Hey Y'all!
I've stalked the forums for a while now, off and on, to discover ideas for our "urbanish" half-acre homestead. I learned about the
permaculture mindset back in the mid 90's when my husband's uncle lent me his treasured
permaculture textbook. I loved it so much that I wrote a biology term paper on it for a college assignment. (I got an A, woot!)
Being a military family meant we moved quite often, so I was never able to really set roots anywhere, but we tried to leave our homes better than we found them. (Planted
trees, etc.) But hubbie's now retired, so we can focus more
energy on making a "closed loop" environment here. We finally got 10 hens and a rooster. We'd like to get quail and honeybees in the future. Any other livestock is not an option where we live. We've planted about a bazillion
fruit trees and fruit bushes, set up a compost system, and are looking to expand our annual veg garden considerably. We bought our house in 2019, and our goal for summer 2020 was that half of the veg that gets served at the dinner meal came directly from our backyard. I'd like to increase that even more.
I don't personally make New Year's Resolutions. Instead, I try to focus on learning one new skill each year. One year, I learned pressure canning. Another year, I taught myself to knit and crochet. I taught myself to make our own
soap one year, and another I started basic seed-saving skills. This next year, for 2021, my goal is to eliminate all food waste. I compost nearly everything as it is, and we use all our leftovers, but getting to absolutely zero is my next skill set. Pressure cooking bones for broth, grinding eggshells for garden fertilizer and/or
chicken supplementation, etc. are important to me. Getting to a "closed loop" is my ideal.
Thanks for letting me introduce myself. I hope I can be an asset here, although I have a feeling it'll be me learning more than teaching.
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