Joined: Dec 18, 2004 Posts: 4454 Location: One Mile From the Columbia River
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 10:31 am Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
mos6507 wrote:
eastbay wrote:
Direct experience is the best instructor.
Chairman Mao
Now there is a role model for ya!
It's very well known and popular quote (in some circles, that is... heh) from The Little Red Book. I was showing that hands on experience far exceeds mere reading. It's a neat quote. Very apropos. You can read all the gardening books you want and it won't help one little unless you go get your jeans and fingernails all muddy. _________________ Got Dharma?
Joined: Sep 16, 2007 Posts: 1348 Location: Oklahoma City, USA
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
This is the kind of thread we need. Most of us are not going to be able to afford, get, or even know how to take care of huge homesteads; we have to learn to utilize the area we have. And if we do get something big later on, we'll know how to take care of it!
I have 1, 2, 5, 6, a good chunk of 8, 10 (only debt we have is the mortgage, and we pay extra on that every month), 11, 13, 14, 18, and 19 (hand powered stuff too!) in progress.
#21 is a real good idea that I hadn't thought of -- the attic isn't finished, and it's set up to have at least one extra room there.
We have a gas fireplace and I'd really like to either convert it or get a wood stove, but both are pricey. _________________ Conservation is conservative
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
Joined: Jan 03, 2005 Posts: 1185 Location: western Wisconsin
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:06 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
We have done all but 12 and 16--I don't have the time for lots of chickens, a dozen or 2 is all I want now, and there is a good farmer's market a couple of miles away. This summer will give us a good idea if our rainwater catchment system is adequate for our needs, and I would like to perhaps install another wind generator and for sure more PV panels, and we are always planting more berries and fruit trees.
Another issue that I think city folk sometimes feel is kind of like "where do I even start?" You read about these rural setups with proprietors just bristling with skills in every imaginable area of agriculture, carpentry, welding, livestock, irrigation, power generation, etc. It's easy to be left with the sense of "I can't move to the country and I don't know how to do any of that stuff, so I'm just going to stay in the suburbs and rub doom cream all over myself and feel completely powerless."
To a significant degree, I think, homesteading is about having a certain outlook on the world. Cultivating this outlook can begin by collecting homesteading skills and applying them on a small scale where you can.
I used to have a house in a small town turned suburb that sat on two acres. It was an amazing place, lots of large trees, a creek in back, three outbuildings, raised beds--it was awesome. But what was even more awesome was my neighbor across the street. He had a little bit less land, but he had stuff growing on every square inch of it. His garden was probably half an acre, and the rest was all sorts of exotic flowers, bushes, trees, shrubs, vines; it was such a neat place. AND HE HAD A WELL, so he could just spend his days (he was retired) watering his whole property, more or less by hand or with a few "tractor" sprinklers he had. He told me about the hoses he used--four Craftsman hoses he had originally purchased in the 1960s, I think, and they had been replaced for free countless times since. He was (in addition to being the nicest man you would ever want to meet) one of these old-school guys who took incredibly good care of everything he owned--get this: his car was a light blue Volkswagen beetle that he bought new in the early 1970s. When I knew him that car was around 25 years old. I would sit on my porch and just look at his place and it was so inspiring. He was like the prototype for the suburban homesteader. He passed away after I had lived there a couple of years and I was so upset, in part, because he was one of the most ALIVE people I knew. His wife sold the place soon after, and the new family that moved in just seemed like shadows inhabiting what was to them just a house. _________________
Joined: Oct 16, 2004 Posts: 1425 Location: Appalachian Foothills of Virginia
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
While these lists offer a ray of hope to suburbanites, I believe 2 questions must be answered first;
A. Is the area going to weather the PO 'storm'? If you are on the outskirts of a major US city, how does it rate in this study Major US City Preparedness For an Oil Crisis? If you are near a city that is ill-prepared, expect times to be hard all around you. Even if you are prepared, those who are having a very hard time might present a problem. Determine how much of the local economy is primarily and secondarily dependent on petroleum consumption (i.e, automobile production, aircraft production, etc). For example, assume the Detroit area will be hard hit, and Seattle (Boeing) will take a hit as well. Many other locals will have similar or related industries (i.e., tourism), so try to find out the oil-dependence of the significant employers (or at least the broad cross section).
B. Is your area's agriculture going to be affected by continuing climate change? If you are preparing for the long haul (including your descendents), it would pay to move to an area that won't be forced to truck in substantial amounts of food (and perhaps water).
thuja wrote:
1- Get a job that will hopefully weather a Depression.
2- Install Wood Stove
3- Get a bike, ride to work
4- Transform yard into food garden.
5- Plant fruit and nut trees.
6- Set up rainwater catchment and greywater system for gardening
7- Tighten up that house (insulate, seal cracks.)
8- Learn to can and put up food. (Get a chest freezer)
9- Learn to hunt and fish. Get a good rifle and fishing pole
10- Learn carpentry, plumbing and electricical work and do it yourself
11- Get egg laying chickens.
12- If you have the land and zoning permits...get a lot of chickens and/or rabbits...start breeding them for good eating.
13 High efficiency appliances
14- Make friends with neighbors and share
15- If money - solar hot water and solar panels
16- Start a farmers market in your neighborhood (I did that but it can be hard for most folks to do.)
All good, though I expect wild game and fish to be slim pickings in most suburbs. I also believe that a chest freezer might be subject to blackouts, whereas storing up dry foods (grains, beans) and canned food affords less risks.
Also look to make a few simple solar windowbox collectors or a thermosiphoning air panel. The latter is less likely to be stolen;
Joined: Feb 02, 2006 Posts: 170 Location: Luther, OK
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:16 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
It takes a 1-3 acre garden to feed a slothful family for a year. Half an acre intensively gardened will do quite nicely. William Cobbett pointed out in "Cottage Economy" that professional market gardeners were feeding entire boroughs in London on small plots. The trick is to weed, weed, weed... and replace the plants as you pull them. You have to have a hot bed for starting seedlings.
You can keep a cow on 1/4 acre with cabbages and mangels.
The suburbs are going to lose a lot of people to the inner city. So if you stay there, dig up the vacant house yards too. While you're at it, file a mechanics lein on the property for "yardwork", and then foreclose on it. _________________ Nick J. Allen
Hilton, Oklahoma
"The Chinese have many hells. This one is the hell of valueless currency." -- J. Albertson
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12559 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:27 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
Chickens will shred most material like weeds, hay, and leaves, into a fine mulch. They can't shred branches, of course.... _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
Do what you can, where you are, makes all kinds of sense. I would add to look closely at your job in terms of Peak Oil, and try to reduce your vulnerability. We have traded our past 45 acre homestead for one acre in the country where I can ply my trade as a machinist and repairing farm and home stuff. We have an orchard, gardens, cistern/rain collection, solar, and are powering down every way we can think of, but will never be independent. But we will do all we can for ourselves.
Good ideas here. A very worthwhile thread! _________________ Local fix-it guy..
Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 4313 Location: Graceland
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
This is more of a tips and tricks kind of thing, but RE the partial buildout of the attic, one easy way to expand storage space is to buy a BUNCH of bicycle hooks and go up in your attic with a drill to do starter holes and screw the bicycle hooks into the roof support beams.
From these hooks you can hang all kinds of stuff. A large shopping bag with handles can be placed on a hook and can store a lot of stuff. Write the contents on the outside of the bag and you can survey your supplies very easily.
It's also a little more challenging for bugs and rodents to attack a bag of stuff hanging from a hook.
This approach allows you to tap into the available CUBIC footage of a space, not just the square footage.
If you use black shopping bags and a silver paint pen for labeling, it looks a little tougher. When you're done it ought to look a little like a hanging garden of doom.
Throw a black light up there and use dayglo colored bags if you want a little more retro look. If you get overrun, the attic might also be a good zombie safe room. I've heard that most zombies are scared of black lights. Some, however, are attracted to them, so be careful...
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject: Re: The Suburban Homestead
Big Tex, I liked your post.
Did you mention that you should super-insulate your home and install a wood fired heating stove? Also, learn how to build a cob bread oven. My two cents.
Also, if start leaving suburbia, take down the fences in the abandoned homes and make their yards part of YOURS. Also, then you can harvest their rainwater, too. If no one is there to use it, then they can't complain any when you do.
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