2018: A Year In Review

Wow! It has been a crazy year! We sold our old house; we moved out of the city; we bought a new home in the country; I started a new position at the school where I work; my wife branched out and started her own salon. It feels almost like reaching a checkpoint in a video game. We worked and worked and climbed and climbed; now, we've kind of reached a summit where we have to regroup and replan.

2019: A New Beginning

We have some pretty big plans for 2019! One of the main reasons why we moved was because we wanted to get some animals and expand our garden a bit. Not only do we want to be more self sufficient and sustainable as far as our food supply goes, but we also wanted our children to experience something besides gadgets and electronics. We've been out here for about 6 months, and we're beginning to figure the place out. I think we are ready to move into the process of building our homestead and slowly-but-surely changing our lifestyles to live a simpler, more self sufficient existence.

Homestead Goals

Laying The Groundwork

Our first step is going to be to plan for the long-term future. Many of the things that we want to do are going to be pretty permanent; things like planting fruit trees and planting a half-acre garden. It would be foolish to start those things without a solid plan in place. Before we do anything else, we are going to draw a to-scale map of our property and figure out where everything needs to go. That will have to include information like contour lines and figuring out where water flows throughout the property.

The Garden

Moving into our house in June meant getting a late start on our garden and only planting a small area. For the upcoming year, I think I have found a nice, large, flat spot in the pasture that I would like to turn into the garden. I don't have a tractor, yet, so I don't think I'll be able to have the entire area finished in 2019, but I do plan on getting a start. The plan is to cover as much of the area as I can with leaves and pine needles before the winter ends. Hopefully, by the time spring rolls around, the covered ground will be easy to work. My goal for the upcoming year is to grow enough of our chosen veggies for my family and have enough left over to share with friends and family.

Chickens

I already have my spot picked out for the chickens. There is a shed in the pasture that I have cleaned out, and it will make a nice coop; all I need to do is put down a piece of plywood for the floor and add some nesting boxes. I think I want to try free-ranging the chickens. Instead of fencing them into a run, I want to try fencing them out of the garden. For right now, I'm leaning toward barred rock birds, because they are a good dual purpose chicken and are supposed to be pretty docile - a very desirable trait since we have small children.

The Beginnings Of A Food Forest

For a while, it has been one of my dreams to have a fruit and nut orchard, but after reading a few of @nateonsteemit's permaculture playing card posts, I have modified my idea. Instead of just planting a grove of trees, I would like to have a fully self-sustainable food forest. This is one of those things that is going to take years, but I want to get it started in 2019. My goal will be to plant at least 2 apple tree guilds, 2 peach tree guilds, and 2 pecan tree guilds. If you don't know exactly what a tree guild is... well, I can't really help you with that just yet; but stick around, and we can learn together!

Rabbits

This one is a dual-purpose goal. I want to raise meat rabbits, because they are yummy; but, I also want to get my daughters involved in what we're doing here on the (future) homestead. I am hoping that they will get involved in FFA at school, and they can start showing their rabbits. I would really like to find some American Chinchillas that come from a good line. They are large rabbits with a good meat to bone ratio; they are easily tamed; and they are exceedingly rare, these days. In fact, I asked the Ag teacher at my school if he knew of anybody that raised them around here, and he consulted his rabbit guy who said he didn't know of anybody who had any. I'm thinking that these will be tough to find; but once we have them, my girls will have the only American Chinchillas at the competitions.

Personal/Family Goals

Find A Church

Like I mentioned earlier in the post, we've been in our new house for about 6 months, now. It has been a whirlwind, and in the chaos, we have not yet tried to find a new church to attend. Our goal is going to find a church that lines up with our core beliefs and has a good group of kids that our children can get to know.

Spend More Time Reading

I enjoy reading when I am reading. It's just so far down on my list of priorities that I don't do it very often. My goal for 2019 is to read at least 5 different books and to read from the Bible every day.

Exercise

Toward the end of this year, I started stretching more, and I noticed a big difference in how my body felt. My goal for 2019 is to develop a routine of stretches and exercises and perform them daily.

Pick My Guitar Back Up

I started learning to play the guitar when I was 16. For a long time, it was a huge part of my life, but I hardly ever touch it, anymore. This year, my parents got my son a guitar and amp for Christmas. My goal is to teach him a few chords and to play more often, myself.

Start A YouTube Channel

One of the things that got me interested in homesteading and sustainable living was YouTube. For a while, I was binge watching video after video from several different channels. It was very entertaining and educational. Now, I really don't have any knowledge to bring to the table, but I think there would be an audience for a channel that starts at ground zero and documents the entire learning process, failures and all. My goal is to start publishing videos by the end of January and post at least one video every week.

Goals For Steemit

With all of the craziness and change in 2018, I kind of kept Steemit on the back burner. I checked in often, but I just didn't feel motivated to post very much. Now that we're getting settled in the new home, and I'm beginning to see how I want things to play out, I'm getting that motivation back. As of right now, I have just over 1500 SP. By the end of 2019, I would like that number to be at least 5000. For that to happen, I am going to have to post every day!

---

This kind of turned into a much longer post that I had intended. I am not usually one to make a lot of 'New Years Resolutions', but these are all things that were going to be goals, anyway.

What are some of your goals for the new year? Let me know in the comments!