Cat Creek Gardens

The Urban Homestead

08/19/08
The Art Of Frugality
Over the course of the summer, things went from bad to worse here in CenTx. The heat baked the ground, killing the garden no matter how much mulch and water we put on it. Coupled with the early drought, the poor plants never had a chance. Gas prices went through the roof. Then food prices followed, forcing us to give up organic eating. Then went up some more, forcing us to return to the eating style of our college youth. While we aren't hitting the McD's or Taco Bell, we have been eating more things that we'd given up some years ago, such as white rice. HEB had a sale on white rice a couple of months ago, $5 for a 20 pound bag. You heard right, 20 pounds. So white it is, at least for the next several months.

Something else we've given up is any thought of adding solar/alternative power for the household needs. At this point, we've got to stick with cheap. Remodeling of any kind is on hold indefinitely, except for the new roof we had put on last month, as the old roof was down to the tarpaper backing on the shingles in some places.

Decorating would have been a foregone conclusion as well, except for my artistic skills combined with that fun week every 7 months known as Bulky Item Pickup. For those of you not familiar with this annual fun fest, one week every 7 months the city will pick up anything you place on the curb. We have used this for furnishing the house for the last 6 years, when my ex broke into my house during the divorce and took everything except the bed (which was a futon and he hated), my computer/desk, and my antiques left to me by my grandparents. This year we picked up two nice tables, and a sleeper loveseat that looked like the bed part had never been pulled out, let alone used. It's totally ugly, but a sheet or blanket thrown over it takes care of that problem, so now we have a guest bed, something we've been without for awhile now. I never have been one for decorating a room with a "theme", so the early matrimony style suits me just fine.

I've also unearthed my inborn ability to scrounge. Moving friends will net you alot of cool stuff, things they don't want to throw away or take to Goodwill, and walking for exercise we pick up cans, save them up till we have a carload, and take them to the recyclers. (Our last trip netted us nearly $40) The Interernet is also a good place to find bargins and freebies, I've been reading up on frugal living, in case I've missed something. We don't suffer in the food department, since being an ex-chef means I can create a gourmet meal out of almost anything. I have picked up a very part time job cooking for an elderly couple, so that will help in the money department a bit. We'll do what we can, and with any luck will weather this rough part without having to get a roomate, which is a huge hassle since we only have one bathroom, and it's been hard to find people who are actually willing to help clean it on a regular basis.

06/02/08
China Buffet
I've been going to China Buffet since I arrived in Austin in 1990. It has gone through several incarnations of good/mediochre/bad over the years. After a break of several years (The last visit being horrible) we decided to give it a try. At first, pulling up in the parking lot, we were a bit worred because there weren't many cars. We ventured bravely forth, to the interor, which still had the same furniture from my first visit. There were few ppl, and the cashier told us where to sit, and a waitperson came and took our drink order, then we were off to the buffet. The selection was good, and after trying a bite of sesame chicken, we was pleased to find that the food was back to being good. Not great, but this is a buffet. The flavors were standard Asian, good and solid. The garlic shrimp were outstanding, excellent seasoning and very fresh. We wondered about the price, since we didn't bother to check before we sat down. Approaching the cashier, we braced ourselves for sticker shock, and was relieved to find out that it was still only $7.95, a far cry from the last buffet we were at, which charged over ten. All in all, an inexpensive place to get a good meal.

05/31/08
It Sounds Like A Good Idea.....
I was reading the online version of the Statesman this morning, and spotted an article in the green section from back in March, about the Rhizome Collective. For those of you not in the know, the Rhizome Collective is a group in East Austin who is living, as they refer to it, a "radical urban sustainable lifestyle". When I first heard of this group, I was excited. At last! Someone doing what I want to do on a larger scale.

I read the article, then went to the website, hoping to find more information about urban sustainable living, something which you all know is near and dear to my heart. The website has some nice pictures, but I was more interesting in the how-to aspect, so I continued searching through the sight. I found lots of lists of things they are doing, or wanting to do, or telling ppl they should do, but nothing on HOW to do it.

Then I saw the link for the R.U.S.T. (Radical Urban Sustainable Training) program, and clicked to check it out. Yea, they'll be glad to teach you what they've learned.......at $150/$350 a pop. Sigh. You can get a cheaper price, if you are willing to be their slave labor for a day, plus $90. Oh, they'll sell you their book, which comes out in June, but there's no price, only an email link to pre-order.

I have no issue about ppl trying to use their skills to make a living, but come on now! It seems like they are only willing to share their information with ppl who can pay alot. And everyone I know personally who is interesting in urban homesteading is NOT in that income tax bracket, far from it. Some of us are barely managing to keep a nosetip above the current financial riptide. $90 is a week's worth of food and half a tank of gas for us. And with the hours I work on my own projects, sometimes 50-60 hours a week, I sure don't have time to give them 6 hours, which would be the little bit of time I get to spend with my husband and son.

So I'll continue to read and research, and do it myself. I wish the Rhizome ppl well, but they won't be getting any of my few dollars any time soon.

05/20/08
Even More Scarey Thoughts.....
After a morning reading the news, I am more convinced that things in our country are going to have to evolve to the next level, or we will not survive. Many people think that we should return to the ways of our ancestors. Well, that didn't work for the Native tribes, (mine included), and it's not going to work for us. What we need instead is a new way of thinking, a blending of the 'old ways' and the new technologies. What needs to be done is re-thinking our needs and wants, and finding a better way to do it. Not cheaper probably, I think that bird has flown, and we're stuck with high prices for everything these days.

I was hit once again by the realization that we can not continue the way we have been. We are definitely a spoiled culture in our eating, and I include myself in that too. It was too easy in the previous century to use our new-found wealth (copious amounts of oil and other resources) to buy what we needed from other countries. Like spoiled college students with our first taste of freedom and armed with a brand new credit card, America demanded what we wanted RIGHT NOW, and would not take no for an answer. So what that it's December, we want tomatoes on our holiday dinner table! We've done this for so long that there are multiple generations of people who have never tasted a real in-season vine-ripened tomato. Remember the scene in Soylent Green when Edward G. Robinson's character starts to cry when he sees the piece of beef? Are we as a society going to have to get to that point for real changes to be made? I hope not.

Over the last month or so, I have noticed not only higher prices, but empty spots on the shelves. I remember seeing this in the 1970's when shopping with my mother and grandmother. Other things have taken an astronomical price jump, which is now beginning to affect the way the average person shops. In cusine, balsamic vinegar has become one of those staples that, according to all the hot chefs on the Food Network, one MUST have in their cabinet, or one was just a total culinary failure. As far as I know, all balsamic vinegar comes from Modena, Italy. Italy, last time I checked, is a looong way from Texas. Last week in the grocery store, I reached for a bottle of lower end white balsamic vinegar, since I knew I was out. Then I looked at the price, and immediately put it back. For me anyway, balsamic vinegar has now become a rare use item, like saffron. It is time to re-aquaint ourselves with living more in tune with the world around us, instead of trying to force it into our spoiled demanding way of thinking.

05/07/08
If this is what I think, how do my parents feel?
I have been grocery shopping all my life. When I was young, I went with my mother and grandmother every Saturday to the store. My grandmother, a Depression adult, would sit every week and puruse the newspaper inserts for the best deals, clip every coupon she found whether she used that product or not, and pinched the pennies so hard they squealed. When something non-perishable like toilet paper would go on sale, she'd buy as many packages as she could get away with and store them. (When we went through her stuff after she went to the Summerland, we found tons of stashed paper goods, 50-100 or so.)

By the time I came around, the Vietnam War was in full swing. From an early age I can remember loving to grocery shop. My grandmother talked to me constantly, telling me things like how to spot a real bargin, how to pick fresh produce (Which in those days was seasonal and local, except for bananas.) and meat (also local) and how to deal with the store's tactics like bait and switch. My mother, a depression baby, was a consumate grocery shopper, and could spot a great grocery deal a mile away. She taught me bugeting and how to stretch a food dollar.

Last week, when I went to the store, I was appalled at the increase in food prices. As I thought back over the years, I realized that I'm getting to that age where I find myself saying more and more "I remember when I bought rice for 39 cents a bag" , and gas was 79 cents to 95 cents. Of course, my first job paid a whole $3.35/hour, but hey, back then it was alot of money. I can't imagine how our parents and grandparents feel when they see the cost of things. Gasoline, which used to be cheap as dirt, is now fast becoming the new luxury item. And, because so much of the food industry is dependent on long range shipping, so is our food. When I used to watch Soylent Green, I would think to myself, "We'll never have food riots here." Well now....unless something changes and soon, we very well might. Scary thoughts.....

04/25/08
Urban Foraging
Urban foraging can be a tricky thing. Most commercial places would rather you not dumpster dive, due to liability issues. But, if you've been going to a store long enough that the employees know you, alot of great stuff can be had to little or no money. Food items are one thing that it's easy to score big with.

Most grocery stores keep stuff on their shelves until it's no longer appealing to sell. The canned goods are donated to shelters and other similar places, but no one really wants to deal with the produce. So the store culls the bad stuff, like browning or wilting leaves, spotty fruit, broken squash, sprouting onions, and they usually do this in the early mornings, especially on Fridays, to get ready for the payday/weekend shopping rush, so everything will look fresh.

I was in my local small natural food store, and watching the produce guy doing the culling, I asked him what they did with the culled produce, did they throw it away or what? He said alot of ppl took it home for livestock, and I had a sudden flash, 'I have livestock', and I asked him if I could have what they had culled that morning for my chickens, and the three produce people were happy to give it to me, one young guy even took it out to the car for me.

I brought my haul home, and once I started to go through it, I realized that almost all of it was organic, and most of it had plenty of human-edible food in it. It was a bit of a pain to sift through the cabbage and lettuce leaves, but it was worth it, I got quite a haul for both us and the chickens. I netted 20 pounds of chicken food, 3/4 lb spinach, a small head of green cabbage, a half a head of bok choy cabbage, two broken zucchini, five scaly but perfectly good red potatoes, a Romaine lettuce heart, and 22 lbs of apples. This is enough produce to last us the week, and free for the taking. It keeps the store from filling up their dumpster, and helps out us and the environment. It'll be turned into food for us, food for chickens and worms, and food for the garden in the way of compost.

Another type of urban foraging is the park area foraging. Lots of cities are planting fruiting trees in their city parks, or leaving what was already growing there. On my usual route to the grocery store, there's a tiny little nook of greenbelt on one side of the road which has several pecan trees. I'll be eagarly watching them come this fall and hit it early to collect pecans. I'm not the only one who knows about this place, so competition is probably going to be stiff for the best nuts.

Urban foraging can be done, many people are quite adept at it, and seldom have to buy anything. Be careful and respectful of other people's property (even if it's owned by the government), stay off private residence properties (no one likes their yard/home to be invaded by strangers), and be aware of any trespassing or other laws, (like foraging on government-owned land, which might not be legal where you are) and learn what is and is not a good score. The last thing you want to do is end up in court, jail, sick or dead!

04/21/08
The Snail War
When I moved to Austin in the early 90's, I was enchanted by snails. Snails weren't something commonly found in North Texas, since it's too dry for them to live many places unless there's a constant source of water. So the first morning I went outside in my new Austin digs, and saw the myriad of snails, I was in heaven. I watched them constantly, marveling in how they moved, how they looked. That is, until I tried to plant a garden. I then found that the armored creatures I took such delight in were the cause of major gardening headaches in the Central Texas area. I planted my garden, sure in the fact that just like my gardens in previous years, soon I would have so much produce I'd be giving it away. The snails, however, had other ideas. As soon as a seedling got big enough for me to see that it was growing well, I'd find it decimated the next day. After a few weeks, I finally found the culprits. Snails! Once I became aware of the problem, I then found it was an easy enough fix; set out cups of beer (the garden's organic, no toxic sprays here!) After a week of empty beer cups, I wasn't sure if the snails were hosting keggers, only to stagger off to their daytime hiding place, or what. Then early one morning, I caught my Chow busily empting the cups. Turns out dogs (especially all my Chows) like warm stale cheap beer. So I turned to the tried-and-true method of snail eradication: hand picking. Hand picking involves going out in the wee hours of the morning right at sunrise, or after a rain, and picking the snails off, which then means having some way of disposing of them. I smashed them at first, but since I don't usually wear shoes, this was somewhat problematic, the snails were gross to squish, and often the shells were too tough for me to crack barefoot. So then the snails got their own airline, I would wing the larger ones over the fence into a non-gardening neighbor's yard. I figured since she seldom mowed, she'd be glad to have the little buggers eating all the greenery in sight. This went on for many years, with limited success. It seemed the snails were fighting back, and had mobilized. Every morning I would pick dozens of snails, send them off to whatever their fate was for the day, and the next morning it didn't look like I'd even set foot in the garden. Sometime during the night, tiny snail dropships were ferrying the snails from miles around to MY garden. I had despaired of being able to grow much in the garden that wouldn't get chewed by the slimy assault troops. Then one day last year the tide of war turned. I got 4 day-old chicks for my birthday. I read up everything I could find about backyard food production, as the state of the economy has me spooked about where my next meal might be coming from, and just what the heck is in it. So my husband and I decided to urban homestead, and raise a portion of our food, and hopefully sell the rest to cover the rising costs of those things we couldn't produce ourselves. Once the chicks were old enough to go outside in their new chicken tractor (Think bottomless mobile coop, not tiny John Deere's with chickens wearing gimme caps perched on top.), we noticed that when they were moved, they would go for the bugs in the new area first, ignoring most of the vegetation until the bug population was decimated. In my chicken research, every article I read said that chickens liked snails. As the girls grew to adulthood, I noticed that snails were definitely not on their menu. I didn't know why, maybe our snails tasted bad or something. One morning, as I was weeding, I found a slug, something I don't see a whole lot of here, I guess the snails keep then under the snail military rule or something. I decided to toss the slug into the tractor, and the girls about killed themselves trying to be the one who got it. This began a chain of thought about the snails, maybe the hens just couldn't figure out how to get the snails out of their organic Winnebago�s. So I found a snail and crushed it with two bricks, and dropped it into the coop. The girls went ballistic, and there was a major squabble over the eater of the snail was going to be. Eureka! Now, instead of an organic garden menace, now I've got organic high protein chicken food that only cost me a few moments of my time every day. And without reinforcements, the tide of the war is finally turning in my favor. The back yard garden snails are becoming less every day, so I've turned my attention to the front yard, collecting a bowl full of mollusks for the girl's daily breakfast. As long as the snails don't retaliate with Kevlar shells, I should be good.

04/09/08
The Hay Experiment
When we got our chicks last year, we knew that eventually they would need some nest box material. We bought a bale of hay from the local feed store to start with, as it was the dead of winter. The bale of hay had to sit out in the weather though, since we didn�t have any kind of cover in place for it yet. As spring came, the hay began to mold, so it was relegated to garden duty, like mulching and bed enrichment. Faced with having to buy hay soon, I began to think more in terms of what we could use around the property. We tried shredded paper, but the young hens ate it, and we weren�t sure the inks would be good for them, so into the composters go the paper. In several places around the yard, winter grass and weeds had sprouted and were getting rather tall. We spent most of the year trying to dig this stuff out. So I decided instead of trying to get rid of it, why not harvest it?

Grass/weeds are pulled off the plants on handfuls, and gathered in a bucket. It is then laid on top of the chicken tractor to cure in the sun, and provide a cooling shade for the chickens, not to mention entertainment in the form of jumping up to pull some the greenery into the tractor. Once the stuff is dry, we then use it in place of the purchased hay.

Two problems solved. 1. Currently no cost for hen bedding. 2. How to keep the weeds/grass under control and find a use for it than just compost. (The compost bins are all overflowing at this point!)

After the hens have finished with the used homegrown �hay� in the nest boxes, it is raked out to the floor of the pen, where it is picked through for seeds and insects, then scratched into bits. When the tractor is moved, the resulting dry mass is raked up and used in the garden in various applications.

4-9-2008
The Urban Homestead
I�ve been doing research about homesteading all my life. As a child, I wanted to live like a Plains Indian, a hunter/gatherer. As I got older, my shift became more of a Little House dream, with chickens, a cow or two, goats, a huge garden, a small orchard. I came close to it with my first home, it was on a large enough pice of property, but still in the city limits. At a used bookstore, I came across my first issue of Mother (Mother Earth News) and that opened up a whole new world for me. The first article that I read was about homesteading in the city. Just as I got started, we traded rural life for the big city, moving to Austin. I shelved my dreams of a homestead, and with the discovery of Half-Price Books, added to my collection of Mother.

Once my son began to get older, I was beginning to become alarmed at the state of things. Gas was going up, food costs rising sharply, the worst I�d seen since the 70�s. Most disturbing was the realization that our daily food was being imported from other countries. This did not seem like a good thing to me. So I started doing research again on urban homesteading, and that�s where Cat Creek Gardens evolved from.

I was most inspired and impressed by the Dervaes in Pasadena CA. ( Path of Freedom). They are trying to produce as much of their food and other articles of daily living on their city lot right in the middle of a sprawling metropolis. I wanted to see how much I could do with less on my own city lot. This is our third year to urban homestead, and while the progress is slow, it is still progress!