Start a Blog? Why not?

So here I am, joining the masses of bloggers. Here goes nothin'!

Over the last several months, I have discovered a new hobby: urban homesteading. I guess I don't know the exact definition of homesteading, so I made one up to fit what I do. My guess is it involves gardening, harvesting, and preserving and collecting food to subsist on. Living a minimal lifestyle, off the land. Now, I know I don't nearly have enough garden space and resources to live on year 'round, and I could definitely live simpler, but I try to improve everyday and do the best with what I've got. That's why it's a hobby, not a living.

I hope this bloggy thing will keep me motivated to keep doing the things I've been doing. I hope the posts will be about the projects I take on and hopefully the idea of sharing it will motivate me on those dark, rainy days when all I want to do is be lazy and order in.


A quick summary of my summer doings: Of course, like every year, I planted a garden. Only this year, I planted twice as much as I usually do, and tried some crops I've never planted before. It was a lot of work, but I like playing in dirt and hanging out with worms so it was ok. The harvests were awesome, I still have green beans and broccoli in the freezer and it looks like a couple small zucchini are still trying to grow. Can't wait to harvest the seven, count them, seven small sugar pumpkins and turn them into deliciousness.

We also got chickens. My dream come true. This meant building a chicken coop and run, which turned out to be a ton of work, especially since we tried to use as much salvage wood as possible. In the end, we ended up using an existing wood shed as the base structure and building the run onto it with mostly wood and shingles we found hidden under our house. Of course we had to buy most of the hardware, two sheets of plywood and 1/2 inch chicken wiring. Total cost: maybe $150? Considering the coops that you can buy costs at least twice as much? Not so bad, I think.

We also had a great apple and pear year so a couple dozen pounds of pears were canned and several apple pies were made. I did lots of other stuff, but I think I'll save those for later posts. (What the hell am I gonna write about in the winter anyway?)

Ok, that's enough. Back to knitting.