Monday, February 21, 2011

Urban Homesteaders' Action Day

As many have already documented in thorough detail, the phrases "urban homestead" and "urban homesteading" have recently been trademarked by a certain family (whose name I refuse to use in tandem with those phrases anymore, lest they somehow think I'm crediting them). I remember coming across their website 6 or 7 years ago. They have certainly been an inspiration, and this turn of events hurts. I don't believe it will stand up in court, and I'm not worried about them coming after me for using those words or anything like that, but the betrayal stings.

What a beautiful coming together of the community of those of us striving toward self-reliance has happened in response, though! I was lamenting the other day that I only wanted to read gardening/farming/homesteading blogs anymore and couldn't find good ones. Now I have somewhere close to 100 new ones (as gathered by the awesome Crunchy Chicken) to peruse thanks to this action day! And although I've been on a personally-imposed Facebook hiatus for the past week, I did sneak on to add my support to the Take Back Urban Home-steading(s) group (shhh, don't tell!)

Funnily enough, thanks to one of the blogs I found in all this mess, Grow and Resist, I've reconsidered whether I even *want* to identify as a "homesteader." I think I'll stick with "urban farmer." So what happened at the farm this evening?
  • groomed Theo, my brand new Jersey Woolly rabbit, and collected a nice handful of wool
  • checked the seedlings under lights -- spilanthes, Tom Thumb lettuce, and leeks are up!
  • transplanted broccoli raab, spinach, and an unknown lettuce (from a mixed packet) into indoor windowbox
  • made granola (flavor of the week: dried cherry, coconut, agave)
  • made do chua (daikon-carrot pickle) for future bahn mi
  • made spicy pickled carrots (I plan to eat with lentils and rice)
  • purchased materials for new sub-irrigated tub experiment
  • started soaking the seed-starting mix for tomorrow's planting of eggplants, peppers, parsley, and basil
  • fed the worms a nice handful of daikon and carrot trimmings and discovered that although I've only had them for about a month, there is a definite stratum of rich castings! Go worms, go!
My apartment is small and so is the amount I can do while working 45+ hours a week outside of the house. But I'm absolutely honored to be part of this group of folks doing what they can to aim for self-sufficiency. Whatever we choose to call ourselves, we rock!

2 comments:

  1. I found you via Crunchy, and I love what you're doing. Keep up the great work. I'm jealous of the rabbit.

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