What a sight! The garage in 1985 or 1986… condition remained pretty much the same till started fixing up in the late 1990’s. The white box truck we brought from Florida to move our furniture – everything we owned fit in this truck!
Garage in 2001 We painted it (grey) ourselves and [...]
Homegrown Revolution™
When UCLA professor Peter Sellars invited PTF to come and speak to his class, we were honored at such an opportunity. Since it was such a short notice, we had to scramble to get something that would get the students’ attention about the homegrown message of PTF. Since the class focus was on [...]
Before (1985)/ first garden After (2007)
More yard photos for your viewing pleasure here
Taking off the old roof
Before (1993-2006) After (2007)
Sustainable Steps
July not only marks the sixth anniversary of the PTF journal, last July was when we tackled putting on a new roof which was finished 5 months later in early January (read about ithere… scroll [...]
Greywater & Rainwater Presentation
After a long and tiring week/day Jules was invited to give a very brief greywater & rainwater presentation last Thursday at the Art Center College of Design as part of the City’s ‘Greening Workshops’. With such new greywater systems and using issues we aren’t experts at all. We are on a [...]
Brac’s Here!
Brac’s system captures greywater from showers, bathtubs, and laundry washing machines, and supplies the water under pressure to flush the home’s toilets [or irrigation]. Based upon statistics from Environment Canada, the company asserts that the use of their system will cut the average home’s water consumption and sewage effluent by approximately one third.
With theBrac [...]
Blackberry steals the show
NPR : Calif. Family Lives Off the Energy Grid
In Pasadena, Calif., Jules Dervaes and his family have already begun living the change that many suggest is needed to combat global warming. They use appliances that are powered by hand-cranks and even bicycles …
Listen to Full Radio Clip- hear Blackberry steal the show.
Walking [...]
Raised beds sans the plastic tarps and row covers
Rain
Tuesday more rain fell and what a blessing that was. The crops perked up and the warm rain certainly put us in a planting mood. In our south side seed starting nursery we planted all sorts of veggies even tomatoes. Knowing there’s still two months of [...]
Eco pioneers
Path to Freedom’s urban homestead is featured in 3 page spread in today’s (Thursday) “HOME” Section of the LA Times – pick up a copy!
O, pioneers in Pasadena {LATimes}
One family unplugs from technology and lives off the land. Even the blender is pedal-powered.
JULES DERVAES can’t help it. He’s afflicted by a condition for which [...]
Q &A
Q. What brand of roofing did you choose?
A. Even though we are very happy with the roof material we cannot make a recommendation at this time because we feel that it would be premature.
Why? Even though, after months of research, we did choose a brand of stone coated metal shakes [there are about1/2 [...]
Roof on top of our head…. now comes the cleanup!
Wasn’t This Worth Waiting For?
Just in time for the rain storm tonight. Tonight’s rain [hence the dreary looking photos - I'll take better pictures when the sun comes out] will fall on a new sustainable metal stone coated roof. Justin read that this type of process [...]
Orange crush
Orange Harvest
I get the feeling that I know what I’ll be doing for a few days. Juicing!
New Year
“Thank you” to all of you, new readers and old, that have been constant readers of the PTF journal. As always, we are indeed very grateful for your continued support as there are many choices in journal’s [...]
Almost done
Today the “shake style” stone coated metal sections went up lickady split. Honestly, all that hullabaloo the many contractors told us that we couldn’t do it ourselves because we needed “special tools.” Huh! Now that we’ve been hanging around to see their work and how it’s done the next time around we could [...]
Up it goes
The 5 foot length stone coated metal roof sections are going up today! More photos to come.
Urban Homestead Happenings
The latest on the metal roof installation is that it’s not done yet. Thought we’d had a roof in time for the new year but, mother nature, and a phone call, postponed its completion.
The sand coated metal roof would have been done had it not rain last Tuesday night into Wednesday. Not [...]
Grateful
To EB for his continued support of our site. We are touched and humbled by your gift.
Roof Report
The roofing guys are back again this morning; however with a chance of rain on Wednesday they may have to skip a day and resume work on Thursday.
Busy
Yesterday, with the help of a friend, we spent the [...]
Battens are up
Last Thanksgiving we were jack hammering and removing (by hand) the slab of concrete in the backyard. This holiday season we are re-roofing our house. Seems like all our big projects happen around the holidays.
Yesterday, the crew put up felt paper and battens (the metal roofing will “float” above the plywood) finishing 1/2 [...]
Supplies!
Supplies were delivered for the roof today and there’s a crew here to start work. Like I said the roof is going be be finished sometime next week. It’ll be great to start the new year off with a new roof. However, there is not much time to celebrate or for taking a break [...]
New Pioneers Forging Paths Towards a Sustainable Present & Future
As our longtime readers know, PTF started in December 1999 as a very influentialfamily advocate site in one of the most covered father-son saga (which, this month, we just finished putting up just a few of the manyarchives). After this 6 month saga ended, which included [...]
Brrrrr
Nighttime temperatures have been hovering near or below freezing. Last night it was a frosty 27 degrees. When I go out early feed the animals I dress warming with my hand knitted hat, fingerless gloves and scarf and a large second hand coat. Justin likes to tease that I look like a babushka from Russia [...]
Thank You
To GM in England who sent us an absolutely lovely kettle to compliment our new wood stove and enjoy a “spot of tea” on a cold winter’s night. Thank you so much for the useful and practical gift. I am sure we are going to get a lot from this kettle over the winter.
And [...]
Words
If you were sitting around the dining room table these days with us, you would hear such words spoken: bees, bank account, africa, pitch, sundance, sun oven, clay, website, expansion, tax-deductible donations, ollas, help, future, june, spring, book, etc. Right now they are just words floating out from our heads and out into the air, [...]
Bike Ride to LA
On Saturday we joined the celebration and many bike loving folks from the LA area for theLife Can Be So Car-Free event at the new Los Angeles State Historic Park (previously was the site for the“Not A Cornfield” project). Justin, Jordanne and I along with a friend rode our bikes the 9 [...]
Roof update
The guys spent most of the past couple days trying to finish the last bit of plywood on the roof eaves. First, they lifted up and leveled the eaves with some 2″‘x3″ lumber and then put down the plywood. So now, the front porch and northwest side of the house are finally finished!!! My [...]
Waterfall, natural pool. Justin, Anais relax.
Sabbath-Rosh Hashanah Hike
Yesterday was an absolutely lovely day for a hike – blue skies and nice breeze. We, along, with a friend hiked the upper Arroyo Seco to the dam (about 6 miles round trip)
What a great (free and natural) way to relax and de-stress after a hard weeks work [...]
Goats helping with the plywood, checking our their new ride
Yesterday the sun didn’t come out at all and the same forecast today. It’s damp chilly and we had to shut some of the windows in the house that have been open all summer long. We even brought out the light blankets to put back [...]
Plywood stage almost complete. Cleaning up the attic
We’re slowly and steadily working at putting the plywood up. The major “whole” pieces of plywood have been put up on both sides of the roof. Now it’s dealing with the eaves/gables and having to cut the plywood.
With the exception of the electric circular saw, the plywood is [...]
In the News
Path to Freedom and Pasadena spotlighted in the newHope Dance magazine pg 28.
Issue #58 ~ How Cities are Preparing for Global Warming & Peak Oil
Walking the Talk on the Path to Freedom {Hope Dance}
by Brian von Dedenroth
Inching along the 210 freeway in Pasadena,I can’t help notice other drivers carry the same vapid [...]
The revolution continues to spread. In August the PTF website received over 3.8 million hits (nearly 400,000 unique visitors). Since April, when the site hit an all time high of 3.9 million hits, the site has continued to maintain slightly over 3 million hits / 350 thousand unique visitors monthly average.
We are a little frustrated [...]
Late summer garden
Labor Day
Monday was just like a typical day here on the urban homestead – “labor” in the garden, in the kitchen, on the computer, and on the roof. Well, except for taking a break for a few hours when a LA Times staff writer was here doing a story for an upcoming issue [...]
Up on the roof once again
The heat and humidity has descended on the Southland once again (see huge white cumulous clouds over the San Gabriel mountain range in bottom right photo). We are not one to complain, but this weather is just horrible and very uncomfortable especially if you have to work outside. You expect [...]
Pasadena. Photo courtesy Vision.Caltech.edu
Kudos to the City of Roses, Pasadena’s leading the way to a greener present and future.
BOOKMARKS
Californians Now Recycle Half of Their Trash {LATimes}
A 16-year state campaign to divert more waste from dumps has hit its goal. As a result, no new landfills have opened in a decade.
State officials announced Thursday that [...]
Sorry for the late of postings, it’s been busy here on the homestead. Well, that’s nothing new, I suppose. Weather’s hot, back to typical August weather.
Day of Rest & Reflection and Forward Thinking
Saturday, we spent a quiet and relaxing day with a friend as we hiked in the local mountains. We walked up to our [...]
Fall?
August is certainly turning out to be a strange month weather wise. It’s a mixture June Gloom and crisp Fall-like weather. If we didn’t know any better we’d say it was late October. The now cool weather is throwing everything out of wack and besides, it’s weird. Those weeks when it was excruciatingly hot we [...]
If we didn’t know any better, could have sworn it was either spring of fall. It was very, very cool out this morning — well, to us Californians that is.
Having siphoned off the wine yesterday, the much of the house has the yeasty, sweet smell of fermentation.
More apples coming in, thinking of canning up someapple [...]
Sierra
Goodbye Bunsie
We have some very sad news to report, Tuesday we had to put our 4+ yr old dwarf bunny, Sierra, to sleep. We are all very emotional over this traumatic decision, but it was in her (and our) best interest. This past few weeks we could see that she was slowing down (her [...]
Nitty gritty
Another sweaty, dirty, dusty, filthy day for the guys. This awful humidity makes an already dirty job even worse – the dust just sticks to the skin and becomes muddy. We are all certainly thankful for the sun shower – we are certainly using it a lot these days. As for me, last [...]
Toilet lid sink. “Spanky” inspects the job (yep that’s handmade soap you see.)
This past weekend the guys installed the new toilet lid sink (on one of two low flush toilets) in the back service bathroom. Remember, it’s the bathroom where we ran into trouble trying to install the compost toilet… we think we figured out [...]
Beneficial garden visitors
Veggie tales
Peppers, beans, eggplant, tomatoes, variety of salad greens, herbs and more.
Received an email from a friend who is apprenticing at a farm up north and he confirmed our observation and said the seasons a bit off kilter up there too. (not to mention the comments left by our reader’s who are, too, [...]
Community celebration / “Chef Justin” handing out pizzas
Interdependence Day Celebration
Over 60 people attended our annual ‘Interdependence Day Celebration‘ here on the homestead – a full “homestead.”
Thank you all who attended and brought some wonderful food contributions to the event. A big and generous thank you goes to the American Flatbread Pizza Company for providing those [...]
Taking it all off
Work on the roof was started yesterday. The guys are using the 18 or so hale bales that we collected (free) as sort of ladder up to the roof. With crumbled shingles on top of old wooden shakes (house built in 1917) it’s going to be a messy job to take everything [...]
Clay pot irrigation bed
The raised rock bed which we semi-buried three unglazed pots to “drip irrigate” has finally filled out. The herbs are ready to harvest and the peppers, eggplant and tomatoes aren’t too far off.
With all the new changes/improvements to the backyard this year’s garden is going to be a new learning experience. The [...]
Film crew & subjects
It was a packed auditorium as three films debuted at the Norris Theatre on the USC campus last night. The first film took a look at a group of young Latinos in the JROTC program at San Pedro High School, the second was ‘Ready or Not’ (which our family was a part [...]
GASP! Our fave, natural toothpaste (“family”) company sells out to a mega company, corporation ! I guess that means we’ll have to find another toothpaste brand or perhaps this should propel us to make our own. It’s not that hard to make your own using simple ingredients you can find in your kitchen cupboard. Making [...]
Earth Day preparations are in air! Yes, folks, E-day is just around the corner. Yesterday we got three phone calls requesting that we participate in upcoming Earth Day events in the community. That makes a total of 5 E-Day events, so we’ll definitely be busy with community outreach in the following weeks.
Would you like to [...]
When Laura woke in the mornings, she heard the terrifying noise of the storm, and every nail in the planks above her head was thick with frost. There were no trains. Soon there was no oil for the lamps, no fuel for the stove. Laura’s family lived on coarse brown bread, made from corn ground [...]
