Homesteading Activities

While we don't technically own any land or a home, the past few weeks have been full of "homesteading" activities.  Wikipedia defines homesteading as a lifestyle of self-sufficiency.  We are miles away from true self-sufficiency we love the challenge of moving our lifestyle in that direction on the spectrum.  Not because we have to but more of a hobby.  Here is a short report on our latest activities:
- We attended the Mother Earth News Fair last weekend.  This is our second time to attend and it is always a fun day to learn new things.  The Mother Earth News is a magazine focused on modern homesteading, all things DIY, eco-living, gardening, and sustainability.  The fair has a plethora of speakers on a wide range of topics as well as vendors.  My parents joined us again this year.  My mom and I attend a lot of the gardening presentations.  My dad has some interests in some of the farming talks.  And Arthur attends a little bit of everything-- from heritage hog breeds to food fermentation to improving air quality in the home.  We always come home with great ideas for someday...when we have our own house and yard.  But we did learn about a lot of things we can do now-- gardening in 2 square feet, making butter and yogurt, having a worm bin.

- I was excited to go to a presentation on vermiculture- using worms to produce compost.  It was also encouraging that about 60 people have worms at their homes and we are not alone.  A few weeks ago we harvested our worm compost while watching the presidential debates.  We figured that both the debate and digging through worm poop would be messy, stinky, disgusting, and have some mud-slinging.  We harvested 4 bags of compost.  Later at the fair we saw worm compost selling for $20 for a 5 pound bag.  We have a gold mine in our basement.

- Attending the fair also got me motivated to do my fall clean up in my garden and plant my "fall" crops of spinach, radish, and carrots.  While technically fall crops should have been planted about a month ago I have the advantage of just bringing my "field" inside when it gets too cold.  Of course it was 85F when I was cleaning the garden and doesn't feel like a hard freeze is just around the corner.

- Arthur attended a talk on making cheese and butter and I listened to one on homemade yogurt.  This has inspired some experimenting in our kitchen.  Arthur is still making sourdough bread from the yeast culture he grew last spring.  Last night he whipped up some fresh butter from cream and we mixed it with fresh basil and some dried tomatoes to make an herb butter for the bread.  We will keep you posted on cheese and yogurt updates in the future. Omnia Vincit Amor.