Self sufficiency in the suburbs

I have been trying to lose weight (and failing miserably I might add). But, I know the conventional knowledge is that you need a lifestyle change or you’ll get it all back.  Luckily, I love fruits and veggies.  I love fresh ones. I grew up with my parents who had two acres, and on those two acres were 2 sour green apple trees, 3 cherry trees, a mulberry bush, and a pear tree. If you wanted a garden, there was room for this. I moved to my own place, and we had an acre, no, we didn’t have a garden, but we had really great soil.  There are many reasons for not having a garden, but, I must say, I regret it now.

Because now, I live in a housing addition. Now, my yard is all clay soil. Now, we have a small lot, and the back half is not only sloped, but mostly covered with patio, deck, trampoline and swimming pool.

No this is not my yard, all the toys here are blue, but you get the idea.

I like the idea of being somewhat off the grid, of growing my own food, of raising chickens. There are several problems with this plan.

1.See above photo.

2. I don’t think the home owners association allows chickens.

3. I tend to kill plants. Oh, I know I’ve gotten better but years of this:

It’s supposed to look like this, right?

Have me more than a little nervous.

3. Finally, that whole off the grid thing…I’m marrying this guy

Ok, not THIS guy, the one I’m marrying is better looking.

Whose office looks like this:

Who does this for a living:

I don’t think he is going to go off the grid willingly, or at all, for that matter.

So, I got a book about self sufficiency in the city. It has some interesting stuff in it. But, that stuff costs money. I basically just want to dig a hole and plant things. But, apparently that is too difficult. So, now I need to decide how much of my deck I want to give up to try container gardening, and I need to convince the boyfriend to help me make raised beds for the plants. I wanted a compost pile, but apparently they stink and the home owners association doesn’t like that either.

You know, I honestly understand why he bought this house, and the things I complain about made perfect sense when he was a single 25 yr old man. He didn’t want a big yard to mow, he liked the slopes so it wouldn’t flood, the water would run right off the yard. I know he fully intended this to be a starter house, and I know he didn’t know his starter family would come with the expansion pack. And, I know people and their needs and their desires change over time.

I graduated 10 yrs ago with every intention of being a pilot, living in NY, not even getting married until I was 30+, let alone have kids. And now, I am perfectly content as long as I can get a coffee once in awhile, I have a library card and some place to write while the kids play. I want to marry this man, be a stay at home wife and mom, home school the kids, and raise chickens and vegetable. This should be simpler.

But, in all honesty, I really have nothing to complain about. We both made choices that were right at the time, and it may take a little time to make the changes, but, things are still generally pretty good, and everybody is happy, so, I will only vent on here a bit about the crappy soil.

Plus, I wanted to play around with putting pictures in!