Urban Homesteading

My latest read is Urban Homesteading by Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume. I was turned onto it by a friend and co-worker, who wrote about the book on our firm's Regenerative Landscapes blog. http://www.regenerativelandscape.org/

The book had me at the dedication, which reads: "This book is dedicated to the children who follow after us. May they inherit a fertile and abundant world filled with people who honor the diversity of life teeming around us: from the tiniest microbe, to the wondrous chicken, to the beauty of human community."

Often these books are overwhelming, they start off demanding you to build your own chicken coop and to quit your job to become a farmer. I'm am all about taking baby steps when it comes to lifestyle changes. The first chapter in this book, "Start where you are" -- What a refreshing concept!

But, as Grace Paley says, "The only recognizable feature of hope is action." So ideas and concepts, hope and dreams are all good, but at some point we all have to get our hands dirty. "And so we find ourselves in our backyards...pulling carrots, tending bees and gathering grapes."

The book has a Bioregional Quiz, that helps you discover where you actually are. Among the questions is can you trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap? Describe the soil around your house. Were the stars out last night? The quiz helps the reader to start thinking, to start living more aware and curiously. Knowing our surroundings can make us better stewards of the places we call home. It's the concept of being the change we wish to see in the world. It starts with you (and me) and we can start small.

Here are a few themes from the book:

Simplify.
Use Less.
Share More.
Localize.
Diversify.
Do it Yourself.
Indigenate.
Emobdy.
Relate.
Forgive.
Listen and Observe.
Create and Renew.
and likely the most important, Begin.

Start where you are. Make mistakes. Begin again.

The book is filled with inspiring, practical, insightful knowledge and tools that we can use to change the way we live and more, to change the way we view our surroundings. I will be writing more as I work my way through the book and hope that you will join me on the journey to more sustainable living. If not for oursevles, for "the children who follow after us."

Eat.Live.Breath.Organic