Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
Graduate school gives you a shortage of both time and money. Yet somehow, my classmates in Eugene put together a super-sweet baby shower for us that I just have to share with you. The theme was “Springtime on the Farm” and they came up with the most adorable and creative ways to fill us with love before Bug arrives. Exhibit A: baby chick cupcakes. I
It’s a new era for us in our Portland house and time for some updates. We plan to be here for a while and want to enjoy the house as much as possible. But like many houses, there are things here and there that drive us nuts. With a baby on the way, we decided that if we don’t make changes now they will never
Construction is complete! The runner ducks have a new, permanent home here on our little homestead. It should be a safe, predator proof place for them to sleep, play and lay eggs. Ducks need a little more wiggle room than chickens. Allow about 4-6 square feet per bird in their duck house and 10-25 square feet per bird for the run. In our case, the
The holidays this year are something we are admiring from a distance, rather than actively getting into the spirit of. Boxes are still stacked like a maze in our house from moving and projects are lined up high. What we would do without our sense of humor about it all? The duck coop is getting closer to completion and I suspect the final touches will
The ducks are getting a new, permanent home – slowly but surely. Last week we did some deconstruction and site prep. This past weekend I drew up some loose plans and we started building. The duck house should give each bird about 4-6 square feet of space while the run area can be anywhere from 10-25 square feet per bird. This wide variation may have
How many coops have I built now? Ah, best not to keep track. I honestly forgot that we had a chicken coop still here at our house in Portland (pictured above). Past tenants were interested in keeping chickens, so we left it here. It sat empty while we were away and isn’t really needed anymore. We have a great coop now (pictured above) that has
I finished my LAST design studio of my grad program a couple weeks ago. Woohoo! Only a couple classes and my thesis stand in the way between me and graduation this June. We had a hypothetical project this past term involving high-speed rail. I worked with a great team of other landscape architecture grad students – Brigitte Huneke and David Fothergill – to plan the
There are little treasures of beauty peeking out of our winter garden. It takes some searching between the skeletons of fruit trees and shrubs to find them, but they are out there quietly shivering away. With a warm mug of chai, I bundled up to capture some of those lovely corners. Artichokes, my favorite vegetable, make pretty winter flowers – little memories of their perennial
Whose idea was it to move from Eugene to Portland while I am seven months pregnant? Oh, right… it was my idea. As stressful as a move can be, things went smoothly and we had tons of friendly hands helping us lift boxes, chicken coops and duck houses. That little yellow house was good to us, but it was never “ours”. (Yikes – look at
There are too many great photos to share from our Thanksgiving spent with friends, or Friendsgiving, this year. So fewer words and more pictures! First, don’t all good things start with friends jammed in a teeny kitchen cooking together? I feel like I’ll remember all that giddy energy in the kitchen more than almost anything that night. So great to celebrate with some of my
