Friends, I hope you’ve had a lovely weekend and are stepping into the week with joy! We have so much to be thankful for. My husband and I were able to sneak away a couple of days ago to finish up shopping for our son’s 11th birthday next week. It was so much fun!
My brain has been filled with homestead goals for this coming year. We’ve been starting seeds and building fences. All of my YouTube selections lately have been homestead related, ha! While I’m excited about spring, I’m also thankful for winter. This is a great time to work on projects before plants need to go in the ground.
If the past year taught us anything, it’s that being prepared is a good thing! We now live in a society that is largely detached from our agrarian roots. This shouldn’t be so. If we retain control of our own food supply, then events like pandemics aren’t nearly as scary.
Related: I Want a Simple Life! The Reason Behind My Vision
I’d like to share our homestead goals for 2021 with you today. Now, my goals aren’t going to be your goals. Any little step in the right direction matters so much. If you live in an apartment, visit the library and learn a few new skills. Start a small container garden on your patio. As Roots and Refuge says, turn your waiting room into a classroom. You can do it!
Without further ado, here are our 2021 goals:
1. Build and plant a 2200 square foot raised bed garden. Ladies, my husband has built 1/3 of the beds and set all of the fence posts to enclose our new garden space. Hooray! I am so excited about this. I love to garden, and am still learning so much.
Related: How to Start Seeds Indoors
2. Finish our goat fence and purchase a small dairy goat herd. We are almost ready for goats! Have I ever milked an animal before? Nope. But there is a first time for everything! I wasn’t too happy when milk was rationed during the pandemic, and would like a back up plan.
(Goat fencing is going up. My husband and oldest son worked on it for awhile this morning.)
3. Put in an in ground garden for potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, and pumpkins. I purchased a walk behind tiller, and can’t wait to try it. Hopefully I can manage it, but likely my oldest son will help me with this project.
4. Finish the food storage room in our basement. We just have a shell of a room now, and I’m looking forward to adding shelving. We have painted Dryloc on the walls, which is a start.
5. Hatch out quail and chicks from our own eggs. We’ve never done this before, and am excited to give it a try.
6. Add a high tunnel to our property in the fall. Ladies, I’ve been eyeing the high tunnels at Growers Solution, and hopefully we will be able to purchase one by fall.
7. Purchase a freezer. I would be so grateful if we can find a new freezer this year!
I think that is about it! We also are thinking about adding another livestock guardian dog and turkeys in 2021, but we shall see. Right now we own a Great Pyrenees, chickens, ducks, quail, and rabbits (as pets and for fertilizer, not meat).
We aren’t huge meat eaters, but are thinking about adding meat goats, sheep, or possibly a cow in the future. We would love to add a small barn to our property, but don’t think our finances will allow it in 2021. Hopefully 2022 will be our year for that addition.
We might not hit all of our goals, but at least we have a few things that we are aiming for.
Our middle and little kiddos are having so much fun with all of the homestead things! I think it’s so important to teach our children where their food comes from. There is no better way than to grow it ourselves.
How about you? Have you made any goals for this year?
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:12 KJV
I have been sending seeds from my stash to ladies who would like some as a gift. If interested, please send your address to me at randncrone@gmail.com.
