to help you become more self sufficient. Remember, one needs not do it all, just do as much as you can :)

1. Learn to cook. You would so surprised at how many that "cook" that really can't cook. Cooking is a life skill that's more than opening a few cans and boxes. And I'll be honest, until recently, I thought I was a great cook because I could mix a few things from the store and produce a nice tasting result.  But that's not the kind of cooking I mean Cooking is about knowing how to make those things you would buy from the store. It's procuring the ingredients and knowing how to use every available thing to you, as much as you can. Lets take chicken. Every other week we have roast chicken. A whole chicken. I roast it in the oven, and we have the meat for dinner that night. I use the leftover meat for chicken salad for hubby's work lunches. I then use the carcass (bone, fat, everything) and make and can chicken stock from it. This will enable me to make from scratch soups from our garden veggies come winter, without having to run to the store to do so. So if you can learn to cook, you can grow/produce a lot of the food you'll need yourself, even on a quarter acre. Which bring us to our next point:

2. Learn to garden. One can do this, even in an apartment on a balcony. Grow what you can, what you'll eat, what you use, and visit your local pick your own farms, or farmers markets for the rest. For two people, having a balcony full of veggies can provide most of what you need if you grow vertically and use every inch of available space. There's also ways to get around this, by finding community gardens, finding relatives or friends that will "loan" you the use of some of their land, or asking your apartment complex if you can grow a garden in the back. For those of you in the city, get rid of your lawn if you have to! I mean, what does a lawn do FOR you? It's weekly mowing, fertilizing if you want it to look nice and manicured, seeding and reseeding bare spots, it's work. And you get nothing. So dig it up! Plant some things! Plant All the Things. :) We have a family of six and are going to be using about 1/3 of our quarter acre next year to garden and it will provide almost everything we need for the whole year

3. Learn how to preserve your foods. There are three ways one can do this. Freezing, drying and canning. Canning works well and I use it for a lot, but there are things that benefit from using one of the other two methods. You can grow and dry hot peppers for use in your kitchen as chili powder (grind once dry). I find that I like to freeze green beans because I think they're too mushy after being canned. I also like to freeze my meats instead of canning them. The Ball Blue Book is a great place to start on learning to can, and it's really really easy, though I understand how intimidating it is, I was intimidated for a very long time. You'll be surprised how easy you get it though I promise :)

4. Learn how to hunt, and butcher your own meats. Now, this one is going to get some mixed reviews, I know. I know that some people wont' mind the hunting so much but the butchering! So here's the thing. You're already going to have to field dress your kill, why not learn to just butcher it too? I'll be honest, it's going to be a gross job. It's not going to be something you'll want to do in your Sunday Best and if you're squeamish at all...you might want to find a butcher locally to do it for you. But it's something I think everyone should try to learn.

5 Reduce your energy dependence. This could be getting a bicycle to use as transportation, hoofing it to and from work, line drying your clothing or even using a solar battery recharger for household use. Im not a prepper per se, but the less energy you use, the better off you'll be if that energy becomes too expensive or unavailable, which is more real than the zombies. We live in tornado alley and I've seen towns decimated in just an hour. Energy prices are constantly on the rise, at more of a rate than the wage increases as well, so this will leave you more disposable cash for other more important items in your household.

6. Find alternate water sources. Now this could be as simple as living near a creek, putting in a pond, or drilling a shallow well. This one won't be able to be utilized by everyone, but it's another way to "reduce energy dependence" as potable water isn't free. We have a well on our property and are in the process of getting a hand pump installed so that next year we can use it to irrigate the garden as well as other things. While our water bill runs about $30-$50 a month (higher in the summer from watering), and that's not a significant amount of money to be saving, it's not using clean potable water for drinking for our garden, which is in turn, less energy spent cleaning the water. Another thing you can do is to collect rainwater. (be careful, this is actually illegal in some states).Simply using a barrel under your downspouts and a sump pump or watering can, can provide a lot of your outdoor water uses. Water filters can also be made/purchased so if you needed to, you could use rainwater as drinking and cooking water.

7. Plant a medicinal herb garden. One thing that we're very dependent on is the doctor. A lot of things one really doesn't need to go to the doctor for, but we do anyway. This causes doctors to be backed up every day and honestly, just takes time from YOUR day. I have four kids and we have no shortage of sickness. Seems like every other month they come home with some kind of crap or another. Nine times of ten, you don't' need to do anything. Even if they have a fever, you can often just stay at home and nurse it. That being said, one of the things we do wrong is give Tylenol at the slightest hint of a fever. This is costly, and honestly will do nothing but mask symptoms. I let fevers run in this house because that's the body's way of fighting off something and by bringing the fever down, I am taking away the body's natural defenses and then my children stay sicker, longer. For every day things, you'd be surprised what you can do with a medicinal herb garden. This book is a good place to start. Keeping a stock on hand of medicinal supplies is always a good idea too, this will allow you to not have to travel out when someone is sick or hurt. I keep lots of gauze, tape, band aids and antibiotic cream on hand with my children :)

8. Barter and trade. This is a great way to be more self-sufficient. Lets say you have a bumper crop of strawberries and your neighbor has a bumper crop of corn. Why not trade? Or perhaps you can fix electrical items and your neighbor has extra eggs from the chickens? There's many thing you can barter and trade for. If you have a skill, or items, you can usually find someone else that has skills or items to trade. This is one of those areas that if you can't provide it on your own, find a way to procure it with your own means.

9. Go re-usable. Whether this be with batteries, mama cloth/diva cups, cloth diapers, family cloth, napkins, placemats, etc. Being able to buy or make something once, and keep it around for a long time keeps you from having to rebuy.

10. Invest and learn how to use hand tools. This can be anything from kitchen appliances to outdoor tools. Currently hubby and I own a reel mower for what little lawn we have to keep mowed. It uses no power (other than our own), and needs no special care. Is it harder than using a gas powered? No. It is a bit more time consuming though. I find it takes about 10% more time to complete the lawn with the reel mower than a gas one. But we're talking minutes here. Once a week. Totally worth it.  I also use hand tools in the kitchen. Recently I bought replacement screens for my hand cranked food mill. This allows me to make sauces and what not from our garden yields. I will also be purchasing a hand cranked flour mill in the next bit so we can mill our own flour.

11. Learn some new outdoor survival skills. This could be something like learning how to start a fire, building a shelter/pitching a tent, fishing and hunting, using the sun to navigate and tell time, there's many things that one can learn. Should you get snowed in, lose power, be hit by a storm/tornado, your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you get lost camping, you just never know :)

12. Learn some indoor skills. These would including things like baking, knitting, sewing, mending/darning, making cheeses and yogurts, candle and soap making, spinning wool, etc. For the very self sufficient, raising your own sheep for wool, dairy cow or goat for milk and bees for wax, these skills would up the amount of things you can produce yourself. Even procuring local milk, yarn and other necessities can allow you to have an end product you know what's in, and you've been able to provide yourself. :)

13. Raise animals. Depending on the codes of your city, you might be able to have chickens, goats or rabbits. Having chickens will provide you with eggs, stew meat, and manure. Rabbits will provide you with fur (angora), meat and manure and goats will provide you with meat (chevon), milk and fur (mohair).

14. Pay off your debt. This mainly is about your mortgage if you have one. Owning your home free and clear not only provides you with shelter and more disposable cash every month, but most people who are self-sufficient would be able to sell or trade their wares for the cash to cough up the change for property taxes every year if they didn't have a job. This number one enables you go without a job, or at least live on one income (which provides more time and energy for homesteading chores), and if one should lose that income, and I think the last few years have shown us that nothing is guaranteed, you could still survive.

The Miraculous, Solar Powered, Laundry Drying Apparatus!

When I first married my husband, we lived in an apartment. When we moved overseas, still, apartment living. While I have always used a clothes horse for my clothing as an adult, we didn't have a clothes line until we bought this house and installed one. I grew up however, with all of our clothes being dried on a line, and remember the smell of freshly dried sheets. You can see our umbrella line to the left there surrounded by our container potatoes. I am able to dry all of our clothing for a family of six on this. Cost me $30 for the stand and $5 for some concrete mix to sink it into.

As I've gotten older, our country has moved from things like line drying, all in the name of convenience. I mean, you can even get your liquor through a drive thru. Really? So things like line drying are becoming obsolete cause apparently ain't nobody got time for dat. Really though let me tell you what's so awesome about drying your clothing without a dryer. I do realize that not everyone has their own property, but you can even dry on a balcony or patio if you buy a $20 clothing horse or two. We use them in the winter to dry things that I don't want to put in the dryer.

The bennies:

1) Your clothes will last longer. seriously. This isn't just a ploy. They really will. Every time I dry something, I have to clean out the lint trap. Know why? That damned dryer is slowly breaking down my clothes. When your clothing doesn't break down like that, producing lint, it not only lasts longer (which saves you money) but will look better for longer too.

2) Your clothes don't shrink. Cause don't tell me you haven't smalled up your clothes in the dryer. We've all done it. You have that great shirt. Perfect color, perfect fit, you put it in the dryer and suddenly the tunic that hit you perfectly at your hips is now making you look like you're trying to bring the 80's cropped shirts back. And somehow that mother got four inches wider to boot. It defies science for real.

3) No wrinkles. I love when I make my bed and there's no wrinkles. And I'm telling you I am NOT about to iron my damned sheets. I'm just not that OCD. But I love it when I crawl into bed, the sheets are nice and crisp, they have that great sun dried smell and there are NO wrinkles. I sleep so much better! The rest of your clothes won't' need ironing either. And I know what you're thinking. "Yeah, but my towels are all crunchy, and scratchy and who wants to be lacerated by their laundry after a shower?" Well throw them in the dryer with a wet washcloth for 10 minutes and they'll be fine. I promise. :) Still cheaper than using your dryer all the time.

4) Your socks won't stick to the back of your pants making you look like a fool. Ok, so maybe I've not had that happen in real life, at least, I've caught the sock before putting on the pants, but I have had my skirts stick with static to my pantyhose. Thankfully these days, I'm lucky if I put on shoes and socks and not just my hippy sandals, but for real, for those of you that still wear real people clothing and not stay at home mom clothing, this will work much better than smelly ass hairspray. Cause only the cheap stuff works on static cling and it stinks.

5). Free bleach. Dood, your whites will never be whiter. I can bleach our cloth nappies in just one day in the sun. Socks? White as can be. Some things like the washcloths my hubby uses after spending 12 hours climbing around and in those big ass locomotives he fixes at work, yeah, those might take a few times in the sun, but you can even get those white again (or at least a dull gray).

6). Its free. And we all love free right? I mean, if there's a free sample at the store, it doesn't matter if it's something you won't use, people still take them. This is a gift that just keeps on giving. According to science, most of us use about 10% of the electric we use just on our clothes dryer.

7) You're loving on Mother Nature more, and really we need more love on this planet don't we? So cuddle right up to Mother Nature and line dry your clothing.

Raising Healthy Children

Raising Healthy Children

The number one mistake we're making as parents is to let the food industry tell us we're doing a Job Well Done when we feed our kids crap. They tell us it's Whole Grain! or that something is "baked not fried" or my favorite "all natural". Lead is all natural too, but you don't want to eat it do you? Do not let the food industry tell you that you're doing a great job with feeding your children. They are in it to make money! This problem goes so far beyond the "obesity epidemic" we're hearing so much about.

When I turned 26, I had my first child. From that day on, things changed for me. I spent my early 20's like most college students do. Cheap food, fast food, and fattening and unhealthy foods. My concern was simple sustenance and how cheaply I could achieve that. Having children made me realize that what you put into your body is so much more important than simply not starving. For the first time, I was actually caring about what I ate, and what my children ate. So much so, that I lost over 100lbs. But even then, I didn't realize I still wasn't eating healthy enough.

I think one mistake too many parents are making, is that they think there is a difference in "adult food" vs. "children's food". As adults our palates have taken on a more cultured taste, and we expect that children are only going to want chicken nuggets, french fries, soda, and sugary snacks like cakes and cookies. When feeding them a snack we don't reach for apples, but instead reach for something boxed, promising "goodness" within it's cardboard flaps. Features like "whole grain", "all natural" and "good for you!" abound down the center aisles of the grocery store.

I come across daily, so many blogs of "real moms" making claims of "eating healthy on a budget" and "quick and healthy" meals, and yet they contain high sugar, high sodium and high crap. So here's some rules to live by with regards to raising healthy children.

1. Don't reward with food. Likewise don't punish with food. No telling your child to "eat everything and then you'll get a dessert". Also, do not take away your child's food or dessert as punishment. In our house, I serve dinner. Then I serve dessert. The children can eat what they like, or not eat what they don't like. Some nights, my 4yo might only get the dessert. Other nights, he doesn't like the dessert and eats double portions of my famous vegetarian lasagna. I know that both my dinners and the desserts are going to be the best possible food I can make for them, and therefore don't worry about if they finish their plates. Over time, they have shifted to having a more "adult" palate than their peers, so I know this method is working.


2. Feeding each of your children different depending on their ages. Aside from infants and toddlers that need their foods chopped or pureed, there is absolutely no reason your 2 yo and your 8 yo cannot have the same baby carrots for a snack. Do not fall prey to the infant food aisle that's chock full of gmo crap that you wouldn't want to eat yourself, let alone feed to your children. No one needs to eat "snack puffs". Just....no. Walk away from the special foods aisle and back to the produce section. Even cubed cheese or a hardboiled egg (my 2yo and my 4yo love these) is a good snack. Start literally thinking outside the box when you feed your children.

3. Thinking that all sugary goodies are "bad for you". I fix a dessert about two times a week. It might be a cake, or brownies, or strawberry shortcake. The difference is that I know where our food comes from, and we use dairy that is organic/no hormones/no antibiotics and we use non-gmo foods for things like wheat flour etc. Instead of buying a box of cookies at the store which contain ingredients you cannot even pronounce, let alone want to eat, make your own, and source your ingredients! They are more satisfying and it's a great way to get your children involved in their foods.



4. Raise a garden. It doesn't even have to be fancy. Just a small kitchen garden on your backyard patio would be enough to get the children involved in their foods. Children are fascinated by growing food. My 2 yo actually picks off shell peas and eats them by opening the pod with his teeth and then taking out the peas inside. I know what you're thinking. "My children won't eat that.....they just....won't." I promise you, they will. Maybe not right at first. If they're used to boxed foods, they're going to balk, because they don't have the knowledge you and I have with regards to health. They also have little self control. But slowly, and surely, just cut out the crap and add in the goodies, they will eat, they will not starve. I promise.

5. Don't let them drink their food. Most parents, myself included at one time, thought juice was a perfectly healthy solution to soda and other bad for you drinks. However, we're finding out, that juices can raise your blood sugar the same way a Coke can, and they just aren't as good for you as water, or eating the actual fruit. Try to avoid juices altogether, and if your child needs some flavoring, add in some natural lemon, lime or other fruit juices.



Just by  making some changes, a little at a time, we can begin feeding our children what their bodies actually crave, instead of what their minds crave.

Grow a Revolution

Revolution comes in many forms. Revolution quite simply put means "a sudden and complete marked changed in something". Many times, revolution comes from a simple idea, taking root, developing and blossoming. In my quest for more self-sustaining knowledge (how ironic, I know), I come across many many "prepper" sites. Sites dedicated to guns, God and some growing of food. It's not really about taking what you have, and making something from it, more about Extreme Couponing 10 years worth of can goods and toilet paper, and shooting anyone that asks you for any.

Prepping shouldn't be about bunkers, stockpiles of ammo, and canned good. Prepping should be about preparing for the future.What's better? To have things? Or to know how to make those things? If I have knowledge of gardening, then when the zombies arrive, not only will I be able to survive on my stores from my garden that we preserve, but I will be able to grow more, and then preserve more. Not only will I be able to take care of my family, I'll know the best way to collect rainwater and make it drinkable. I will know that my sewing machine and some extra fabric lying around can make blankets for when it gets really cold.

There is more to survival than killing. This is what the revolution is about. But who are we revolting against you ask? Well, though it's not a revolution in the sense we're used to, as we're a bloody violent species, it's a revolution nonetheless. We are saying to Big Ag, and Big Corporations "NO!" We will not take it sitting down. We will not stand for it, while Big Ag turns our great land into a monoculture that's spreading like wildfire. We grow more soybeans, corn and wheat than anything else in the country, and most of it is GMO bullshit. We have two main types of cows we breed, one for food, one for dairy. Chicken farms are a disgrace to the name of farming. (If you dont know what a chicken or beef/dairy farm look like for real, go watch some free documentaries on Netflix, I'll give links below) We give them hormones, antibiotics and stick them in horrid conditions not fit for any living thing, and then consume those "products", all while being told its safe.

This is the kicker. That we listen when they speak. Why? Because it stands to reason, that they're the big whigs right? They know more than we do, right? Well, usually I would agree. However, in this case, they've destroyed the way we eat, the way we grow food and the way we slaughter food. We no longer eat real food, we're told to eat "food products" that might have 40% or less of actual food in the ingredients list. Why you ask? All in the name of a flipping dollar. To make more money.

So what do we do about it? Well that's where the revolution comes in. If no one is buying the products, then the businesses will fail. And who will be selling foods? Your local farmers. You neighbors. Perhaps even you. You would be amazed what you could do if you turned your lawn into a garden. I don't mean a measly little 10x10 plot with some tomatoes. I mean a diverse ecosystem filled with fruits, veggies, legumes, and all grown with your own two hands. Just think, if everyone that could, grew food, how many people wouldn't go hungry? How many more would learn the long lost art of farming?

So what do you do to keep the revolution going? 

• Plant your land. If you live in the burbs like most of us, plant every square inch of space. We live on a corner lot and cannot obstruct traffic, so we haven't planted there yet, but every year we expand our garden, and I will keep expanding until we have no lawn left. Use cold frame and greenhouses, or even mini-greenhouses to extend the growing season well into the winter, and get a head start on summer. People further south could even grow tomatoes  year round in a cheap greenhouse. Compost your kitchen scraps, and if you have farm animals, their bedding makes for good compost too. Use it in your gardens so nothing has to lay fallow. 
• For the urbanites, look to your windows and balconies to help you grow food. Hanging baskets, container gardening on a balcony/porch or even window boxes are all great options and with the right soil you can grow just about anything. 
• For those in the country with some land, by all means, set your acres to wheat if you like :) The country folk are the ones I encourage to plant everything they can and then take what they have to the market for sale. 
• For what you cannot grow yourself (like I do not have the room yet to grow winter wheat like I would like to), buy locally if you can find it. The more you ask for it locally, the more people will plant and the more you can buy. It's a nice cycle that begins with you. 
• Save your seeds. This part is important. By growing heirloom varieties  you will be able to not only save your seeds for following years, but we will keep varieties going that would otherwise die off. 
• Garden organically  This helps on many levels. Number one, the food is better for you. Number two you don't have to worry about ruining the land for future use. Number three, it's completely sustainable. If you till your garden by hand, then use your own homemade compost to amend the soil, plant companion crops along with pollinator attracting plants and practice crop rotation, then you will be on your way, well on your way to food sustainability. 
• Raise some chickens. Or rabbits. Or a goat. Or hell, all three. Rabbits provide meat and manure  and if you get angora, you can even spin your own yarn from the fur. Goats will provide milk and manure. and chickens can provide meat, eggs, manure. Having these things in your farm can help complete the ecosystem thats needed for sustainability. If you have a good amount of land, I would suggest getting a rooster too, and selling some of your chicks to local suburbanites that would love the meat and egg portion of having chickens. 
• Know your laws. Here's the thing. When you outright, knowingly break the laws regarding say, zoning in your town, you're not going to get anyway, and you're likely to make it worse for everyone else. Your town won't allow chickens in backyards? WORK to change it. Don't just get chickens anyway. Go to town meetings, get petitions signed, get it on the voting ballot for town meetings. Do everything you can, and when laws say you can't, work to change those laws. 
• Last but not least, learn  how to dehydrate, preserve and can your foods. I really like freezing my foods, but I know that should there be a reason to not have the freezer space (either lack of actual freezer space, or lack of electricity to run that freezer, or even lack of money to run the electricity to run the freezer), then canning and dehydrating are going to be primary. If you can dehydrate, root cellar and can your foods, they can last all year through the winter. Don't forget, you dont have to can just your own foods. Every September I drive 60 miles to a great apple orchard and buy dozens of bags each weighing at least 8lbs, of apples. I then make apple butter, apple sauce and canned apples. You ca really widen your eating patterns if you can preserve not only food you grow, but food you find locally.
  
  

Every time I look around, I see more and more documentaries about Big Ag, or Big Corporations, or Big Pharm and what they're doing to our  health. I refuse to let me and my family fall prey to these companies that are only out to make a few bucks, even if it kills species of plants and animals and makes us humans sick and dying as well. We will not tolerate this. We will stand up to this. We will say NO!  We will learn the old ways, and teach them to others. We will plants seeds of both foods and knowledge that will fuel the revolution of change.


All of the following films are available on Netflix instant streaming: 

Hungry for Change

Food Matters

Food Fight

Food Inc

River of Waste

Frankensteer