Suburban Self-Sufficiency

Happy Earth Day

2010-04-22T10:12:00.005-04:00

Today my mission of self-sufficiency seems slightly out of control (my husband would argue that this is always the case). This solo suburban farm-girl is feeling a little bit overwhelmed given everything that she has to get done in the next few days.

Two days ago my fruit tree order arrived, and I think I forgot just how overly excited I had gotten looking at that nursery website. I am now the proud owner of 5 apple trees and 3 pear trees, sitting in a bucket in my foyer, begging to be planted. But of course, the instructions say that you have to plant them just right - - spaced just right, dug just right, fertilized just right - - or I will regret my poor planning for years to come. Oh.

Did I mention that I also ordered fifty asparagus plants? In my own defense, I do plan on sharing them with my mother. There are also three bags of onions in my garage ready to be planted and about eighty pepper plant seedlings struggling to stay alive under the plant light in my basement. I think I should plan on sharing those with my mom, too, since there is no way I will have room for even half of those, should they all survive. Did I mention that I sometimes get overly zealous at the start of a new project?

As I sit here writing this, there is a hen clucking loudly in a cage in my basement. I had to pull her out of the coop because she had decided to get "broody," meaning she would rather sit on eggs (to hatch them) rather than keep laying them. The hope is that by taking her away from the nest box for a few days, she will break this habit and get back to her real duty. Plus, it's kind of sad to watch her sitting there; since I don't have a rooster, she's trying hard to hatch unfertilized eggs.

Well, even though I am feeling like I am in over my head (and I have to go to work in a few hours, kicking off a six-day work stretch that spans the weekend), I couldn't think of a better way to start off Earth Day than taking care of my plants and animals. I may not be an outstanding homesteader quite yet, but I am giving this all that I got - - and I think that the Earth just might forgive me my short-comings.

My Chicken Story, part 2

2010-04-01T12:30:00.004-04:00

A good chicken keeper will take a day or two off work when chicks are expected to arrive so that the fragile day-old creatures will have someone to pick them up immediately and watch over them, show them their food, make sure the temperature is just right, and keep them from drowning in their water supply. I, on the other hand, was stuck at a job that was impossible to leave, with unexpected chicks waiting hours for me at the post office, no supplies prepared, and no way to leave work for the afternoon to take care of them. But, darn it, I was going to go get them anyway.

I will never forget standing at the back door of the post office as a tiny box of activity was handed to me on that hot July day. They were real! I didn't open the box in the car, but talked to them the whole way back to work, not yet knowing what they looked like or if they all were alive in there.

I went in through the basement of our medical building, and the nurses and front-desk staff quickly gathered around. I opened the lid, and eight fluffy, peeping faces stared back. I sat on the floor with them, amazed at their simple beauty. But then I felt a sense of dread, knowing that I had patients to see in ten minutes, and I had no food and no heat lamp for my new babies.

The office staff sprang into action to help me, and without their help that day, those chicks would have perished. We found a spot in a basement storage room to stash them for the afternoon (don't worry -- it was far from patient areas), and someone found a heater and containers for food and water.

But I still had no food for these starving chicks and no idea where to even find it yet. Thankfully, one of the nurses, Sue, had a friend who raised chickens and lived down the road. She called him, and as luck would have it, he had just gotten chicks, too, and had plenty of feed. She left the office and 15 minutes later came back with a heat lamp, a book on chickens, and a bag of feed. I felt like it was a small miracle.

As I worked through the afternoon, the staff would run downstairs to check on the birds and give me updates. "They're eating!" said one, with pure joy and excitement in her voice. "They're pecking at each other a little? Is that okay?" asked another with worry.

When I got home that night, I knew my husband would be home late. I wanted to get everything situated before I told him about the girls, but as I tried to set up the heat lamp, I shattered the bulb. I ran to the hardware store, hoping that my chicks would huddle together and keep warm while I was gone. I was lucky enough to find the right bulb, along with a kiddie pool to keep them in while they were tiny.

My husband, needless to say, was shocked when he got home. But given the good-and-patient man that he is (and the fact that he has come to expect crazy things like this from me), he took it all in stride. (My neighbor did, too, when I cleared my plans with her sometime that first week.) A few weeks later, he built me a beautiful little hen-house, and I am so proud of him that he constructed it himself.

All eight girls made it through their youth and began to produce eggs by Thanksgiving. I felt like I had discovered a treasure the first day there was an egg. Last month, I lost my first bird, the prettiest one, of course. I was traumatized at first, but quickly remembered that life on the farm - -even a mini-farm - - has its ups and downs, its springs and winters. Life goes on, and I am continually thankful for the food, the joy, and the sense of connection to the natural world that those chickens give me every day.

My Chicken Story, part 1

2010-03-24T10:11:00.005-04:00

For months, I debated about getting a few chickens to keep in my suburban backyard. I would just get three, no one would see them, and I would have the perfect number of eggs per day. My husband was less than sure about the wisdom of my plan, fearing that they would be too much responsibility and that they would get us in trouble with the neighbors. Never one to accept that something was impossible, I dreamed for months about a few fat hens roaming in the backyard, clucking and pecking as I worked in my garden. They would make my little mini-homestead feel complete.

So I looked at coops, I scoped out hidden spots in the yard, I researched breeds. My idea was to get three 20-week-old pullets that would quickly start laying - - I wasn't going to mess around with raising chicks at this point. I went so far as to buy a tiny ready-to-assemble coop at a hatchery up north while visiting my parents, and my good and patient husband strapped the big box to the top of SUV and we brought it home (along with my Grandma Gaila for a three-week visit and a rota-tiller in the back seat, our two dogs, and every imaginable grain from the local bulk food store in the trunk).

A few months went by, and as I sometimes do, I let the practical side of my brain out-think the dreaming side. I told myself that this was not the right time, that I would wait until we had more property when I could really enjoy having chickens, and I didn't want to get in any trouble in the neighborhood. So my good and patient husband strapped the coop to the top of the SUV with a sigh, and we hauled it north again to return to the hatchery. I promised him that I was sure about this, and that I would not change my mind.

But, fate or God or luck or something else had other plans. Two days after getting home from our trip up north, I got a call while I was getting ready for work.

"Hi, I'm calling from the post office. I have a package here for Jennifer that says 'call upon arrival.' Your baby chicks are here!"

Silence on my end, then: "I didn't order any baby chicks..." My heart was racing. Was this a joke? A miracle?

"Well, they're here!" he said. He gave me the name and number of the company that sent them, and I told him I would get back to him.

When the out-of-state company finally opened a few hours later, we figured out that the error occurred at the hatchery that actually fills and ships their orders. As it turned out, that hatchery was here in Ohio -- the one near my parents where I returned the coop. Somehow, either because my account was open from the coop return or because of an account number typo, the hatchery shipped an order of chicks to me that was meant to go to Texas.

So I had chicks waiting for me at the post office, while I was stuck at work. "You can have them if you want them," said the lady at the hatchery. "They'll die in transit to Texas at this point."

"What's even in the box?" I asked.

"Let's see... Looks like there are eight brown-egg laying females of different breeds." I was incredulous. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect order. Brown eggs, no roosters, eight chicks (not eighty or eight-hundred).

And so it was Meant to Be. These were my chicks.

(I just had to figure out what to do with them and what to tell my husband.... More to come.)

Lentil soup on a cold day

2010-02-11T09:37:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, when I was snowed in, I looked around the kitchen and took stock of what I had: a few celery stalks, some carrots, a few pounds of onions, and several bags of dried legumes in the pantry. It all looked pretty meager, really. But I figured out that I had enough to make a hearty lentil soup. In short order, those ingredients went from cold and boring, to warm and sizzling, filling my house with great smells and my mouth with intense flavors. The fun thing about cooking at home is that you can take simple ingredients like beans, eggs, or lentils and elevate them to a whole new level with a few simple steps.

The recipe that follows contains the approximate amounts of ingredients. I say "approximate" because these types of foods are very forgiving - - the recipes are not going to fail or succeed based on the exact amount of onion, carrot, or olive oil that you use. The more you cook, the better feel you have for food and for flavors. You learn to use a recipe as a guide or an idea, not as an order for how it must be done. Soups like these are good for the body, the soul, and the wallet (the whole pot was less than $2). Enjoy!

Lentil Soup

2 T olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 celery stalks, diced
3 carrots, diced

3 T tomato paste
1.5 - 2 cups of dried lentils
2 quarts (8 cups) water, chicken stock, or vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
1 T Dijon mustard
1 T vinegar (sherry or wine vinegar)
salt and pepper

In a soup pot, heat the oil, then add the diced vegetables. Cook over medium-high heat until they begin to get tender and slightly browned. Add the tomato paste and cook 1-2 minutes longer. Then add the stock, lentils, and bay leaves. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer partially covered for about 30-40 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Remove the bay leaves and stir in the mustard and vinegar (these elevate the flavors of the soup tremendously). Taste and add more of these if desired, along with salt and pepper to taste. The flavors will improve as the soup sits before serving.

A variation of this soup would be to add 1-3 T of curry powder (instead of the mustard and vinegar) to give it an Indian flare.

Snowed In

2010-02-10T12:32:00.006-05:00

There are ten inches of snow on my little suburban plot of land today, which is a fairly large snowfall for Cincinnati, a city that panics whenever snow is even in the forecast. A mere 3-4 inches of predicted snow will mean that the grocery stores sell out of bread, run low on milk, and sport long lines full of nervous people. Admittedly, local crews don't clear the roads very efficiently, but rarely are we snowed in to the point that food would actually run out in many households.

I, for one, welcome the challenge and steer clear of those long lines. As a matter of pride, I want to use what I have and see just how well I can get by on my own. Out of bread? Ha! I'll bake some. Need something warm and hearty? I've got enough dried beans and lentils to fill all the bellies in the neighborhood (who are in a panic that they are going to run out of Velveeta and Campbells soup). No fresh veggies? Open the freezer and look for last year's harvest, alive and well in frozen glory. No eggs? Go gather them out back. (Ok,ok. I do understand that most folks don't have the luxury of backyard chickens.)

People forget that before there were 24-hour supermarkets filled with thousands of products, our great-grandparents actually prepared themselves for winter by drying, canning, and cellaring their food. Then, armed with their staple ingredients, knowledge, and effort, they made it through the cold months of winter without starving. Nowadays, we don't have to grow all our own food, but we should at least know how to cook it.

When I was a kid, I would often peer into the pantry or fridge and complain that there was "nothing to eat." There was only dried stuff, canned stuff, frozen stuff - - no real food, I thought. But then like a kitchen super-hero, my mom would swoop in and create a full dinner out of that uninspiring assortment of ingredients. It was like meals appeared out of no where, since I had looked there just minutes before and didn't see anything that looked like spaghetti and meatballs or chicken fajitas or French onion soup. As I grew up, I began to experiment with those ingredients and started to see their potential. Over time, my visions of dinner became more 20/20 and suddenly plain ingredients like onions or a can of tomatoes would jump off the shelves and inspire a whole dinner.

Today, many people have not progressed past that child-like mentality of there being "nothing to eat." They have not developed that sixth sense in the kitchen, and they too often don't know how to cook anything that doesn't come out of a box or go into the microwave. They lack the understanding of how foods become meals and so they rely on food manufacturers to do that for them. It's often said that "knowledge is power," and I would argue this is never any more true than in the kitchen. If we don't understand ingredients and how they go together, then meals are a mystery that we are powerless to comprehend and control. We are left with no choice but to eat manufactured food products full of salt, sugar, fat, and preservatives; to ignore the fact that some foods are raised and transported in ways that are ecologically unsound; and to pay a premium for cheap ingredients that have been pre-assembled - - all because we don't know how to cook for ourselves.

I feel like people have lost the ability to teach themselves a skill. They too often have some vague excuse - - I'm too busy, it's too hard, I don't know where to start. But whether it's finding a mentor, taking a class, or checking a book out of the library, there are so many ways to learn something new. I work in healthcare, and so many patients say that they can't improve their diets because they "don't know how to cook" - - period. It's as if they missed their one and only opportunity to obtain that skill! To them, it's a done deal. What I want people to understand is that you just have to start small: boil an egg, make a salad, sear a steak. Every little step takes you one step closer to taking control of your health and breaking free from processed food.

So today I am snowed in on my day off from work, and I plan on trying something new. I am going read about different types of flour and make a honey whole wheat bread for the first time. After that, I just might try a new soup recipe, because there is always something to learn, something to try. Sometimes I get tired, too, and my vision gets cloudy. I look into the fridge, and think that there is nothing to eat, no real food in here. But then I regain my focus and realize that those raw ingredients are the truest foods of all - - they just need me to turn them into a meal.

A Bright and Sunny Winter Day

2010-01-13T13:51:00.010-05:00

As I write, I frequently look out the window at the snow that fell last week and covered the dull winter landscape in a layer of white. There is something about snow that makes winter so much more tolerable. As my grandma recently wrote in a poem, it's like the earth is put to bed for the winter, covered in a thick, cool blanket so that it can rest until spring.

The ground where my garden grows is clearly at rest right now, as it is too hard and frozen to even level with a rake or drive a post into. The freeze makes me take a break, too, from the physical side of gardening, and I am left with thoughts of the garden that will come. The seed catalogs started to arrive recently, and with that, I am busy imagining all the flowers and vegetables that I will plant in the spring. The catalogs are full of color and life and food, and they make a stark contrast to the silence of winter.

But in that contrast there is magic - - I don't believe that I could ever fully appreciate the coming of spring were it not for winter. Looking at the pictures in those seed catalogs makes me tingle with hope and excitement, imagining the possibilities of a new year. I live in Ohio, and we have four very pure seasons - - cold winters, blustery and unpredictable springs, hot summers, dry and temperate falls. I would never trade these seasons for year-long consistency; it is because of these seasons that I feel most in tuned to the cycle of the earth.

As I write, the sun is bright and the snow is reflecting into my window. The signs of life that still exist outside are quite pronounced over the quiet landscape. A chickadee flits around the bird feeder on my porch, grateful (I am sure) for the seed left out for it; my chickens scratch and peck at the food scraps that I tossed to them in their little yard; and a single squirrel is visible in my woods, since its movement from tree to tree easily catches the eye across the vast stillness.

Inside the house, I am concentrating on those little things that I can do to be self-sufficient without depending on the sun and the soil. I have an indoor garden growing in the form of sprouts on my counter-top - - alfalfa and radish to be exact. The radish sprouts are particularly amazing to me because they have all the flavor and zest of full-size radishes, grown in a jar in a matter or days. Just pull the seeds out of the pantry and add water, and - voila - tiny fresh vegetables.

Later this afternoon, I'll be slicing up cabbage to put in a large crock that I bought last year, and that cabbage will begin the process of fermenting into sauerkraut. It's a magical transformation of a simple food into something wonderfully intense and flavorful using those invisible yeast and bacteria that float around in the air.

Finally I am going to make a pasta dinner for Brent and me - - pasta with the eggs from my chickens and pesto from the basil that I grew last year along the side of our house. (After the harvest, I ground the basil into pesto and froze it. It tastes almost as good as the day I made it, like summer on a plate.)

I do these things because they make me happy, and because the food is pure and good. I love knowing that even on a bright but cold winter day like this one, I can make and grow things for myself. To me it doesn't get much better.

Starting down the road of self-sufficiency

2009-12-31T12:47:00.001-05:00

Today is New Year's Eve, and as I contemplate the year to come, I have realized that all the things that I care about and want to master are things I that I don't really need to do for myself. I can buy them, hire them, order them, or pick them up at the store. We order take-out because we have no idea how to cook it. We get our eggs and cheese from the bright refrigerator at the grocery store (but don't know where they came from or how they got there). We eat our yogurt in small plastic cups that we throw away. We get enough soap in bulk from a "club" that it will take us two years to use it up. We get "fresh" bread that it is so loaded with preservatives that it takes two months to grow mold.

We forget that our great-grandparents used to do and make all these things for themselves, yet we would have no idea where to start. We all tend to go right for the finished product, and we miss out on the process. So many of the things that we buy have been mass-produced, mechanized, and processed beyond recognition. We have no idea what they are made from or how they got here. The list of ingredients reads like a chemistry lab, and the ways things are made are so foreign that they might as well be magic. We are disconnected from nature and from the skills that our ancestors relied on for survival.

My goal this year is to rediscover as many of those skills and processes as I can. Why? Because it will be challenging; it will make me proud; it will likely make me healthier; I may save some money (or not); I can amaze my friends with my skills; and I can feel connected to past generations.

I have a bit of a head start down this road. I grew up in the country with a very do-it-yourself kind of family, each member of which continues to dream big and take pride in what they can accomplish on their own. I am lucky enough to have a mom and a grandma who have amazing-skills and know-how, but unlucky enough to live five hours away from them. They have taught me many things, often over the phone. In 2009, I started back into more "practical" learning, after spending more than a decade getting a "higher education" (I happen to be a pediatrician). I started baking bread, making yogurt and mozzarella cheese, and doing some gardening. I even got a few chickens (which I acquired after a life-changing, serendipitous mix-up, which I will relate to you another day). I have gotten pretty good at some of these things, but now I feel like it is time to take my education to another level. I am ready to learn, experiment, grow - and maybe to share and teach a few things along the way.

My goal this year is to learn as many skills in self-sufficiency as I can, so that someday, if I can talk my suburbanite husband into buying our dream-farm/homestead, I will be ready. Some things that I plan on doing: making and aging cheese; formulating all my own cleaning products; getting great at baking bread; planting dwarf fruit trees in my yard; growing vegetables in my landscaping and my small garden; starting a strawberry patch and making jam; learning how to make soap, candles, and lip-balm; learning how to can and store my crops in the fall; discovering other local food sources; becoming an even better cook, especially learning how to use seasonal produce; starting a small home brewery (I think my husband could get into the beer); and getting more fit and healthy in the process.

The challenge is that I work a full-time job and that I live in the suburbs with a small (by my standards) back-yard. I am fortunate enough, however, to have a very supportive husband, a neighbor who turns a blind eye to my chickens (and even helps take care of them sometimes), and some woods behind us for privacy. I also have free long-distance on my home phone, as does my mom.

So wish me luck and follow along if you like. It's not about the end-result as much as it is the journey.