New Year, New Hopes and Goals

Happy New Year...2012!

It's a new year and a new start. Now that I'm so involved in farming, the whole winter season is a time of reflection.

I was laid off my icky job last May, that was a good thing.

Started school full time on campus, also a good thing.

I'm learning important things from very accomplished professors, very good indeed.

I'm away from the house and the garden from 7am until 5pm. Not a good thing. Joel Salatin wrote in You Can Farm that time spent away from the farm is time lost. He's right. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels and if the weather is bad on the weekend, well...nothing gets done at all.

I've never been a big fan of New Year's resolutions but there are things I'd like to accomplish this year.

I want to learn to make my own soap. I've been collecting ingredients, waiting for the right time. This spring I'm going to do it.

I want bees. Yep. Now that there is a privacy fence to keep the little hoodlums out I want a top bar hive and some tiny livestock to handle pollination duties.

I want to move the herbs to the front yard (and probably deeply offend the neighbors while I'm at it). 

I want to take a Permaculture Certification course. I read a lot and I ask lots of questions but there is no substitute for formal training. If I can find a course that is close enough to home I might just swing it.

Of course I want to expand the growing beds. That's a given. I could probably fill my yard and the neighbor's, too but for now I just want a little more room to plant.

Those are my farm goals for next year. Pretty modest, aren't they? I'm still a full time student and that is my primary focus so I don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

Happy New Year, y'all.