Urban Homesteading

(an unexpected discourse)

This is the tidy way we recycle our things. Yamhill County is really behind the eight ball when it comes to their recycling program...only plastic that is a "bottle" may be recycled which means that things like yogurt containers cannot be recycled. They also won't pick up glass. While this is all true, I am only telling you so you will be distracted from the evidence that we rarely take our recycling to the outside bin unless it's threatening to get up and crawl away on it's own.

Yes, that is a night time commode you see there. We still have all the post surgery gear needed to help my mom recover. The garage is unbelievably messy. I have begun to organize, to actually make use of empty shelf space in favor of stacking stuff on the floor, and getting ready to make a Good Will run as well as calling for details about two different local-ish E-bay consignment companies. I said it was time to clean up my house and I wasn't kidding.

Holy Moses with Mustard In His Beard...it makes me feel suffocated just looking at this awful mess. It's difficult to navigate the interior of the garage. There will always be a mess in here. I have to be realistic. Philip is an artist and you can't catalog an artist's stuff and keep it eternally tidy...most artists need a certain amount of chaos to spark the creative engine. However, that doesn't mean I can't get everything else all tidied up.

I started working on it yesterday. I had to stop before I wanted to because my back is newly recovered and I don't want to send myself back to bed with a heating pad. So I got started by cleaning up my recycling area. I actually got a nice basket to put in the kitchen for paper, cans, and plastic (bottles). This way we can easily whisk it to the big bin outside when it gets full. I got it months ago and never put it to use. Totally typical of me.

I also unpacked all of my herbs and salts and other witchy things and put them back on the green shelving unit we used to have in the store that makes Capello swoon and want to rub things on her naked body. It's my mini apothecary shop in the garage. I always wanted some cool herbal center of activity. Herbs need to be kept in a dark place in order to maintain their quality. My garage is generally pretty dark, even with the lights on. It also stays cooler than any other spot in the house which is also good. When I have completed organizing my pantry and garage, I will be able to post a few herbal how-tos...right in time for the holidays.

Urban homesteading isn't just about gardening and preserving food, it's about all the small things you can make for yourself. All the things we have grown accustomed to letting other people make for us: cleaning supplies, soaps, small building projects (or large), sewing household goods, sewing clothes, making medicines**, beauty products like shampoos and lotions, keeping hens, and rediscovering resourcefulness. It's important to remember that anyone can be a part of urban homesteading.

The point of it is that you can try your hand at any of those things and what doesn't work for you, don't do. Every little thing that does work for you, that you can incorporate into your urban or suburban existence, is a little inch of personal freedom regained from the corporate commercial America. The freedom to have soaps without perfumes, or soaps with only natural ingredients. The freedom to eat food that is organic and picked at the peak of ripeness rather than ripened with gases in a warehouse. You have the freedom to make clothes that fit you and suit your style better than you can find out there in the stores. You can buy all those things, but when you make them yourself you have the ultimate power over your own life and often it is cheaper when you do it yourself.

The best part about it is the pleasure it affords you in navigating life's necessary details. The first time I built something, (our first chicken coop), left me giddy with pride. It was pretty wonky and not exactly the kind of artisan work you would show a contractor, but I made it from scratch for pretty cheap. I learned to make a door and use a circular saw. It was so much fun! Even though quilting has become respected as an art, it is actually one of the most important urban homesteading skills...to make blankets to keep ourselves warm. First and foremost, a quilt is a practical item.

What happens when people make a lot of their own things is that they can't help but play with design and color and style. Women had to make quilts for their families, but why not make a pattern from your scraps? When you take a hand in making things for yourself what happens is that you create the most personal world for yourself. No one will have the same quilt, the same wonky (but rainproof) chicken coop, the same shirt made from an old pretty sheet, or the same recipe for canned pears.

There are few things as beautiful as people reclaiming their independence from others. Americans are always shouting out about their freedoms, their choices, their INDEPENDENCE. Yet I would wager that Americans are more dependent on commerce than any other nation in the world. We go to Walmart. Don't know how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. Don't know how to kill a chicken (I don't.). We need Safeway to sell us our tortillas and cheese and China to make our clothes and Johnson and Johnson to make our shampoos and lotions and salves.

That's not entirely fair, city people all over the world have lost touch with all of these things. But that's what's great about the urban homesteading movement. People in small city apartments are putting up small batches of jam, making quilts, shopping the farmer's markets, making things for themselves. Every inch you take back is empowerment. Every inch you take back from Walmart and Safeway is strength the corporations are losing in their vice-grip on us.

Some people may find it all a little overwhelming. So, don't try to do everything. Just try to do one thing for yourself this month that you've never done before. Make one thing you usually buy pre-made. Even if you aren't totally happy with the results, chances are you'll have a lot of fun doing it.





*I am a firm believer in using some herbal medicines, but I have come to greatly value modern western medicine as well. No home remedy has ever been able to balance my brain out the way modern psychiatric meds have been able to do and I have tried almost all natural solutions, so I do know the difference. Philip also has serious asthma and there is no way I would ever try to treat that herbally. So I opt for a combination of natural and man-made solutions to health. Nothing can beat comfrey salve for cuts and bruises and I plan to learn to make some and if you want to make some too I'll share what I learn with you here.