2015…What a Year It’s Been!

As 2015 comes to a close, we’re pulling ourselves in to rest and reflecting on all that’s happened this year while beginning to allow for some new and pretty big dreams in 2016!

2015 marked for us our willingness to step into our homestead dreams in a big way…to really explore what our ideas and ideals have been about this way of life and actually try it on for size in a part-time way while still holding down our paying jobs in the city.

It’s been intense and wonderful and everything in between and, in reflecting on some of our experiences, I thought I’d share with you some of the highlights!

January thru March

January found us right completely immersed in our Middle Step. I’d just started a brand new job after giving up the idea that maybe self-employment was the way to go and we were doing our best to get settled in the Hacienda we were renting.  We were also becoming increasingly aware that the place we thought could offer some wonderful opportunities had it’s fair share of insurmountable challenges including the toxic well water and land challenges. I mean really, living on six acres and having to consider a container garden was not what I had in mind when we made the leap from the city to a big piece of property.

So, despite the fact that our Lease wouldn’t be up until September, February brought us out into the new-to-us territory of rural property hunting in Northern New Mexico. Though we’d pared down our flock considerably with the move to the Hacienda, we were thinking we would still be limited in our homesteading well into the year, so we only purchased three spring chicks and kept them in our laundry room. We also decided to build a worm bin since we couldn’t have an outdoor compost pile.

I was sad, frustrated, and overwhelmed, but not willing to give up hope on the whole thing yet…

Which is good because in early March, we found the property we’re now renting on Craigslist and were blown away by both the potential for us to grow and explore on this lovely property and by our willingness to take such an intense leap of faith that it would all work out! So, we broke our lease, packed everything up, made some plans, and with the. Help of some amazing friends and family, headed even further north to our new home on the very last weekend in March.

I think some of our friends and family thought we were downright crazy, but we had never been happier or more sure about the new space we were sharing.

April thru June

April, with the acequia running, the fruit trees blossoming, and our minds spinning, was a month full of beauty and excitement while broken up by a work trip that was scheduled in 2014.  Not ideal for a family that just moved, and definitely not ideal in terms of getting settled enough to prep the weed infested garden space and begin pushing seeds into soil, but we got through it. So, I took a thousand pictures, started a bunch of seeds in the greenhouse behind the Farm House, bought some baby turkeys, and did what I could to wrap my head around this newest jump of ours.

Continuing with our new found recognition that life is simply too short to not live our dreams, May helped us welcome the cutest, fluffiest, LGD pup ever…Akuna!  It also brought in a bunch of snakes we were’t ready for or happy to see (though they are friends of the farm, it’s still scary finding them on your porch and at your front door)!

Crazy or not, we also decided to begin our Goat Herd in May!  With lots of research and a single road trip mid-month, May was the month we made the commitment to bring three goats home to our new home.

June brought our three girls home along with the acknowledgement that we were trying to do too much too soon and truly couldn’t tackle the garden on our own, so we enlisted some help from my daughter and brother. And so began Family Garden Days, a once a week or once every other week occurrence full of weeding, seeding, eating, laughing, and time simply spent together, getting our hands dirty.

July thru September

July gave us some perspective on the minute to minute and day to day reality of this homesteading life of ours, the good, the bad, and the ugly. July is also the month that Kim & I decided that, after nine years together, it was time to tie the knot!

The whirlwind that was August involved (after all of the hours and days, blood and sweat invested) more than just a bit of frustration in the garden, lots and lots of wedding prep. I truly can’t remember much else about August…it literally rushed past me in a super busy and exhausting blur!

We got married in September, right here on the farm, and it was absolutely perfect (even with all of it’s hiccups and “imperfections”)! Surrounded by family and friends, the love and support in the air was palpable and priceless!

Fall fell quickly after that with falling temperatures and changing leaves…even the chickens began putting themselves to bed well before dark!

October thru December

We harvested the last of the veggies in October, including a nice haul of potatoes and corn (especially considering the seeds were free!) and more carrots than I could have imagined (especially since their planting was an afterthought around the bases of all the tomatoes…and the tomatoes didn’t do so well).

There was a slow exhale beginning during the month of October that is, honestly still happening well into December…a counting of  blessings…a taking stock of sorts.

November proved to be such an emotional roller coaster for me with the prepping of the ground and planting of some gorgeous, local garlic…the tracking of Mama Mello’s cycles…the intentional time spent with the turkeys…the culling of the turkeys (the first creatures we’ve raised specifically for the purpose of feeding our family and two others)…and the very beginning of my very last year in my 30s (which I didn’t think would be a thing, but apparently it is).

Which brings us to December!  After a full year of working on it, I finally completed my Sky Blanket at the beginning of the month!  However, the real excitement lies in all of the coyotes that have been out and about and singing their choruses on the field and all around us. December also seems to have brought us all of the heat cycles possible! Mama was (hopefully) bred at the beginning of the month and I think Ethel and Lucy have both experienced their first heat (though we won’t want to breed them for a while).  Then, there’s Akuna, who brought several village dogs to our fence line and one even on the property.

Of course, I’ll write more about the animals a bit later, once I have some perspective and maybe even some positive pregnancy results, but thought it was worth a mention here as we wind up the month.

Whew!  What a year it’s been, indeed!  Had you asked me last January where we’d be at the end of the year, I’d have probably said I wasn’t sure…and surely I wouldn’t have imagined so much change…so much growth to happen within a 12 month period!

And so, I am reminded once again that, there are no guarantees…

That life is what you make it…

And that sometimes you just have to leap and trust that the net will appear!

Wishing you and yours a phenomenal 2016 full of love, laughter, dreams, and desires fulfilled!

xoxo,
M

:::

P.S.  How’d you like to be reminded about some of your favorite posts in 2015?!  Yeah…you know you wanna

Reader’s 15 Favorites of 2015

1. Homestead Hacks
2. Sowing, Growing, and Harvesting Echinacea
3. 1/8 Acre Urban Farm (page)
4. Garlic Powder DIY
5. How to Start Your Homestead
6. Life, Unfiltered
7. The Keeping & Care of Backyard Chickens
8. Backyard Chickens 101 – Questions to Ask Yourself Before Jumping In
9. Espalier Fruit Trees & the Urban Farm
10. Homestead Tour
11. Homesteading in Small Spaces (Radio Interview)
12. How to Pressure Cook and Old Laying Hen
13. Life is Too Short
14. Weed City
15. How to Make Tomato Powder

CHEERS!!!