Tag: New Year’s resolutions

A New Kind of Resolution: Making Small Homesteading Goals for the Year

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

We are quite self-sufficient as homesteaders. We grow between 60 and 70 percent of the food we eat and have created a cycle of sustainability and regeneration on our property, but we didn’t get here over night. It has all been a process, and each year, I focus on adding a little more to what I can do. I used to have much bigger ambitions each year, but I learned pretty quickly that we needed to pace ourselves in order to keep from getting discouraged or overwhelmed. With this in mind, I like to think deeply about what we need and what a I love and make a few homesteading New Year’s resolutions each year.

As I have mentioned before, I am a bit of a planner. As such, I am a big New Year’s resolutions kind of person. Not everyone is, and I get that. Some people think they are ridiculous, and I get that too. Still, for me, someone who struggles to complete projects, especially when we can get so busy around here with outside work, homesteading, homeschooling, and more, New Year’s resolutions are helpful. They give me a focus and a deadline.

Last year, one of my biggest homesteading goals was to actually keep records of our eggs sales and consumption along with costs of feed and straw in order to see if there was in any way in world I might, someday, be able to expand our egg business and give it a go as a chicken farmer.

I didn’t get good news in my egg sales experiment and realized in April that, even in our best months, we could barely manage to break even selling eggs at $5.00 a dozen, so my farmer dream of selling eggs for a living was a myth busted in 2023. I can’t quit my day job, but I’m going to keep raising chickens. I am thankful they also use our food waste and supply our garden with fertilizer. Those chickens are our partners on this homestead, and I am thankful for each and every one of them.

On the positive side, in 2023, one of my resolutions was to finish a crochet blanket I started years ago, and I did it! I finished it on New Year’s Eve, just in time. We also had the goal to add more edible landscaping to our property. We added 4 peach trees, 3 grapevines, and 7 additional blueberry bushes. We have 3 raised beds of strawberries and had hoped to add another bed, but didn’t make it. I also learned how to can pears from our pear trees, and I think I may be most proud of that in terms of upping my homesteading game in 2023.

For 2024, I have a few homesteading goals that, I think, will keep us moving in a good direction while also being realistic given our schedules with work and being cello parents. It took me some time this year to think of what I wanted my goals to be and then talk about them with Ron, but I think I have a good list:

First, we need to add that additional strawberry bed if possible because out strawberries will be in their fourth season this year, and I know it won’t be long before we have to replant. We need a least one bed started now because I cannot go a summer without our delicious, organic strawberries.

Second, because our peach trees did marvelously in the chicken yard, we have decided to turn part of the chicken yard (they have about 3/4 of an acre fenced) into an orchard of sorts. We plan to add two more pear trees and then two more fruit trees of another kind, hopefully cherries. I plan to research this winter to see what kinds of cherries do well in Maine. We just decided this year that it doesn’t make sense not to have a yard full of fruit trees.

Our third goal for 2024 is to simplify the garden. Whether it’s a drought year or a flood year, the garden is epic in the summer. In 2023, I planted a small test plot using the Three Sisters Method, and it worked so well and just seems to take care of itself. Ron was greatly impressed and has been looking for a way to cut back on his work in the garden. With that in mind, we plan to plant a huge part of our garden plot using the Three Sisters Method in 2024.

Finally, my last resolution for the homestead is to research making our own organic chicken feed because, for the past year, our organic feed, no matter the brand we have tried, has been full of dust. It’s terribly wasteful and terribly expensive. I have no idea what we need to do, but that will definitely be another post–or series of posts.

Those New Year’s resolutions for the homestead make me hopeful. This coming year is not about growth very much but more about simplifying and finding ways to simply take more advantage of what we already have.

I also have a personal New Year’s resolution to finish some writing and get back to writing for Modern Farmer. I love that magazine. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, what are you New Year’s resolutions for your farm or homestead?

photo credit: Skylar Zilka Unsplash

2023: A Farmer-ish Reflection

~ Crystal Sands ~ 3 Comments

It feels like this year has been a year of transition in so many ways. I have always been a planner and always had a plan. Since I was about 8 or 9 years old, I have been planning my future and always taking steps to make the next thing possible, but this year, I changed–or at least am in the process of changing–and I am not sure at all what the next thing is. I think I’m just going to have to learn to live in a space of uncertainty. Maybe, in some ways, we all are.

In our years of homesteading, we thought we had learned pretty well how to adapt to climate change. We learned to expect unusual heat and drought, but this year gave us a summer of cold rain. Everything in the garden was stunted for months. Some things rotted in the ground. But we persisted. After carrot seeds were washed away by rain in our first planting and then carrot seedlings were eaten by slugs in other plantings, we planted them a total of four times and got the best crop of carrots we ever had. We learned a new rule: plant carrots late because a hard frost makes them better. Of course, this year, Nature also emphasized that we will never know when that first frost will come. This year, it came Halloween night. The “usual” is mid September.

And, while we were dealing with the cold and wet, the rest of the world was dealing with a heat like no other. In 2023, it seemed that most everyone came to understand that we are dealing with climate change, that it’s coming faster and harder than most of us thought, and that our world leaders are willing to do little more than put band-aids on the problem. At the Climate Change Convention in Dubai in December, a record number of lobbyists from fossil fuel industries were in attendance, and while world leaders reached some consensus about the problems associated with climate change and the need to reduce fossil fuels, few specific plans were made. The scientists I know were devastated by the amazing level of inaction given the year our planet had just had. I even read one article written by a climate scientist that said it’s time to just start trying to deal with this mentally in whatever way we can because we are in for trying times.

I realize this is not the best thing to read on the last day of the year, but maybe there is good in understanding this reality. Humans are smart and adaptive. It’s just time to be as smart and adaptive as we possibly can. The humans in charge aren’t going to help us. We are going to have to be more self sufficient and help each other, and the latter is maybe one of the most important lessons I came to understand this year. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know for sure how we are supposed to help each other, but I am hopeful we will figure it out.

In further uncertainty, this year, I had a bit of a health scare. In March, after watching some trauma in a darn television program, my body forced me to come to terms with some trauma from my past–that stuff you block out and hope it goes away can sometimes rear it’s ugly head, I guess. For 8 days, I had a migraine so severe I could barely open my eyes, and I couldn’t move my neck and right shoulder. During those days, especially toward the end when I wondered how long this pain might go on, I started making promises to myself to change my life, to deal with my trauma and to make changes in my life to cut down on stress. I made a promise to myself to treasure time with my loved ones more.

It was during that time that I decided I was going to have to let go of Farmer-ish journal, at least for now. I have this hope that, one day, the journal will come back, and in the mean time, I plan to keep blogging and to find a way to share farming and nature writing from others. I just don’t know what that looks like yet. Not having a plan is pretty scary to me, but I am working hard to learn to go with the flow more. Maybe that’s kind of an oxymoron though, isn’t it? How does one “work hard” to “go with the flow”? We’ll see if I can figure it out.

Right now, finding my flow seems especially challenging because I feel two flows–one toward a path of greater self sufficiency because I see challenging times ahead and another toward my son’s hopes and dreams as a musician. At times, these two paths conflict so much that I am not sure which direction to go. I have to believe that balance and progress is possible in both areas, however, because this feels like my path. I do have to admit though that there is a lot I just don’t know about how to move forward, so I am also trying to learn to just be still and listen to the universe more.

In all of it, 2023 was a fantastic year. We got the best carrots ever, as I mentioned before, but there were many other wonderful experiences and moments of profound learning. I learned how to make rhubarb jelly and to better understand how my brothers deal with their trauma. I learned to trust my son’s skills as both a cellist and a professional in the world when I watched him walk in for the first day of his first job playing in an orchestra pit for a musical. I became closer to Ron and came to more deeply understand him for the treasure he is. I learned that, when it comes to selling organic, humanely-raised eggs, there is nothing to do but take a loss and be thankful chicken poop makes great garden compost. I learned that, sometimes, you just get really lucky when it comes to hatching baby chicks. I still can’t believe all six of Petty’s babies were girls!

I kept my resolution to learn the cello. I am still learning and taking lessons and making progress. I met an amazing chicken lady who lives in Maine but is originally from Costa Rica, and I met a bee whisperer who lives in Maine but is originally from Poland. The last time we went and stocked up on honey, we had a fantastic conversation about observing chickens and bees and what we can learn from them. When Ron and I were leaving, the bee whisperer gave me a hug that I understood to be a hug that said “thank you for understanding me.” I did my best to hug back with a hug that said, “no, thank you. It’s hard to find my people.”

I made homemade vanilla. I made my daughter a beautiful quilt. I learned how to can pears. I learned how to make apple butter. I tried to grow into a better human. It’s been a good year on our little homestead, despite some challenges. It’s been a good year of life, despite some challenges.

That’s how life is though, isn’t it? The challenges and uncertainties are a part of being alive. Finding joy in the process is a part of learning to thrive.

I wish you a beautiful New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year. Today, Ron and I celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. He got me a gift for the first time in 14 years. I didn’t get him anything, so I am going to make some special bread.

photo credit: Annie Spratt, Unsplash