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Dervaes Family Blogs On, for a Better Future
Original URBAN HOMESTEAD® Blog Spurs a Citified Ecological Movement
PASADENA, Calif. —September 2008– When the day’s news of ever worsening crises causes heartburn, finding relief is as easy as visiting the Little Homestead in the City blog (http://www.LittleHomesteadintheCity.org) to see how the Dervaes family is progressing with their homemade remedies. This first-of-its-kind blog documents the daily activities of these city dwellers who have reached an extraordinary level of food and energy independence. By freely sharing their practices, the family has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to pursue a sustainable future and has generated a 21st century urban homestead movement.
“Little Homestead” began in 2001 as an impromptu journal by Pasadena residents Jules Dervaes and his three adult children, Anaïs, Justin, and Jordanne, on their website UrbanHomestead.org— the first, largest, and most comprehensive urban homestead site. Through their adventures in growing and preserving their own food, installing a solar power system, home-brewing biodiesel for fuel, raising backyard farm animals, and learning back-to-basics skills, these modern-day pioneers have revived the old-fashioned spirit of self-reliance and resourcefulness.
Anaïs recalls that, back when they first went public, there were no other blogs like theirs. “We hoped to encourage people to make similar changes,” she explains. My father said, "Let’s show what we do here"; so, nine years ago, we put our family life online. Since 1985, we were striving to live self-sufficiently in the city and we felt others could learn from our example.”
The Dervaes homestead has experienced phenomenal growth. Over 6,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables are now harvested annually from the one-tenth acre garden. Likewise, the blog has greatly expanded, drawing over 35,000 visitors per month, and provides gardening tips, conservation ideas, environmental news links, photos, and more. In a popular feature, the family posts their menus of homegrown, home-cooked meals. Additionally, the primary website gets over six million hits per month from more than 120 countries–proof of a global “homegrown revolution” led by the Dervaeses’ reality-based model.
The Dervaes family has garnered congressional recognition for their environmental outreach efforts and has been featured in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, as well as on ABC’s Nightline and CNN. They have received thousands of testimonials from readers who say their lives have been changed, in big ways and small, by the family’s trail-blazing work.