Our Home Works

The place Our Home Works calls home has moved. About 6 months ago we packed up and carted our belongings about one mile across town. We were not looking to move at the particular time, but an opportunity presented itself that we could not resist.

We also added staff. Just 6 weeks after our move, our daughter was born. A wise brother-in-law of ours informed us a few days before her birth: “get ready, business is about to pick up.”

And so it has.

And so explains our extended hiatus here at Our Home Works.

In one sense it was very hard to leave our original settlement. There’s a trail of blog posts on this site about the place that tells some of the story. We had expended wheelbarrows full of sweat equity in 2009, building up the foundation of an urban farm. Many square yards of sod were busted. 13 fruit trees and countless other edibles went in. A henhouse was procured and painted. By fall, it was really starting to shape up nicely. It was not all for naught.  The yard looked great and the property went to “sale pending” within a week of hitting the market.

The grounds at our current home offer much the same untapped resource as our former place did. It is a sizeable yard and lots of lawn ready to be transformed to a higher use. Key differences are better sun, but seemingly lesser soils now. Soils can be improved.

Our beloved hens. They indeed made the trip with us. There is ample room for them to roam here, although a slimmer ratio of rich composted soil to scratch around in. But remember that condition will get better. We learned a tough lesson about our new neighborhood, that it is stomping grounds of chicken predators.  Just one night of an open henhouse door led to the demise of our ultra-friendly fluffy white Cochins.  RIP Pancho & Lefty.   Our Brahmas survived without a scratch and without noticeable remorse.  From their perspective it was a big move up the pecking order.  Pepper is back to almost an egg-a-day pace and Buffy still looks pretty.

The transformation of the current grounds is on a slow pace. We’ve heard that caring for a newborn has that kind of effect on a couple? I have drafted a rough master plan, but we missed the best window to get trees and shrubs in. That will have to wait. We have opened up a little bit of ground for some herb and vegetable staples.

Likewise in the kitchen, we’ve adapted our efforts to complement the adjusted priorities of our time. Meals have become simpler and/or less exploratory. One aspect that remained a constant is that we are still very committed, more than ever, to sourcing our meals with local ingredients. Extra efforts we (Amy) made last year to preserve are showing their return on investment and the expansion of farmers selling their products on Eugene Local Foods have been the two biggest factors.

We had a great Mother’s Day today, our first from the parental perspective. To kick things off, I blended up some smoothies featuring frozen bing cherries and milk and yogurt from Noris Dairy. Meanwhile I baked up some Dutch Babies (an awesomely good and easy breakfast dish from the Joy of Cooking), these topped with peaches and raspberries also from our freezer. Our protein needs were covered by some linguica sausages, handmade at Benedettis Meat Market in Springfield.

We were well-nourished for a mid-morning hike up to and around Hendricks Park. At noon we made a run to Down to Earth for a few plants, and got a few of them in the ground before the thunderstorms hit. We went out for pizza tonight to nowhere special and now mom and baby have had a bath and gone to bed.

Our Home is different in many ways, but one constant is that it still Works.