For the first 30ish years of my life, I enjoyed stuff as much as the average American. I bought a lot of it, and used it, and got pissed off when I had to dust it. When my stuff got a little long in the tooth, I tossed it out and bought more stuff. Several [Continue Reading...]
Life At Walking Speed
May 19, 2011 by · 13 Comments
The stars aligned yesterday. Everyone was up and dressed early, it was a beautiful sunny morning, breakfast and a packed school lunch came together without a fuss. My daughter was done eating her breakfast and we had an easy half-hour until we had to be at the bus stop, so we walked. It’s a long half-mile to [Continue Reading...]
Urban Homesteading for Corporate Tools
May 11, 2011 by · 12 Comments
For those of you transitioning from the corporate world to the homestead, I have prepared this helpful guide, dual homed with one foot in a Muck Boot and the other in a Wingtip Oxford. Though they may seem divergent, the core competencies of gardening and cubicle wrangling are not so different after all. The language [Continue Reading...]
Self-Sufficiency, Not All-By-Yourself-Sufficiency
April 11, 2011 by · 11 Comments
I was attempting to turn and loosen one of my most heavy-soiled beds this weekend. I needed a good stout garden fork. Sadly, I had not yet replaced the fork I snapped in half while transplanting asparagus crowns a few months ago. Without a garden fork, I was hacking at my soil with a pick-mattock. Doing [Continue Reading...]
Taking Control in the Garden
April 7, 2011 by · 6 Comments
Apparently we’ve been thinking about control a lot the last few weeks over here. Erica’s post about my employer’s likely buyout talked about what can prepare for and her reflection on gardening and kids discussed those things we just don’t have control over. Last Wednesday, after a day that felt completely out of control, something reminded me [Continue Reading...]
Yuppie-Hippie Artifice
April 5, 2011 by · 42 Comments
There is this term I bandy about: YuppieHippie. As in, “I picked up my grass fed milk at the YuppieHippie market. It was on sale for $10 a gallon.” In my town there is a segment of the population that cares about the eco trendy trinity of local-organic-sustainable because they can. They drive their hybrid [Continue Reading...]
In Praise Of Old Standby
March 17, 2011 by · 8 Comments
Today I will put on my curmudgeonly engineer hat. This is the same hat I like to wear when I tell the story about how, back in 1992, my response to the World Wide Web was “what’s the big deal?” (it is worth noting that there were then three web servers in the world so [Continue Reading...]
Failing Vegetarianism
March 16, 2011 by · 12 Comments
I used to be a vegetarian. The best thing about being a vegetarian is how much you learn about industrialized meat production and animal welfare issues. The best thing about being a former vegetarian is bacon. I originally chose vegetarianism primarily for the purported health benefits. Unlike some vegetarians, I never had an intrinsic problem with the killing of animals [Continue Reading...]
An Open Letter To The Dervaes
February 17, 2011 by · 13 Comments
By Nick Strauss (Northwest Edible’s Homebrew Husband)Originally posted at The Noodlebook Well it is a mighty fine mess you have created. Yes, Dervaes family, urbanhomestead.org, you have really managed to do something profound to the community you helped create. You have chosen to trademark a whole host of terms, ostensibly seeking to protect them from [Continue Reading...]
I Am An Urban Homesteader, Nyah Nyah
February 16, 2011 by · 11 Comments
All of us who have this dream of growing our sustenance in our backyards and on balconies and in parking strips know that we cannot have it all. We cannot have easy access to urban jobs and good quality theater and amazingly diverse ethnic food and have acres of orchards and billowing crops and a star [Continue Reading...]
Working Off The Farm
February 9, 2011 by · 5 Comments
Every day, I take the train to work (well, most days, when I don’t have a late meeting). Work, for me, involves the 7th floor of a mid-rise office building in the middle of a mid-sized corporate park that happens to be the headquarters of a mid-sized cellular telephone company. I work at a desk, [Continue Reading...]
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