A pretty awesome book

We live on barely 0.1 acres and the house and the driveway take up a good chunk of that. So while many books are 'helpful' they are usually aimed at homesteaders with much more land. If I had even 0.5 acres of arable land the situation would be entirely different. I aspire to be an urban homesteader, at least as long as the girls are in school. Its convenient to be close to work and school as it cuts down on the commuting and it gives you a chance to raise awareness. Folks can be walking by, you have neighbors that can inquire, its all part of the little things you can do. But alas, as I've alluded to, its frustrating to listen to podcasts or read books/magazines that refer to acres in the plural and recommend tractors.





This brings me to A Toolbox for Sustainable City Living. I've just started reading/perusing it. Its amazing. All of the information has been tried and tested by the Rhizome Collective, which as far as I can tell, is an urban sustainability group. There are a number of things about this book I appreciate. One is that the fact that they don't necessarily want you to go buy stuff, they often recommend ways of accomplishing a project by using discarded items. They are also very aware of the constraints of living in a city and for once, while reading this book, I feel as though I have plenty of land. They discuss ways of creating small ponds and using these for growing food and green manure and also for filtering grey water. They discuss compost, soil remediation and controversial topics like 'humanure' (the composting of human feces). One interesting fact I wasn't aware of it that human urine is high in nitrogen. If your compost pile is slanted heavily towards the carbon end of things, this might be a good way to use some of that copious amount of urine (versus urinating in perfectly good water). From rainwater collection to sustainable energy this book has a ton of resources. Best of all it realizes the constraints that many of us have, living in urban areas. If (or when) civilization comes crashing down, this would be a book I'd like to have on hand. Its all well and good to be living the good life on your twenty acres in Alberta but what about all the folks living in cities. This book has a lot of ideas for that.