Despite my sporadic presence here this year, I simply could not let us slip into 2019 without a review of 2018, now could I?!
It seems as though the thing to do these days instead of making a resolution or two to kick off a new year is to pick a word as a theme to focus on in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
I’ve never done this, and don’t intend to do so as we roll into 2019, but if I had to pick a few words to describe 2018 they would probably be transition, exhaustion, and abundance.
When we decided to move to this new property a little over a year ago, we knew there would be a steep learning curve to go along with the insane adjustment to the longer commute (read: we still eat out way too much).
What we didn’t know (nor could we have imagined) was how much time, blood, and sweat it would take to set up the infrastructure for the animals or how many hours we’d have to devote to keeping the weeds at bay and the voles under some semblance of control. We also had no idea (truly) what it would take to care for and maintain the orchard and the berries nor what it means to really feel responsible for a large and gorgeous property such as the one we’ve landed on. Let’s face it, renting is a whole other beast, but caretaking has a weight to it we hadn’t anticipated simply because we hadn’t experienced it until now.
With all that being said…
Never ever could we have imagined the sheer abundance that would come in seemingly endless waves. The hard work we put into the property… the trees, the berries, and the land … paid us back in ways that boggled our minds.
The blackberries and raspberries dripped from their canes.
The cherries, peaches, and pears bent their branches reaching for us.
And the apples? The apples laughed at our surprise as we filled countless boxes and wheelbarrows, hunting in every available corner for a spot to keep them in until they could be sold, eaten, or preserved.
(They’re laughing at us still undercover in the shed, waiting to be turned into another batch of fresh-pressed cider.)
2018 offered us the opportunity to leave the comfort zone we’d created on the other farm and step fully into our learning zones.
It also offered us the opportunity to set some new intentions and make ourselves, our family, a priority because let’s face it, farm life can be all-consuming if you let it.
And so we made reclaiming our health a priority (I’ve struggled with some auto-immune and pain challenges for a while now) and set the intention to travel again (it’d been eight years since we’d had a proper vacation) and we found a bit of balance in it all.
I anticipate that 2019 will offer us a different version of similar 2018 lessons, just a bit deeper and more profound as we continue to peel the layers back on this ever-growing journey of ours.
I’m not sure if it’s age or exhaustion, but I’m doing my best to learn how to roll with the punches and meet myself where I need to on a given day (or even in a single moment) so you’ll find no resolutions in this space this year.
Instead, I…
Intend to read and actually finish more books in 2019 than I did in 2018.
Plan to write more, bake bread and sleep in whenever I can.
Aspire to continue to grow in all the places I didn’t know I needed to.
Look forward to having my ass handed to me by this beautiful, challenging, abundant life we’ve chosen and are conscious creators in.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
To those of you reading this, thank you for being here, for sharing our journey with us as we learn and fail, grow and succeed (and everything in between). Whether we know you in real life or just here on the InterWebs, I am grateful for your presence, your inspiration, and the time you take to check in on us. I tend to microblog on Instagram more than I ever imagined I might and I hope to shift that energy back this way a bit in the coming days/weeks/months. I do miss this space and oh how I miss keeping up with all of you in your spaces, too.
Maybe we can meet up for coffee again in the new year, ha?
Until then, enjoy a just a few shots I took throughout our 2018 adventures, on the farm and off, in the gallery below.
Then, if you’re so inclined, make your way to the bottom of this post to check out the most popular posts on the site and on Insta. Remarkably, Google SEO is still my friend, sending new people our way daily even though I don’t post here very often anymore.
Evergreen posts for.the.win.
Top 8 posts of 2018
- Sowing, Growing, and Harvesting Echinacea – An oldie that Pinterest lovers still love despite my absence there. With over 8,000 visitors jumping over here in 2018 for this post alone, I’m pretty grateful people can find me and love this wonderful, medicinal plant as much as I do 🙂
- Homestead Hacks – Pinterest is a magical beast here, too, having driven over 5,000 people to this post in 2018 alone. It was written in 2014 in collaboration with several other bloggers, many of which don’t blog anymore. The Internet is a trip, isn’t it?
- 1/8 acre Urban Farm– This page continues to see consistent traffic which makes my heart happy, especially since the property was sold this year. I continue to be fulfilled by the interest I see urbanites have in cultivating their tiny patch of dirt, no matter how small, no matter where they might be. One never knows where their first tomato plant might take them down the road.
- Three Ways to Store Roasted Hatch Chile – Anyone looking to store green chile is good in my book, no matter how they’ve found their way to this space. Now, where people are getting their chile is another topic entirely 😉
- How to Re-Hydrate Dried Cranberries – The continued popularity of this 2013 post blows me away simply because all of the traffic comes via Google Search and it all comes in right around Thanksgiving and Christmas when fresh cranberries are actually in season and readily available. You just never know what people are going to find helpful in the long run.
- How to Pressure Cook an Old Laying Hen – Nearly 2,000 people found their way to this post in 2018…maybe by accident when searching for how to cook a regular ol’ chicken, but who knows…maybe there really are that many newbies looking to use an old layer for all her purposes?
- A Child is Like a Seed – Written as a reflection piece for school when I was finishing up my degree in Environmental Education, I genuinely love this piece. I originally posted it here as an acknowledgment of my emotional self when my oldest daughter was graduating high school in 2013.
- How to Make Basic Goat Cheese – Another 2013 piece (boy was that a busy year), this simple method has been our standby ever since.
And Finally, Instagram’s Top Nine in 2018
I hope that 2019 is your best year yet!
Cheers!
xoxo,
M
I’ve enjoyed catching up with your news. It’s good to see that you are all still standing and smiling at the end of such a hectic year. The harvests of apples and berries look wonderful. All the best for your new adventures in 2019.
Judith recently posted…Putting Down Roots 2
Thank you so much, Judith. I find it so satisfying to look back on all we’ve accomplished…especially since the hours and days fly by so quickly it can be easy to forget the good and simply remember the exhaustion 😉 I hope you have a phenomenal 2019!