Setting Goals

by Lynn of Viggie's Veggies

One thing I know already about urban homesteading is that there is a lot to learn and a lot of work to do. All too often while reading a book, browsing a forum, catching up on my blogroll, or chatting with one of my homesteading friends I hear of some new project idea or skill to learn. It can be a bit overwhelming.

What I decided to do was use the site 43things. When I hear something I think I could benefit from doing, I just add it to my goal list. Some are small like learning to cook with cast iron, some are for expanding my urban homestead like raising angora rabbits, and some are personal challenges like daily exercise. I've come up with some great ideas by browsing other peoples lists, and would have never learned about and implemented some of the flylady routines to stay clean and organized had it not been for the site.



The pictures are of two of my current projects, giving sprouting a try again for fresh greens during the winter and learning to make tortillas. I had forgotten all about both useful ideas until I saw them on my list this fall. I've accomplished a lot of my goals using this site during the last 2 years.With it I can list and prioritize, make entries to track my progress, and start planning my budget to allow for anything I may need to complete the next goal (cast iron pans!).



I like using the site for a lot of reasons. It helps me stay organized and keeps all of these diverse goals visible. There's also a social aspect that allows you to network with people with the same interests and cheer on others pursuing their goals.

How ever you decide to plan your future, I hope it motivates you to strive for knowledge and personal growth the way mine has.

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Felt Something

by Amy of Progressive Pioneer

I'm pretty nuts about felted wool. Any time I visit a thrift store I check the sweater rack for 100% wool sweaters to add to my stash. I've got a huge box full of various pieces in all sorts of colors and patterns just waiting for inspiration to strike. All of our Christmas stockings are sewn from felted wool, I'm in the middle of a little woolen vest for Sam and recently finished some wool pants and mittens for him. You can make hats, leg warmers, skirts, diapers, blankets, the sky's the limit!

Here's an example of how simple making a pair of mittens is:

I traced Sam's hand and pinned the shape to a double layer of felted wool. In this project I used the sleeves to take advantage of the cuff. Then I roughly cut out the shape, adding enough for a seam allowance.

I left the paper on as a guide and sewed all the way around the edge, trimming of any excess at the end. Flip those guys inside out and you have a great pair of water-resistant, snugly warm mittens!

I made Sam's extra long so they'll stay tucked into his jacket. If you make a pair, remember to sew them together wrong-side out. I forgot on one mitten, but Sam doesn't seem to mind:)

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Make a Pillowcase Apron

by Sadge, at Firesign Farm
Once you start getting into the simple lifestyle, sooner or later you're going to want an apron. So make one - they're a perfect project for beginning sewers. I have a favorite granny bib-style, H-back, one that I usually wear. But I like having a couple extra aprons around too - guest aprons, you might say. My sister and her family usually visit for Thanksgiving. She loves it when I offer her an apron to wear too. It just makes her feel more "in the spirit", she says.

As well as for yourself, and maybe your guests, consider making an extra apron or two for Tie One On Day. Started by EllynAnne Geisel, it's a way to put the "give" back in Thanksgiving: "Participation is simple. On the day before Thanksgiving, November 25th this year, pause in the preparation of your own meal, wrap a loaf of bread or other baked good in an apron, tuck a prayer or note of encouragement in the pocket, and deliver the wrapped bundle to someone without your bounty - a neighbor, friend or family member in need of physical or spiritual sustenance, a bit of recognition, or just a kind word."

A quick and easy way to make a cute half-apron is to start with a pillowcase. Nice ones can usually be found at your local thrift store for $1 or less. I look for ones with some kind of different print or decoration around the opening end. That end makes the skirt of your apron - cut it between 16 and 20 inches long for a nice length. I measure where I want to make my cuts, making little snips in the edge. Then I fold and smooth the pillowcase over at a snipped place, slipping my scissors inside the fold and cutting across to make straight cuts. The middle cross-cuts make the waistband and ties. Cut two equally sized strips 3-4 inches wide (I'm using a King case here, so I had enough material to cut three. I used one as a center piece and then trimmed half off the other two. Using all three would make ties long enough to wrap around and tie in front - would be cute too). Cut the sewn side seam off the skirt and waistband/tie pieces, and open them up at the fold. The closed end will make the two pockets, so don't cut the pillowcase seams on that piece.

Fold the raw side edges of the skirt over twice to the wrong side, press, and sew down.

Make the pockets by cutting the top corner parts of the case into two equal squares or rectangles (discard the center piece). Turn the corner inside-out, flatten, and stitch down the remaining two open sides, leaving a couple of inches left unstitched to be able to turn right-side out. Clip off the tip of your corner, just beyond your stitches, turn right-side out, (then use a crochet hook or unclicked click pen to push the corners out to a nice point) and press flat, tucking the unsewn part evenly to the inside. Repeat for the other pocket.

Lay the skirt out flat and position the pockets an inch or two on either side of the center, 4-6 inches down from the top. Try different positions until you have something you like best - maybe with the pattern running perpendicular to the skirt's or putting the pockets on an angle. Just make sure that the unstitched part of the pocket edge isn't part of the top edge (top-stitch it to close it up if you just have to have it on the top part). Pin in place, then sew down three sides close to the edge of the pocket, leaving the top open. I like to spin the pocket around and run a second line of stitching just inside the first (reinforcement - don't want to be losing anything through a hole in your pocket). You might like the look of using a contrasting color of thread too.

Join the ends of the waistband/ties, sewing with right sides together. Press the seam edges open, and then fold one long side over towards the wrong side, and press. Find the center of the long piece, then lay the long piece right-side UP on your work surface with the folded side farther away from you.

Lay the skirt, also right-side UP, on top of the long piece, matching centers of both pieces and the raw edges closest to you, and put a pin in the center through both pieces. You can just pin the pieces together flat, but I like to gather or pleat the skirt a bit. If you want to gather yours, measure out equal distances either side of your center pin on the long narrow piece, and pin the outside edges of the skirt there (4-8 inches closer to center is usually good). Keeping the narrow piece laid down straight and flat, then make the skirt part lay flat by making up the slack pinning down pleats or gathers, keeping the raw edge of both pieces even. Mirror what you do to one side of center on the other side too. Sew skirt to band (I find it easiest to have the skirt part up when sewing too, so that I can do any final adjustments to my pleats or gathers - just keep the band part underneath lying flat).

Fold the bottom edge of the waist ties up and press. Fold the top edge down, matching the folded edges together on the ties, and covering the line of stitching on the front of the skirt, and pin. Tuck the raw ends of the ties to the inside and pin them too, making a nice corner.

Top stitch the end of a tie, along the folded edges, across the top front of the skirt, along the folded edge of the other tie and across the end. A final quick pressing and you're done!

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Moving Beyond Panic

by Kate
Living The Frugal Life

I don't often confront the big issues of our times head on in my blog posts. Usually I tiptoe around them. Today I'm going to make an exception, in light of a recent article by the UK Guardian concerning the IEA, or International Energy Agency. The IEA is responsible for promulgating official statements about the world's remaining reserves of oil and other fossil fuels. Even if we take the IEA at their official word as of late last year, we are now facing a reduction of more than 9% in the global oil supply - annually. Given that industrial economies are reliant not merely on a steady supply of oil, but on a supply of oil that in living memory has only ever expanded in response to demand, this is bad news.

The kicker is the Guardian's report that two whistleblowers from within the IEA have now come forward to say that even a 9% reduction (or a mere 6% reduction if we "invest in more discovery,") significantly overstates the world's reserves of oil. The US government has leaned on the IEA to publish rosy forecasts for years, and a 9% decline was apparently all that passed muster. The bottom line is this: by far the majority of us have no way of knowing how much oil is really left, except that it is probably far less than we've been led to believe. Those who do know mostly aren't saying. Those with the industry background to make very well educated guesses are not giving out forecasts that square with those of the IEA.

My guess is that the readers here at the co-op have thought a bit about peak oil and its implications. Chances are that most of you have gotten past the panic and the paralysis of early peak oil awareness. This news may not be welcome to any of you, but I somehow doubt that it's paradigm shifting for too many of you either. So my question to all of you then is: what have you done to prepare yourself, your family, or your community for the changes that a dwindling oil supply will bring? What have you accomplished so far? What other things do you hope to accomplish in the very near term? What other changes would you like to tackle as time and money allow further down the line? Do you have a formal schedule of projects, or are you just working intuitively on what seems most urgent?

I'll start...

On our suburban 2/3 acre we put in about 2000 square feet (~186 square meters) of food garden. We planted several perennial plants including fruit trees, several types of berries, asparagus and grapes, none of which are productive yet. We added laying hens, and are doing as much as possible to increase the fertility of our garden soil. I learned the basics of canning, dehydrating, and lacto-fermenting foods. I've begun to learn a bit about medicinal herbs. We've made changes in our spending habits in order to pay off our mortgage debt as quickly as possible. Although these changes were made gradually, looking back from the perspective of a few years, they're pretty radical. We had an energy audit done on our home, added insulation and had the house air sealed. My husband built and installed a single rain barrel to catch runoff from our garage, and has plans for next year to chain several more of them together for more capacity.

For the future, we're very seriously considering adding a passive solar thermal heating system for our home, which we heat steadily for about four months per year, with an additional two months of part-time heating. Moving forward with that system will depend on whether or not my husband remains employed after the new year. I also have plans to take a first aid course in January. We plan to add honeybees to our mini-homestead next year, and should be able to do so. In the spring I'm scheduled to teach a homesteading class for beginners. I have no idea whether anyone will enroll. Next year we'll start fig and citrus trees in containers so that we can pull them inside to protect them from the winters that would otherwise kill them in our zone.

As you can see, like most peak oil-aware people I've concentrated on and made the most progress in the area of food production. This is the low-hanging fruit among the host of problems that peak oil will create for us. Not easy, but the easiest among the bunch. Debt reduction has been a very high priority as well. After that, my efforts have been spread over the challenges of medicine, heating, water supply, and the state of my wider community. I've made much less progress in these areas, and haven't even begun to address an alternative source of electricity or transportation. All in all, a pretty average response among those taking peak oil seriously.

I'm not asking how you've begun to prepare for a post peak world in order to stir the pot, nor to goad anyone into action through guilt or fear. Least of all do I want anyone to panic. Panic is never helpful. I'm asking for purely selfish reasons. Because knowing what steps others are taking is heartening to me when I hear news this disturbing. Blogs like those of the writers and the readers of this co-op provide me with both concrete facts and techniques, as well as inspiration and a sense of camaraderie, however distant my comrades.

Please share your stories in the comments.

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Turning Down The Background Noise

My husband, Matt, has had to go on a few business trips lately. When he comes home we always spend quite a bit of time debriefing about the trip. The other night we spent a long time talking about how easily we forget that we live our lives quite differently than others.

The first thing we noticed, was that we no longer surround ourselves with the toxic soup of chemicals that is normal to most people in the developed world. The second, that we have really turned down the gain, or the background noise in our lives.

The last time we had cable television (or an antenna) was 6 years ago. We do have a dvd player with a television, which we use to watch movies occasionally. Americans watch an average of 5 hours of tv per day - five hours! Who has time for that? And how can people stand to watch it for that long?

When we ride in the car, we don't listen to music. We just sort of stopped doing that a few months into our relationship. Instead, we talk. It's really lovely.

At home my 20-year-old stereo died a year ago, and we just didn't replace it. Sure, I miss my old jazz records on occasion. But maybe once in a blue moon, certainly not often. And if I miss them, I can play them on my computer with headphones. For the most part, though, it's nice to hear my own thoughts.

I was trying to explain this to my father the other day. I was driving in the car with my parents, and the baseball game was on the radio while four people were in the car talking. Not only was it difficult to hear everyone, but also I'm not used to the frantic energy of the sportscast. It's unnerving, and meant, I suppose, to keep you on the edge of your seat. And that energy is so different from my daily exposure, that it almost feels toxic.

I know people who never seem to want to be alone with their thoughts, who can't deal with silence, who need background noise. And I also see people I know having a difficult time concentrating, on really listening to what others are saying, or really understanding a problem that needs solving.

Since I began to consciously turn down the gain - to save energy, mostly - my blood pressure feels to have lowered, I'm less stressed overall, and I'm quite good at thinking deeply on a regular basis. Plus without television, I get a whole lot more done in one day!

What types of background noise is in your life? Have you thought about eliminating them?

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