January
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| Garlic in the snow. |
January was cold and snowy. Dan worked on the front porch and I canned the year's supply of jams and jellies.
February
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| Jessie with her twins - Racer and Ellie. |
February was kidding month, with seven Kinder kids born. While I played goat midwife, Dan finished the front of the house.
March
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| Fall planted wheat, peas, and oats growing. |
March brought friendly weather, and it was a great month for working outdoors. Dan did some general clean-up while I planted pasture, made a second permaculture hedgerow, and redressed the hoop house in shade cloth in anticipation of a hot summer.
April
In April we had two things under discussion: the barn and a workshop. Dan had been making do with a temporary workshop in the carport for eight years, so it seemed time to do something about it. Our first thought was to enclose the carport and make it a proper workshop, but when it proved un-repairable, I said, "Let's make my temporary goat barn permanent and just build you a new workshop." So that's what we decided to do, and Dan made piers for the foundation.
May
Homegrown home-milled timbers became posts, beams, and bents.
June
Harvesting our winter wheat was the "must do" for June. In building, Dan framed out the concrete slab for what was then still the workshop.
July
In July I did my first little solar energy experiment, a 12-volt fan. We had another long discussion about whether the building Dan was working on should be a workshop or a goat barn. Goat barn won. It all boiled down to set-up, with the temporary "Little Barn" better suited to becoming a workshop and the building-in-progress better for the goats.
August
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| Tomatoes and cucumbers |
I spent most of my August picking and preserving, while Dan made a little progress on the barn.
September
Dan got a start on the hay loft while I continued with the harvest.
October
Most of the summer produce was put up by October and I had plenty of milk, so I experimented with recipes from a new cheesemaking book. Dan framed out the walls and roof for the hayloft.
November
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| Autumn color got a slow start this year. |
Dan finished framing the milking room and loafing overhang on the barn, then installed the milking room roof.
December
Winter started early, with December bringing cold and snow. While I contemplated a floor plan for the milking room and worked on my book, Dan built a cupola for the barn and worked on the roof.
We'll probably always think of 2017 as the year of the barn. Maybe 2018 too, because building it has been the biggest project we'll ever tackle on our homestead. But also, it seems like finishing it will be a turning point. Sure, there are other one-time projects we'd like to do, but the barn seems significant in terms of having our homestead infrastructure in place.
Year in Review: A Look Back at 2017 © Dec 2017
