Do you set goals this time of year? Cory and I do this all throughout the year, but I find that now is a great time to sit down and think about what we accomplished the previous year. We ponder what we did well and talk about what needs work. After this, we work on our goals and projects for the next year. Some of the focus on our farm in 2023 was about making it more beautiful, saving money, and adding more native species to our farm. This year we are focused on becoming more resilient, effective, and building community.

Cory and I have been more intentional about planning and setting goals in the last few years, and it has made a big difference in every aspect of our lives. Last year we all worked to make the farm more beautiful. We started this by determining what was bothering each family member, and then we got a plan to fix it. One of the biggest issues we dealt with was our lack of planning in where we put things. We had equipment, compost piles, wood, and wood chips everywhere, along with piles of junk that needed to be sorted. There were also some repairs that still needed to be done to the house and buildings, and we were noticing more weed pressure in our pastures due to the drought and us overgrazing.

We accomplished a lot of our goals in 2023 in making things more beautiful on a small budget. We worked to find a place for everything, did more painting, redid some fence, bought goats to help with the weed pressure (we also sold more animals than we wanted to and rested the pastures most of the summer), and finished a few more house projects.

Because we had less income last year at the beginning of the year, we put a lot of thought in how to cut expenses. There were so many things that we thought we had to buy, but later found that we could do without. I have been amazed at how many things have been repurposed or replaced with something we could produce on the farm.

For example, we used to spend a lot of money on organic alfalfa pellets to feed our jersey cows while we milked them. When we ran out last year, we didn’t want to spend the money buying pallets of alfalfa pellets for at least a few weeks, so we tried giving them our own hay instead. The cows didn’t seem to mind, and while we may have lost a little production, we decided it was a better option since we knew how it was being produced, and it didn’t cost us as much.  

I also prayed about cutting out the Thorvin Kelp that we use for all of our animals, but determined that this was definitely a need, especially with all the toxins in our modern world. We have noticed that everything breeds back and is much healthier when we are faithful with this, in combination with the Redmond Animal Salt. I don’t like the cost, but I do love the product.

We spent a lot of time preparing land and planting native species throughout our farm to feed our honey bees. Despite the fact that I faithfully watered most of these, we only had a few plants come up. The severe drought may have played a role in this. I will definitely say that this was a failure, but I am going to keep trying. Instead, we left some strips of alfalfa, areas of volunteer sunflowers, and allowed our comfrey to spread, since they really liked these. The comfrey provided weeks of food, and while most people don’t like it spreading, I’m allowing it to spread in a controlled environment. The sunflowers are great unless you are trying to run a combine through an area with them, so we will try to control these with a shovel in most areas. I hope to be able to invest more time in figuring out native plants in 2024.

We have a lot of plans for 2024 for becoming more resilient, effective, and building community. With the cost of everything rising, shortages, and uncertainties, we want to focus on providing as much energy and food as we can on our farm, along with encouraging other local farmers and people. Cory and I have volunteered our time to teach some classes to groups and had some people out to teach them some of our skills. We hope to do more of this because we want to encourage others in these skills that have been forgotten by many modern people. I truly believe that anyone can benefit from them. We also want to encourage more buying/selling locally.

I am implementing systems to be more effective in my teaching and discipleship, house work, cooking, business, and growing food. For example, we have most of our garden beds ready and a plan to get the gardens going more quickly next spring. I had areas in my home that were getting neglected so I added them to my weekly list. In the last year I have really been questioning how I can continue doing everything and most importantly to do it well. I love everything I do as a wife, mom, teacher, business woman, homemaker, and more, and I will continue to pray for ways to make the most of my time.

Cory is focusing mostly on his electrical business since there is a large need for that in our area, and I am trying to keep him from getting overwhelmed by trying to manage too many things. We talk about everything regularly, so I know how to assign jobs and where to focus my time without burdening him too much.

One of our projects for becoming more resilient is that we are planning to buy a wood cook stove from New Zealand. I love our wood stove that we heat our home with and am very excited to use this to cook some of our food, heat our water, and heat our house. We love what our wood furnace has done to our energy bill, the freedom it provides, and just how cozy it makes the home. We also understand that this will be a very big project. Hopefully we can share some of the project with you.

I am very happy with our Jersey cows, Katahdin sheep, and new goats, but I haven’t loved our chickens or pigs. We are experimenting with some new pig and chicken breeds that aren’t so dependent on large inputs of grain, and I’m loving what I see so far. I do believe the meat will be healthier, but I don’t want to say too much until we try the meat and make sure we enjoy it. Another goal is to do less tilling in our gardens and fields, and I want to grow and preserve more of our spices and herbs.

These are just a few of our goals for the year. When making our goals we first identify a problem, talk about solutions that could solve the problem, then we figure out how to make it happen, and break it down into small steps or projects to accomplish it so it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. The most important thing we do is to spend a lot of time in the Bible and praying for wisdom. As I look at everything that has been accomplished, I can only say praise the Lord for His work through us.