By Jessica Hundley

First, there is the study in opposites: the sprawl of concrete meeting a spread of fecund growth, white picket fence lining city street, the roar of freeway competing with the screech of a hen celebrating the laying of the morning’s first egg.

Path to Freedom is itself a dichotomy: a farm in the city, a “peaceful” revolution. It’s an oasis, an example and a subtle confrontation. It is simultaneously, an “urban homestead,” which existed before the term, and also one family’s quest to find “freedom” amid the chaos of city life.

Jules Dervaes and his three children began building their 1/5-acre Pasadena family farm a decade ago, but it is only recently that the world has caught up to them. Both a renewed interest in sustainability and a sour economy has transformed what once might have been deemed “kooky” into a undeniably enviable independence.

“There was a time when we were the crazy people on the block, tearing up our lawn and planting things,” says the youngest Dervaes, Jordanne, 26,” and suddenly I look up 10 years later and we’re cool. I don’t know when that happened, but I do know we’d be doing this—whether it was cool or not.”

Establishing one of the first “urban homesteading” websites to document their shared experiment, the Dervaes have become, over the last 10 years, if not “cool,” then certainly highly admired worldwide. Millions follow their popular blog, which documents the family as it successfully feeds and fuels itself—entirely from the fruits of its own labor and the incredible bounty of its tiny plot of land.

“Part of the reason we’ve gotten so much attention [is] that we’ve shown that this can be done successfully,” says patriarch Jules Dervaes. “One of the points we wanted to make was not only could this be done, but it could be done with only a little money and a little land.”

In one year the Dervaes’ homestead can produce three tons of fruits and vegetables, 25 pounds of honey and nearly 2,000 duck and chicken eggs. They utilize solar heat and people-powered machinery: for example, a blender connected to a stationary bike (pedaling gets the blades going) and an old-fashioned hand wringer washing machine. They also make their own preserves and their own biodiesel fuel.

As a result of these Herculean efforts and a low-impact, self-sufficient, sustainable lifestyle, the Dervaes have become, quite unexpectedly, the poster family for the green homestead movement. It’s a crown, however, they seem to wear somewhat uneasily.

“The economic collapse has boosted our emails and our outreach and it seems like people are now looking at this lifestyle seriously, as a viable alternative,” says the senior Dervaes, but the danger is that it’s now become trendy. So it’s up in the air, which way it will go. I’ve been here before, back in the 1970s. There was [a] big rush, a ‘back to the land’ movement that was truly sustainable. But what happened is a lot of those people got out there and realized it was hard!”

For more about the Dervaes’ homestead, go to www.pathtofreedom.com.

http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2010/03/home-sweet-homestead-a-green-path-to-freedom.html