Becoming weird (decision making forum at permies) (2024)

Start off with baby step weirdness right were you are without moving, see the list below

Produce:
Leafy Vegetables, you can produce your own on the "normal" city lot
Root Vegetables, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions,, garlic, etc
Herbs, alot of herbs, self-seed and are basically invasives so try out some mint/thyme/etc, garlic/onion/chives/etc, lovage/celery/cilantro/etc
Mushroom, you can easily grow some wine cap mushroom and oyster mushroom, on some pellet/woodchip/straw
Berries, you can get a harvest in 12months or less, from strawberry/blackberry/raspberry, jostaberry/gooseberry/currants, blueberry
Vines, if you have a fence line you can just have them grow on it, grapes, hardy kiwi, maypop, akebia, etc
Fruit Trees, I am in the city and so I plant dwarf cultivars/rootsocks on 10ft centers, you can do that too

Animals:
Honey Bees, get 2+ bee hives on your current normal property and make your own honey, you can even start off with a flow hive off amazon
Eggs, raise some chickens and harvest your own eggs, (you can maybe even harvest some meat chickens too, just don't let the kids know)
Fish, at least g20 long aquarium and raise some guppies/endler/molly, maybe even build a little 7ft vy 7ft pond outside and for educational purpose
Milk, it's unlikely that you will be able to have meat animals, but if you could have a milk sheep that would be wild

Food Prep:
Sprouting/Soaking, I soak my beans, but that's mostly what I do, but there is alot that you could soak/sprout
Fermentation, this is one of my favorite thing to do, just post a message here on permies and someone will help out
Solar Dehydrator, you can buy in bulk and preserve just reach out to a local farmer or even a big box store
Soda/Beer/Cider, you can use water kefir and or yeast to make these yourself, actually even a soda machine at home is a start for me.
Ice-Cream, lots of little tools that allows you to make these at home with as little as 3 ingredients, zero chemicals
Cakes, again, just 4 ingredients, zero chemicals
Sauces, this is where the magic really happen, you can ferment your own sauces, batch produce them and freeze/can/etc, so much cool things can happen here, get a good book
Cheese, I like making cheese from milk kefir (milk kefir and water kefir are two different ferment), but any cheese production is good.
Meats, do you buy, plan, portion out and season your meat for the week, how about for a month, you could get a deep freeze and buy a goat/sheep/deer/quarter cow

Transport:
Walking, sometimes its good to just walk vs driving
E-Bike, if the weather isn't too bad, you can easily use an ebike to travel 10miles in 20minutes
Batch Shopping, buying in bulk and hitting up multiple stores/chore all in one day can be good (I myself get overwhelmed after being in too many big box stores, one after another)

Clothes:
Fiber, maybe just starting out, by mostly buying only natural/organic fibers, maybe it could be done cheaply from thrift store
Production, maybe your own curtains/socks/rags/undershirt, or maybe upgrade and buy patterns and sew your own

Furniture:
Outside Furniture, it would be doable to just build your coffe table, dining table, sofa, grill station outside and people wouldb't judge you too badly
Pillow/Futon/Mattress , you could try your hand at building one with natural latex/fibers
Indoor Furniture, after some practice you can proably build an indoor coffe table, youtube seems to make it look easy-ish, then just go from there
Cabinets, this might be a bit more advance but your can probably tackle a kitchen renovation and even cut and build your own

HVAC/Mech/DHW/Solar:
Irrigation Well, maybe you can do you own irrigation sand point well that is 10ft to 30ft
Solar-Electric, you could install a 10kw array on your roof or just a 1kw array on your shed/carport/etc for fun to charge the e-bikes.
Others, you can always start maintaining and getting comfortable with other systems.

Community:
There are fishing clubs, hunting groups, gardening group and such all over the place join them you don't have to wait to joine a commue before you make some tree hugging friends. And you are already here on permies so that a big start.

WorkLoad
Task Allocation, I know that the wife has her hands full with 5 kids, and you already help out around the house. But you will be putting alot on your plate to tackle everything above all by yourself, don't expect anyone else in the family to have the time and energy to any of these new chores, they might not even have any motivation to do it. And let say you grow all these veggies and make weird kefir cheese, don't expect anyone to appreciate the effort or eat any of it. I would also be mindful about making outfits for the kids to wear to school/etc, they might get bullied (this can easily happen even in a commute). The youngest kids might also tell teachers that my dad killed my pet chicken and forced me to eat it, be careful DCF don't come by, so if you do kill the chicken don't let the kids know.