Fruit Tree bonanza backyard

The hubby (he's a total sweetheard) got me a surprise the other day, and it was a Ranier Cherry tree... to replace the one that was killed by the neighbor's RoundUp. Long Story short, the neighbor used roundUp on alot of his lawn close to us, then we had a big rainstorm, and we're downhill... so it ended up killing 3 of the trees I ordered from a mail order catalog. When I tried to replace the ranier cherry tree, they told me they no longer sold that type of cherry.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

So this was a nice surprise, but with a heavy heart, I'm looking around my backyard and I don't think I have any room for it... or the chestnut trees that I acquired from a farmer in Michigan.

This brings it to: 4 apple trees - HoneyGold, Braeburn, HoneyCrisp

3 cherry trees - Bing, Montmorency, and now Ranier

1plum - Stanley European

1Peach - Elberta?

3 Nanking Cherry Bushes

4 Blueberry bushes- 2 Jersey and 2 unknown that look barely living

2 Hazelnut

2 Chinese Chestnut

2 Asian Pear- Ya Li and Korean Giant

So many wants... so little room.

Regarding the front lawn: Saw this post from Shawna Coronado's blog, and it may be a good answer to the patch of grass in the frontyard. Especially because I did want a sitting area. http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com/2010/05/creative-solution-for-tree-root.html My neighbor's maple tree is going to be difficult to deal with, so I already know the triangles of my plan will have to be raised beds. The floating patio is excellent so I wont have to disturb her tree more than necessary.

In other news, The weather is finally warming up to the point where I can start digging soon, and not feel like I am compacting the earth below my feet. Tonight when I get home from work, I will be working on the side garden. We bought some Garden soil, and Organic Humus/Manure so that will all be tilled in, and we will put our Sugar Snap Peas in :) !!! FINALLY!

The war on "Urban Homesteading"

As you all might know by now, the Dervaes family has trademarked the term "Urban Homesteading". I always thought it was funny that phrases could be trademarked, but this is the first time it hit so close to home.

When I first read the article, I didn't think much of it, but there has been a blazing wildfire against the Dervaes family. Here's the link to a very recent article...
Boing Boing Article on the trademark 2/18/2011

I've joined the facebook pages to share in the fight that Urban homesteading is a way of life that existed before they existed. I don't really understand this catch phrase trademarking. Jokes were made that they'd trademark "stay at home mom". Can that really be done? If so, why hasn't anyone trademarked it yet?

I've been reading the articles, and many of the farm blogs I follow (winnetka farms, Homegrown revolution) are all very involved with the uproar, and for good reason. I have been watching to see if I'd receive any emails shutting down the "Urban Homesteading Chicagoland" Blog or my facebook page of the same name. As of yet, I haven't received any notice.

If any of you who have Urban Homesteading blogs have received notices to shut it down, let me know? I'd like to know what you did from that point on. I guess I could technically Migrate everything to the Edible Landscaper Blog...until that gets trademarked.

Making Laundry Soap

I recently am all out of laundry soap, and had heard some families make laundry soap.
I googled it, and came upon this guy's blog.. I read stuff from him before.
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/04/09/making-your-own-laundry-detergent-a-detailed-visual-guide/

So apparently with $10 worth of materials you can make 4 gallons of laundry soap in a home depot bucket.
Plus, you only use 1 cup of the washing soda, and 1/2 cup of the borax...so that stuff can last for future batches.


Anyone ever made laundry soap before?

Well, I finally did it. Got the "20 mule team borax" and "washing soda" at Jewel-Osco (of all places) because they didn't sell it near anywhere else. Walmart, Target, home depot and menards didn't have it.

I used a bar of Ivory Soap, because I thought the whole "so pure it floats" will make it ok for my kids and I who get the winter dry skin.
My husband took the Paint mixer attachment onto the power drill, and mixed everything up in a 3/4 gallon food-grade bucket we got from a restaurant owner friend. I have to say, it's been a few weeks we've been using it, and although it doesn't "suds up" like the other soaps, it cleans just as well.

I will upload a few pix I took of ths finished product. I used 1 cup of the washing soda, and 1/2 cup of borax, so I still have tons left in the box to make at least 10 more batches of this.

What the soap look slike. The website said "chunky looking things" are to be expected. It is the Ivory re-coagulating.


A couple days after that, I know my husband has come a long way because when we ran out of dryer sheets he asked "IS there a recipe on how to make dryer sheets?" Sure enough there are tons on the internet. It's basically Fabric softener and water. So I took all those baby washclothes we've had lying around and put them in a tub of fabric softener with a little water added to it. Everytime we put the clothes in the dryer, I lightly wring a baby washcloth and throw it into the dryer. Babycloths in a tub of fabric softener and water.


$8.00 for bottle of fabric softener that is Huuuge. $4 for the borax and $3 for the Washing soda.
When I called the Arm+Hammer company to ask where I can buy washing soda, they offered to sell it to me for $2.50 plus free shipping.
I would have jumped at that deal if not for the fact that I had piles of laundry that needed to be done NOW.
But I did ask them to send me out a coupon, which arrived yesterday for $1.00 off my next purchase of washing soda.

The finished products in their respective containers


the Raw ingredients Look to last us over a year for sure!