A fresh start

It is a new year, a fresh start and a new beginning. I am excited about a few things I know are coming, and apprehensive of others. This will be a year of more changes, in how we live and eat, and in how we go about our business. We made some great strides in localizing and growing our own, but we are so limited by being in suburbia. Our plans to move to more land in three years is just not reasonable now with the housing problems. It may now be five or seven years. The best case scenario is that in three years we can buy a cheap piece of land that has some kind of structure on it, anything that has electricity, water and sewer will do. We will then spend summers there changing and adapting the house, creating locations for animals, raising chickens and growing a larger garden and beginning an orchard. Then we will either move to the land full time and sell our current house, or we will rent out this house and get to the new location. It is stressful, but I know it will come someday.

For now, we will be doing all I can to do more here at home. We are planning the garden for this year, and will be adding two apple trees and netting the pear trees so nothing steals our fruit. The CSA will happen again this year, as will the berry patch and the supplemental fruit picking locally. I am thinking of getting a pressure canner so I can do more storing of food, the boiling water canner is fine for some things, but the pressure canner will open a lot of doors. I need to do more with grains, and we are debating adding chickens this year. I am also going to work hard to learn how to sew and knit, I would love to be able to make tableclothes, curtains, sweaters, etc for the family. Beginning today, I will cook even more at home and from scratch. We are cleaning and reorganizing the pantry tomorrow so it will be easier to locate canned goods and items for dinner.

A new year, a fresh start, a new beginning.