Today, on this last day of 2024, I took down the wall calendar and put up the new one. The wall calendar always hangs in our kitchen and is the recorder of our lives as farmers and parents of a young cellist. It tells us when we planted what, when baby chicks are born, when music camps are, and so much more.
I have saved these wall calendars since we started hatching our own baby chicks in 2016 because I wanted to have records of the babies, and these calendars have grown to mean so much to me. They are like a short-hand of everything we do, what we grow, what we harvest, and how we live our lives.
This year, I bought a lovely wall calendar with artwork from our national parks. I love our national parks and everything they stand for. I have only been to four national parks, but I was in awe of all of them.
I decided to gather all of the old calendars I could quickly find, just to see what all I could remember about our homesteading journey and our lives from previous, and it was like a trip down memory lane. I would love to take this to the next level and actually keep a farmer’s journal. I did that one year for the blog, but I lacked discipline this year–and most years. But while we are pretty good at remembering most of our lessons from year to year, we do forget some. The forgetting was worse this year with the long COVID. Yeah, I might need to keep a farmer’s journal in 2025.
But I digress…
When I looked at the calendars, I could see the year Pumpkin and Nugget had babies back to back. I could see all of my cat’s Sophie’s vet appointments as we dealt with her health issues. I miss her so much. I could see a note about Gus’s birthday. I miss him so much too. I could see that Ron has been starting seedlings indoors for at least six or seven years. It doesn’t seem that long. I could see when the dogs’ heart worm meds were due. I could see that the ducks’ first eggs of the year have been getting later, and the last eggs of the year dropped off very early this year. Those ducks will be seven years old this spring.
I saw a note about remembering to give the second treatment Rooster and Mary Jane for mites. I saw that, in 2020, baby chicks were born on my birthday! I can’t remember which chicks those are, but I am going to have to track it down because I think it might be Juliet and Bianca. Oh, how I love those girls, and oh, how sad I am that they are nearly five years old. I hate to think that I don’t have too many more years with those fantastic hens.
I saw the cello camps and music lessons and recitals. I loved seeing the year we did the farm shares and my efforts at keeping up with who was getting eggs when. Oh, and I saw records keeping track of when we bought chicken feed and how much we spent. We found a better food this year, and it has saved us so much money. I’ll have to write about that soon because, if we can dodge the bird flu, I might try again at selling eggs and seeing if we can do better.
I saw that this year the planting was so much later. Thankfully, we had a long, long summer because we needed all the time. We were so slow and tired this year. I also saw that this year was full of doctor appointments, ultrasounds, lab work. We used to barely go to the doctor. For a few years, it was just check ups and dentist appointments. I hope to get back to that point.
And, hopefully, 2025 will be a good year! I have learned so much this last year. I feel wiser. I feel like I am a better human, and that really just has to be the main goal, doesn’t it?
Friends, I hope you have a lovely New Year’s Eve and New Year tomorrow! I hope 2025 is good for you!
Here’s to kindness, love, good food, great books, beautiful music, self sufficiency, and maybe some baby chicks in the coming year. There will be challenges. There always are. But I hope we face them well and with love in our hearts.
PS If you keep a farmer’s journal, I would love to hear about it. And, if you just keep a calendar like we do, I would love to hear about that as well!
