urban homesteading

I'm still not 100% done with the stairs to the carport, but they're fully functional and passed the elderly mother-in-law test. I still need to add more spindles to the railings, and some more lighting, but the stairs and railings are there.

Once that's done, I probably won't have as many DIY projects to blog about, so I plan to blog more about urban homesteading. I was inspired in part by Novella Carpenter here in Oakland, who wrote Farm City: the education of an urban farmer and runs Ghost Town Farm. I've also found inspiration from City Homestead here in Oakland. They don't have much in the way of an urban or city homestead yet, but they both feel strongly about local food and are taking steps in that direction. Quite a bit further along are my friends at Casa Decrepit in Alameda. They grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables, and have kept chickens for eggs for a number of years.

But the real inspiration of where to head is from Root Simple (formerly known as Homegrown Evolution) and authors of The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City. Back when I was first reading Farm City and started following various urban homesteading blogs, Root Simple was one of the first and best I came across. K didn't know I was following their blog at that point, but came home from a business trip with a book for me -- The Urban Homestead.

For me, it's not about saving money (though that's a bonus), it's about knowing where your food comes from. That's a large part of why I became a vegetarian over a decade ago -- the idea of factory farms and having no idea what's going into your food, and a process that's damaging the environment -- it's clearly not sustainable in the long run and not very healthy in the short run.

Fun with Rain Barrels

the Labradane

Yesterday K and I visited some fellow housebloggers at City Homestead. They live not far from Lake Merritt here in Oakland, and had lamented not knowing how to make a platform for some rain barrels they bought a while back. I'm not 100% done with the insanity here, but I knew that was something I could help with. So while I showed them how to build a sturdy platform, K headed off to the Y.

The work went pretty quickly since they'd already bought the necessary materials. The most time-consuming was leveling the ground to put the concrete piers, and that was pretty easy because the soil had been dug up before to remove plants. It was nice to get to put faces to the names behind the blog, and both K and I enjoyed meeting their dog, Augie, who's got a lab personality but closer to great dane size. He's rescue dog, and a large bundle of energy.

finished platform and barrels

Our Oakland

Oakland - many parts, one whole

There's a great post over at City Homestead about Oakland in the aftermath of the shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer. My Oakland is different their Oakland, and was different than Oscar Grant's Oakland, but it's all Our Oakland. It's a large, diverse, beautiful city, and I love it. I'll be the first to admit that I might feel differently if I lived in some other parts of Oakland, but it's a wonderful city.

Yesterday I worked out at Habitat for Humanity, south of the Oakland Coliseum. I've been volunteering in that neighborhood for almost 14 years, but I don't really know it, and the only people I know who live there are Habitat homeowners. But slowly but surely the neighborhood is improving. Besides two large Habitat developments, there are a number of commercial developments along 98th, and just the other side of the BART tracks is a large development of Pulte Homes.

Today K and I went to some other Oaklands. A fawn died under our carport, and animal control warns on their website that living animals come first so it could be a long wait, and I didn't want to dig the requisite 4'-deep hole to bury it. So we carefully slid it into a heavy bag and took it to Oakland's animal shelter. The drive took us from Montclair, through Glenview, to the Dimond District where Oscar Grant worked, down Fruitvale Avenue to the Fruitvale District where he died. There were no signs of the protests there (the vandalism didn't start until they got closer to downtown) -- it was the same Fruitvale I've gotten to know over the last couple of years. Edis and his family live there, and I've made frequent trips to the nearby Home Depot and to Economy Lumber. It was a beautiful day, with food cooking, people shopping, the sun shining.

Union Point Park

After the animal shelter, we went to a small shoreline park to shift gears from our grim task. Union Point Park is a little park along the Oakland estuary near Coast Guard Island, squeezed between the estuary and an industrial area. (I'd been there before because the Alameda County household hazardous waste facility is nearby.) It's home to a playground, picnic area, marina, and a distinctive viewing platform. The viewing platform is all the more interesting viewed from above, when its spiral shape becomes apparent. The park also contains the statue pictured above, Sigame/Follow Me, which reflects the diversity of Oakland by honoring various Oakland women of note. Like Oakland and her people, it's made of many disparate parts, but is one whole. Sometimes we forget that. But it's all Our Oakland.