Sonoma Coast

Sonoma Coast

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

New Blog!

Spring is here. Last weekend, I bought the lumber to build raised beds in my teeny, tiny garden. My hope is to begin a year-round food garden. So I thought this would be a good time to start a blog to document my varied attempts to get back to nature.

Although I've always lived in cities, I think I'm an agrarian at heart. Strangely enough, I think a lot of it came from someone I didn't really know that well. While I was growing up in Palm Springs, our next door neighbor was Glen and his wife (whose name, sadly, I don't remember.) I remember Glen looking like Wilford Brimley and he was probably in his 60's or 70's (when you're a kid, anyone older than about 20 is just "really old.") He had a simple house that had a huge garden with corn, carrots, cabbage, and all sorts of other vegetables. He spent all day out in his garden tending to the crops and harvesting. We often got to reap the benefits of his work when he offered us some of his surplus harvest. Best of all, Glen has a chicken coop. Real, live chickens. (I didn't think this was odd at all, but looking back on it, a house located a few blocks away from "downtown" Palm Springs is an unusual place for a chicken farm.)

One day, Glen gave me and my sister Michelle each a baby chick. We loved and cared for our little chicks. Until, that is, my dog, Scruffy, killed both chicks. We had the chicks all of about 18 hours before Scruffy got to them. But ever since then, I've been fascinated with raising plants and animals. To this day, I dream about having a chicken coop and going out each morning to harvest the freshly-laid eggs for breakfast.

In general, I'm drawn to a natural and more simple life. I've found myself trying to find ways to make my own things rather than buy processed things. The first small step was making my own pasta rather than buying packaged pasta. I now make my own pizza dough, yogurt and am going to try to make some basic cheese recipes.

So that's what this blog will document: my (sometimes ridiculous) attempts to get back to the basics and make some things myself. If nothing else, it will be an adventure.

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