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This is not your everyday store.

Lots to chew on there! Everybody should hear this interview with Jules [Dervaes], to know your prospects for feeding yourself or family, should the need arise. Self-sufficiency is coming to the city.

“A cake is a cake until you put roses on it–then it’s a work of art,” says Jules Dervaes

This is a conviction familiar to Jules Dervaes from his seat on the front lines of the urban homestead movement. “This next generation is going to have to shoulder a huge burden,” he says. “When I was their age, we had acid rain. These kids are facing global tilt, polar shift, melting ice caps, global weirding, and depleted resources, and social upheaval from the resultant declining food production worldwide.

“In the face of all that, I really admire the upcoming generation’s combination of positivity and pragmatism,” Dervaes says. “Instead of miring down in hopelessness, they’re getting down to work.”

In 2006, [Jules Dervaes] added two goats to the menagerie, and he quickly came to appreciate their cat-like intelligence, dog-like personalities and general adorableness, despite the management they require.

Fresh vegetables, herbs, honey and new eggs every day; Jules and his family are living the farm life. It’s also a most unconventional lifestyle given that their home is in the middle of Pasadena, California. The family struggles to be as self-sustainable as they possibly can—their car drives on biogas, solar panels power their television, and each day they have fresh food from their own meticulously well-maintained crops.

My favorite thing about this family (along with the fact that they’re really, really nice) is their do-it-yourself attitude. They seem to have skipped the gene for complaining. Or laziness. If they need something done, they seem to just go out and do it. I think they see it as a “duh” response to life.

Date: Sunday, December 12, 2010
Time: 11 AM – 4 PM
Location: Palm Springs High School Auditorium, Palm Springs CA
Address: Palm Springs High School 2401 E. Baristo Rd. Palm Springs, CA 92262
Cost: Film screening of award-winning short documentary Homegrown Revolution and illustrated presentation by Jules Dervaes are FREE; [updated] light refreshments available.
Cost Details: Donations requested to [...]

Anchor Val Zavala visits an urban farmer in Pasadena whose family-run farm allows them to harvest enough not only to feed themselves but also to sell to local restaurants.

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