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@ Jacob Goff
2025-03-19 20:30:31I grew up far out of town in a nice neighborhood. My family had ten acres, but we didn't work the land. My mom had a kitchen garden with some tomatoes and herbs, and we had a few fruiting trees that were a far cry from an orchard.
I liked many things, like the massive off-rad go-kart track that we built through the backyard turning crabgrass into mud and the fact that the fourth of july was an entire week of pyrotechnics. But I was a social kid and hated being so disconnected from the town. We also could not get any high-speed internet out there until a few years into the new millennium, which meant MSN Messenger would put the dial-up at max capacity. This also cut against my exploratory instincts and social nature.
I am grateful I now live in town, but since having my first kid the homesteading life is calling out to me. I find myself scrolling zillow for houses just outside of the city limits with at least five or six acres. Now that the seasons are finally changing, I can stop scrolling and start investing my time in the backyard.
One important move to make in my mini-homestead (suburban homestead) is getting my chickens caged up better. I have a small coop where they lay eggs for me, but it is so confining that I had to let them out to wander the backyard -- which is surrounded by a privacy fence anyway. This kept them contained, but over the last year since I got the chickens, I realized that I hated just going out back to chill on the patio because chicken shit just covered everything. Over the last week, I have been erecting a bigger coop where the chickens can help me compost all the kitchen scraps, also have access to their coop (and easy access for me to get eggs) but I don't have to dodge their humongous turd piles all over the patio.
They also would tear the hell out of the garden. They like to take "dirt baths" which has something to do with deterring the mites that get on them, and they will just dig down into any soft soil, destroying plants or roots or whatever is in their way.
We had a decent garden last year, but it was disorganized and messy and did not maximize the food production. I kept saying, no big deal, let's take a year to get oriented, see what grows well out here, see what we enjoy growing and eating.
My daughter loves it. She would be covered in tomato seeds last year -- she had a confusing affinity for the unripened green tomatoes (which probably have some sort of cyanide or something in them). I think by the end of the season she was catching on that the reddest ones had the best flavor.
We also have a raspberry patch that she absolutely adored. She would dig through those bushes to find tasty raspberries that would terrify me when she inhaled them. I was sure that I would be doing the baby heimlich on her! I am glad that she learned, before she could even articulate words, that her sustenance comes magically out of the soil. She has the rest of her life to ponder how exactly that works and who might be behind it, but until then, she will feast.
My buddy Richie preached my wedding and said that the bible begins in a garden and ends in a garden. I plan to spend the time in between in a garden as well.