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Power By Ringsurf

January 5, 2009

By Anais | email author

Here’s the latest rundown of happenings in Nevada City January 9-11.

Please note the updates and additional venues and hope to see you there!

OPENING RECEPTION
When: Friday, January 9 (4:00 PM)
Where: Mowen Solinsky Gallery & Bella Vita Gallery
Cost: Free & open to the public

FILM SCREENING
When: Friday, January 9 (7:00 PM)
Where: Great Hall, Miners Foundry  (please note venue correction)
What: World premier of HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION (15:44) In the midst of a densely urban setting in downtown Pasadena, radical change is taking root. For over twenty years, the Dervaes family have transformed their home into an urban homestead. They harvest nearly 3 tons of organic food from their 1/10 acre garden while incorporating many back-to-basics practices, as well as solar energy and biodiesel.
Cost: Tickets available here

CHAT WITH THE FILMMAKERS (possibly)
Grab a bite to eat & meet some of the filmmakers and speakers.
When: Saturday, January 10 ( 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM)
Where: Look for us at either Lefty’s Frill, Cafe Mekka, Java Johns, Broad Street Bistro or Dos Banditos  (venue will be determined upon our arrival and whether we are selected to appear.
Cost: FREE to the public (not including lunch)

WILD & SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL GUEST SPEAKER
When: Saturday, January 10 (2:00 PM)
Where: Activist Center 1
What: Workshop on Urban Homesteading
Urban homesteader, Jules Dervaes, speaks about his journey toward a sustainable, self-sufficient life in the city. At Path to Freedom, the Dervaes family is living a protest against corporate control of the food supply by growing 6,000 pounds of produce a year on 1/10 of an acre. Mr. Dervaes will explain how, individually, we can take steps where we are, with what we have—right now!—to become more independent and secure in difficult times and responsible stewards of the earth, our home.
Cost: FREE

GALA EVENT
Includes wine and gourmet foods and visiting with special guests ( including Path to Freedom)
When: Saturday, January 10 (10:00 PM to Midnight)
Where: Nevada City Winery
COST: Tickets available here

MEET & SHARE

This gathering will only happen if there’s any interest and available people.  So please note this is still a tentative event and will be “played by ear”

When: Sunday, January 11  (10:00 AM)
Where: California Organics, 135 Argall Way Nevada City
What: Urban Homesteaders and No Cal Freedom Gardeners Meetup

Hey all you Northern Ca homegrown revolutionaries, would you like to meet PTF? Now’s your chance before we head back down to the city farm.

Contact our staff for details ( info(at)pathtofreedom(dot)com ) , let us know you will be coming!

For more information on the festivities and events at the WILD & SCENIC FILM FESTIVAL, visit their website

:: Field Hand Appreciation :: LE $10 donations.  Happy new year to you and we thank you for your continuous support

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Filed under: Events & Outreach, Posts by Anais |

Tags: homegrown revolution, wild & scenic film festival

January 5, 2009

By Anais | email author

Harvest (herbs, fruits, and vegs) 5,500 lbs (or there abouts)

Eggs: 3,155 (duck & chicken)

Honey: 25 lbs

If you have been following us this year, you know that the weather played havoc with our summer crops.  Many such as cucumbers and tomatoes were lackluster and poundage considerably down than in previous years.  From our records we “normally” harvest upwards of 850 lbs of tomatoes,  in 2008 we harvested 1/2 that — a mere 425 lbs.    Why?  Well, it was too hot too early and then we went through a roller coaster of temperature flux from 100 degrees one week to 60 degrees the next.

Though we didn’t reach our goal of 10,000 lbs we still fed ourselves and our animals, stocked up the pantry and freezer and provided the surplus to a few restaurants for income.   We didn’t go hungry and we made do and that’s what’s important.

With it being such a terrible year, by November we knew our harvest totals would be low so didn’t “pad the poundage” come December.  Figuring we’d just let the ripening harvest be and carry over the poundage in 2009.  What does that mean?  Well, we just left a few hundred pounds in tomatoes and citrus not harvested for 2008 otherwise we may have bumped up the 2008 tally to 5,800 lbs but instead opted to harvest the fruits and vegs in January.

With the 2008 recap, what does 2009 look like?  Well, from where we are now we’ve went from the second warmest October to the coldest December so the garden is in a semi dormant state.   Looking at the garden you get a sense like it’s been suspended, after all it’s winter so that’s expected.

How’s your garden growing?  I know, I know many of our readers can’t even see their garden but those of would who do care to share?

Or tell us how your 2008 garden grew, did you weigh your produce?  What’s your tally ho goal for 2009?

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Filed under: Harvest Tally, In the Garden, Posts by Anais |

Tags: eggs, Fruits, Herbs, honey, summer, tally ho, Weather

January 4, 2009

By Anais | email author

Fried green tomatoes

This is the last weekly meal post for 2008.  Sniff.  Sorry shouldn’t be so sentimental but I just refuse to believe another year has passed so fast.  Time flies when you are having fun, or, that’s what they say anyway.

Our winter meals are very simple and we try to stretch meals out with big pots of soup ala “depression era mode” (There’s an interesting article in the LA Times regarding cooking and eating what you have on hand — will post that soon)  In fact I have so many post in my drafts, I could have another posting blitz.

Last week got an email from a Freedom Gardener asking what to do with green tomatoes.  Our tomatoes, though ragged around the edges, are still hanging on loaded with green and semi ripe tomatoes.  An easy way to ripen green tomatoes is what grandma use to do, stick a few of them in a paper bag.  Or you could try  a few of those green tomato recipes (there are loads online if you type in “green tomato recipes”)  From fried green tomatoes, (I like to use cornmeal instead of breadcrumbs) green tomato relish or how about green tomato chocolate cake.   Hmmm, wonder what that one taste like.  I guess it’s just like zucchini chocolate cake - add chocolate to anything and it works I suppose.

Anyone care to share how you use up your green tomatoes?

SATURDAY

Breakfast - homemade acorn pancakes with homeraised duck eggs and homegrown honey
Dinner -homemade tortillas with homemade spanish rice (homegrown tomatoes and HG frozen peppers) topped with organic black beans and cheese

SUNDAY

Breakfast - homemade stove top granola made with homegrown honey
Lunch - leftovers from Saturday dinner
Dinner - homegrown tomato organic cheese sandwich

MONDAY

Breakfast - homemade stove top granola made with homegrown honey
Lunch - creamed homegrown greens soup
Dinner - creamed homegrown greens soup

TUESDAY

Breakfast - homemade stove top granola made with homegrown honey
Dinner - creamed homegrown greens soup
Lunch - homegrown fried green tomatoes with CA organic rice and homegrown salad

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast - homemade stove top granola made with homegrown honey
Lunch - homegrown tomato organic cheese sandwich and homegrown salad
Dinner - homemade herb pizza crust topped with homegrown tomatoes, canned homegrown peppers, green onions and homegrown salad

THURSDAY

Breakfast - out
Lunch - out
Dinner -out

FRIDAY

Breakfast - homemade stove top granola made with homegrown honey
Lunch - creamed homegrown greens soup
Dinner - HG salad greens, homemade acorn biscuits, homemade tomato sauce (HG tomatoes, peppers, green onions, herbs) with organic whole wheat pasta topped with organic Parmesan cheese

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Filed under: 100 Foot Diet, Homegrown Diet, Posts by Anais |

Tags: meals, weekly meal wrap up

January 4, 2009

By Anais | email author

Thanks to last Sunday’s event we have loads of sweet apple pulp.

So what to do with a fridge overflowing with dozens of ziplocks.

Since our freezer is packed with frozen homegrown goodies, I dolled out some of the ziplocks to a friends freezer (thanks!).

As for the rest, thanks to my southern roots I have got a hankering to deep fry some apple fritters sprinkled with confectioners sugar.  Gasp!  Sorry not very healthful thought, but I think I have been scarred for life thanks to Cafe du Monde in New Orleans.  I dare say you can pick up bad habits, er, eating habits after visiting.

Funny thing, no matter how healthy our diet has been these last 30 years one still get’s cravings now and then especially for eats that remind you of home.

The rest of the pulp will be great to use in apple crisp, bread, muffins, cakes - the list could go on.

No shortage of apple recipes that’s for sure do it won’t be that hard to use up the leftover apples in no time.

:: Field Hand Appreciation :: AW $100 & MM $5 donation a pledge to support PTF on  a monthly basis.  You can do the same pledge now to support with a smalll donation of $1 or $5 per month.   Donate now.

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Filed under: In the Kitchen, Posts by Anais |

Tags: bread, event, homegrow, homegrown

January 2, 2009

By Anais | email author

A new year, new beginnings

It’s been a busy week for us—a mixture of work and pleasure.  On Monday we took some time to enjoy some hot cocoa and homemade goodies at our neighbors’ home (thanks D & K for your hospitality!).

On New Year’s day, we helped some friends of ours move to their new home (with a backyard yeah!).  Another friend had invited us to her New Year’s day party, but we couldn’t do both.  Thanks for the invite L - maybe next year!

Looking Back

I hope you have been enjoying posts here at LHITC this year — (over 3/4 million pageviews worth ) . For 2009 I only hope they get better. We are planning on, once again, overhauling the journal for better search optimization - so stay tuned for improvements!

Like most people these days we’ll highlight our tracks of 2008.

Kicked off the year with the 100-Foot Diet Challenge, but not only did we just throw the challenge out for our readers to participate in, we challenged ourselves to see if our little 1/10 acre garden could produce 10,000 pounds of produce.  Well, the weather had other ideas, and we’ll just barely make our normal 6,000 pounds tally (I’ll post the year’s tally soon)

A few months later, we added the Harvest Keeper Challenge and Save Our Seeds.  LHITC blog exposed the underside of the seed industry; encouraged people to ‘Say Ahhhh’; Liberate their Lawns, be a ‘Conscientious Consumer‘ or the change they wish to see with IMBY and listed our weekly homegrown, homemade menus; and much, much more.

We also had a little fun with flash from the pasts with Flashback Friday & ‘I Didn’t Know Any Better’

And there was certainly plenty of eye candy from cute animals, to luscious gardens, to colorful harvest.  So much in fact, it could fill an entire book with pictures and stories!

One, if not the biggest, highlights of the year was the launch of the first-ever social network for modern day “victory gardeners,” FreedomGardens.org.  And boy has this site grown since its launch this past summer!  FG stands at over 1,930 and growing strong with new & experienced gardeners determined to dig their way towards a free and secure future.

Towards the end of the summer, we hosted the first Freedom Gardens meetup and have plans for these meetups to spread to other cities across the world.  We are working on the details as we speak - along with a million other things!

PTF was very active in the community in ‘08.  Not only did we host a few successful film screenings and delicious potlucks,  starting with the screening of The World According to Monsanto in June, but also gave presentations at quite a few venues around So Cal— Sustainable LA, All Saints Church, Ten Thousand Villages, Smith & Hawken, National History Museum on urban homesteading and a couple at UCLA on food security.

Not to mention that our urban homestead was featured on  Chow Magazine, ABC’s Nightline, The New York Times Magazine, CNN, Living Green Channel, PBS’s California Heartland and in an insightful documentary by Robert McFalls, HomeGrown.  Also PTF and LHITC have been featured and referred to in hundreds of blogs and websites throughout the world wide web.  If you have link to our site from yours, thank you.  We appreciate your spreading the word of our project.

Our little in-home video, Homegrown Revolution, topped over 130,000 views on YouTube and was selected to be screened at the largest environmental Film Festival in the USA.  After the premier in next week we are considering making it available to purchase online … so stay tuned for details.

Here on the urban homestead, not only did we feed ourselves, produce our own electricity and fuel, some of the highlights this year were harvesting 25 lbs of honey and filling all our kitchen pantry with homegrown, home preserved canned goods.

Because of the economic down turn and lack luster harvest summer season we tighten our belts - making do or did without.

There’s definitely more, but I think I just about covered a few of the highlights from 2008 and now 2009…

Looking Forward

We will continue to bring you real life experiences from our daily life here on the urban homestead and do our best to inspire and promote change.

Having been invited to premier Homegrown Revolution at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, and PTF to be featured in Mother Earth News in February we are already starting off this year at a full-out gallop.

What you can look forward to in 2009 is continued upgrades to the FreedomGardens.org website,  another attempt at organizing LHITC, and a new and improved PTF site, where we plan to highlight steps we have taken in our journey and the 10 elements of urban homesteading.

There are also two other social networks (one for urban homesteaders and the other for backyard poultry and livestock enthusiast) which we hope to launch after we work out all the kinks with Freedom Gardens.org.  These new ventures are going to require a lot of work but like a friend so wisely put it,  “most importantly you know where you are going and have, like the pioneers of old, staked your claim so now it’s just a matter of slowing working all all the details.”

There’s another huge event that Farmer D will be attending in March –details will have to wait.  One thing that I can say is that it’s not in California but down South, as in “Dixie south.”

One of our other projects that we have been working on is a new venture and campaign, FreedomSeeds.org Not only has there been hours of research put in, but the initial investment to purchase the seeds has us worried and wondering if this is such a good investment at this time.  Why the hesitation?  Well, we are wondering if we can count on our readers to support this new venture of ours.    Having been busy these last we months, we are behind (really behind) especially if we expect orders this planting season.   We are still not certain if we can pull it all together before everyone starts ordering their seeds - and many of you have.

But no matter what we would like to hear is comments from you - would you be willing to support FreedomSeeds.org a ‘homegrown’ seed company that will feature not only safe but secure seeds (varieties that aren’t owned by Monsanto)?   So with that and the uncertainty if we can pull everything together in time for the seed ordering season I guess FS will have to be another one of our “WIP projects” for 2009.

Of course, stay tuned for more events, daily urban homestead life, challenges and more! Well, that’s what our plans are, but you never know what might be in store for us.

Also a tremendous thank you to those few who supported our grassroots outreach efforts this year.  With our operating expenses at nearly $10,000 a year for our organization we truly value and appreciate your support.   Although we fell short of our donation goal of $10,000 for 2008 we hope that next year, er this year, will be better.   I promise to do my part in keeping the donations flowing if you promise to do yours.

Growing On From Here

Now that I gave a run down of highlights (and there were certainly our fair share of low lights but we are keeping this a positive toned post), it’s your turn.  Speak up about what this site has meant to you and let us know your thoughts on the direction we hope to go in 2009.

If you are a lurker or a long time reader, here’s your chance to let us know what you think.  We would like to hear your thoughts, so speak up!  What’s your favorite part of the LHITC, what keeps you coming back day after day.

To our longtime readers, thanks for sticking with us through the our success, progress, failures and setbacks over these last 8 years.

Here’s to another year of homegrown solutions!

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Psalm of Life, Longfellow

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Filed under: Mixed Greens (News), PTF Spotlights, Posts by Anais |

Tags: homemade, year in review