Rachel Kaplan - Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living

A book like this is never written by one person, or even by two. Collaborating on this project has been a good experiment for us, even when we wished we were in the garden rather than in front of the computer. We are grateful for the support and encouragement we received while working on it, and want to acknowledge it here.

For their time and commitment to the path: Aaron Ableman, Patricia Algara, Jane Allard Allen, Laura Allen, Kevin Bayuk, Ellen Beeler, George Beeler, Rachel Brinkerhoff, Maryann Brooks, Massey Burke, Alli Chagi-Starr, Lindsey Dailey, Trilby Dupont, Lauren Elder, Ashel Eldridge, Michael Erlich, Tom Ferguson, Barbara Finnen, Trathen Heckman, Jenifer Kent, Ben Macri, Jeannie McKenzie, Daniel Miller, Evelina Molina, Frank Morrow, Jim Montgomery, Giancarlo Muscadini, Hank Obermayer, Erik Ohlsen, Cris Oseguera, Sasha Rabin, Kitty Sharky, Christopher Shein, Troy Silviera, Rick Taylor, Andree Thompson and Tina Wilder. Many of these fine folks are linked, directly or indirectly, through two organizations we love: The Institute of Urban Homesteading in Oakland, California and Daily Acts, a person-powered organization for sustainability education and inspiration in Sonoma County, California.

Others who chimed in with thoughts, photos and support: Karen Lamphear, Michael and Dana Yares, Jennifer McWilliams, Diane Dew, Toby Hemenway, Daily Acts, Ellen Bicheler, Annie Deichmann, Dan Kaplan, Karen Romanowski, Carl Shuller, Karen Lyons, Molly Goulet Bolt, Karen Erlichman, Jennifer Lindsey, Seth Zuckerman, Will Stapp, Victoria Temple, Stacey Evans, Keith Hennessy, Michael-Medo Whitson, Michelle Lujan, Jonathon Gavzer, Glenn Caley Bachmann, Stacey Meinzen, Kelli Loux, Sabrina Kahn, Chris at the Farmers Market, Ruth Persselin, Patty Sherwood, Bart Anderson, Willi Paul and Planetshifter.com .

Readers extraordinaire who made it so much better: Tracy Theriot, Miguel Micah Elliott, Laura Allen, Tamar Bland, and Marion Kaplan. Elinor Burnsides contribution as reader, proofreader, sounding board and general all around inspiration for living was extraordinary and much appreciated.

For their long-term, salt-of-the-earth support, their continued faith in her work on the planet and for simply being amazing and inspiring each in their own way, Ruby wants to thank her personal angels: her mom Jacki Fox Ruby, her partner Erik Bjorkquist, and her friend Allyson Steinberg.

Rachel: My gratitude extends to my dear neighbors Peter, Lisa, Gabriel, and Elias Stein for blessing our family with more family (and to Peter especially for being there for the illustrious eleventh-hour save); to Esm Kaplan-Kinsey who inspires me in the work of repairing the earth and tending to the future; and to Adam Kinseyfirst, last, and best reader, in life and in artIm so glad you are walking by my side.

Autumn, 2010

W eve been friends for nearly twenty-five years, sharing a life as community artists and activists in San Franciscos Mission District, and finding ourselves evolving toward the same urban homesteading lifestyle grounded in the urgency of the moment and the need to create real cultural change. Were neither partners nor roommates; we dont even live in the same city. But we share a love of the earth and a creative spirit, as well as our practices as body-centered healers, teachers, and activists.

Ruby created the Institute for Urban Homesteading in 2008 in Oakland, California, as a venue for sharing the homegrown wisdom shes gathered over the years. Rachel lives in Sonoma County with her partner and daughter, works as a somatic psychotherapist, and teaches homesteading skills. She also helps coordinate a group of homesteaders and backyard gardeners into the Homegrown Guild, an action-oriented project of Daily Acts, a nonprofit with a mission to transform communities through inspired action and education.

We wanted this book to represent voices other than our own because we find ourselves part of an outpouring of energy toward a diversified, healthy ecosystem in the midst of crowded urban intensity. We are part of an urban homesteading movement . All the people we interviewed live in the urban or suburban Bay Area. Our choice to restrict our interviews to homesteaders in our area reflects our lack of a travel stipend and not the reach of urban homesteading in this country, which is growing rapidly and expressing itself in diverse ways in different places, meeting the requirements of bioregion, economic necessity, and local sensibility. Each person or family we interviewed inspired us, and represented a foray into some part of the homesteading lifestyle we think is important. We chose homesteads that were small enough in scale to apply to a diversity of cities across the country, and captivated us with their creativity, beauty, or verve. We are grateful to everyone we spoke with for the generosity of their time, and for their ongoing and embodied commitment to birthing a regenerative culture.

As we interviewed different homesteaders, we found that no one has a handle on every aspect of homegrown sustainability. Each place is marked by the limits of space and time and skill and affinity. Some people focus on growing food and learning how to preserve it. Others have a leaning toward water, or compost, or recycling the waste stream. Some people have fully devoted themselves to permaculture as a way of making a living. We are landscapers, nonprofit workers, students, teachers, greywater experts, architects, stonemasons, mothers, and fathers. These homesteaders are all homegrown urban farmers, busy experimenting with the space they have, and building their toolbox of sustainable living skills.

City people grow and butcher animals for food, milk the goats, and gather the honey, just like homesteaders everywhere. Everyone is trying to grow as much food, save as many resources, and connect as much with their neighbors as possible. We are all motivated by concern for our cultural moment and a desire to live the change we want to see, to be part of crafting a solution rather than perpetuating the problem. As you will see, there are some limits to our success, and some spectacular unfolding social experiments.