Homesteading in the Suburbs

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Today I feel like a mini-homesteader, not just because my homestead is mini, but because I know that what I did is so miniscule to what homesteaders had to do to SURVIVE! Actually, what is smaller than mini because you can’t even classify my somewhat suburban yard as a farm. Still, I felt a tinge of pride this evening as I headed to bed. 

What did I do today? Well, besides keeping our daughter alive and aiding in her development by reading to her and playing with her (my husband makes sure I list this as an accomplishment every day because it is an oft forgot accomplishment in the world of moms), I picked tomatoes, kale and cucumbers from our garden. The kale and tomatoes went into salad for dinner and the cucumbers were added to the collection for pickles. I called up my mom and exchanged two over-sized zucchinis she can feed to her chickens, for mustard seed (the missing ingredient for my pickles). There is something very homesteaderish (is that a word) about bartering, even if all of it really benefited me. Then I spent the evening of this 100+ degree day making zucchini bread from zucchini out of our garden and pickles with our cucumbers. Somehow I timed it all correctly too, which is always amazing for me...my tendency would be to somehow have the zucchini bread needing to come out of the oven at exactly the same time that the pickles need to be hot packed. Nope. Tonight I got the zucchini bread in while the water was still waiting to boil and the cucumbers were sitting in salt. I even watered the garden between all of that.

Granted, I am now in an air conditioned house which makes canning pickles and having the oven on (at 9 o’clock at night) not nearly as bad as when we were in our other house. And I was working over a nice gas stove (still amazed at how quickly the temperature in my pan changes on a gas stove). And I have running water in my house and lots of other conveniences that homesteaders never had. Still, there is something about canning and baking and watering and eating produce straight from the garden that bring me life. I can’t really explain it.

As I washed my dishes by hand, I thought of what I had accomplished today and felt, well, accomplished. Why by hand you ask? Well the second time we used our fancy dancy dishwasher with a million little baskets to hold different things and lots of fold down/fold up options (still trying to figure this out as well), it leaked all over the kitchen floor, so it is currently just a drying rack for my hand washing. Ah, life as a home-owner.

P.S. I don’t want to give into the hype of convection ovens too quickly, but I will say that the two loaves of bread I made tonight are the most even colored I have pulled out of the oven in a long time. Just saying…