Reflecting

With the new year just around the corner, I have been reflecting back on the year 2009. Many of you who know me and my family, 2009 have been full of leaps and bounds.


Jan and Feb passed with out a lot to say. We used the quiet winter months to plan our spring garden.

March- My son aka Pajama Boy, fell off the slide and broke his arm. We learned first hand how unorganized the medical industry is. We spent nine hours in the best hospital in the nation waiting to have his arm splinted. It was a very frustrating time. I now cringe to see the kids play on the slide. It is a fear I am destined to over come. Also I came across a great deal on a tractor. She was a 1948 Ferguson. She is pretty rough but we are dedicated to fully restoring her.

April- We started on our chicken coop. We put gutters on the barn and bought rain barrels. We bought 15 Buff Orpington chicks. Two chicks escaped in the garage. One was found immediately, the other found dead in the yard later that day, bringing our total to 14. We plowed the garden and layered chicken manure on part of it because that is all we had. It showed in the summer, the side with manure flourished the side with out looked scraggly.

May- Sissy started soccer and had a great time. It was a lot of fun to watch her play, though I hated taking Pajama boy to the games and having to explain how my 18month old broke his arm. We also planted the garden. It was our biggest yet, Corn, beans, 2 types of squash, cucumber, peas, carrots, broccoli, onions, garlic, tomato's, sweet potatoes, potatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe and pumpkin! We also planted our orchard (apples and peaches).

June- The chicken coop was finished. We secured the coop making sure no predators could enter. During June we learned that though a raccoon may not be able to enter the coop they certainly can pull 14 week old chicken through the chicken wire...piece by piece... Sorry to be graphic but could be valuable to know. This brought our chicken total down to 12 chickens. Soccer ended. Tending to our seedlings began. We also butchered our first hog. It was the best sausage we have ever had! I started wood carving with my dad...brought back a lot of great memories!

July- July was full of learning through trial and error. We were ripped off at our first (also our last) livestock auction. We supposedly bought 4 Dominique hens. We ended up with 2 hens and 2 roosters which all were Barred rocks, not Dominique's. (They said they were Dominique's but I knew they were not before we bought them). I learned several things that day- Auctions are like junk yards, people sell animals there that no one else wants. You should never buy anything that you cant see in its entirety (they had them in milk crates it was hard to see exactly what we were buying), and you shouldn't buy livestock from someone that has raised livestock longer than you and still knows less about them. We also learned when it comes to gardening more isn't always better. We planted 150 tomato seedlings. We thinned them out to 70 and then thinned again to 40. There were just too many to tend too, we didn't pull the suckers off so they were very over grown.

Aug- Sissy started Kindergarten. I kicked. I screamed. I cried AND when all that was done I cried again. She loved going to the big school, so I had to adjust. We also did our canning during Aug. We put back plenty of food for the winter.

Sept- We removed stakes from the garden and pulled the remaining wilted plants.
We also acquired a barn kitten. We found him one wet rainy morning. He was skinny and very sick. He recovered nicely and is an excellent mouser!

Oct- We started our fence and also started building a storage building.

Nov- November winds caused us to scrap out our trampoline after just having it for 6 months. We worked on cleaning up the barn yard and getting organized. We finially got our hands on some Black Copper Marans Chicks! We realized we will have to expand the coop. For the most part Nov was spent preparing for the holidays.

Dec- We acquired another cat. We are now working on our farm plans for 2010.
Finish fencing
Finish building
Get the interior of the barn prepped for goats
Add on to the chicken coop
Stain and paint buildings and fence
Put in a driveway
Dig pond
Start tearing down the tractor.

I wonder how much of that will actually get done? I wonder what 2010 will be like?