My Custom Homestead: Steps 15 & 16

Continuing my work with Jill Winger's Your Custom Homestead e-book, it is time to start taking action.  Step 15 is to plan out your year with important dates of things to do so that they don't sneak up on you.  Things that will go on my annual planning calendar may not be completely relevant now.  But when the time comes to call a patch of grass my own, I know I will be overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done.  Having my plan ready to put into action will keep things fun and enjoyable.  Let's say we move into our farmhouse on October 1st.  I can open up my plan book to that date and see what needs to be done so that the spring gardening season will be ready when the last frost chills the ground.  There are tons of free gardening planning tools online that make the growing season a breeze.  Plug in your gardening zone and the plants you want to grow and viola!  The planner will even send you a reminder so that when you are up to your elbows in water bath canning, you don't forget to put in the next round of plants in the empty space where your tomatoes were yesterday, ensuring that you have more veggies in the weeks to come.  My favorite garden planner and journal is on the site www.smartgardener.com.

www.smartgardener.com

Other things I will put on my planning list include giving vaccines to my farm animals (when I have them), checking all the fences to see what might need repair, ordering and storing hay, chopping firewood (which will pretty much be daily...), and ordering chicks.  In addition to planning the farm work, I will be planning and facilitating art workshops and retreats.  As exciting as all of this work feels, I also feel a little twirl of anxiety in my gut just from writing this.  Better get started on that plan!

Step 16, is to start doing what I can.  Jill explains this perfectly.  "If you are waiting for the stars to align perfectly before you start canning or putting in that garden or building those cold frames," (that's me!), "then you are going to be waiting a long time....I want to encourage you NOT to sit around and wait for the 'big day' to come.  You might not be able to do everything, but remember that every little bit helps." Jill goes on to provide a perfect example for me.  Even though I don't have my own veggie patch yet, I can buy veggies at the farmers' market and practice canning them.  Looking back at my list that I wrote when I first started Your Custom Homestead, I see several things I can do right now.  I can email the guy in the woodworking studio to schedule the safety class so I can learn how to build things.  I can make a list of questions to ask when I go to the sheep and wool festival in October.  I can get out the candle making supplies I bought and make candles.  SARK taught me all about "micromovements", and I will create a micromovement right now:  Get out my weekly planner and put it on the table with a pencil.  :)