Peep Peep Peep

We brought home five baby chicks on Saturday May 23rd. Jerod began building the coop Saturday afternoon. The chicks won't be able to move in for a couple more weeks, but the coop is looking beautiful. Here are some pics of what's happening on the Lea Urban Farm. This post is very late because Jerod had most of the pictures of the coop being built on his camera and didn't get them to me for a while. Enjoy!

Anyone home??

Jager and our neighbor's son, Seth seeing the chicks for the first time

Our neighbor's other son, Shannon

This is either Rosa or Izzabella (yes, it's spelled wrong on purpose)

Twitchy, Bossy, Rolley Polley, Rosa and Izzabella

They actually look so different now than from this photo. They are getting their feathers already. I'll post those later.


Rosa
The beginning of the coop

Jerod used dowels to hinge the door
Getting ready to put the roof on

ready for the roof

How the door opens to the house

Beginning the roof

Other side

top of the roof

How the door opens with the roof on


door to the yard

Moved into it's permanent location

Just a bit more to do and it's done

Barefoot Gardening

I know this is a strange post, but I want to talk about gardening barefooted. I love it. My feet look like trash all spring and summer long, but there's just nothing like feeling the heat of the soil on my feet. I love the way the mud feel squishing between my toes when I water the garden. I have heard and read that walking barefooted is good for your balance physical as well as mental and spiritual. It's a direct connection with the earth that, as farmers, we are working so hard to keep healthy. Living in a semi urban area I can tell you the reactions I get from people about how dirty my feet always look. I love pedicures. They feel great, but they are honestly a waste of money for me because literally hours after getting one I'll be ankle deep in mud or something. Over the last several weeks we have made some great progress in our garden. Here's what's been happening around here...

Here are some of our seedlings ready to go in.....now I just need the beds for them

Starts for herbs. These will mostly go near our clothes line to help keep our clothes smelling wonderful while drying outside

Sunflowers that popped up in the garden from last years flowers. I moved them to the front yard to grow.

I had a bunch of seeds that had spilled out into a bowl. I couldn't tell some of them apart so I threw them into two of these containers and it looks like I've got cucumbers and watermelon so far.

Here is our thornless blackberry bush. It's supposed to yield a good crop the first year. We'll see.

Our clothes line. I haven't used my dryer in over a month.

I made this trellis for squash, but I'm not sure they'll need it. Luckily I can move it to another bed to use for peas if it doesn't prove useful here.
Zucchini flowers. They are so stunning.

CornJust put these strawberries in. I'm hoping it wasn't too late in the season. It gets really warm here.
I made my own upside down tomato. Honestly I'm not sure I like these yet. They haven't proved to be all I had expected. Time will tell
This is the view of our side garden. We started this garden for the first time last spring and this is the garden for this year. We are expanding into the back.
upside down tomato
We released ladybugs into the garden a little over a week ago. It's a fun thing to do with the kids. My best friends kids were there along with our neighbors kids and ours. What a fun night.
There are 1500 of them in these packets

Taking the Plunge

I've been resisting starting a blog of our journey into urban homesteading because I always start out strong and then fizzle out when I get busy with the actual doing of what I'm to blog about.

But I really made a point to photo and video journal some of our transition already. I felt it was important to document what's happening when you join a movement. Like it or not we are activists for greener living, organic gardening and self sustainability. We aren't perfect. We are definately new to all of this. I think more than anything we want to prove to the world that a technologically savvy man and a hippie woman can blend our insights together for the greater good of our family and our world. Anyone can make this change if they believe in it enough.

I was on board for a more sustainable lifestyle a couple years ago, but convincing Jerod was not going to be easy. He loves technology and easy availability. He's an instant gratification person. I'm impatient, but I can wait for the good things when I can see them on the horizon. I like my computer and that's about all the technology I deal with....well the tv set. I do like to watch tv.

One video changed all of it for us.

You can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q

It's hippie, it's going to an extreme for what they believe and that's how I feel. Jerod watched that video and our lives will never be the same. We are making a farm in the middle of Tracy. It's a lot of hard work and trial and error. It's going slower than I'd like, but we have 4 kids and jobs and a home to maintain. We'll get there and it's worth every gain and loss.