A Morning In The Life Of An Urban Homesteader

Today’s post is part of The Healthy Home Economist’s blog carnival.

Watch out when you learn how to start an organic vegetable garden – next thing you know, you will be building your own solar panels and drooling over wood stoves in Lehman’s catalog .

Well, maybe not, but that little taste of self-sufficiency might get to you, and you might find yourself yearning for simpler days…preferring books to T.V., homemade meals to Domino’s.

That’s what happened to me. And here is how my life as an urban homesteader currently looks early in the morning (times are approximate).

5:00-5:30 a.m.: I oil pull for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, I prepare a xylitol solution for each of us (we swish it after every time we eat), rinse the sprouts (broccoli right now), and check on any seeds or seedlings I may have just started for the garden.

Somewhere in there I drain the kefir from the kefir grains (I let them sit for twenty-four hours) and start a new quart with raw cow’s milk I obtain locally. If necessary, I drain lentils or mung beans that I have soaked overnight for sprouting.

5:30-6:00 a.m.: I do some marketing for the blog, and then pray for a few minutes.

6:00-6:30: Extreme urban homesteader that I am, I wash laundry by hand. I do it every day because large loads get overwhelming and boring. So at around 6:00 I put the wash in the tub, add a little liquid castile soap and put in some water. I start the drip irrigation and do any necessary watering by hand (which I have now; by next spring, everything will be set up with drip irrigation – halleLUjah!).

6:30-7:00: I exercise, either power-walking/running with my husband, or doing exercises from the book Genius of Flexibility (I am convinced that book has saved my back – thank you, Dr. Margot!) I then (or before) wash, rinse and hang up the laundry (which usually isn’t much).

I shower every other day, and do that somewhere in here on my shower days.

7:00-8:00: I prepare green smoothies for our breakfast. They consist of raw milk kefir, greens – usually from the garden – bananas, and a little flaxseed. We drink our smoothies, and I read a bit from the Bible.

Some time in the future, there will be letting the chickens out of their coop, milking the goats, and enjoying breakfast in our front garden that is many yards away from any road.

But not on this homestead. In the meantime, keeping my almost-five-year-old busy all day and keeping this big house relatively clean is challenge enough! 😉