A Look Back at 2021

December, January, and February are the winter months of my agrarian year. Winter is a good time for analyzing our goals, reflection, research, and then listing and prioritizing the upcoming year's plans and projects. A look back at what we've accomplished in the last annual cycle is the foundation for looking ahead and planning for the upcoming one.

January

The '20-'21 winter project was building a new buck barn. By January, Dan was working on the roof and walls. My projects were indoor types, as I focused on mending socks and gloves, and learning about haybox cooking.

February

Kidding commenced in February. First, Miracle had twin does, then River had a baby boy. We were fortunate to get mild days, but I also decided that the weather is too iffy in February. This fall I postponed breeding to have due dates during warmer weather. The other thing that kept me busy was spring cleaning.

March

March is the beginning of spring and also my get-busy-with-the-garden month. My fall and winter plantings kicked into growing gear with the longer days and warmer temperatures. Between that and spring foraging, we ate well. In preparation for summer, I got my tomatoes started. Dan made progress on the buck barn by getting rain catchment installed.

April

This is the month I start to plant warm weather veggies. In preparation, I added several more ollas to various garden beds and containers and then got busy planting. My two biggest problems in April were slugs and a late frost!

May

In May, we finally put our chicken tractor to use. We used it to house our two remaining Dominique hens while we raised six Speckled Sussex chicks in the chicken coop. We started on plans to build a summer kitchen in the carport.

June

June was the month of garden experiments. One was wicking pots. These seemed like a great way to beat our hot, dry spells, so I was anxious to give it a try. The other was learning about landrace seeds. I decided to experiment and started with cucumbers. Click here, for how I'm doing it.

July

July is the month of blazing sun here, so shade is on our minds. One project Dan completed in July, was the first of two pergolas to shade the afternoon sun facing windows on the house. My shade project, was to experiment with living shade on my hoop house. To keep cool, we worked in the shade as much as possible threashing and winnowing our winter wheat harvest.

August

We finally got a driveway gate installed! It was accompanied by a huge sense of relief. I tied a small piece of cattle panel to the bottom of the trellis next to it, so our yard is no longer accessible by dogs. There's a small gap on top of the railroad ties that the cats use. After that, Dan got started on a cookstove for our outdoor kitchen, and I researched forest gardens.

September

September was the month we finally got a new rooster. As you can see from the above photo, he's grown into quite a handsome fellow. Dan made progress on the outdoor cookstove, and we started putting some of the things we were learning from our permaculture videos into practice.

October

Dan got a lot done on the outdoor kitchen cookstove, He finished the firebox and installed the tops, while I started assessing for our first forest garden.

November

A busy month. Dan installed three more 300-gallon totes behind the carport to catch rainwater from the carport roof. We learned how to make biochar, we got Muscovy ducks, and had our first fall kids. Dan finished the outdoor cookstove and we tested it out.

December

Dan worked on fence repair throughout autumn and finished it in December. It had been trashed by falling trees and needed major repair and a new gates.

After that, we started working on our first swale, which I'll share more about in an upcoming post. Also notable, we finally won a battle we have every year with mice! And without the help of the cats. Speaking of cats . . .

Parting Shot

Sam

How about you? Are you preparing for another new year?

A Look Back at 2021 © December 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com