2018 Goals – So much to do and already a month in.

Happy February!

It’s always been one of my traditions to sit down and write out what we’d like to accomplish, both personally and professionally for the incoming year. I’ve had my handmade list up since the beginning, but I am NOW just able to sit down and throw it on here.

And as always, the list is a doozy. Between the two of us, we can always find something new to do, learn about, see, accomplish etc….. So here it goes –

1. Clear out a significant back portion of our lot – we have a decent lot of land cleared already, but then we added alpacas. So now the need for more pasture has arrived more quickly then we anticipated. Its cool tho, we’re going to clear the land in sections. Which leads me to the next item
2. Finish the kitchen and half bathroom in our shed and move onto the rest of it- redoing the electrical, leveling it out more, giving it a new tin roof. *fingers crossed*
3. PIGS! Ok, so only 2 or 3. But we desperately want to produce our own meat, and we figured pigs were a  good way to start, for two reasons. They clear land like machines, and we have a couple other people that would buy the excess meat from us. This means shelter and electric fencing for them. None of it has to withstand the winter tho- we are not entering a breeding program for now. I’ve been reading Homegrown Pork in order to prepare myself.
4. Separate the Alpacas into male and female herds, so we can work on expanding our numbers. This involves another shelter and lots more fencing.
5. Speaking of alpacas – we are going to get our fiber processed this season into lots of beautiful natural yarn and it will be for sale on our site in a few months.
6. (if I have my way) separate the chickens into two flocks so the more timid girls have a chance to thrive instead of being bullied. Which also means I can have more chickens…. Right?
7. Expand our strawberry beds – because seriously, they are the best. We are in the process of figuring out how many plants to order right now.. but its gonna be somewhere in the ball park of 1000.
8. (this one is a two part secret currently in the process of happening, sorrycanttalkaboutit)
9. Building ANOTHER add on to our shed- this one for an outdoor wood furnace for heat and also to keep our bulkhead free of snow in the winter time in case we need to get into the basement.
10. because that cellar is being turned into a ROOT CELLAR! (yes, another one of my new books, which leads me to the next one)
11. Continuing our education- we took on a large responsibility with the new herd, and we have a lot of learning to do still. We also have a lot of other things we are interested in like the pigs, bees, aquaponics and bio dynamic land and farm practices. I’ve really expanded on my personal library over the last couple months, because books are awesome.
12. Start a serious herb garden- including, but not limited to witch hazel, more yarrow, chamomile, lavender…. oh the list goes on really. I’m also learning a lot about essential oils right now and one of my newest books is how to distill your own. I am so freaking excited about this one.
13. Work on the cleanup and landscaping of our front pond system. We want to make it a part of our bio-dynamic farm, but it needs a lot of work as it currently tests positive for e coli bacteria. We started last year, but we still have a lot of work to do before it is a beautiful and functional addition to our property.
14. Take a weekend away for just the two of us. We deserve it.

As always, I’m sure I could keep going on forever, but this is as good of a place as any to take a breather.

Until next time, have a wicked good day.