Farm Life: Setting Some Learning & Action Goals

Having a huge list of things you want to learn/do is great!  But if it remains a list, that's not so great.  There comes a time when you have to actually apply some effort to your list.  And that's what we've been doing around the farm. 

After some discussion, Bryan and I have set five goals for ourselves between now and next summer.  Ready to see what they are?

1.  Add meat rabbits. 

Cute?  Yes.  Cuddly?  Sure.  But rabbits provide a great source of lean protein.  And they reproduce quickly, which is great!  Some specifics for this plan.

Build/Rummage rabbit cages.  I know my parents used to have rabbits.  And when we were looking, we found feeders, which means we won't have to buy those.  There's enough wood around that I think we'll be able to build them (ok--honestly, Bryan will be able to build them) fairly inexpensively.

Acquire 2 does and 1 buck.  We are thinking a New Zealand mix. There have been some on Craigslist lately, so when the time is right, I think it'll be easy enough to find what we desire.

Get a breeding schedule.  I've been reading about that here, and found some good ideas. 

Learn to butcher a rabbit.  We know someone who is willing to help us learn which is a huge blessing.

2.  Add earthworms beneath the rabbits.

Since we are going to be having hanging rabbit cages at least in the winter, having a group of earthworms underneath them turning all that rabbit poo into rich compost sounds like an easy plan.  Plus we'll then have plenty of worms when we want to fish in the creek next summer!


We've done some research on this one as well, and it sounds pretty low maintenance. 

3.  Learn to make cheddar cheese

This one will wait until next spring when I have three cows freshen.  That'll be a lot of milk to experiment with.  Before then, we are going to find an old fridge (hopefully from Craigslist for cheap!) to adapt to use as a cave. 

Part of the perk of having a milk cow (or three!) is homemade dairy.  While I've dabbled in soft cheeses, hard cheese is something I've never tried.  I'm looking forward to it!

4.  Make homemade charcoal and build a temporary water filter

Emergency preparation is great.  But eventually the bottled water will run out, and we'll need to turn to another source (like our creek!)

See all that water just waiting to be filtered and drank?

 But, without filtering and boiling, I wouldn't want to drink the creek water.  So we want to try this process when it isn't an emergency situation, while we have internet access to walk us through the steps. 

5.  Last, but not least...Add bees to the farm.

This is a goal we share with my older sister and her husband.  We learned about an easy method of bee keeping during Between the Rivers, and this site.  The winter is the perfect time to build a hive (or two).  Then we'll get the bees in spring of 2015, and be able to harvest our first honey in 2016.  Yum!

My grandpa, who was the first generation of my family to live here, used to keep bees, and we still have some of his gear down in the basement.  I'll have to go through it and see what condition everything is in, but I'm thinking it's possible we won't have to spend a ton!

So there you have it.  Our five goals for the next several months.  We'll be adding rabbits and worms first, followed by making cheddar cheese.  The bees will join us sometime in late spring, and the charcoal--probably something we can tackle this fall once the burn ban is lifted. 

I'll keep you updated with our progress.  Makes me have a little more accountability for actually getting these done!

Do you have any big upcoming goals? 

My Clothesline Personal Challenge

The element in our dryer broke a week ago.  Again.  We just switched it out two years ago.  So we ordered the part.  And are waiting until the 15th when it arrives to have a working dryer again.

We are blessed and have a dryer we can borrow right across the road (thanks Mom!).  And I took advantage of that this past weekend.

 Then Bryan and I started looking at the weather forecast. It's supposed to be in the 60s and 70s for the next several days.  No rain.

And I looked outside at the clothesline that never gets used (except for picnic forts!).

And I decided that I rely WAY too much on electricity to dry my clothes.  With all the laundry we do, it's no wonder our dryer is falling to pieces. 

I got to thinking.  With the beautiful sunshine that God is shining down on us, why am I lugging laundry across the road to dry in an electric dryer?

Since I was going shopping and could pick up clothespins, I decided to give myself a challenge.  To not use any dryer, at least until our part arrives.  But I'm hoping that once I get in the groove, I can continue throughout the summer.

Ahh. The sight of laundry drying in the sunshine.

I'm now a few days into the challenge.  Here's what I am enjoying:

*The smell of sunshine on our clothing.  WAY better than any fabric softener smell or anything.

*Clothes don't get wrinkly if I leave them too long, like they do in the dryer.

*Our socks are winding up easier to match.  Before, we'd have one in one load and put it away in our mismatched sock tub.  Then the next one would come out a few loads later and it too would go to the tub.  Without getting matched. Now I can see both socks on the line, and match them.

*Sorting laundry for putting away is simple.  Take all the girl clothes off.  Take all the boy clothes off.  Take all the parent clothes off.  Take all the bathroom towels.  Take all the kitchen towels.  Put each into a separate basket and put away.  Done. 

*No lint trap to clean.  You know that lint is made up of clothing?  Kind of makes you wonder....

*No electricity.  At 3-5 loads a day, that's huge!

But of course it's not all wonderful.  Here are some areas I'm struggling with:

*Owen pulling clothes off the line. Seriously.  He thinks they are dangling there just for him!

*Running out of clothespins, and my pins breaking.  Guess that's what I get for buying the Dollar Tree variety.  I've had seven clothespins break apart since Monday.  Bryan is going to stop and buy some different ones for me tonight, thankfully! 

*Actually hanging the stuff.  It's a challenge for me to figure out which way to hang things, and how to best utilize my space.  Especially if I have larger items like bedding. 

*Embarrassment about certain undergarments hanging.  We do live right on the county road.  Which gets way more traffic than it used to.  I'm working around this one by using the middle lines for those articles and putting larger things on the outside around them, but it's still a personal struggle for me. 

*The towels are rough.  

*It's different.  I'm kind of a creature of habit.  This is different.  It's much easier to simply shove clothes into the dryer and turn it on.  This forces me to do something else.  It doesn't actually take that much time, it's just trying to get into a new routine.

But, despite my struggles, I'm enjoying the challenge.  I think I'll continue it as long as the weather allows.   However, I think I will start fluffing the towels eventually. Unless I get used to rough ones by then.  Which I don't think I will!

Any tips for a clothesline newbie?