After two years of being screened at many film festivals and community viewings throughout the world, we have published (in its entirety) our award winning short film Homegrown Revolution for free viewing on YouTube.

It has been a crazy ride and exciting to have an award winning film and we sincerely thank those of you who supported this film in many ways.  A big THANK YOU goes out from our hearts to those  who supported us, purchased this video, screened it, shared it or simply let the film's message lead you to a new way of looking at your yard. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! We really appreciate it.

Our unlikely little film was a surprise success story.  For those of you who don't know the history, I'll recap briefly.  For those of you already know it, go ahead and skip to the end of this post to watch Homegrown Revolution.

Homegrown Revolution was made in a whirlwind three days after a last-minute invite for Dad to speak at Peter Sellars' UCLA class in 2007.  Jules Dervaes was to be the lead-in and local authority on sustainable food to Michael Pollan's presentation.

By now, we had given so many presentations, the explaining of our project and "Urban Homesteading" was becoming a tad redundant - there are only so many clever ways we could explain what we have been doing the last 16+ years.  Plus, the fact that this was a night class had many of us expecting a room of yawning and under-caffeinated students blinking sleepily at their laptop screens and surfing Facebook, content to get class credit simply for being a body in the seat.  Short of handing Red Bull out to everyone, we seriously thought NO ONE would wake up for this Urban Homesteading and sustainable food presentation.

Looking back at the time, I realize how far the movement has come to the point it is today.   It wasn't long ago at all, but in 2007  the movement was just blooming and I was finding out that most students didn't care or know about Urban Homesteading -- or even anything environmental or sustainable.   There's always the usual small but core group of students who were into changing the world and activism but we knew we had to reach to the others in the class that might not even have a first thought about the food they ate or about gardening.

At the family meeting / lunch following the invite, Dad turned to me (since I have unofficially become the tech geek / "electronic gadget whisperer" of the family ) and inquired about a video slideshow we had put together for a virtual tour of the Urban Homestead called "One Step at a Time."  This video brochure had been published on our website at the time  since it was first uploaded in 2004 (soon to be uploaded to YouTube for kicks).

As I am not a video editor and had no training at all, my foray into  messing about with video clips had been a sink or swim experience.   After mucking about in Adobe Premier, I had managed to put together some footage that resulted in One Step at a Time and that short film seemed pretty cool when it was made; but I was now slightly embarrassed about it and wanted to give Dad something newer and peppier for the students.

Anais and I got to work in those three days before the presentation.   We had multiple tapes of footage of the garden, animals and various projects throughout the yard but very little of ourselves.  So, I spliced those with some of the news media interviews for a  narrative effect.

I really wanted to do little interviews on our  own footage; but given the short amount of time and our aversion to being filmed by one another, it just wasn't happening. (NOTE: Seriously, I did try.  I approached Justin with a camera as he did his biodiesel brewing and asked him in  my best TV reporter voice to explain what was doing.   I received an  "are you kidding me?" stare for my troubles.  Turns out, it's hard for  us to be enthusiastic about giving each other interviews.  Try explaining to someone who already knows what you are doing, what you are doing.  It isn't easy. )

For fun and to appeal to the college kids who were my own age, Anais and I added in some well known musical favorites to create a edgy  mash-up type music video.

Turns out, as R.E.M's moody guitar in "Drive" snapped up the students' attention at  the first minute to the final frame of the fist-in-the-sky rallying  image and the drumming strains of "Revolution Cry", we had gained this class' full focus and subsequent and  enthusiastic ovation and shouts.   Yes, even the too-cool-for-school jocks of UCLA's NCAA basketball team were into it.

Later that week, we decided to publish Homegrown Revolution on YouTube (cut to 10 minutes since YouTube wouldn't allow videos of  longer lengths at that time) and it kind of went viral for a time and gained over 500,000 views.

We started to use Homegrown Revolution for an intro to Jules Dervaes' workshops and presentations and considered it a type of "video brochure" or "infomercial" to Urban  Homesteading.  Fast forward to late 2008 and we received a phone call from the awesome  folks at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival asking if we wanted to  submit our film for consideration.

I seriously had no idea what they were talking about!   Film?  What film? We don't have a film, I thought.

They soon convinced us that they were really asking for Homegrown Revolution which one of their members had seen on YouTube.  This touched off a flurry of more video editing.  Since the original version contained a lot that was not our footage, we began to re-shoot a lot of scenes and I soon had Homegrown Revolution up to over 25 minutes long.  But because Wild & Scenic had accepted Homegrown  Revolution into their program as it appeared on YouTube, we knew we  had to keep it to 10 minutes.

In the end, the final product came out  at 15 minutes after we all refused to cut out anything more.  There was also concern from some of Film Festival folks about remaking  Homegrown Revolution so much that it would no longer feel like the  original version so we felt a little restricted in our creativity.     I did try to obtain the rights to some of the footage / interviews that appeared in the original version but with so little time to  remake the film, it turned out easier to just re-speak most of it  instead of dealing with all the paperwork.    Again, all this had to  be done in a short amount of time - definitely not enough time to be at one's full creativity.

Unfortunately, although most of our words as they appear in the 2009  version of Homegrown Revolution had been spoken to interviewers  previously, it was hard getting family members to say the same lines  with enthusiasm and with the same passion as they had when speaking to  someone "new" and curious to what we were doing.  Looking at the film today,  I can see all the mistakes and where it could all have been better.

But this was a collaborative project done by all of us -- with each family member taking part in the filming, editing and structure of the film.  Neither of us had any previous film editing / filming experience but we hope the passion and enthusiasm show through any technical flaws and other problems.

It's also important to note that the film was made entirely in-house on computers powered by solar/green sources.  All transportation was done in a biodiesel-fueled car and all camera/mic batteries were rechargeable and charged with solar energy.  Waste was kept to a minimum – paper composted or recycled and all publicizing materials printed  on post consumer paper.

We are humbled by the impressive impact Homegrown Revolution had in  the film festivals both nationally and internationally. It  was never created for a film festival circuit but has a true homegrown, homemade story behind its creation. Today,  whenever I am frustrated by learning something new or seeing where I fail in trying to get something perfect, I just need to look at where our little film that could has taken us.

I am compiling a  tally of the festivals and known public screenings to be published at HomegrownRevolution.com but here are the AWARDS and HONORS Homegrown Revolution has gained so far:

WINNER

Best Environment & Ecology Film North America,
Swansea International Film Festival, UNITED KINGDOM

Prize of the Mayor of the Capitol City of Slovakia
Ekotop Film Festival of Sustainable Development, SLOVAKIA

Best Short Documentary
Southern Appalachian International Film Festival, TENNESSEE

El Capitan Film Award
Yosemite International Film Festival, CALIFORNIA

Best Sustainability Film
Green Screen Environmental Film Festival, CALIFORNIA

Robert T. Nanninga Award for Excellence,
Cottonwood Creek Film Festival, CALIFORNIA

-----------------------------

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Westpac Award Best Short Film Runner Up
Reel Earth Environmental Film Festival, NEW ZEALAND

NOMINATED - Best Film, Climate Change & Sustainable Technology
CMS Vatavaran Environmental & Wildlife Film Fest, INDIA

FINALIST
European Spiritual Film Fest, FRANCE

Footage aired on Oprah's 2009 Earth Day show

You can still purchase the DVD here for community screenings or to just own a copy. We're still sending the film out to festivals who request it, so if you know of any film festivals or other opportunities, continue to send them our way. Thanks!

Pssst...!

Sharp eyed or observant readers might notice we now have a new YouTube address:  http://www.youtube.com/urbanhomestead

We'll still have the http://www.youtube.com/dervaes one but we might FINALLY be getting into sharing how-to videos.  We are launching this new channel for video clips showing snippets of life from the Urban Homestead as well as some how-to videos.

So be sure to subscribe to this new channel to get all the latest videos - thanks!

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. -- Doug Larson

Eulogy: In Loving Memory of Our Garden Shoes

Our mantra “make do, use up and wear it out” on the urban homestead is serious business.  Any item we use has to be ratted and tattered before it gets replaced.   This week, some  really old garden shoes finally died in their line of duty having served us well.   The “cheap” garden shoes had a good, long run – over 10 years or more, I can’t remember!   We had put off getting a new pair.

However,  the old garden shoes had split at the soles and finally had to be laid to rest in our trash can with our other rubbish. Since they were vinyl (egad!) I couldn't even put them in the recycle bin for a chance of an afterlife.  Hate throwing away something we have had for a long while, but it’s sure nice to be able to go into the mucky areas of the garden and not get socks wet!

We’ll see how long these babies last… hopefully, another 10 years or more!

Remember that old saying “They don’t make things like they used to"?  With our modern culture whose emphasis is on consumerism, " Planned Obsolescence" is the norm today.

What things do you  “make do, use up and wear out” ?

"Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things." -- Southey, Robert

"A place for everything and everything in its place."  As I’ve said many times before, one of the hardest challenges on an urban homestead is storage and organization.    Keeping all the stuff needed on hand to be self reliant without costing a fortune in nifty storage bins can be quite a daunting (sometimes hair- pulling) task.    Keeping things tidy is practically a full time job and we try to “pick up as we go”  But, oftentimes, we get busy with other projects and the next thing we  know, there’s mess here and there.

Lucky for us, friends are always giving us things that are handy for storing stuff.   Like this handy wire shelving that we can use on the back deck to put our harvest and egg baskets.  It's easy to reach for before you head down the stairs to the garden and animal compound.

Folks are always commenting how “neat and tidy” the urban homestead is.    Yeah, well,  blame it on the genes.     Of course, we are very conscious  of our urban environs and neighbors.    Believe me, the upkeep of the urban homestead is a full time job.  Sure, there are places that are quite unsightly and a downright disorganized mess.   But, hey, we we don’t show you that – its always a work in progress.

This morning, as I was writing this entry about "order on the urban homestead", a Facebook friend posted this link about "Order & Routine."

She wrote:

"I was discovering that if we live in a state of continual reaction to our circumstances, we find ourselves submitted to chaos.  All our life becomes urgency and disorder.  We need to step out of that and craft an environment that highlights and embraces the beautiful and the lovely.  This will allow us to respond thoughtfully and appropriately to the needs in our lives."

How appropriate; I couldn't have said it better myself!  I do have a few tips, which I'll share.

Tips

No shoes in the house
Clean up as you go
Have a regular am and pm cleaning/chore routine
Have a place for everything
Be responsible for your space or the mess you make

How are you bringing order and beauty to your environment?

PS If you'd like to get yourself an egg or harvest basket for your homestead, check out our online Urban Homestead Supply store

After an extremely wet December, January's been relatively dry and mild.  For the most part we've been able to have both doors wide open during the day and even venturing outside bare foot.

Seeing and talking with friends back East, seems there's still a LOT of snow and more to come.  Tis' one extreme to another I suppose.

On Sunday we did a major clean up of the urban homestead.   Still to be done is the animal compound - taking out a foot or two of compacted compost that will be this year's new garden soil.   Jordanne's been putting it off because of an old shoulder injury (she got hit while riding a bike by a SUV - the person driving was in the wrong) that flares up in winter.

Much of the back yard garden is under wraps, "floating row covers" that is.  So there's really no purty pictures to be had - though underneath these white clothes are lush carpets of assorted greens and things.  We've even had to cover the snow peas because there's these little birds that pick at the leaves.  Since pea shoots are  such a hot seller at the Front Porch Farm Stand we've had to protect the young pea shoot leaves from being decimated.

The new duckies are laying so there's egg to finally tally.   A few chickens are laying and the others are getting more "talkative" so I suspect they'll be laying any day now.

Here we are again, a new year and a new tally.   After last years record breaking harvest of over 3  1/2 tons ( 7,000 pounds ) of produce, will be interesting to see what this year will bring.  And as any farmer knows it all depends on the weather and keeping the plants healthy to ward off disease and bag bugs.

January Tally

Produce: 293 lbs

Eggs:  Duck 58 / Chicken 8

Like to know if you, readers, or fellow bloggers are Keep Track of your harvest this year?

The bulk food pantry

Making use of "air space"

Humpf, the title of this post sounds like an 80's band. LOL

We all know that saying, "a place for everything and everything in its place."

Easier said than done for an urban homesteader's way of life.

When you start living a more simple, self sufficient life, how is that you actually accumulate MORE stuff?  It's a true and a simple fact.  Living a simple life is, in fact, not simple.   If you make food and goods from scratch, you need to store all those supplies  somewhere - anywhere!  Come on, folks, we all have to admit it sometime right?  Raise your hands if you got a stash of stuff just piling up with no place to put it.

Storing all the supplies is certainly a challenge on the urban homestead.   We have to use our space wisely; but we still seem to accumulate more stuff than  sometimes we really need.  Urban homesteading is not only about wisely using every available space to grow food and become more self reliant but using space wisely to store all our much need supplies that we need in this journey towards sustainability.

Organizing and maintaining an urban homestead is one of the most daunting challenges   There are  garden, food supplies, seeds, crafts,  etc., etc.

Doesn't always work, but we find having a daily chore schedule helps keep things a bit more tidy.   If you've brought stuff out for soap making or sewing, keep the container nearby so you can put the stuff back from where it came. A "once around the home and grounds" - putting up, sweeping, dusting and tidying.   Because we are  a working farm, within minutes of a clean up, things can go back to being unruly; however, if everyone does his part to clean up his surroundings,  it does help.   Each member of the household here is responsible for his area of expertise.  We try to follow the golden rule and be good neighbors and citizens of this Rose City so we are very conscious of keeping our homestead tidy and clean.

What creative organizing solutions have you come up with to store all your urban homesteading supplies?

One example is where Jordanne created an otherwise unused space for storing books, yarns and other crafty items in our bedroom.

Care to share?

We have a new low tech kitchen gadget at our unplugged kitchen here on the urban homestead - a Mexican mortar & pestle or 'Molcajete y Tejolote'

[mohl-kah-HEH-teh ee teh-hoh-LOH-teh]
The Mexican term for "MORTAR AND PESTLE" — molcajete being the mortar, tejolote the pestle. The black, rough texture of both pieces is a result of the fact that they're made of basalt (volcanic rock). They are used in the traditional manner for grinding spices and herbs and other mixtures. . (Definition by epicurious.com)

According to an article by by Diego Delgado, "The word molcajete (mortar) derives from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs: “molli” (seasoning or sauce) and “caxitl” (bowl). The word tejolote (pestle) also derives from Nahuatl: “tetl” (stone) and “xolotl” (doll)."
Foods traditionally prepared in the molcajete include salsas and moles (mohl-LAY), as well as guacamole. It is also used for grinding chilies, garlic or other herbs and spices for food preparation.

...The grinding process releases the oils, and flavor essence of the substance. When done carefully you will produce a product that is more flavorful than a product prepared in a food processor. Depending on the food you are preparing the process can be quite laborious. If you enjoy cooking, using a mortar and pestle will simply be part of your "craft" of food preparation. If you just need to "get the job done", reach for the food processor.

Via Gourmet Sleuth

We kids, whose genetic make up is 1/4 Spanish, 1/4 French & 1/2 Belgian, like sweet AND spicy foods - the hotter the better!

Bring on the avocados, chilies and pass the chips, please.

What's an 'Unplugged Kitchen?'

I get that question a lot and tell folks that our kitchen has only one plug in appliance and that is our energy efficient refrigerator.      No microwave or  toaster.   What blender, food processor we do have are  all hand powered/cranked.   (Check out our Urban Homestead Supply store for human powered appliances)

If you think about what your Grandma's kitchen looked like and compare it with what modern kitchens look like today,  ask yourself : "Do I really need all these gadgets?"  Granted, some are useful, but others are not.

For me, I lean towards the latter.  Sure, that choice has changed the way I cook/bake.  It challenges me to think, when reading a recipe that calls for some gadget that I don't have, and to ask myself "how did they do this in the old days?"

I believe, with all the electric gadgets that are in the kitchen these days, that we've lost our connection with the food.   The rhythmic kneading of the bread can be done by machine now.   Or chopping vegetables-- just pop them into a food processor and press the button.

The homey, traditional kitchen sounds have been replaced by high pitched motors.

I actually like a quiet kitchen and get annoyed with anything motorized.   Sure, it may take me a bit longer than a machine, but I have connected and touched the food.   It was planted with human hand and prepared by human hands.

We have to re-humanize our food system and here on the urban homestead we've taken steps backwards to make progress.

Here's  a challenge for you: go through all your kitchen drawers, cabinets and get your hand tools out.    Use a knife instead of a food processor or a rotary beater instead of an electric mixer.      Try to make one meal a week without using electric gadgets.   A pie crust or bread without mixing the dough in a food processor - feel the dough!

Get your senses back into the cooking/baking!

Note: you might have noticed at the right hand bar that we've added two affiliates:  Mountain Rose Herbs and iHerb  (use referral code JUL 275 to redeem $5.00 off your order)  If you need to stock up on herbs for your homestead consider these two sources, thank you.

Don't forget to tune in to KCET, So Cal Connected tonight, there's going be a segment on our urban homestead

Also, hope to see many of you on Sunday at the Free Urban Homesteading event in Palm Springs The whole family will be there to answer all your questions.

Home preserves for the front porch farm stand

Flowering pineapple sage

Carnations

Bee feeder filled with organic sugar and essential oils

Mr Handsome

Sissy

Purple grapes

Hanging out

March, one two three four. Pick up those legs!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Living in Southern California, there's not really much down time for us homesteaders-farmers.  Only one more month left in 2010 and already projects and plans are being hatched for 2011.

Jordanne & I are working on the middle bed room/turned craft room.  Trying to get a grip on organization and such (folks are always giving us fabrics and yarn... and books!).  Like to turn it into a music room too.

The other day we had another evening of music.  Sure wish I had taken pictures!  It was quite the quaint scene with two girls in the kitchen strumming away on banjo and guitar while apple butter bubbled on the stove top.  Oh, and not to mention chocolate cake!

Now that the whole backyard garden is protected in floating row cover the farming chores turn to pruning the fruit trees, finding places for some "homeless" edibles along with cleaning up dead underbrush and fallen leaves (turning that into next year's soil)

In the barnyard, we are looking forward to adding to our chicken flock next spring.   The hardest part is which heritage breed to choose.    Chooks are like cookies, you can't have just ONE!  We LIKE them all but, alas, can't happen.  Should we get more Belgian banties or cochins?  What about some Barred Rocks, Wyndottes or Orphington.   Jeez, we are going to have to pick - eeny, meeny, miney moe!

The feral bee hive we saved from the Arroyo Seco is thriving and feasting on the flowering perennial basil, avocado and citrus.

We are pretty excited about the harvest totals this year.   Goes to show you that small spaces can be productive (and beautiful) if you grow the soil first!  I'm even amazed that after 10 years of intensive growing efforts continues to put out such high yields.  Sorta reminds me of the widow and the olive oil Bible story.    The earth gives back blessings with faith and hard work.

Here's another round of snapshots from the urban homestead - enjoy!

Kumquats, can't wait till these babies ripen!

Micro greens

Broccoli

Watercress growing in hanging basket aquaponics system

Snow peas and blue skies

Estella who acts more like Charlie Chaplin

Can we join you up there?

Sleeping duck

Enjoying the morning sunshine

Rinsing clothes

Hung out to dry (yep, those be bloomers)

Nothing like the smell of sun dried laundry on a winter's day

Fairlight loves the attention

In the garden

Farmer D talks about how much food is grown on our little city plot

Filming gets you hungry! Sitting down to enjoy a homegrown and cooked meal

The KCET crew enjoys the food

Our first appearance on the local PBS station KCET was in 2003 which featured a little blurb about our garden.   We're back!

Val Zavala visits the urban homestead and this segment will be featured So Cal Connected and air

Friday Dec. 10th at 8:30 pm
Saturday Dec. 11th at 6 pm
Sunday Dec. 12th at 6:30 pm

Once it airs it will also on be on their website at kcet.org/socalconnected

Oh and don't forget the FREE URBAN HOMESTEADING event this coming Sunday.  Hope to see you there!

Nighttime temps were dipping near 32 and some parts of the yard had ice in the mornings. To protect the garden from the winter chill, all the raised beds have been covered in row covers - looks like mounds of white snow. Just about as close we are going to get to any of the white stuff falling this far down the foothills.

If you had problems visiting our site these last two days, looks like we're on someone's cyber attack list. (Dear US Government. We're not wikileaks. You got the wrong server!!) The server guys will be dealing with this now as the crime it is and trying to isolate the issue. Hopefully it won't happen again today!

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Figured a pictorial post will just about top off this "eventful" week.

All covered up

Carrots!

Just look at those HUGE snow peas! Check out the "man hands" too !

Pomegranates are a yummy winter treats

Slurp

More little fishes for the urban fish farm

Getting bigger... nope, not thinking about what comes next.

Molts over, looking purty with their new fluffy feathers

Quackers are getting curious and check out the goat pen in the garage

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!