Spring??

Because who could possibly resist the idea of getting such a head start on their spring garden!? Already-hardened-off spinach, lettuce, and snap peas from a little local store, ready to go in the ground! Here's to an early season!

Daily Pickings

Snap peas, our first green beans, lettuce, Basil, Swiss chard (I already ate the duck egg!)

Big Homestead Project - Fencing

Our fence needs a little work, huh?

This is our big project year.

White four board fencing is beautiful, but not when all the posts are rotten and it's falling over into the grass - and this picture was taken after the kind neighbor staked up the parts that were literally at 45 degree angles to the ground and held up by ropes and support beams!  When the former owner of the property installed this, he didn't anchor the posts in cement; they are buried in the dirt in a city that gets something like 250 days of rain a year!  It's not going to last very long!

(you might be an urban farmer if you look at this picture and don't see "weeds" - you see "forage," i.e goat food!)

The whole fence on one side of our property and along the back is coming down and getting replaced with a six-foot tall privacy fence.  We are so fortunate that our neighbor on that side is a contractor and is willing to build it and split the cost with us.

A privacy fence doesn't seem very homestead-y, but it solves a large number of problems for an urban or suburban homestead:

1.  A privacy fence will be secure.  Dogs won't be able to get on our property, livestock won't be able to get off.  Racoons can climb and hawks can fly, but from what I've read, almost all livestock losses are due to free roaming dogs.

2. The neighbor's Jack Russell terrier (hopefully) won't bark at our livestock (and us, and our dog, and our hose) all day if he can't see us.  He also (probably) won't be able or motivated to dig under a sturdy, well installed privacy fence.

3. On the flip side, our animals hopefully will not bark/cluck/quack/baa/bleat (or whatever) at the neighbors whenever they get home or come outside.

4. The sights, sounds, and smells of our homestead will be more obstructed from our neighbors.  Of course we plan to keep a very well-managed, clean, and tidy mini farm, but it can only help to have a little extra privacy to ensure the neighbor's good will.  If they want to come over and visit they can, but if they don't, they don't have to feel like they live next to a funny farm all the time.

5.  I feel pretty weird about the neighbors watching me pick lettuce or feed quail in my pajamas in the morning while they're drinking their coffee and getting their kids off to school... so a little privacy will be nice for me and probably help limit the level of insanity they perceive over here.

6.  When it comes time for unpleasant tasks (raking out deep litter in the poultry pens or slaughtering meat animals) or just ridiculous tasks (like chasing a loose quail around the yard in my bath robe), I won't have an audience and the neighbors won't have to see anything they don't want to see. 

So should every suburban homestead build a privacy fence right from the get-go?  No - I wouldn't say that, unless that is fully within your budget and would make you feel more comfortable with your farming venture.  But if the opportunity to build a new fence arises, give a tall, solid fence careful thought, it may be worth the money and effort.    
  

First garden row is done!

It took a few weeks of doing just a little bit most days... but there it is!  A *fully planted* garden row 36' x 3'.  It is so nice to sit back and just look at the fruit of all that digging! 

Break time's over!

Now time to start row number two...

Daily Pickings

Daily Pickings

It's another BEAUTIFUL spring/summer day here in the Pacific Northwest! I can't decide what season this is since it is June, so that sounds like summer, but its been 65-70 degrees and sunny every day for six weeks, which very definitely not any sort of summer that I'm used to!  My idea of summer is more along the lines of clothes sticking to your back sweat one minute after stepping outside, taking a shower three times a day, and thinking you might actually die if you go out without your water bottle.   Apparently from June until September I can expect this amazing, refreshing, and perfect-for-gardening weather. LOVE IT.

Here's what I picked today:
Calendula, chickweed, plantain, and lavender to go in an herbal body oil.
Raspberry leaves and peppermint for tea.

First Harvest of the Season

Cultivating Pacific Northwest Weeds (i.e. Growing Blackberries)

I purchased 8 blackberry canes and 6 blueberry bushes about four weeks ago from a local backyard grower for a great price (yes, before we had even found a house, first things first).  I paid $3 each, compared to the $9-15 they charge at a home improvement store garden center.  However, good deal or not, I have since been informed that I am insane for buying blackberries because they grow rampant all over the region.  And now that I'm paying attention I've seen that it's true... every shopping center parking lot, highway median, unkempt backyard, and park are bordered by tangled mounds of blackberries.  They are nasty thorny things, and no one really picks them; they just rot on the branches and feed the birds.

I didn't know there were so many wild blackberries when I paid for these... but I did at least buy thornless blackberries that have been cultivated for size and taste and we will actually pick them and eat them, unlike all the wild ones that people just treat as weeds!  I love blackberries and have always wanted to grow my own, so I'm starting with these eight canes and we will eventually have a nice row of vine fruits (eventually blackberries, raspberries, and grapes) going down the long sunny fence line of the yard.

 Of course our livestock plans may put a hitch in all that... goats love to eat brambles and the "pasture" part of our yard is exactly where these plants are going.  So we may need to fence the berries in on both sides...  or tether our goats in areas we want them to eat down to the ground... or just get sheep instead, which (so I read) won't eat woody plants unless they run out of grass... that's a problem for next year.  It still made sense to use the long sun-drenched fence line that already exists for the berries.

I have to be very careful about not letting them spread into the neighbor's beautiful yard, since, as I said, they are Pacific Northwest weeds.  I saw a trick where you bury deep garden edging plastic in the ground alongside your berries so that they cannot send out their shoots in that direction.  I will need to do that along the fence line so they stay in my yard.  

I have high hopes for good harvests from these canes - if not this year then next, once they are established!  Whatcom County Washington is the #1 raspberry producing area in the country, and is near the top for blackberries and blueberries as well.  The plants love the soil and climate here, so God-willing we will have all we can eat in the summer and a freezer full of delicious homegrown berries year-round!

The Beginning of a Homestead

How we got here...

I started looking at real estate online months before we moved to Bellingham, Washington.  I started looking as soon as Nate even thought about applying for the new job!  I guess I am just a perennial homemaker – always thinking, dreaming, planning, and learning about how I could turn a property into a home - my home.  I looked at little houses, big houses, old houses, new houses.  Some out in the country, some right downtown. 

If you’re like me, and your heart is in the country while your life has to be in the city or suburbs, looking at houses can be a heart ache.  I came across BEAUTIFUL turn-of-the-century farmhouses on several acres.  White porches, red barns, four-board fencing… an hour away from town.... and $50K over budget.  And I saw houses right outside town in the suburbs.  Newly built, granite counter tops, walk in closets, luxurious master bathrooms, beautiful backsplashes... and not a single feature that inspired me to actually go look at them.  They sat on teeny tiny lots with the compulsory ornamental tree and a few boxwoods in the front and a perfect square of lawn hedged in by four or five neighbors’ houses in the back.   Stifling.  

I tried to like them.  I really did.  I thought, “Well, maybe this one since there is a park down the street.”  Or “Maybe I’ll like being inside this house so much I won’t mind what is outside.”  Some of the kitchens were tempting.  I have always wanted a big kitchen.  A HUGE kitchen.  Somewhere to roll out pie and pizza doughs, to make breads from scratch, and host large gatherings.  Space to roast my Thanksgiving turkey and still have the pumpkin pie finishing, with green beans, glazed carrots, and stuffing on the range. 

But, as I tried to imagine living in one of these cookie-cutter American dream homes on a little manicured lot in suburbia I realized that all the appeal of these “chefs kitchens” with granite and double ovens and stainless steel was completely lost on me without the property to grow my own food and the space to live and play outside.  

A kitchen counter is a place to spread out the bounty of the morning’s harvest from your garden.  A stove top is where you splatter homegrown tomato sauce and fill a cast iron skillet with backyard quail eggs and freshly picked veggies for an omelet.  A pantry should be full of root vegetables, freshly dug in the fall.  A fridge should be bursting with brilliant greens: chard, lettuce, arugula, green beans, cucumbers.  

Eggs from our backyard quail in Kentucky

And an HOA telling me I can't have quail or grow tomatoes in my front yard?  No Thanks!!  So we passed on all the new-build neighborhoods with reasonable prices and told our realtor “charming older home on property, near town, quirks ok.”

And we prayed!  I prayed that God would bring something onto the market where we could grow, play, dig, garden, raise animals, and explore in our own backyard.  I prayed for a place where Nate could ride his bike to work – his perpetual dream.  I prayed for a place near town so we could be involved in the community and access all the great things about our small, fun city.  I didn't think we could have location and property, but we held out hope.  

And God answered!     

We now have a 1940’s cottage-esque cape cod on .6 acres 2.5 miles from downtown and Nate’s work!  It is in an established and friendly neighborhood with all older homes on large lots – most between ½ and 1 acre.   It has all the convenience of being close to downtown and tons of shopping (i.e. there is a Starbucks 1.2 miles in every direction, four grocery stores within 1.5 miles, and the mall - not that I ever go to malls - is 1.5 miles away) but the immediate area gives you the feel of a small country town with picket fences and chickens meandering down the sidewalks.    There is a park down the street that connects to a walking trail  that takes you one mile to a public beach on Bellingham Bay!

It has its quirks as an older home.  It’s smaller than the house we had in Kentucky, even though our family will only be getting bigger.  The dining room is literally a room.  With a door.  Not attached to the kitchen.  And the kitchen is in the back of the house quite separate from everything else.  That’ll take some getting used to.  All the rooms are pretty closed off… a far cry from our newer very open floor plan home in Kentucky. There is one full bathroom, and then a little “water closet” attached to the master bedroom (which is very tiny).  Walk in closets? Not a chance.  (Actually the closet situation sort of makes me have a panic attack so we’ll talk about that later. )  But the house and property just grabbed our hearts and imaginations right away!    And I love it.  

I love the white cabinets and bay window in the kitchen!  It is separate from the rest of the house, but it does have tons of cabinet space, a big sink, and cool built-in storage.

For now, we’re trying to make this smaller, older house into a functional home for our family.  With four bedrooms, a living room, and a den we have plenty of options.  There could be two bedrooms (a master and the boys sharing one), a guest room, and/or an office, and/or a play room.  Perhaps a library/study?   It has a basement that looks like it will be easy to finish.  A homeschool room?  A home gym?  A craft room?  Storage?   I'm sure it will evolve over time.  We have the feeling that the more closed off rooms will lead to more possibilities.  It will be easier to designate space for studying, for projects, for watching tv, for playing games, and for eating, etc than if it all existed in one large room. 

In between the house and the garage is what we call the "front backyard."  Behind the garage (shown here) is another 1/4 acre or so designated the "back backyard" lol

The yard goes way back behind the house, with plenty of room for a large vegetable garden, an herb garden, raspberries and blackberries on trellises, a strawberry bed, fruit trees, and of course a pen for quail.  My plan for next year is to get ducks.  They seem like the perfect fit for our wet weather and the constant barrage of slugs.  Eventually I’m even hoping for a dairy goat!  A huge garage sits behind the house with room for two cars and a shop.  Or a goat stall and milking parlour?  Or an indoor seedling growing area?  Or a chick brooder?  All three!?  

The "front backyard" between the garage and the house. I think from the street to the garage makes up about 1/4 acre.  From the garage back to the fenceline is a little more than 1/4 acre of grass and a few trees.  I love Hudson's ears flapping at the bottom of this picture!

The "front backyard" and the garage/shop taken from the second story window.  That odd-shaped patch of grass is destined to become 100% vegetable garden! There is too much gravel for my taste, but both our parents have or are getting RVs so it is a perfect set up for them to come stay. 

 So many possibilities!

This is the beginning of a suburban homestead.  Keep checking out the blog to follow along as I dream, design, plan, implement, mess up and try again in the home, the garden, and the farmyard!


In all things, to God be the glory
soli deo gloria
Lauren