Well, did you make your lists of goals for the coming year?
I had done so with great thought and care but a new family one has come in over the past two days, Mom, Dad, Big Brother, SIL C, Dh and Farmgal are all doing a bet on who can lose the largest body percentage of fat.. this was done to keep it fair for Dh who is much fitter and leaner then the rest, so its who can lose X amount but we also have to keep it off for at least a month before the final number is called. Everyone bid in at 50 per person, the winner takes the pool!
Personal Health Goals
- Farmgal lose 50 pds, Dh lose 10 pds-Blog more often to be accountable
- Continue regular health checks-Dental, Blood pressure, chiropractor etc
- Off-Farm walks, min 3 per week, other then in the coldest part of winter-wii workouts- Got the Wii Walk it out game for winter walking indoors!
- More strength training with weights-dumbells, and kettle bell-Got the Wii Camera and Shape up program to help make sure I am pushing myself!
- Workout more with DH instead of alone.
- Get more creative in eating different side dishes, instead of the standard, potato’s, rice or pasta.
House Goals 2012
- Required Home Repairs as needed
- Practise one area thought clean and go though weekly, it can be as small as a cupboard or as big as a small room but I MUST stay on top of keeping order in the house.
- Build a small storage/walk in closet in our main bedroom
- Re-Paint the bathroom-New floor boards
- Re-Paint the living room-New floor boards
Farm Goals 2012
- More Rasberries Canes planted-with different picking season
- More fruit bushes planted-Different kinds
- 3 Cherry Tree’s planted
- 2 apple Tree’s Planted
- 2 nut tree’s planted
- More Herbs planted out this year
- Work the hugelbeets with hoop covers in spring to get a much extended start to the melon growing season.
- Work to take out 3000 Pds worth of fruit/veggies in the garden
- Can at least 1200 Jars but 1500 hundred would be better
- Dry more fruit, veggies, herbs and meat
- Fence the front yard
- Fence the peaple yard
- Fence the grapes
- Dig and create a new grape row
- Build a new set of outside bird pens attached to the small barn, ideally six pens
- Repair the small red building roof and expand the attached pen, built to be bird proof
- Repair as needed the roof or siding of the big barn.
- Build two more full pens in the big barn-front half, along with a solid feed part in the front of the barn, complete with a solar light/small window for light.
I want to send a huge thank-you to all my readers, friends, and family that have followed the blog for the past year and I am looking forward to sharing the coming year with everyone!
Just another Day on the Farm 
I only have a few goals for this year.
-I lost 25lbs last year…this year, I need to trim just a bit and get toned up.
-Learn how to love people that are difficult/impossible to love. I have a few people in mind when I say this…they are just hard to love and I know that’s not how Jesus would have me be, you know?
-On the homestead, rip out some butterfly bushes and start a patch of gooseberries. Put in an asparagus patch for Miss Mara. Start a patch of Egyptian walking onions. And by next fall, a proper hoop house for winter greens.
-Remodel the basement before next Christmas so if we host again, we have room to really spread out. Okay, admittedly that goal is more for Jeff than for me 🙂
Hi Andrea
So happy to hear from you, I was thinking and had you and yours in my prayers, I like your list (love the gooseberries idea) and will be very interested to see and what the process of building the proper hoop house.
Hope you have had a wonderful time back home with the family! Now with that being said, I’ve missed your posts. lol Great list and I’ll be cheering you on to win that pot, what a great incentive and idea. You could go on a shopping spree for new clothes! (I would, anyway 🙂 )
Hi Daisy
Still on the road, will be home the end of the week and looking forward to getting back into the routine, including my blog again, hard to blog regular both with travel and with family time being more important then blog time 🙂 Snuck away this morning while Mom having shower to get one now!
That is a massive list! I wish you all of the best of luck to accomplish them. 🙂
Hi Julie
To be fair that is both mine and Dh’s list, so its a little better in the fact that it will be worked on by both of us, and for some things, might even have a small work party of friends or have Farmer T’s oldest boy come and give a helping hand.
Still if I get it all done, I will be a very happy farmgal!
I have questions on ” bird pens attached to the small barn, ideally six pens”: 1) why? (I’m not sure where on your blog to look that you’ve mentioned the purpose for this agenda), and 2) would you happen to have a graphic/drawing of this plan?
I’d like to expand into several poultry breeds and keep them separated, but I don’t have a barn to use as the background frame to work from. I’m still new to chickens but I’ve gotten some ideas down on how to manage this separating laying hens and meat birds … even adding a rabbitry to the mix, but I’m not sure of my plan and it sure wouldn’t work for several different species of birds (geese, ducks, maybe turkey). I’m quite interested in your ideas and purposes of the separation need.
Hi Illoura
The six pens is because I have six matching pens inside, so if I want to cut out inside/outside doors, they match the pens along that side of the barn, but will be double the size outside as to inside.
The second reason is that I do have a number of different birds and breeds and I need more breeding and grow out pens to keep rare breeds breeding true..
I don’t have graphic or drawings of it, but I think that its a great idea to do so and to share the process, so I will mark it down and do a full post on the area, with before and after’s for you. Should be starting on that in the spring ideally.
I wanted to offer my/our help in as much of that as we can. It will get me away from this damn black box and out in the sun. I’m pretty handy around the farm.
If we do that, you and Dh can add “Learn to fight extremely dirty” to the list of things to do. Followed by “Learn there are alot of small muscles that hurt when they get used for the first time”. Even more than in certain sports.
By extremely dirty, I mean there are no rules. None. Some of the instructors at the place I learned were UFC fighters (just minor ones) and had to stop participating in the instructor practise sessions before UFC fights so they could concentrate on following the UFC rules. Well, OK, one rule. Survive the fight. No, it was not fight club. And if it was, I couldn’t talk about it.
Dirty. Got a hand full of dirt? Throw it in their face. Hot coffee? Go for it. These guys trained security contractors for Iraq.