Homesteading in the Suburbs - A Guest Blog

I am fortunate to be blessed with very talented friends with a wide variety of life experience in many different areas.  One of my friends is passionate about the homesteading arts, and I really admire her persistence, her knowledge, and her skills.  I'm becoming more and more obsessed lately with making the most of our yard, planting edibles and incorporating them into the landscaping, and I often turn to this friend for her opinions and advice.  Urban and suburban chicken coops are becoming kind of a hot topic around here lately, and I know this friend has plenty to say about it, so I asked her to write a guest blog about homesteading in the suburbs, especially raising chickens.  I hope that it will inspire you like she inspires me!

Homesteading in the Suburbs

If you are fortunate enough to own a home in the suburbs, you have a plot of land. Some get acres, some get a fraction of a single acre.  Most are fully covered in sod.  Sod or grass requires mowing. Some homeowners, like myself, choose to edge, spread fertilizer, and treat for weeds to make it look nice.  All of us are given a great opportunity: a plot of land.  A plot of land used to mean opportunity.  Now, to the average homeowner, it means (yard) work.

Thursdays Blursdays

There's an old saying that says you can't truly understand someone until you've walked a day in their shoes.  Really, I feel like a day wouldn't be enough for someone to understand my crazy life, but if I was able to give a day to someone so that I could just lay back in bad and catch up on dvr'ed reality shows, that day would be a Thursday.  A friend of mine teased that I should just write about what I do every day on the blog and it would still be entertaining, so just to be cheeky, I'm going to run you through my day today.  Since this is a new blog, it will give you some insight into my life.  The posts won't all be this long, I promise.  Bear with me.  Here we go:

Wake at 7 thanks to alarm and our oldest child hovering over us.  Hubby heads to the shower and I grab my laptop to check the calendar, e-mails, messages, and Facebook, just in case I'm forgetting something else to jam in the day...like, as I notice, International Cuisine Night at my oldest's school.  In my head, not an issue.  We can pass on that.  Tell her to get dressed.

Then, there's a time warp.  I think I may have temporarily blacked out from pain when child #2 comes in and throws herself on my bed, connecting the most solid part of her forearm with the most tender part of my ankle.  Anyhow, before I know it, it's 30 minutes later.  Yikes.  Tell middle child to get dressed.  Luckily, I made rhubarb bread last night (silly family left me alone in the house while they were all at activities), so I have breakfast already started.  Throw some bacon on the stove to cook while I start on lunches for the girls.  Shuffle around hubby making his usual eggs for breakfast.  Slice apple and pears for breakfast.  Snag a piece of pear because I know once I put them out, I will have no chance at getting one before they disappear.  Keeping an eye on the bacon, cook some noodles and frozen peas and corn for the lunches.  Start slicing fresh fruits and veg for lunches.  Discuss not going to the school event with my oldest.  Begin guilt trip that eventually leads me to decide that we probably should go.  Slice extra veggies for hubby's lunch.  Break up rousing game of Duck, Duck, Bruce to feed the starving minions breakfast.  Finish making lunches.  Kiss hubby before he's out the door.  Push oldest to get bundled before she misses the bus.  Get her out the door and to the bus on time with backpack and lunch in hand.

I swear, that IS rhubarb, not mold.  Turns out rhubarb bread doesn't photograph well.