Friday Fantasy: Out Buildings

This post is way over due and I'll keep it brief.

One of the things my husband and I struggle with is keeping our projects "in their place" and out of the way. My art studio doubles as a soap drying room, an onion curing room, a sewing room and currently a box storing room. This is too many projects for one room. My husband's room is his closet, his art space, and his gourd storage area: which does NOT work for me, a woman allergic to gourds. Our bike shed is currently sharing space with bushels of dried gourds, and our laundry room is stuffed with tools and gardening supplies. I make my soap in the kitchen, which is where i do most everything else too - you can see the problem!  We need separate spaces for separate activities, and ultimately we need them to be truly separate for potential legal issues: can you say "commercial kitchen"? Here are some of the out building dreams i have:

Milking Shed. This one will be one of the most necessary out buildings when we start our flock of goats. Luckily, milking sheds do not need to be huge or elaborate, and we'll most likely be able to build it ourselves. Check out Heidi's sweet milking shed over at Yellow Door Barn. She and her husband built a sweet little milking parlour with shelves for feed and supplies, two stands and great little neck holders to keep the girls safe and secure on the stands.

Chicken coop and run. This one would be great if it was already standing, and can be a reclaimed shed or stable. We'll also have tractors for bunnies and broilers, but a good coop with a secure run will be necessary - especially since we plan on breeding for color. We'll still have plenty of free range availability for the chickens, but would like a big enough enclosure that they can be left alone for a few days.

Soap shed. I desperately need a separate area to make my soap. Big double sided sink (to double as a dog wash tub), outlets, a burner or microwave or both, and plenty of well ventilated drying racks to store the curing inventory. Drawers out of the sunlight would be great for storing the packaged inventory as well. A separate shed will make taxes that much easier to claim for 'business use of home' and will keep my felting projects out of the way of dinner preparation. I can't wait!

Cheese shed. Once i get into cheese making, if that happens - i'll need a commercial kitchen to legally sell my cheese. Unless Oregon has a cottage industry law that allows people to make small amounts of things to sell without the need for a commercial kitchen, i'll need that separate space to be legit. And again, it's no fun to have to clean out giant stock pots of crusty milk before you even start dinner.

Wood shop. We'll need a place to work on our building projects, and my husband needs a place to rock out, wood burn, dremel and clean out gourds away from my allergies. An old barn or part of a big shop would be great. He deserves plenty of space that's climate controlled and suitable to gourd crafting without damaging his health. This could also be a free standing garage.

Tool Shed. Self explanatory.

So, as you can see our hunt for a new homestead will be heavily focused on what out buildings are already standing, what condition they're in, and how they could be used or refocused. The house itself is secondary - we can live in about anything as long as the foundation is sound and the wiring isn't ancient. Fencing and cross fencing are another detail we'll be watching for, but i'd sure love to find a place with a great old barn that could be used for several of these purposes, plus house happy sheep, goats and spoiled broody chickens- maybe even some human guests. :)

What's your favorite out building??

Friday Fantasy: Projects!

I must admit, I'm finally starting to get really excited about our move. Still terrified. Still uncertain where to land or what to do for income, but definitely getting excited for a change in scenery, routine and lifestyle. One of the reasons we're moving in the first place is to get started getting started. Although we don't plan on having children (at least any time soon) my husband and I are both getting anxious to start expanding our family and homestead. We have many goals, many projects in mind, and many dreams waiting to come true. They will all require hard work, focus, determination, and most importantly they all require that we are located where we want to be: our forever homestead. We may have to settle for a stepping stone for a few months or even years, but our ultimate goal is to rent for a few months to have time to look around, get our bearings and get employment - then pounce on the perfect farm or large lot residential property (appropriately zoned to bear livestock) and start our forever dream in becoming our reality.

Late 2007 - Many hours of digging and pulling bermuda grass and planting tiny little herbs that now tower over my little black car.

 Dreaming is great. Repeatedly saying "when we get there" or "in a few years" or "when we have more land" is fine. But it's really really dissatisfying. Austin has been great. Being close to old and new friends and family has been great. Being limited by a suburban yard was great at first and is now just darned frustrating. I will greatly miss the patch of land i've converted from average to outstanding, lifeless to ecologically diverse - but i'm so excited to start from square one again and go through all the struggles and hardships once again and be able to sit back in 4 years and pat myself and my husband on our backs in pride. It's going to be tough going, but the difficulty only makes it more satisfying. Hard work is hard and feels great, gardening is a never ending task, and animal husbandry is a lifelong learning experience. I'm ready for the future plans to be the present!

Pulling up nasty linoleum and carpet is not fun.

Admiring and sometimes break dancing on your newly laid-by-you bamboo floor is.

For today's Friday fantasy i'm going to make a bulleted list of some of the projects, large and small that are in our future. Some have a higher priority, some will be put off for a few years and some will be pounced upon as soon as the new keys are in my hands. Here goes:

• Bees - for pollinating and eventually for honey
• Goats - breeding Kinder goats from Nubian and Pygmy stock, or from established Kinders. Also seriously considering adding a Pygora wether to our flock... perhaps starting out with a pregnant Kinder and a Pygora whether: milk and fiber, the best of both worlds!
• Ducks
• Geese
• Guineas
• Chickens: I'd love to breed Wyandottes for rare colors
• Cheese making - goat milk and cheese making go hand in hand! I might have to add a sheep to the flock on day, as sheep's milk cheese is soooo goooood
• Farmer's Market - I already vend at some Austin markets with my soap. I'd like to expand the soap business as well as sell surplus veggies when we get them and cheese if i can figure out the permits required
• Hootch: from beer to wine to hard spirits, i'd like to try my hand at providing us our guilty pleasures
• Vinegar - what better and more healthful product can one make with the must leftover from wine making? I'd love to make all kinds of vinegars using different fruits on hand
• Orchard - apples, pears, filberts, cherries - you name it!
• Hops - hops are in high demand, a hop arbor is beautiful and perhaps one day lucrative
• Mead - a combination of hootch and bees
• All purpose herb beds - i dream of the day when i'll have large beds of herbs grouped by their functions: culinary, medicinal, first aid, cosmetic
• Crop rotation - I think that i plan on building raised beds, drainage will be an issue in the valley and raised beds will help with that. By having my vegetable gardens in raised beds i can also start small and build on, adding a few new beds every year and allow the previous beds to lay fallow, host a chicken tractor for a season, get planted with a cover crop or plant with a different family of veggies. As the years go on I'll continue adding new beds until i feel we're sufficiently bedded... ha. Or i might just do traditional rows - this plan will depend largely on whatever property we find.
• Living hedges - I read an amazing article a while back about planting certain shrubby, hardy, strong and nutritional hedges and honing them into living fence lines. Fascinating!
• Spinning - I'd love to add alpacas to our farm one day, but they're super duper expensive. I might start with sheep, or i might start by purchasing raw wool from another local farmer. I'd love to learn to spin. The concept is just so other worldy and awesome - what cooler product to bring to market than home spun yarn?
• Sewing: I already sew and make my own clothes on occasion, but i'd love to get even better at it.
• Everything in it's place: and finally - the best goal is to have enough space, enough out buildings, well enough organized spaces to have workspace for each of us and each of our projects. A separate fridge for curing cheese (or a crawlspace), a separate sink area for soap making, a workshop for my husband and his allergy inducing gourds, housing for ducks, chickens and goats. Enough space for our tools, vehicles, feed storage and home goods. Preferably no sound of roads and no cars to threaten our short dog's life. Plenty of water storage, clothesline space, and pastures for rotating livestock. 

As you can see - i have a lot on my mind. Some of it will happen sooner than later, but these projects all wait for one thing: one heck of a big move.

Wish us luck, and as always thank you for reading with me, sharing with me your experiences and wisdom, and joining me on this wild ride!

-Miranda

This post is part of the barn hop!

Job Hunting

I recently took a job as a cake decorator at Baskin Robbins. I love my job! I've done the job before, so i'm picking it back up quickly. There's truly no better outlet for a childrens illustrator/ foodie than making delicious and beautiful ice cream cakes- other than the fact that said illustrator is also addicted to food and highly sensitive to sugar. I cry at night. hahaha.

Needless to say, with marketing my illustration career (or sad lack therof at times), decorating cakes part time, gardening, working for Yard Farm Austin part time and preparing a house for imminent sale (!) I've been a bit busy. On top of all of those things, my husband and i are on the eve of a great adventure and need to job hunt outside of this city. This is not easy. This is not enjoyable. This takes a lot of patience and time.

When i started this blog, i had a lot of time on my hands. Recently married and laid off, I focused my 'extra time' on honing my homesteading skills and writing about them for the benefit of myself and others. I love my blog. I love my readers. I love this online community of people striving to live more simple and efficient lives. I may have to limit my presence here for a while. I strive to write daily posts, but may have to cut a few days of the week out to focus on hands-on activities around this urban homestead and job hunting out of town, while working to pay the bills here. I will try to at least fill the gaps with posts of cute photos of my wonderful critters, as well as updates on our quest for an easy home sale and a fruitful move. Feel free to leave me comments with suggestions or encouragement - i'll need them!

Simple Living on the Web

I love sharing tips, ideas, skills and comraderie with other like minded people on the internet - makes me feel a little less isolated in my little suburban house where i spend my days. Please check out all the great bloggers involved in the new 'blog hop' known as "Simple Living Thursday." This post is a day late, but i hope they'll cut me some slack since i just found out about it!

Quoted from Diana at "A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa," here are the participating host blogs:

1. A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa
2. Sustainable Eats
3. GNOWFGLINS
4. Culinary Bliss

Wherever you choose to post, it will show up on all 4 sites!  I can't wait to dive in and learn from all of you!  As a reminder, this blog hop is a way to share with many people your posts on what you are doing to live a simple life. Whether that's gardening, raising urban chickens, making your own deodorant, or cleaning supplies... we want to know about it!  If you're into homeopathy, ways to save $ by conserving energy or other ways to live frugally... we want to know about it!   If you bike, cook real food, homestead or farm... we want to know about it!

 For complete 'rules' visit GNOWFGLINS. I think my first post to the group was a little off topic, but i'll be better next time, promise! I posted yesterday's multiplying onions giveaway - which has fewer tips than i oft provide, but those onions really do make onion gardening simple - they do all the work for you!



So, come on all you resourceful simple living folk - join the hop!

Pondering on Feminism and Homesteading....

I've always been a bit of a feminist. I never planned on changing my last name, i focused my life and learning on my own career, i married for love not money, and i tend to wear the pants a lot of the time (much to the husband's chagrine, i'm sure).

I met my husband in graduate school, wearing this t-shirt from college.

He's always said he was a little intimidated by me that day: "that loud feminist chick." 

But lately, i've been enjoying daily activities like: baking granola and granola bars for a few hours to keep my husband well fed while at work, tending to my flock and my gardens to provide healthy food for my family and friends, mending and sewing our clothes and balancing our budgets. This is not sounding overly femiminst... but maybe it is.

Is it "okay" for us independent spirited women to embrace a lifestyle that may be considered 'demeaning' to woman's lib? But what does that mean, anyway? Liberation? Shouldn't that mean we can choose the life and lifestyle that is best for us and those we love?

My friend Sarah B recently sent me this awesome article. It tackles the idea of the modern woman/feminist/homemaker and how she (we) deals with her modern role in society and the family.
I found this article to hit very close to home and really validate what i'm doing with my life. From kitchen gardens to chickens to spending more time cooking and crafting for our families. I may not be a mama, and i doubt i would homeschool if i was, but the article covers a lot of good stuff - but it's brief! So give it a read. I know many of my followers are homemakers, and others are working women simply looking for recipes and tips on living closer to nature. I would like to see what all of you think about this topic.

So, let me know what you think of the article- what did you like/dislike, connect to, be inspired by?