The new year is here. Planning, planning, planning.

So it's been a while but hey, this is a hobby about a hobby....  so priorities lie in the first one.

I am in the middle of a laundry list of projects and all of these have a time frame to be accomplished before April.  To make this crazyness understandable I will show you my list and then pick it apart.

• Remodel Grace's bedroom.
• Build chicken coop.
• Build kidding pen.
• Build a pig pen and shelter.

Grace's remodel!

So far so good, I am ahead of schedule and I have completed the teardown (this includes everything I can manage to take out and replace).  Now I am at the building point where I am installing a new subfloor and framing in 2 walk in closets and a built in workstation/desk.  I need to build all new walls in there since it was just cedar planks covering the walls.  So, I broke down today and got a compressor (lets call it a birthday present since today is that day) and a couple nail guns.  Totally worth it.  I ran out of lumber today otherwise I would have the closets completed.  I guess that's for tomorrow.

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Chicken Coop



So far the plan is to build up the coop in a "Dead Space" where no light is available in the greenhouse.  So far we were able to put in a 12x12 concrete slab and I will be getting the walls up some time next week.  Our plan so far is to order 75 (yes seventy frikin' five) in a mixed lot, so we should expect half to be roosters (a.k.a.  Meat) and the others we will be choosy about who is going to produce the best hens for us in the future.  Megan will go into the types of chickens we are getting.  I just do the work.


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As for the kidding pen, we aren't in a rush yet so this one seems like a spare time project.  We will be adding a small pen for our babies to live in wile they are being bottle fed.

The pig pen is in the same boat although much more involved because we are going to need to build shelter as well.  So planning stages at this point, but hey Bacon!

Plans

For those of you who don't know how this works (this statement assumes that there are people who read this that I don't personally know. Which is false, of course, but sometimes I like to pretend), I work in Portland for five days and then I come back to the farm for nine. Mike is the real farmer, but I like to do a little bread winning here and there. Really I just like the bread, but there you are, plans take money. I am driving home in the morning to start the nine days "off" and I like to have some projects lined up. Let's see what this week has in store, shall we?

First, another fact about me: I love lists. I love them. Almost compulsively. You will see a lot of lists here. Both numbered and bulleted.

1) I have been working on a bread recipe. All by myself. That I MADE UP OUT OF MY HEAD. It is a sourdough sandwich bread. It's delightful and almost perfect. This week I will settle on a final version of the recipe AND I will begin, and possibly finish, a whole wheat version too. Because white bread is lovely, but we cannot neglect out bowels. Also I will post the recipe, WITH PICTURES, on this blog.

2) I will make at least one new type of cheese. Possibly as many as three.

3) I make some dinners to put in the freezer for Mike and Grace.

4) I will take down the Christmas decorations. This one will almost certainly not turn into a blog post. Because who cares?

5) This one is exciting! I will clean the spare room and begin to move Grace in there. We are preparing to do the first big remodel on the house. And Grace is the winner because she is a beloved only child. And because her room is super gross, a tiny bit creepy, has almost no insulation, and has a ton of potential. There will be much more on this. It's a very big project. For now we will mostly be going through all her clothes and toys and getting rid of absolutely everything we possibly can and setting up a space for her in the spare bedroom.

That's it for the main plans. There are some other things, but they are uninteresting, inconsequential, or not that likely to happen. The main point is that this week I am determined to not just lay around, eat cookies, and play video games.

For more than two days.

New Year's Resolution

I know it's a few days in already, but I just thought of this.

I like to make very reasonable resolutions for myself so that I can easily achieve then and then that way I win. But this year I will make a harder resolution. Two actually. Wait THREE! And here they are:

1) I will take more pictures AND put then on the blog.

2) I will learn how to put pictures on the blog ALL BY MYSELF. (My current method is telling Mike what pictures to put where, and while it is very effective, I think it annoys him).

3) I will post at least FOUR TIMES a month until winter is done with and then I will post at least SIX TIMES a month. WITH PICTURES. Me. Not Mike. So there may be more posts than that even!

And those are the 2011 resolutions.

LETS DO IT! GO!