The Hippy Home Needs Your Help!

!!!Update: I need to raise $325 immediately or my lease will not be renewed!!!

Dear readers,

I'm asking for help keeping The Hippy Home up and running.

The last three months have been hard for me, my son, and my little homestead and I am at risk of losing everything. I've lost income sources that have left us struggling and I'm falling behind on rent. For seven years I've worked on my own to keep this little Hippy Home of ours and creating our safe place in the world. I'm not quite sure what the next step would be if we lost it, especially so close to the end of this dark tunnel, but I'm not giving up yet.

The Hippy Home is growing. This Thursday I'm excited to be hosting the first free Hippy Home bartering event for local followers. The Facebook page and the blog have both grown in visitors. I'll continue to write informative articles for the blog so all of those new visitors can continue to find new content. I'd like to get some guest bloggers on board as well. All of this is awesome, but I need some financial support to keep it going.

This is where you come in. What is my blog worth to you? $1 $5 $25? If you find value in what you read here, I ask that you click on the image link below to contribute toward growing The Hippy Home. It will take you to Paypal. It's quite OK if you don't. You may be in a place where it is difficult to contribute. You may be a skeptic. Maybe you think everyone should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps with no help from strangers. That's OK. But if you have found real value in anything I've posted, please consider a contribution that will help me keep this blog alive and my little backyard homestead together.  I'll even send you a postcard of Princess Lea the chicken from San Antonio, Texas with a big thank you from me, the boy, and our menagerie of animals.

I'm also looking for business sponsors who would be interested in advertising on the blog. Contact me and we'll see if you are a good fit.


Thank you,
Gina
The Hippy Home

Click Image Below To Donate:

My Little Urban Farmstead: Raising Chickens and Gardening in the City

I would like to show you around my little backyard homestead.

Growing up in Ohio I was always used to putting in the garden around early April and almost ignoring it while still getting a good crop of vegetables. I've struggled with having a productive garden here in Texas for the last couple of years and I think it's mainly because I start my garden too late in the season. The plants don't have a good start before the heat sets in. This is the earliest I've ever planted a garden. It's in the spot where my original chicken coop used to be for the last few years so it's quite fertile. I'm feeling hopeful that this year I'll be able to harvest plenty to feed my son and me, and maybe even a little extra to share.

I planted tomatoes, romanesco (if you don't know what this is, Google it. It is beautiful), lettuce, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, dill, basil, spinach, thyme, and beets. I always plant marigolds to repel pests. The dill usually gets sacrificed to caterpillars. Five days from now I should have little sprouts coming up from the seeds I planted. I never cease feeling excitement and wonder at the little sprouts pushing up towards the sky. Life renewed.

My old coop was a disaster and I worried nightly about predators getting in. One night a young opossum did get in and cornered one of my hens. Luckily I woke up to hear the screams my poor frightened girl was making. If you ever hear a chicken scream in fright you will never forget it. I ran out barefoot, scooped her up, and herded everyone into the kitchen where they spent the night. Everyone has kept chickens in their kitchen, right?

The new coop is much nicer, but it was quite the challenge...

I was excited to be the first in line when this coop came up as a freebie on a chicken group I'm in. The catch was I had to move it. The original person who was supposed to move it for me had a nice trailer and all of the equipment to properly move a building this size but he backed out last minute. I posted on Craigslist and found someone else who promised he could move the coop on the back of his truck. Moving day came and he was late meeting me at the site to pick it up. When he finally showed up he's driving an older pickup with a small bed. I had a bad feeling.

I wish I'd saved the photo of the coop loaded onto his truck. It looked like Beverly Hillbillies moving into town. It was a disaster waiting to happen, but he and his partner insisted that they didn't need to take it apart to move it. It didn't sit properly on the bed of the truck and it towered over the road. We didn't even get a half mile down the road when the wind caught the door and whipped it off, sending it flying directly at me and my son who were following in my Jeep. By sheer luck, it didn't hit us or anyone else and instead shattered all over the road. They had failed to properly tie down the door. I was a nervous mess the rest of the way home. 

Somehow we made it the 30-minute drive to my house. We passed a police officer and it was with great relief he didn't pull them over for having an improper load. I explain to them where I want it to go. They unloaded it at the side of the house but insisted they couldn't get it to the back yard because of a low hanging tree. By this time I was done with them, so I told them to just go and I'd figure out something on my own. I might have muttered a few curse words under my breath as they left. 

The coop sat there with the roof off and no door, totally useless to me, for four months. I had to stare at its behemoth teal form every time I stood at the kitchen sink. It was with the gracious help of a friend that it was moved in to place and the door another friend gifted me installed. If it wasn't for his help I'd probably still be staring at the darn thing out my window. Now that it is all set up where it is supposed to be and my chickens are all settled in, this hippy girl is happy. I have four hens contently roosting in the coop and now that the days are longer all four are gifting me daily eggs. 

As I told my friend, I'm quite content being the neighborhood crazy chicken lady.

12 Reasons To Raise Backyard Chickens

My computer is down right now, so I am attempting to post directly from my tablet. Not good on the eyes! Or maybe it's just middle age. Regardless, If you have been thinking about getting chickens, but have been on the fence, I want to share with you why you should dive right in to the world of back yard chickens. We have had our two chickens, Padme and Princess Leia, for a year now, and they have given us much more than eggs. I guarantee that the work you will put into caring for them is worth it.

Here are my 12 reasons why you should have a back yard flock:

1. It is a great lesson for you and your children to help care for them. 
2. Your children will learn that their eggs come from an animal, and not the grocery store.
3. You will have greater control of your food source.
4. You will know that the chickens who produced your eggs were treated well.
5. You will have fresh eggs to barter or gift to friends and neighbors. 
6. You can't get any fresher than collecting the eggs for your breakfast that morning.
7. You will become an expert in all things chicken related.
8. They are quite lovable and have distinct personalities.
9. Seeing chickens strutting around the back yard will have you smiling.
10. You will discover a whole new world of like minded people who also raise chickens.
11. Depending on the breed you choose, you can have green, blue, brown, and speckled eggs.
12. While they might not have the most beautiful bird call, waking up to hear the sound of them clucking will fill you with joy.

Before you do go out and buy some chickens, however, make sure you are familiar with your town or city's ordinances regarding back yard livestock. Here in San Antonio we are allowed three chickens without getting a special permit, but some subdivisions have HOA's that don't allow them. I am lucky to live in an older neighborhood where city rules apply. 

Fair warning, however. Once you have chickens, you will start thinking about raising chicks and hatching eggs. You will go to the feed store in the spring and have to fight off the urge to buy chicks. You will start dreaming about a bigger back yard or a little piece of land in the country. You will get coop envy looking at other people's coops. But, seriously, raising back yard chickens is wonderful. One day I will have that little piece of land in the country so Padme and Princess can have a whole flock of companions and I can be a crazy chicken lady.

The Ethics of What You Eat; Thoughts on Healthy, Sustainable Eating

I have been mulling over this post for a while now. With so much at stake and so much wrong with our food system in the US, food choices are important to the health of our bodies as well as the health of our environment. I have friends who are vegan and friends who are outright carnivores. Each has his or her own reasons for eating the way they do based on history and personal beliefs. I am not out to preach to the choir or entice anyone to drastically change their diet. I'm just asking that we think about what we put in our mouths and its impact on the larger picture.

It's not that vegans are crazy extremists or meat eaters are evil (though you'd think so according to the memes floating around Facebook). It's that we have become disconnected from our food sources. The modern hunter is no longer motivated by his family's hungry stomachs. Those living in cities no longer buy their food from open markets directly from the farmers. City governments put strict ordinances in place that have limited gardening and raising small livestock. Family farms have been overrun by by larger corporate farms. Sustainable farming has been replaced with chemicals and genetically engineered crops militantly pushed on us by companies like the ominous Monsanto.

I eat animal products. I will probably continue to do so, but with intention and care. In one scene from the classic Lion King, Simba's father is explaining the circle of life to him. As we eat the antelope, one day we become the grass that they eat. Of course, I don't think an antelope is going to be munching on me anytime soon. I'm not going to die on the African savanna that I know of. But I do think, as many native cultures used to do, we should acknowledge where our food comes from and be grateful for the life that sustains us.

As Luckily, here in Texas I can still buy raw milk straight from the farmer. He also sells eggs, though it is my goal to own a small flock of chickens. I buy organic and local when I can. San Antonio is also in the middle of the food revolution, with at least three large vibrant farmers markets and many smaller ones. I have purchased local pork, ground buffalo, grass fed beef and local cheeses from the Saturday market at the Pearl Brewery. It is more expensive and I can't always afford it. And that is perhaps the biggest obstacle for access to local, sustainable food for the lower class.

One of the biggest threats to our diet and our society's neglect of its health is the convenience factor. I am guilty of this myself. It is more convenient to go shopping at the local supermarket, throw some premixed, over packaged meal into our carts, take it home and throw it in the microwave than grow the ingredients in your back yard and cook them up yourself. But you also loose control of what goes into your food, how its grown, and how fresh it is.

Of course, we are also a society in love with advertising. And we buy all the weird new food products regardless of how unhealthy they are. Our supermarkets are filled with isle after isle of unhealthy eye candy. But I heard a little tip on keeping grocery shopping healthy by shopping mainly on the perimeter of the store. Think about it. What is on the perimeter? Fresh produce, the meat counter, dairy, the bakery. Individual ingredients instead of prepackaged "meals".

I feel like I am rambling all over the place on this issue, but it is big and it impacts every one of us. We are all aware of how diet contributes to overall health. We know that high chemical use is not only bad for us and the food we eat but also for the environment as a whole. We have been aware of them for a long time, yet continue to give our power over to food manufacturers and chemical companies. We continue with our convenience foods despite many ingredients causing cancer and diabetes, among other health concerns.

But there is one simple answer to taking down this system of ill health and replacing it with sustainability. Buy or grow real ingredients. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian, or all out carnivore, know where your food comes from. Encourage urban homesteading. Buy organic when you can. Avoid prepackaged. Avoid fast food restaurants. Slow down with your food. Enjoy it, appreciate it, know it. What you put in your mouth really does make a difference.