How We Write Homestead Goals

Last week, I wrote about why we set our homestead goals for the next year in October.  It's a great time of year for us to do so, and it helps me to stay on top of what needs done, when.  But I didn't really delve much into the hows and whys of setting goals for your homestead or what our goals for the upcoming year are.  So here are a few ideas to get you started on your goal-setting, whether you are "farming" a window box in a New York apartment window sill or 1,000 acres in North Dakota.

The first thing I do is daydream.  Seriously.  I ask myself, "If money, time, and talent were no limits, what would I want to do or to have or to accomplish?"  I jot down some of these pie-in-the-sky ideas as they come to me and let them marinate for a while.  I also look to other homesteaders for inspiration by cruising Pinterest and some of my favorite blogs.  You can get great ideas and a feel for what others are doing by simply searching "Homesteading Goals."  A few great reads on this subject can be found here from Montana Homesteader, here from Whistle Pig Hollow, and here from Imperfectly Happy Homesteading.

Keep in mind that these blogs are only for inspiration and brainstorming, not for comparison and despair!  They may be years ahead of you in their gardening, animal husbandry, or building projects.  They may also have resources that are out of your reach or not relevant to your interests.  The point is just to get the ideas flowing.

We definitely want to grow more rainbow carrots next year!

Next, take the time to think about what you did this year.  Did it work?  Great! Maybe you'd like to expand those projects to produce more next year.  We had a great time with our rainbow carrot crop last year and I want to give them more space in the garden this year.  Was something a dismal failure?  Maybe you need to research and revise your approach for next year.  Our squash was on that list.  I plan to research squash bug control before trying again.  Could something be done more efficiently?  How so?  Add all of these notes to your list.

The last phase is taking a look at all of these items on your list and prioritizing them, then breaking them down into manageable bits.  Maybe some of your pie-in-the-sky dreams included producing all of your own food.  That is a huge goal that may take years to approach.  But, you could set a goal of producing all your own eggs this year.  That would add "building chicken coop" and "raising chicks" to your goal list for the next year.  You might also be able to grow your own herbs.  That would add "build herb bed" and "start herb seeds" to the goal list.  Think about each larger goal and break it into doable steps that are realistic with your property, your time limitations, your finances, and your personal and family values.  Don't sabotage yourself by making goals so big that your year will end in frustration, but don't sell yourself short either!  Just because something may not be completed this year doesn't mean you can't get a start on it, and that is a goal of it's own!

Also, eat lots of muffins while you make your list.  Trust me.

Our Goals
Here are our 2016 Homestead Goals to give you a little inspiration.

• Plant more fruits (apple trees, bush cherries, raspberries, and blueberries)
• Expand garden by at least two raised beds
• Plantings or fence for privacy along front and west edge of property
• Landscape around house
• Buy solar lighting for indoor/outdoor use
• Plant medicinal plants integrated into landscaping
• Repaint chicken coop
• Search for more second-hand canning equipment
• Enclose back of carport for storage
• Add film to girls' bedroom windows to increase energy efficiency
• Create outdoor sitting area for family time
• Build connections and community with neighbors
• Figure out a somewhat elegant recycling storage solution
• Make 3-unit pallet compost bin
• Build a rocket stove
• Grow greens indoors all winter
• Try a chicken fodder system for the winter
• Buy gardening books specific to our USDA zone

 Feel free to share you homesteading goals in the comments!  I'm always looking for new inspiration!

A Good Case for Setting Your Homestead Goals in October

October is definitely my favorite month.  The weather is beautiful, cool and crisp.  The leaves put on their best shades of crimson and fiery orange.  We are settling into our school routine.  And, most importantly, the rush of summer garden chores are over.

In the ancient world, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, the fall marked a time of rest and celebration to mark the hard-won harvest.  It was a time when the vegetable and grain processing were done and stored away, and the cooler weather and lack of insects made it possible to begin the harvesting of animals for the winter.  It was a time for slowing down, moving inward, and pondering the long winter ahead.  As such, I think it makes more sense for me to think about what was successful for the year, what needs improvement for next year, and what our goals are going to be going into the next year of homesteading.

Part of the reason I set our goals in October, instead of with the calendar year turnover in January, is that the busy part of the year is fresh on my mind.  I remember that the squash bugs were awful, the the basil did well, and I need to figure out a better way to monitor the chickens' water in the heat.  If I wait, I will forget.  I know that there are amazing folks out there who keep meticulous logs of these kinds of things, and my hat is off to them, but I will never be one of them.  So, setting goals for the next year while this year is still fresh on my mind is a must.

Another reason October is the reset button for our little homestead has to do with the way the year unfolds.  I am frequently really busy from November through January with holiday activities, school stuff, and all sorts of obligations.  October is a slower time for us as a family.  It also gives me a chance to mull over the goals I've set, make plans, alter them, and break them down into smaller projects.  If I've set a goal to grow three new types of veggies in the garden this year, I will already have that in mind when the seed catalogs start to arrive.  If I know that I want to learn to knit, the quiet parts of the year afford me the time to do it.  And I have time to think about the goals I've set for myself, to amend them if the mood strikes me, or even to decide that what I thought was important for us isn't a priority anymore.  I have all winter long to think and dream and evaluate before the spring rush hits.

I know that what works best for me may not be what works best for everyone else.  But I know that having a written set of goals keeps us moving forward and making progress on our journey to the simple life that we yearn for.  Do you set written goals for your homestead?  If so, when is the best time for you to do so?  Please share in the comments!

Tucking In

It has been getting cold here.  Cold enough to frost, although the silly weather is getting to 80 during the day.  My sinuses feel betrayed and confused, but it's hard to be too angry when the trees are putting on their autumn best and the sunrise is so gorgeous.  Of course, a change in seasons always means work to do in the garden.

So, the girls and I brought out trowels and spades and pots to put our garden to bed for the year.  We pulled old plants and brought a few in to overwinter with us.

Pandi proudly displaying the last of our rainbow carrots.

Herbs we are potting up to overwinter in the house.

Rosemary.

Some nice sage for our warm winter soups and stews.

Lavender to sprout for new plants next year.

My capable helper helping with the basil.

We froze this basil for use this winter and also started new plants.

Here is some basil for freezing in an ice cube tray, covered with olive oil.

Our lavender starts in their glass.

Two intertwined carrots that really fascinated Pandi.

So, the garden is ready for winter's arrival.  It is a long way until our spring garden chores, and in the meantime, we will take care of our small indoor charges and enjoy the season of rest.

The More Things Change...

We have recently felt very much like Reeds on the river, if it was a tumbling, tumultuous river.  Maybe with some water falls.  However, we have landed safe on familiar shores.  We are back in Illinois after some crazy adventures with tiny house living and enjoying life, but for right now, home is where we need to be.

That doesn't mean we are doing things differently, though.  We are still up to the same things, gardening, raising chickens and children, trying to keep things simple and elegant.  For now, I will just share some pictures of where we are at this moment.

Tiny gardeners helping with the raised beds.

You can see our chicken tractor in this one.

Those yellow flowers are our Jerusalem Artichokes.

I love a volunteer to help water.

There's not too much coming out of the garden at this time of the year.

And that's the tour!

Puppy Cookies

We spent some time together making some dog treats, or as Pandi calls them, puppy cookies.  It was a lot of fun for the girls.  We used this recipe, largely since we had most of the ingredients and didn't have to leave the house, and also because Appa really likes peanut butter.

I like to include the girls in cooking.  I think it helps them take ownership in the food we eat, teaches them great skills like measuring, counting, and following directions, and it's also just fun to see how excited they get over stirring.

Pandi's first time using the mortar and pestle
to crush sunflower seeds-our substitution for
chia seeds since we didn't have any.

We used a Hello Kitty cookie cutter. 

I think the best bonus of doing dog treats, other than how simple it was and how fun for the girls, was that, when you're making dog treats, you don't have to be quite as worried over kitchen hygiene.  For instance, Appa is much less worried if someone sneezes in his food than I am.

Trying the first puppy cookie.

The results are in, and Appa is really enjoying them so far.  Ours came out softer than a Milk Bone, so we are keeping them in a Ziplock baggie to keep them fresh.  It made a pretty big batch.  All in all, we are really pleased.

Decluttering Challenge:

I am also doing an August decluttering challenge.  It is from the blog of a wonderful Australian woman that I've been following for years, Down To Earth.  I stumbled on it Googling backyard aquaponics and was really amazed by their setup for growing tilapia fish in tandem with veggies.

I am following along with the August challenge and have, so far, tackled the girls' closet.  I cleaned out a garbage bag full of clothes that they have outgrown and will pass them on to someone who can use them.  We cleaned out and gave up so much when we moved to our new state (cutting down from a large four bedroom house to only what would fit in a 12 foot box trailer), but I am amazed by the things that could have been further pared down.  There are still things that haven't been used in our year here, things that I originally thought were important.  Those things are all going to be going in the next few weeks.   It's incredibly liberating to cut the ties to the things that I used to think I needed.  It makes me feel independent and light to know that there are very few things tying me down.  I am excited about the challenge and hope to have some more updates on it soon!

Eggs!

So, let me share my biggest thrill right now with you (aside from Shark Week, that is).

EGGS!

The ladies started laying earlier this week, and we are now getting two or three eggs a day consistently.  I cannot even tell you how happy this makes me feel.  But, I will try to show you with some (fuzzy cell phone) pictures.

So careful with her precious cargo!

I love how they are all different colors and sizes.

We had two eggs out of our first six that were double-yolked! 
And look how golden the yolks are!

Eating the fruits (my Dad used to call eggs
"rooster fruits") of our labor.

The Funkbeds

The girls have been growing.  Which is a good thing, generally, but it also means that they OUTgrow things.  Things like clothes, shoes, and eventually, furniture.  Pandi was, until this week, still sleeping in a crib.  Since she is newly two, it has been convenient for her to be there. For instance, it is incredibly nice to put your toddler somewhere and know that they will still be there in the morning.  But, she had finally reached critical mass for the crib and it was time for something new.  Enter the FUNKBEDS.

I'm not entirely sure why Sephie latched onto "funkbed."  Maybe because the word "bunk" doesn't mean anything to her at three.  But, thus christened, Preston took on the project.

Doesn't he look like a man on a mission?

Working from a design of his own, Preston put together a pretty adorable pair of toddler-sized bunkbeds.  Better still, he only used lumber we already had around the house that was scrap, so the project was totally free!  It took a little trial and error (for instance, we didn't measure the door to their bedroom ahead of time and had to undo a little of our progress to get them in the room!), but they came out nicely.  The girls love them and the only problem so far is the fighting over who gets to sleep "arriba" (up) or "abajo" (down).

It's hard to tell from the pictures because you can't really get an idea of scale, but the bottom of Sephie's bed is only about waist high.

Diggin' the crazy carpet?  That's a project for another day.

A nifty, homemade set of beds, just their size!

New Additions

We have had some new additions to Unseemly Manor since I posted last.  The first has been our chickens.  They are funny, cute, busy, and useful.  They have been not only eating all the bugs they can scratch out of the yard, but also contributing to our compost that has been feeding my rosebushes.  We got four Red Comet chickens, and each picked a name.  Meet Henny Penny, Paprika, Steve, and Boo-boo Chicken!

Baby chick!

Helping build the chicken coop.

All done!

They're getting so big!   The chickens AND Pandi!

We are eagerly awaiting that first egg that should be coming in the next month or so.  It's really hard to describe what a good feeling it is for me to be taking charge of our food supply, even if it isn't a very big part.  With the chickens in their coop and the veggies in the garden, I feel like we have a connection to our place in the world and a connection to the little patch of Earth we are tending to.

The last new addition to the family is Appa.  He is our Great Pyrenees puppy.  He is fluffy and white and enormous and gentle.  We adopted him from the Humane Society.  He has been wonderful with the girls and the chickens.  If we can only tame the shedding, we will be a match made in heaven! 

"That was funny.  Tell it again, tiny human!"

We're coming up on the fullness of summer and are looking forward to the bounty around us.  It was great to bring Appa to the farmers' market today and visit with everyone and look at all the wonderful things to eat, sample the goods, smell all the yummy things, and see all the smiles.  Preston and the girls picked cherries this afternoon and brought them up the hill in a bucket.  It's nice to feel the warmth in the air and the warmth in our hearts.

Making Space

At Unseemly Manor, it seems that the focus has been on making space.  We've made space for ourselves and our belongings in the house, we've made space in our hearts for the two cats that came with the place, we've worked to make space in our schedule for fun and silly time together, and we're working hard to make space on our mountainside for a garden.  It is no picnic.


The wildness has grown up and encroached on the house to the point that areas that were apparently once well-loved and well-kept gardens are completely unrecognizable.  We spent one day just picking up all manner of trash that was dumped around the yard, including glass bottles, cans, bits of plastic, bags of stuff, bottles of motor oil, and whatever other kind of flotsam you can imagine.  There is also a mound of used kitty litter *gag* that has been dumped in a huge heap that is going to have to be shoveled away, but that will have to wait until it's warmer because right now, it is frozen.

Our next work was to clear off a huge brush pile that turned out to be a multi-tiered retaining wall garden.  This is a little peninsula of land that juts out between the front yard and the parking area, and was covered in brush, bracken, thorns, and young trees.  It looked like a prime area for rattlesnakes to hang out, so it had to be cleared.  I am all about wildness, but we really want to make sure that the area around the house is safe for the girls to play.

You can see Preston standing in the corner to get an idea of scale.

On the left are the fence panels we're putting into the play area to keeps the kids from rolling down the mountain.

 Using hedge clippers, loppers, a hand saw, and a lot of pulling, grunting, and sweating, we managed to slowly clear the space out.

Being sure to take plenty of snuggle breaks.

Don't let Preston fool you...I did a lot of the grunt work, too.  I just took the pictures.

 

Buried under the mess, there are lots of flowers coming up!

 The whole thing is actually set up in several levels, each held up with river rocks.  I'm sure at one point it was very pretty.  I can't wait to see what the flowers are once they bloom.  But right now, the whole patch kind of looks like a scraggly, scruffy beard that needs a good shave.  We're going to have to buy a weed eater to go over it.  However, that said, we took a couple truckloads at least of briars and branches and tangled vines off of that little area.  Now we have a space that doesn't look like a vacation home for snakes or a scene from a Tim Burton film when you pass by it at night to get to your car!

The crew relaxing, enjoying a new spot to play.

Restoring a Home, and a Wood Stove

So, in the time since I've last posted, we have suffered a death in the family, been through a horrible bout of some kind of nasty virus, and moved to a entirely different home.  It makes me tired just to write it out.

The place we've moved to we absolutely love.  It's definitely more of a permanent place for us, and we have the option to buy if we decide we would like to make it ours for good.  But, the moving in was incredibly difficult.  It's a very long story, but the short version is our very sweet landlady was taken advantage of by someone close to her and the home was hoarded and then pretty much abandoned.  It was supposed to have been clean, safe, and ready for us to move into, but that didn't happen either due to some bad circumstances, so we ended up doing a lot of the work ourselves.  It was hard, dirty, gross, and there's still a lot to do, although the main living spaces are clean and are renovating nicely.  After Christmas, we hope to take on the apartment and storage spaces that are still full and badly in need of some tea tree oil.

So far, we have, in addition to cleaning out the home (many truck and trailers' worth of trash hauled out, a metric ton of cat hair, urine, and feces cleaned, and making everything fresh, safe, and non-sticky), added chandeliers to the dining and living area and a ceiling fan to the girls' room, painted the girls' room, added solar lights to the sidewalk, taken out the upstairs carpet so we can finish the wood floors, oiled and polished all the wood surfaces, fixed the dryer, cleaned off the front porch and added a gate, chased away a million spiders, and generally made the place a home again.  All in the last two weeks.

Tonight's project for me was refinishing the wood stove.  It is a sweet, sturdy, cast iron thing, just wanting to be loved again.  It was covered in rust (and cat hair and dirt) and the first thing I did was vacuum it.  I wish I had taken pictures...actually, I wish I had taken "before" pictures of the entire place, but I was in survival mode just trying to get us into the new place on schedule and make it on that ragged edge of acceptable for the girls to be in.

Anyway, the top was covered in loose rust and I just vacuumed it away to see what I was working with.  It was pretty rough, pocked and pitted, but seemed to be just surface damage.  That was as far as I got until tonight.  I bought a tub of Imperial Stove Polish from Lowe's for less than five dollars, and some SOS Pads.

I began by using the steel wool to scrub away as much of the rust as I could.  I was really surprised by how much of it came off, it actually came away very smooth.  I was worried I would have to sand it, but that wasn't the case.  I washed off the soap with wet rags and let it dry.  I then began applying the stove polish with a piece of cloth.

Ugh, so sad and dingy!

I started at the top and just covered the whole thing.  A word to the wise, wear gloves.  Unless you have no common sense, like me.  Then just plan to paint the rest of your nails black.  Also, don't touch your face or you'll look like you've been making out with chimney sweeps *again*.  Don't ask how I know.

 The last step is to buff the finish with a soft cloth to bring out the satin finish.  There is no odor to the polish, it's just carbon black in a paste form.  It may smoke a bit when you put your next fire in, it will only last a few minutes as the finish cures and is nothing to worry about.

Then, just enjoy the beautiful heart of your home!

Isn't he gorgeous?