Imagine sitting down to a gourmet lunch of freshly picked
homegrown tomatoes, homemade cheese, and thick slices of wholegrain wood-fired
bread. Collecting eggs each morning from your friendly brood of laying hens.
Watching native bees busily pollinating their way through your herb garden.
Collecting household grey water through an interconnected system of wetland
ponds. Hanging out laundry like colorful prayer flags on washday. Growing
produce to sell at your local farmers market. Tapping maple trees for making
precious syrup. Celebrating the harvest season with dandelion wine made from
blossoms you gathered in the spring.
Where would all of this happen? Did you picture a
peaceful farm acreage in a quiet country setting? All of this is
possible in the city, and here in the heart of Kitchener, Ontario
(population 200,000), minutes away from downtown, we have done just
that. My husband and I live at Little City Farm, an “urban homestead”
that is part of a growing movement of city dwellers across North America
who are seeking to reconnect with the land, live sustainably, and build
community – right where they are.
When my husband and I first bought this property more
than a decade ago, we saw it as a temporary resting ground while we
searched for our ideal rural piece of land. Although we were city-raised
and university educated, we had both spent considerable time living and
working on various organic farms across Canada and through these
experiences knew we wanted to grow our own food and live as close to the
land as possible.
The writings of Helen and Scott Nearing were our
inspiration. Urban intellectuals living in New York City in the 1930s,
the Nearings left their successful careers behind in order to pursue
what they called “the good life.” They moved to rural Vermont where they
set up their homestead, learned to farm by trial and error, and spent a
good deal of time writing about their experiences. They would become
known as the “grandparents” of the back-to-the-land movement in the
United States, which took place thirty years later.
Gary Snyder, environmental poet and activist, has written
that one of the most valuable things a person can do for the environment
is to “stay in one place.”
We knew that we, too, wanted this “good life” – a
slower, simpler and surely more meaningful existence than we could find
in the city. However, after weeks, months, and eventually more than two
years of searching for that ideal (and elusive) rural place, we were
feeling weary, unfulfilled, and disconnected from friends, and decided
to try a radical shift in our thinking. We decided to just stay put and,
unbeknownst to us at the time, this may have been the most important
turning point in our lives.
Gary Snyder, environmental poet and activist, has
written that one of the most valuable things a person can do for the
environment is to “stay in one place.” If we are constantly on the move,
we lose connection with our surroundings, our landscape, our
communities. We become disengaged from civic involvement and, because we
are unfamiliar with our environment, we are unaware when advocacy needs
to happen. To choose a place that becomes our own, imperfect as it may
be, allows us to forge connections, take ownership, and become attuned
to the needs around us – in short, it allows us to care, and through
caring comes action.
By staying in one place, my husband and I decided to
test out all our rural hopes and dreams on the large double-sized urban
lot we had at hand. On our one-third-acre property, we wanted to find a
way to live more consciously, raising as much of our own food as we
could and living a life that was light on the earth. We planned to
homeschool our daughter and wanted to raise her with intention, passing
on valuable life skills to her by example. We decided to start our
homestead, right here in the midst of the city.
Urban homesteading fuses the philosophies of simple
living, permaculture design, and the slow food movement, to create a
resourceful, resilient, ecological, do-it-ourselves lifestyle.
Urban homesteading fuses the philosophies of simple
living, permaculture design, and the slow food movement, to create a
resourceful, resilient, ecological, do-it-ourselves lifestyle. In the
spirit of modern pioneering, urban homesteaders aim to provide many of
their basic needs (food, water, shelter, energy, transportation),
reviving traditional homesteading skills in a contemporary setting,
while striving to be of low impact on the environment. Usually, urban
homesteading is done with minimal means but maximum creativity.
The past eight years has seen this property develop
little by little, as we’ve added permaculture-style gardens, fruit and
nut trees, a passive solar greenhouse, a grey water system, rainwater
collection tanks, a flock of chickens, and an outdoor oven. We have
learned to make our own bread, cheese, yogurt, soap, and wine; to
harvest berries, fruit, and other wild edibles in our neighborhood; to
preserve, ferment, pickle, and dehydrate the seasonal bounty; to make
herbal teas, salves, tinctures, and other remedies for maintaining our
health naturally. We live in a small straw bale addition to our house
made of ecologically sound and locally sourced materials, which we built
by hand with the help of friends and neighbors. We got rid of our car
and joined a local car-sharing organization.
With a desire to be largely home-based, we have
intentionally reduced our income by minimizing the amount of
off-property paid work. This has meant careful budgeting and what we
like to call a “make or make do” attitude. We live a simple life, trying
to differentiate between real needs versus wants, and to refurbish items
for ourselves rather than purchasing new whenever possible. With more
free time, we have been able to move more fully from being consumers to
producers. We participate in a local barter network that allows us to
trade or barter for many of our day-to-day goods and services.
As with any busy homestead, there are always more than
enough projects to tackle and there is a tendency to feel pulled in too
many directions at once. To help us stay on track, we developed a “dream
page” that describes a long-term vision of where we want to see our
homesteading life going. Whenever new ideas or requests arise, we can go
back to our dream page and evaluate whether these projects will keep us
“on the page.” That is, do they contribute overall to our vision or do
they distract from it? We attempt to organize our work by using the
seasons as our priority – for example, in late winter we put attention
into planting and tending new seedlings; in fall we focus on preserving
the harvest.
With more free time, we have been able to move more fully
from being consumers to producers. We participate in a local barter
network that allows us to trade or barter for many of our day-to-day
goods and services.
Over the years, we have acquired many useful new skills.
Navigating building permits and city bylaws is another area that we have
become well versed in. When we, as homeowners/builders, initially
approached our city’s building department with plans for a straw bale
house addition, we did not exactly know what would be involved with
using this type of building technology in our city. Although the Ontario
Straw Bale Building Coalition directory lists over one hundred straw
bale homes in Canada, very few of these are in urban areas and, in the
City of Kitchener, there was only one other existing example. While we
had a very positive response from the City, and an excellent project
inspector to work with, we still encountered various delays because of
using a technology that was considered unconventional. We would strongly
advise anyone starting a project like this to enlist the help of an
architect or engineer right from day one, as it will make for a much
smoother experience with your local building department.
Bylaws are unique to each city. An urban homesteader
will do well to become familiar with the bylaws in their city, because,
be it naturalizing the front lawn, planting vegetables on boulevards,
keeping bees for honey, or setting up a chicken coop, every city will
have its own set of rules and regulations about what is acceptable.
Urban chicken keeping is a perfect case in point.
Backyard hens are becoming increasingly common as more people realize
the inherent value of chickens. An article in Natural Life Magazine
in 2009 states that more than three hundred North American cities
(including New York City, Seattle, Madison, and Victoria) have amended
their bylaws to allow for this. However, each city has its on take on
the specifics – maximum number of hens, size or location of coop, and
whether registration licenses are required all vary from one city to the
next. Some cities, like Portland, have fully embraced the idea of urban
chickens and are renowned for their extensive network of urban hen
keepers. Locals there hold educational workshops on raising chickens and
host public events like the popular annual self-guided “Tour de Coops.”
In other cities, urban chicken keeping is still contentious. Our
neighboring city of Waterloo, which recently voted on this question,
came up with a council evenly divided on the topic, and had to shelve
the discussion for a future year.
Nonetheless, bylaw permitting or not, if your neighbors
aren’t in favor you will be out of luck. It’s wise to stay on positive
terms with your immediate neighbors and respect their space by not
building a coop too close to the property line. Keep a reasonable amount
of hens (no roosters) and a tidy coop so there is no reason to raise
complaints about noise, smells, or perceived vermin. Of course, it
doesn’t hurt to give extra eggs away as well – who can turn down a
delicious fresh omega-rich free-run egg? After that, a relationship has
started between your neighbor and your hens!
We hope to inspire others to set up their own sustainable
urban homesteads, starting right where they are. No matter where you
live, you can be part of this urban homesteading movement.
We have learned many life lessons as our urban homestead
has evolved. We are by no means experts, but we try to share what we
know through tours, public presentations, workshops, and events held at
our property. The windfall we have experienced from being open to the
public is that we have discovered a wealth of knowledge in our
community, and the eagerness of others to share their skills. At a soap
making workshop, we meet a spinner, a natural health practitioner, and a
baker. At a fruit tree workshop, a beekeeper, a winemaker, and a bicycle
mechanic join us. We realize one of the main assets of city living is
the opportunity for these connections to happen, and to meet and share
skills with other people around us.
We hope to inspire others to set up their own
sustainable urban homesteads, starting right where they are. No matter
where you live, you can be part of this urban homesteading movement.
Prolific author and environmental activist Frances Moore Lappé has
written, “Every aspect of our lives is in a sense a vote for the kind of
world we want to live in.” Urban homesteading is about a lifestyle and a
mindset. Any property has potential: The tiniest apartment might have a
lovely balcony for growing herbs, or a warm kitchen would be ideal for
making yogurt and starting sourdough. A large suburban property could be
the perfect place to share with a co-housing group, to start a tool
lending co-op, to plant a fruit orchard, or keep beehives for honey. Be
it tending a vermicomposting bin under your sink, setting up some rain
barrels, or getting rid of your clothes dryer, start where you are, with
projects that inspire you and with an openness to learn from others. You
will soon find that your home has become a thriving urban homestead.
Learn More
Little City Farm
Transition Towns
The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient
Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen
(Process, 2008)
The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you
need on just a quarter acre! by Carleen Madigan (Storey, 2009)
Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply
in a Troubled World by Helen and Scott Nearing (Schocken Books,
1987)
Karin Kliewer lives with her husband Greg and daughter Maya at Little
City Farm, an urban homestead in Kitchener, Ontario. They operate an eco
bed & breakfast, and host ongoing workshops on sustainable city living.
Read more about the activities of the Little City Farm homestead by
visiting their website and blog.
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