Thoughts For 2014

Ah, another year. I must be getting old because they fly by way to fast. Now, let's get one thing taken care of... I don't do resolutions. Many do and feel it is a meaningful part of life. Personally I find them a complete waste of time. I am always trying to save more and spend less, lose weight and attain rapidly evolving goals. I do not need a date on the calendar to signify I have begun or failed (cause lets face it, we all fail one or more of those resolutions). Nope, I just don't need that kind of pressure! But, I do enjoy and encourage making both a mindful and realistic picture of your coming year in your minds eye. This year a certain word comes to me when I think on it. Surrender. Oh, what a loaded word and one I struggle with so much. Surrendering to God and his will for our life as a family. Surrender to unknowns. Surrender to situations not in our control. Just surrender!

With this concept in mind, I will share some projects I am planning to work on this year. Notice I said work on not accomplish! If I accomplish them then I can grab a hard cider and kick my feet up in celebration. If not... eh.

photo creditA new garden! The joy of a new home. I have been working on this post for a couple days (because I have interruptions every 5 minutes) and in that time I have discovered a new style of gardening! Back to Eden gardening is a concept born of Creation. A man moved his family to a new home so he could grow their food but was faced with the challenge of not enough water. So through prayerful exploration and listening he was guided to 'covering' the soil and letting the Father do the rest. It's a fascinating and simple concept. For many reasons I want to use this method but the largest one is because I feel called! I have always worried about failing at growing, the hard work, the time, the weeds. Making this discovery was the Lord taking the worry out of my hands and replacing it with something I know will work... because He designed it, not me. Please watch the free film through the link above!

Housing for all animals. Ok... this might be a must. By next fall we would like to have the barn up and operational although that really depends on the progress of the house. By April we need to have shelter for the dairy goats which doesn't need to be fancy or large by any means so that is easily do able. We will build a good sized chicken coop so we can increase our flock and our horse will be using his trailer as a run in once again until he has a stall in the barn.

Increasing the chicken flock. Now that we have had chickens for the better part of a year now, I have learned a bit and think I can confidently say chicken do not come naturally to me as well as I do not enjoy them! Nevertheless I find them extremely useful and productive. After some more research I have decided on trying out a few different heavy breeds that have certain characteristics of broodiness, meat production, egg production and winter hardiness. Basically I want as much bang for my buck and not much to fuss with. My plan is to place an order with a couple of people who also want to order (so to split our shipping costs) and also get a large number in a straight run. This will allow me to add layers but have roosters to slaughter for meat in the fall. Then the following spring I can allow a few hens to brood the next generation and start all over again.

Learn to make cheese, yogurt and butter. As of April I will be milking one Nigerian Dwarf, two the following spring. Although we will be drinking most of what she gives us I would love to try my hand at making some cheeses and yogurt. I may wait on the butter given I need a cream separator to get a good yield. I will breed them both in November/December for spring kids!

Continue to increase our pantry stock. Currently we could comfortably live a month or two with what is in our pantry and not suffer nutritionally. I would be much more comfortable at a years worth or more. So, canning our garden's and local produce, raising chickens and pigs for meat, hunting, stocking grains and other dried goods and maybe? making a root cellar. The fun part about this is that I get to design and build a pantry in the basement to fit our needs and keep our stock safe from spoilage and theft.

Get my hunter safety certification. I have put this off for years and this year I am GOING to do it! One more odd to getting free meat. We as a family appreciate venison and pray every year someone will get a moose tag! The men may make a trip out to Montana to hunt in the fall. I hope they do! I would love a elk or caribou as well.

I could go on and on about the things I'd like to do. Again, though, I need to pace myself and stay within the realities of my season. Sure, I could bang out a bunch of stuff this year and I probably will! But, I will not let it get me down if I don't do everything right now. I am looking forward to this year!

Any of you care to share your hopes for your homes, lives, homesteads this year?

Til next time!

An Unexpected Chance For Learning... Butchering a Wild Turkey

Well, I did not expect to have a turkey carried into the yard today! But I volunteered myself to help the handsome gentleman in the picture above (my brother... shhh, he doesn't want me writing about him, let's call him The Redneck) pluck and gut it. It was a very nice tom turkey. Since neither of us had done it before but I was the more educated on it by reading, I dictated how we should go about things. I was so excited to put my knowledge to work!

First we got a huge pot and heated water to about 140-150 degrees and poured it over the bird in a large metal tub outside. It took 2 pots of water to scald him good. Then we hung him up by his feet so we could both pluck him easily over plastic sheeting (makes clean up quicker). After he was plucked enough I cut the tips of his wings off buy going through the joints. Then we hung him by his neck and proceeded to gut. The Redneck did this part and I watched closely. Admittedly, I was still a bit unnerved about the warmth of the body. But I will be gutting 6 ducks soon so I will get over it!

We finished up by cutting the feet and neck off and rinsing it with the hose. It will sit in the fridge for a few days and then I believe he plans to fry it! Fun.

Evil as it sounds, I look forward to processing our ducks... these are survival skills and farm skills. Butchering is something I aim to be good at.

Night all!