Green Acres, We Are There

[filkertom]

Ypsilanti (the city adjacent to Ann Arbor) now allows you to keep up to four chickens.

This is part of a movement -- several movements, really -- across the country. People are hurting financially, and they're trying to find ways to make ends meet. Urban farming is another.

I know I've got the first three Foxfire books around here somewhere.

I'm actually beginning work on a project related to all this. I'll likely have more for you in a few weeks, but for right now I'm curious as to how many of you are doing things like this, and what precisely is working for you. Do you keep animals for food? How much of your own produce do you grow? Are you energy self-sufficient, or working towards it? How about making your own clothing or tools? Purifying your own water? That kind of thing. And, if you have links to resources, would you mind sharing them?

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

While I don't have an issue with people growing crops in an urban setting, experience teachs me to draw the line at chickens. Roosters crow at 4 in the morning. And while that's fine if you have to get up at 4am, for those of us who get up a couple of hours later, it's an interrupted sleep. And believe me, being unable to sleep well for a couple of weeks, and you'll be ready to lob poisoned caterpillars over the fence.

Our neighbor decided to start raising chickens a couple of years ago. It took ALL his neighbors complaining together and a dozen threats from the HOA to make it stop. While farming your tiny plot in the suburbs sounds romantic and all that, the realities of animals in dense areas are not to be ignored.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the things mentioned in both articles is that roosters are not allowed in many places (including Ypsi), precisely because of the noise.

Right now, starting modestly

[capplor.livejournal.com]

The trouble with keeping chickens is that you WILL have to kill them sometime. But we chose the current house (after the forced move) partly for having a very large yard, and some raised planters already there, a greenhouse, and some perennial food sources already planted.(Peaches, plums, apples, grapes). So this year, yet another experiment with corn & potatoes. LOTS of composting. None of this is actually saving money yet, but in theory we could ramp up.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Also on the non-urban animal list: goats.
If you keep enough to actually produce milk and cheese, that is.
Goats are some stinky MFers. And they attract black-flies and deer-flies, and horse flies.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I'd start with window boxes or something small. IIRC you're a single trailer right? If you've got the space you can put a raised bed in the front yard such as it is.

If you've never grown anything I'd suggest beans simply because they're almost impossible to kill as long as you water them. The same for things like cucumbers and similar watery vegetables. Tomatoes are hit or miss.

If you've got a good window inside these style planters work well and recycle 2-liter bottles: Instructables.com (http://www.instructables.com/id/Go_Green_Upside_Down_Hanging_Planters/)

Unfortunately work has hammered me this year and I did not get to plant due to the garden fence being unfinished. I'll be ready for next year and I will likely hang one of those planters in my house myself. ;-)

Still trying to figure out how to generate my own power at home without freaking out the neighbors...

Re: Right now, starting modestly

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Why is killing them a problem?

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

When I still lived in the city, some of the Bosnian residents there kept chickens and ducks, which I thought was way cool. The rooster at the house across the street was just far enough away that his crowing was merely pleasant at 4 a.m., not obnoxious. As for myself, I love the *idea*, but a kitty is about my limit when it comes to taking care of animals.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I've been active in the SCA for nigh onto 30 years now, and in that time have learned how to do lots of things in a low-technology manner. I can take wool from a sheep and get all the way to a garment. Not necessarily the most stylish but at least warm. My kid brother says that when Civilization Falls, he's coming to live with me because I know how to Do Stuff. I tell him, he's going to have to Learn Stuff because nobody rides for free. He has concurred.

If Civilization Falls, we are actually pretty hosed on account of no water, really, but it's a nice thought.

I would like some chickens for eggs but L.A. City ordinances make things difficult for a suburb dweller. I have started growing herbs and vegetables and will do more next year. Getting some help from a landscaping firm, "Home Grown Edible Landscapes." This should be interesting. Lawns are basically useless anyway.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I so want to take the side yard and make it a giant garden. My wife said she wouldn't be opposed to that so maybe next year... :-)

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Purifying your own water is a vexed question. In the arid west, you first have the question of where you're obtaining water. Anything like open water is getting grabbed by somebody who wants to irrigate with it and the water regulations about wht gets dumped back in the water ways gets into fierce arguments with downstream jurisdictions. So no, you can't just divert that little stream at your ranchette in the foothills.
Wells have to be pretty deep where I am, with a strong pump. Friend of mine lives in an area where the groundwater is only four feet down--entirely different set of problems there. Around here, a lot of groundwater is contaminated by things like heavy metals and PCBs and organics such as degreasers and oils dumped by organizations like the Army and the railroads. (Yes, there's a Superfund cleanup site about two miles down the road.) Wells are often heavily regulated. Second, what do you mean by purify? Do you mean capturing gray water from your house and using it to irrigate non-food landscaping, or running it through a mini-sewage treatment function like a series of ponds, or using a ROI/deionizing system to esssentially obtain distilled water such as would be used in a discus or trout fish tank? (Fewer minerals than are desireable in human drinking water, actually.)

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

My grandfather and father both tried farming to one extent or another. In both cases the result was: supermarket is cheaper, because doing it yourself out here in the woods means the critters and bugs eat more than you do. That's leaving out the massive labor investment required just to keep crops alive, planting, weeding, watering during drought, harvesting.

As for water, we're on well water out here- for lack of any alternative.

[talis-kimberley.livejournal.com]

Good for Ypsilanti! Allowing and encouraging folk to get a bit self-sufficient is a fantastic thing. For financial reasons alone it's a good idea - but there are so many good reasons to raise a bit of food oneself.

But chickens needn't be noisy; if kept in their house in the dark until civilised-getting-up-time, then their crowing is ;pretty half hearted and barely audible - going by mine, anyway. Their morning starts when I say it does (or whomever in the household lets them out) and as a result I've had no complaints at all. I live in a UK semi-detached house - no quarter-acre plot, neighbours all round.

Btw, I have two cockerels - they crow in harmony. When I can decide which, or they start fighting, I'll turn one of them into coq au vin. I'm not looking forward to it per se, but I expect it of myself; otherwise, what am I doing eating meat? - that's my take on it, anyway.

I can recommend chickenkeeping to anyone. They're very easy to keep, stupidly engaging and comical, and give lovely eggs.

I also own up to a growing veg plot and a hankering after bees...

[zellion.livejournal.com]

If Civilization falls I'm moving back up with my mother-in-law, who has a farm on a small 5 acres that has a well as a water source, oh and all the neighbors are Amish and they can teach us what we need to survive.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've got a window box I've gotta set up. Salsa veggies. :) That's not the project. Something much different, much bigger in mind.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

what do you mean by purify?

Make it safe for human drinking and bathing. Any and all methods. I'm just at the beginning of gently poking for information here.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Hee. Just down the road from where I used to live in Ypsi -- and we're talking a main road, Ellsworth, one of the connectors between Ypsi and Ann Arbor and the major route to all the industrial parks -- there has been, since forever (certainly as long as I've been in the area, over thirty years) a pig farm.

I would get up in the morning, at our place in Forest Hills Co-Op, go to let out Kelly (my mom's beloved Boxer), sun shining, birds singing, open the doorwall and OH MY FUCKING GOD THE STENCH OF PIG SHIT WOULD COAT MY TEETH.

Ain't no wake-up call quite like that, lemme tell ya.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

Then you're already addicted to the Gardening Bug! MUAHAHAHAHA!

*cough**cough**ahem*

Shouldn't do that without coffee... ;-)

Re: Right now, starting modestly

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Hubby is vegetarian, I'm squeemish, and the article mentioned that slaughtering them was usually against urban ordnances (although that might be defined by how many you kill at once.)

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

You don't need to have roosters for hens to lay eggs. The eggs just don't get fertilized, that's all. (tarsa's been looking into this, so we know...) If your neighbor wanted eggs, he was a fool to get a rooster. If he wanted breeding chickens - urban setting is not the best place for it, no.

[alymid.livejournal.com]

WEll for us it isn't currently about money, but about eating better and getting out of the house and being a little active. But we started a veggie garden this year with moderate success. I apparently grow good lettuce, fine beats, good carrots, and awesome snap peas. We'll find out about the rest soon hopefully - it was very cool here this spring so many of the plants are behind maturity wise.

We can't do the chickens thing or I would be seriously considering it for the fresh eggs.

[scrummycat.livejournal.com]

I just got baby Chicks this spring. We have 6 hens and a cockerel. He does crow a lot, but we are on 5 acres in Howell, surrounded by woods, and I have asked each of my neighbors if he is bothering them and they say they can only sometimes barely hear him in the mornings and that they enjoy it. We do shut them in the coop from around 9p to 6:30a, so he doesn't really get started until we let him out.

Chickens are the easiest pets to care for that I have ever owned. They are not that expensive to keep, take only a bit of time each day, and are so much fun to watch. We have only recently started getting eggs, so that is a bonus!

About self sufficiency...I have 2 mules and horse, which we ride and can pull a plow if needed. I do have about 288 sq feet planted with various vegetables, and I do a lot of canning (jams, tomatoes, pickles) all summer and Fall. We have a generator with a switch in the house so we can power our well and appliances when to power goes out. It runs on gas, so we are not "off the grid" by any means, but it works for short term power outages. We also have a wood burning stove that can heat the whole house in the winter.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Oh. Pigs.

*vomits quietly*

I grew up on a small farm, but we didn't keep pigs. Know why? They stink more than goats.


I do wish Greensboro would let us keep a few chickens for the eggs and for the meat. I understand the complaints about being waked at 4am by roosters.
On the other hand, at-home food production is so much safer, cheaper, cleaner and more humane than mass food production that it seems like a fair trade-off.

But then, I have a small child and do not know uninterrupted sleep anyway.


My dream is inner-city green spaces that would be tended by neighborhoods and include farm animals. The need would be for a general policing agency to make sure that the animals were not being abused and for training so that someone knew how to slaughter and butcher safely and humanely.

A chicken, for example, can be killed and suffer very little OR it can suffer quite a bit. People always talk about wringing chickens' necks, but that's really quite an awful way for the chicken to die. Chopping the head quickly with a sharp hatchet is pretty effective, but you have to know how to chop the head with a writhing, squawking chicken without missing the neck AND without hitting your own hand. There was a farmer I talked to once who used something like a penknife to sever its spinal column at the top. Chicken never knew what was coming, he was so fast and gentle.

I dunno. I really think most Urban and suburban farmers should stick to vegetables. But then, I also think that raising mammals for meat should be a heavily guarded and rare enterprise - the animals suffer so terribly, and so does the environment. I really do advocate that meat eaters should have to raise, care for and then kill their own meat.

I'll...uh...stop ranting now.

Re: Right now, starting modestly

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I think most people who would keep chickens are not vegetarians. And they have to catch you slaughtering them. Only takes a few minutes and then you're inside with it. I'd assume that if you didn't do it in the front yard with people watching, you'd be OK.

Re: Right now, starting modestly

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Also, please see my above long-arsed comment on slaughtering chickens. It's not as easy as it sounds.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Did you know that costco is selling solar panels?

No foolin'.

If I were a little more employed, I'd be all OVER that.