Who are we? We’re just two and a half normal people (or at least mostly normal). I’m a computer consultant and my wife is a stay-at-home mom (hence the aforementioned “half”) and a professional photographer. We live in house in the middle of a town in the Willamette Valley in Oregon with our daughter.

My wife grew up in Eastern Oregon on a ranch before moving over here to go to school and marry me (I’m a lucky guy). And then I got sick for a while and she tried very, very hard to take care of me by figuring out how we could eat as healthfully as possible (amongst everything else that she was doing). Then we had a baby and she wanted to keep up the healthy thing for her. And so the bug was caught and she hasn’t looked back since.

I was a little slower to pick up the interest in the whole wholesome thing. I was more into what was efficient. But after being around her enthusiasm for so many aspects of urban homesteading, it’s hard not to get interested. And I wasn’t able to say “no” to her many projects, so now I’m a part of it, though I must admit that she does the lion’s share.

So now we have raised some chickens for meat and have some more for eggs (mind you, this is in the middle of town with neighbors on both sides!), two Angora rabbits for their fur because my wife wants to try her hand at spinning, two smaller rabbits for fun, some goats boarded at a friends house for fresh milk, several raised gardens for vegetables and herbs and a dog (he’s my pet pug that my wife got me to keep me company while she went to school in Greece for a while).

We’re doing pretty well now. The food aspect of our budget has been dwindling steadily and we occasionally have some stuff left over for our friends or to sell. But our most valuable asset so far is the knowledge that has been gathered about where to get things, how to go about certain projects (I’ll bet you didn’t think it was possible to have chickens in town and still have the neighbors like you) and what’s possible with a little know-how.

And who knows, we might have a little farm some day where we can grow/raise most of what we need and play with other ideas of being eco-friendly. But that’s in the future. Right now, we are just a couple living in town trying to make the best of what we have to live as well as possible, and we thought we’d start sharing what we’ve found with everyone else that might be interested.