Sunday June 22 UPDATE

This is what it looked like out my back door 2 days ago.
The whole sky was like this! 

All week we've had storms. We have hot days, then it cools off way too quickly and we end up with clouds that are just downright scary. Luckily, this year, we've not had the sirens go off once, and not had to go down to the shelter. Quite a feat for living smack in the middle of Tornado Alley.

All the rain though, has helped the garden tremendously. Tomatoes are growing and will ripen soon. I've picked peas a couple of times, enough for my salad. Fall will bring our main pea crop, right now they're just for fun. Yesterday we picked 50lbs of taters, enough to get us to around December. I hated to pull them early, but we had an infestation of Colorado potato beetles. I tried to keep them in check, but just couldn't. So I'll put more taters in the ground and hope for another 50lb crop this fall.

50 lbs of beautiful organic red potatoes.
Value if purchased would be about $100. So we just saved $100!

My strawberries though look like crap. I'm not sure what's wrong with them, I have a soil test coming and will try to ascertain the issue. I thought it was iron chlorosis which is what we had last year, but blood meal did not help this time. So I thought maybe the soil was too alkaline, as the rest our soil can be, and so added some sulfur. That was a no go too. I might have to just say goodbye to this bunch and plant a crop in a raised bed where I can control the soil a bit better. It could also be a virus.

Check these leaves. They look worse now, brown on the edges. :( 

Oh! And I got sunburned. And by sunburned, I mean sun. burned. My husband sprayed sunscreen on all of us, we're all pasty skinned you know, when we left for the market. He apparently didn't get my shoulders as well as he should have and I trusted I was covered. Yikes! Im paying for it now! Vinegar is helping, and I should be a-ok in a couple of days.

Daily chores are getting to me. Its that time of year when I have no desire to be in the house doing laundry or washing dishes, all I want to do is to be outside in the garden. I am forcing myself though to keep us in clean clothing and dishes :) Of course, I have family coming this week so there's some extra incentive there.

Three of the six chickens. 

We still only have one layer. I long for the days when I head to the coop and collect six eggs. They're now 17 weeks old and they should all start laying soon. Well today is jam packed, I have the house to really scrub (my mother is coming this week), mulberries to process, more mulberries to pick, and of course, family to take care of in the midst of all that.

So until next Sunday, have a great rest of your weekend and a terrific week :)

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

Organic, GMO-free Homemade Chicken Feed

You can't even really see their heads because they're moving so fast! YUM!

I simply can't believe how big they've got!

I show people pics or a few people have come over to pick up some seedlings from our greenhouse and they're like "omgwut? They're so big!" I know. And they're not even full grown yet! We've got a few more weeks until they start laying and let me tell you, I'm so excited to one day walk into the coop, check the nesting boxes and find delicious, organic, pastured eggs.

I've wanted chickens for years. YEARS I say. I always said I'd have four kids, a giant garden and chickens. And sure enough, that's what I've got! I wasn't counting on three boys, but thus far I'm still living, so.......

And now I get to make my own organic chicken feed to ensure that our Ladies, as my littlest one calls them, get the best they can in this life. I will say it's easier to head down to your local feed store and just pick up a bag of pellets. But really, it's just not as healthy for them, and I want super healthy eggs for us!

We let our Ladies free range. They've got access to over 400 square feet of yummy clover, bugs and whatever they can scratch up, a lovely compost pile full of kitchen scraps and bugs, and now they've got their very own homemade, GMO free, organic-to-boot chicken feed. Now, as much as I'd love for the Ladies to forage all year long for their food, it's just not possible. Where we live, we have frozen ground for part of our winter, and that means no scratching for bugs or other goodies. Also, I like to give them a little treat every morning when I open the coop. I know, they've got me wrapped around their little chicken feet, but I love it!

Finding a feed mixture wasn't too hard. One just needs to know what a chicken eats. Chickens are omnivores. They eat grasses, seeds, fruit, grains like corn and wheat seeds, worms, bugs, and other insects. Most laying pellets you can buy at your local feed store are mainly composted of soy (which is almost 100% GMO in this country for commercial use) and corn (also mainly 100% GMO commercially). For us? GMO just isn't cool. So we source our grains wisely. The idea eventually when we get our 50 acres and a horse is just to grow our own. But until then, we use Amazon.com and Azure Standard. I actually use Azure exclusively, but should I not be able to source something there, or prices rise, I've got Amazon on backup.

With the recipe, I've listed price per pound that we pay so you can see how much this feed is going to cost. These prices are as of May 2014. Also, be aware these are the prices for the smaller packages. If you buy say 5 lbs of oat groats it's $1.15 per pound, but you can get it for 87¢ per pound if you buy 50 lbs at a time. It all depends on how much room and money you have.

So lets get to feeding the Ladies eh?

You will need: 
- 12 cups of oat groats ($1.15)
- 8 cups of hard red wheat (88¢)
- 8 cups of soft white wheat (74¢)
- 6 cups of whole corn (83¢)
- 4 cups of millet ($1.42)
- 4 cups of kamut ($1.45)
- 4 cups of lentils ($1.97)
- 4 cups of split yellow peas (60¢)
- 2 cups of sunflower seeds (60¢)
- 1 cup of large flake nutritional yeast ($8.60)
- 1 cup of kelp granuals ($6.15)

Now all you have to do is stick the ingredients in a bucket or tub (with a lid so nothing can get in!) and mix it up with your hands. Easy peasy. If you want, you can use a drizzle of coconut oil (I did) to make sure the  yeast and the kelp don't get lost in the bottom of the mix. These two things have vitamins, mineral and amino acids that are great for your chickens' health. This mixture has about 17% protein, which is what the laying feed at the feed store has and what is claimed to be needed for healthy laying chickens.

My ladies get only or two handfuls of this mixture a day (about a half cup). In the winter, the 6 of them will probably eat about 1.5 cups of the mixture based on some initial calculations. This recipe makes 52 cups of mixture (Im not counting the kelp and yeast as it sticks to the other grains). The entire mixture above costs $28.25. (And remember by buying in larger quantities, you can severely reduce your price!). This means that it's around 54¢ per cup.

You really can't beat organic, non-gmo feed for less than 30¢ a day. That's just over $9 a month (on average) to give your chickens the best you can, and you get eggs in the process and meat when they're done laying.

NOTE: Once we've made it through summer and into the winter months, these initial calculated will be reworked with new data. 

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!