Answer I - How I got here...

Q: Hiya Paul, have been reading your blog for a while and yes I am curious as to how you came to the life that you now have. A little info would satisfy my curiosity :-)
Best wishes
~Babs
Well Babs, here you go. (I'll get to the other questions in order if that's alright?) It's probably more information than you could ever have wanted, but it is a good intro to me and It's something that I'd like to have down in print for the future anyway. I hope you enjoy.

A: I have to admit first off, that while we do do a lot of things around our house that might/do raise some eyebrows when seen or mentioned; feeding my chickens first thing in the morning in my go to work casual dress clothes before I head out, making homemade cheese or yogurt, grinding wheat for flour etc. I don't really see ourselves our lives as all that different. We take our kids to a pretty normal school (Charter school though...LOVE IT!), I work at a normal 40/hr week job and we live in a very suburban area just north of Salt Lake City UT. But on the other hand, unlike our neighbors, we don't have dogs barking in our backyard, we have chickens clucking and announcing the arrival of fresh eggs, I come home from a full time job and work many days until the sun is down to accomplish the things at home that I feel are just as important to our family as my going to work outside the home. We are a little different, and evolving all the time. But that's the root of the question isn't it? How did we get where we are today?

I have to take most of the credit for initially steering our ship toward this harbor. I've always been a little bit different like that. Growing up in Southern California I had two great parents that really let me explore a lot. My dad taught me to use hand tools at a young age and my mom taught me to sew....err, fabric weld. We had a family bookshelf and I remember my favorite books being the Do-It-Yourself books by Time-Life or something like that. I've always had a passion for creating, doing, learning and experimenting. I wasn't a great student, but absorbed what I wanted. Around high-school, I started dreaming of building my own "RV". You know, the old hippy renovated school bus kind with the sweet barn wood walls and recycled everything. What can I say, there were a lot of them at the beach and I lived at the beach!

I've also had the opportunity to see much of the world and it's helped a great deal in shaping who I am. I was born in Sweden you see, and although I moved here as a baby, half of my family was still there. I took my first oversees flight by myself at 9 yrs to go visit family in Sweden, had the chance to travel Europe with my family as a 12 yr old (11 or 12...Mom, help me out here?) and went through checkpoint charlie in Berlin before the wall came down. After high school I studied art locally in San Diego but then had the opportunity to spend a semester studying (and I use that term loosely.) at the University of London, it was one of the greatest times of my life. A couple of years later I enlisted in the US ARMY. I needed some direction, and more than a little discipline. I got both in spades. I also got to spend two tours of duty in Saudi Arabia where I got to learn about the culture of the mid east in person. My last big adventure was almost ten years ago when my oldest son and I went to Singapore and Bali to visit my parents who were then living there. I bring up travel for one reason. Seeing other cultures, talking with people from different circumstances cannot help but shape a persons outlook on the world. I know it did mine.

Recently, if nearly ten years is recently, I met and fell in love with a woman that can only be described as my soul mate and while today we are living a pretty comfortable life, that wasn't always the case. When we met, we were both going through very messy divorces. It wasn't the best timing, but like I mentioned in my last post, it's hard to go wrong following your heart. The first few years we were together we were basically broke. We got help from others, did what we could, and just kept plugging along. We have known what it is to want, to be burdened with debt and to feel helpless. That is not a feeling either of us wants again.

A couple of years ago, we began a process of "cleaning house". Two of our sons had been diagnosed with asthma, and one had missed nearly three weeks of school from it. We didn't know where it had come from. No one on either side of their family tree had it and we didn't know what to do. We learned about how pathogens and chemicals in our homes and food were so common, and how many experts believed that they were a great deal of the reason for many children's illnesses. We made a decision to start small and added on over time as we learned things. We made changes to our home like removing carpet and sealing our walls will zero VOC paints. One thing lead to another and food was the next logical step in our evolution. I began to see what I believed, still believe, was a threat to our future food security in the industrialization of it and it's reliance on fossil fuels that are reaching their peak. I got to a point where I was getting depressed because I wanted so badly to move to a place with some land. To have a small but productive acreage where we could do more for ourselves but couldn't make it happen. It was then that I found the Path to Freedom site, and my eyes were open to a whole new world of possibilities. A~ and I began to change our focus toward producing as much sustainable, healthy and secure food sources as we could right here on our 1/4 acre property. We expanded the garden, worked towards making keeping hens legal in our town and have been actively encouraging others to do the same.

It's been a long strange trip, to quote "The Dead", but I couldn't be happier with how it's going so far. A~ and I often work side by side. We have a common goal and faith in our future. We feel secure in our ability to provide food for our family and live in a healthy home. Our oldest son, the one who missed so much school, has hardly missed a day in the last two years. He still has triggers, but it's controlled 90% without medication. The future looks like it'll be a interesting one...but that, is a topic for another post.
Till then.
P~

Local Salt??

Yes...LOCAL SALT!!
One of the truly great benefits of being in a place famous for it's Salt Lake is that there is easy access to an abundance of salt! A little over a week ago, A~ and I took our bi-annual trip out to Wendover NV. It's relatively close, and it gives us a chance to just be together and be grown ups. We weren't sure if we would be able to make it this year due to expenses, but since the hotel sent us a coupon for a comped room we figured it was a sign.

On our way home we decided to stop and gather ammunition for a little experiment, naturally evaporated "Salt Lake" salt. Here's what I had to work with. It's beautiful in its way isn't it? Just to be clear... that's not white sand on that shoreline, and it sure the heck isn't snow. That's all salt! Take a look below at the slabs that were forming and jutting up into the air right there on the shore.
Oh yeah, and by the way, any Salt Lake readers that get inspired to go out and collect themselves some salt slabs bring some mud boots. That salt ain't solid. You may be able to tell below that I am above ankle deep in the salt. What it does is to form a heavy salt crust that is darn near impermeable, unless your a crazy road traveler that like to try to make their own stuff. I saw those heavy slabs though and of course I had to get a couple of pieces of it. (didn't want to let you down after all.)
And there I am...digging away for a little saline goodness. Funny thing was that it was near to or maybe even over 100 deg. this day and yet the white salt was fairly cool to walk on. The pavement leading up to it was another story!
After grabbing a couple of the slabs of salt from right near the shore, I decided to scoop up some of the Fleur de Sel, (Flower of salt) At least that's what I believe it is called in this form. It was in the coolest flaky form. Almost like snowflakes but hard and crystalline. I scooped up a couple of cups worth.
Another picture of the flaky salt that was nearer to the road and was dryer than the other salt which was still slightly damp on the underside.

Finally, this is a good closeup of the salt that was carved off of one of the larger chunks that I grabbed. I crushed it up by hand into a pile of broken salt chunks. These I weighed and then processed into finished table salt. But that is a post on it's own. Soon to come, so stay tuned.

P~

Volunteering.

I went to a meeting tonight at “The Green Building Center” of Salt Lake, I've mentioned this store before when I was talking about different floor finishing options. Next weekend they are hosting a Green Homes Tour throughout the Salt Lake Valley and Park City. The project is the brain child of Ashley Patterson, owner of the GreenBuilding Center, and will highlight a lot of the different possibilities with regard to green home building and sustainable living. The meeting I went to was for volunteers for the tour. A freind of mine and I will be volunteering at one of the locations for 3 hrs that afternoon. Green Building options and alternative energy are a couple of things that I am really very passionate about. As of right now, there is only so many things that I am able to do in my own home, but I want to help share the knowledge that I have with others and learn from them as well. I think that the whole experience will be a real blast, and of course you know there will be a full review and lots of pics when I'm done. Hope you are all doing well. Till later.
P~

You can read more here.

P.S. I saw that I was tapped by Anandadevika to share some random thoughts about myself and to tap others. The thoughts are easy enough, but I need to figure out who too tap. I'll post later with more.