5 Goals for 2015

We had a really great thread for 5 Goals for 2014, so I thought I get the ball rolling for 2015.

I live in an urban setting, in a hot and dry climate and sit on two advisory councils (water harvesting and permaculture) - thus my goals reflect that.

Here are my 5 goals for 2015:

1. Take Andrew Millison's Advanced Permaculture course. The course involves taking a larger property (broad acreage, neighborhood, commercial property, etc) and creating a permaculture design, including interacting with public entities, talking with stakeholders/clients, etc. My project will be to design a solution for the flooding that occurs at the lowest end of my neighborhood.
2. Take steps to implement the above design. This could be getting the city to agree, fundraising and rallying neighbors around the project.
3. Create permaculture designs for 3 urban properties and 1 market garden/small farm (one of these already in the works) - help develop community workshops to install projects through Watershed Management Group's Green Living Co-op program.
4. Run a successful "Soil" week (a part of Arizona Water Month) the last week of April, 2015. This will include building partnerships with local restaurants, cafes and schools to repurpose their waste streams, building an 18-Day Berkeley compost pile and creating zany-ness surrounding soil.
5. Finish front yard earthworks at my property!

I've got like 500 LOL but don't think I'll get them all done.

Get main room of earth sheltered house done (in progress, hope to be done before hot weather)

Increase garden size to 800 sq ft (Dug 1st 80sqft raised bed yesterday)

Plant 50 trees (ordering this week from state nursery for spring planting)

Get an economic vehicle (currently have full size p/u, need small 4wd suv/car pref subaru)

Raise 50 meat chickens (need to build whiz bang plucker and fix freezer also)

And many more things but those are 5 priority off the top of my head.

Need to bump this in August.

Even though we are really just a couple years into this whole adventure, I feel like I'm looking for impacts at a bigger scale this coming year. I'm meeting with some folks next week to talk about starting a producers' coop that could really help a lot of people in our county. That's too long a project to be a goal for 2015, just where I can see this thing headed. Smaller, more achievable goals for 2015:

Write a USDA planning grant for value-added producers
Sell something at the farmers market
Put the new nursery space to use with grafted trees and perennials.
Experiment with some of Stefan Sobkowiak's mulching strategies (thus tidying up the dumping ground of community contributed mulch materials right by the road-that way I can ask for more)
Start a homesteading/permaculture group or buying co-op with a few friends

and the 2014 water harvesting goal is still on the list.

This kind of planning does not come naturally to me, here goes.....
I think this is more than five in the end....I've kind of bunched them up.

1. take more direct steps toward selling our house and land.....which means actually fixing some things that we have been willing to live with or without. We are happy with sawdust toilets but evidently having a 'flush' in the bathroom, even if it just goes down the hill is important to some people I am thinking of just getting one to set in the corner and not connect it. ) The sale will give us the freedom to look at our leisure for a small bit of land and a small house for our next chapter in this adventure....and to travel a bit

2. organize and 'dig and divide' party for late February in preparation for moving.(instead of my yearly april plant exchange)

3. visit our original 'homestead' land (forty miles away)at least once every two months and plant more fruit and nuts and other perennials there. Work on it's permaculture design. It was a challenge back in the seventies..now we have some more realistic and informed ideas after 'permies'...we are keeping it even though I doubt any of us will ever live there. Our son has always talked of building a hobbit house there so now I am sending him links to wofati builds.

4. start using my plant press and begin a journal with at least my dye plants. Finish some of my workroom projects to do with dyed cloth and quilts and sewing.

5. family things: take more pictures, write more letters, visit the grandkids more, work on family genealogy (much of which is reorganizing and scanning onto flash drives things my mother had begun...lots of old pictures, letters and family charts). continue getting rid of 'stuff'.

Goals for 2015

1 get rid of stuff. Finish unpacking and de-cluttering the house. We have too much stuff and we need to make the house more functional, easier to clean, and manageable.

2 Fencing. Install a permanent fence around the front yard garden. Put netting around large swale and backyard garden bed.

3 Move chicken coop. Find a way to make moving the large chicken coop easier and move it to another part of the yard. Use the old location as a yard garden bed for a corn polyculture with netting to deter dear.

4 Cold frame. Build and start using a large cold frame in the front yard garden. I have already put down cardboard to start killing the grass where the cold frame will go. It will be approximately 4' x 16' and made out of wood and polycarbonate panels.

5 Remove lawn. Plant perennial/ self seeding flower, herb, and chicken fodder meadow on the western side of the property. Area is approximately 20 feet wide and 240' long with a slope that I no longer want to mow.

Wow, only five, ok here goes;
1) get finished with removal of undergrowth and sumac trees where portion of orchard goes.

2) finish 15'x25' storage shed, roof, floor, sides, doors and high windows.

3) Get Moved onto land so everything will be easier to get done and we will be out of the current living situation.

4) Go to dig and divide party in February

5) get new enlarged fence area up

Now that I look at the list, I have some things out of order. We have move plans to be just before June, so that should have been number five, all below the move go up one space.

Five goals for 2015?

Celebrate menopause by getting as fit and healthy as possible and shedding the rest of this surplus fat.
Create my own zone 1 vegetable garden, using only permaculture techniques, and run comparisons with my husband's vegetable garden. Also continue to develop the forest garden in the old olive grove.
Tweak the animal systems here a little more to become less and less dependent on external inputs and more in harmony with the local ecosystem.
Face my lifelong fear of socialising and become part of the local and national permaculture community as well as this online one, and also find ways to merge the two to mutual advantage.
Face my nemesis, aka chapter five and beyond of my book.

1. Start a blog to talk about permaculture topics (and other things that interest me) ... already have plans started for this, so this is in progress.
2. Get our zone zero into a happier state (declutter, clean, etc) so that we can progress outward more easily.
3. Spring = get stuff in the ground! Hazelnuts, Black Currants, Pygmy Peashrub (if we can find a source for these), Sea Buckthorn are top priority. The outdoor kitchen garden is next priority. Definitely want some tomatoes, peppers, spinach, and other typical kitchen garden fixins. Also planning on potted asparagus (rather than digging a trench) so that if we get to move, they go with us easier.
4. Keep hunting for a place closer to where I work now to move to. If we can find a decent plot within a decent drive for a decent price, we can make this happen.
5. Try to take things slow and not get into to big of a hurry with stuff. Moving too fast causes mistakes (sorry... "learning opportunities") Moving slower means decisions are based on observation and critical thinking.

1. Get a full day (3 meals) strictly from foraged food in each of the 4 seasons. (12 meals total)
2. Source RMH materials
3. Learn the art of fermentation and ferment some vegetables
4. Build solar dehydrator
5. Build house and keep mason or leafcutter bees

1. Build a Kuznetsov stove in the house
2. Install roof water catchment (5 x 1000 litres IBC tanks)
3. Plant perennial vegetable garden and extend growing area of annual veggies
4. Figure out a way to fence a part of the land against wildlife, then dig miniswales and plant some trees
5. Since 2015 is an International Year of Soils, organize at least 4 local events dedicated to Soils health and science

1. Decide on and purchase milking machine for 6 sheep.

2. Sell or trade for something of value, dairy lambs and turkeys.

3. Have a pond dug.

4. Raise at least 1/2 of winter feed for sheep and turkeys. Small batch silage, squash, corn and hay.

5. Finish older projects!

1)Eat something from my garden every day this growing season
2)Set up forest garden on south end of my property
3)Remove buckthorn, specifically from around maples to ease 2016 sap collecting and on south end of property to open up sunlight
4)Fence in chicken/pumpkin patch barnyard
5)Enjoy life post home renovation for the first time since we bought the place

I read the topic as five goaTs for 2015. Guess something was on my mind.

Goal 1) Decide whether to move to the country and buy land.
Goal 2) Build up seed stock of five short-season cool-tolerant peanuts (developed in Ontario in the 1980's, these can yield commercially in 3,000 heat unit seasons (degree days above 50F), they say, without transplanting.
Goal 3) Get rhizobial inoculant for these tarwi (Lupinus mutabilis) that I've barely grown for two seasons.
Goal 4) Grow out the F2 seed from Frank Morton's Chicory-endive cross, the one's that overwintered here. First gotta sort seed from chaff somehow.
Goal 5) Save seed from self-sown broccolini that did so well here. More sorting seed from chaff.
Goal 6) Hope to cross Yellow Vetch with Hairy Vetch by treating with colcicine to double chromosome number to tetraploid level, to try to develop cold-hardier cover crop.
...OK, OK, I'll stop.

1 Pay off the house. It is an obsession at this point. I'm so close right now I can taste it. March is possible, May is certain. With the mortgage gone I have the ability to flush the job. After 47 years, I'd like to be debt free. I'll have new doors of opportunity open up when I am able to seize control of my time.

2 Make The Natural Growing and Small Farm Reader a reality. This project has been gaining momentum lately. This project would provide a residual income stream for me and a hundred other people. The stage would be set for moving ahead with more projects.

3 Get some help around here. Time is the bottleneck for things I want to get done.

4 Further the development of this place. With the house paid off and an extra set of hands I should be able to generate income to pay all the bills and then some.

5 Head north, visit my mother.

Congrats Ken. Flushing the job and having actual free time must be greatest feeling in the world. Enjoy

Ann Torrence wrote:Smaller, more achievable goals for 2015:

Write a USDA planning grant for value-added producers
Sell something at the farmers market Today I sold some eggs!
Put the new nursery space to use with grafted trees and perennials. Done Grafted trees, extra rootstocks, lupines about to go outside, should it stop snowing (it's May already!).
Experiment with some of Stefan Sobkowiak's mulching strategies (thus tidying up the dumping ground of community contributed mulch materials right by the road-that way I can ask for more)
Start a homesteading/permaculture group or buying co-op with a few friends Done I even made a thread about this

and the 2014 water harvesting goal is still on the list.

Not bad for May. A May where it is still snowing. And we planted another ridiculous quantity of trees. I've lost count. We are surely at 500 by now.

I think I currently have 5 pages of "Farmstead to do list" but the top five is
grow layer flock and continue to expand market for eggs and meat birds
install wood stove
Continue to move to a debt free/cash only lifestyle.
Im trying to get steve whitman out to the place to walk around and help me come up with an earthworks/orchard/restoration agriculture hybrid.
Instal fencing around pastures and get ready too implement a managed grazing plan.

Instead of defining 5 specific things right now (It's Sunday and I don't feel like it's the right time for that at the moment! Gotta do a lazy day once in a while!) I'll just do a few quick paragraphs:

This year I want to sharpen the focus of HOW to work towards the vision of regenerative land management in way that is financially viable, resilient, sustainable, and scalable. I'll continue to get to know my animal partners, the pigs, cows, waterfowl, and chickens by raising them the best way I can and attempting to better integrate them with the plants, earth, and infrastructure.

On the larger scale I'm going to interseed a diverse cover crop mixture into a conventional corn field and work out an arrangement to graze someone else's cattle in it this fall. This project is through a grant, so I'll have some help paying for it and with the planning. I can see a business plan emerging from this two year project if it goes the way I think it will!

A one acre plot needs to be planned out this year to be planted over the next year or two. This will be a challenging project since the goal is demonstrate a system that will be more profitable than a corn-soybean system while not requiring much more time to manage. To put the time component into perspective I just estimated that the direct labor time per acre in a conventional farming system is probably around 40 minutes, and that estimate may be high.

Lastly, I'd like to spend more time enjoying life with my family. And get more of the house done!

Kate Muller wrote:Goals for 2015

1 get rid of stuff. Finish unpacking and de-cluttering the house. We have too much stuff and we need to make the house more functional, easier to clean, and manageable.

2 Fencing. Install a permanent fence around the front yard garden. Put netting around large swale and backyard garden bed.

3 Move chicken coop. Find a way to make moving the large chicken coop easier and move it to another part of the yard. Use the old location as a yard garden bed for a corn polyculture with netting to deter dear.

4 Cold frame. Build and start using a large cold frame in the front yard garden. I have already put down cardboard to start killing the grass where the cold frame will go. It will be approximately 4' x 16' and made out of wood and polycarbonate panels.

5 Remove lawn. Plant perennial/ self seeding flower, herb, and chicken fodder meadow on the western side of the property. Area is approximately 20 feet wide and 240' long with a slope that I no longer want to mow.

We have started the first goal but we are no where near finished.

Goals 2 through 4 are finished thanks to a huge amount of work by my husband.

Goal 5 is started. We are killing some of the grass with plastic tarps. Friends have offered to help us till the whole space and I will seed it then and again in the spring.

Time to tally up the successes for 2015:

Ann Torrence wrote:Smaller, more achievable goals for 2015:

Write a USDA planning grant for value-added producers
-did not happen

Sell something at the farmers market
-sold lots of eggs, a few books I wrote a while back, and DH made a leather reconditioner salve that did well. Considering our main crop (fruit) was destroyed by late frosts, it was a success to show up most weeks

Put the new nursery space to use with grafted trees and perennials.
-done, lots to transplant in the spring

Experiment with some of Stefan Sobkowiak's mulching strategies (thus tidying up the dumping ground of community contributed mulch materials right by the road-that way I can ask for more)
-all the materials are at hand, but we didn't get to it in the fall.

Start a homesteading/permaculture group or buying co-op with a few friends
-We are having a great time - read all about it.

and the 2014 water harvesting goal is still on the list.
-and will be for 2016.

Only in permie land is a 50% score a good grade.

Judith Browning wrote:This kind of planning does not come naturally to me, here goes.....
I think this is more than five in the end....I've kind of bunched them up.

1. take more direct steps toward selling our house and land.....which means actually fixing some things that we have been willing to live with or without. We are happy with sawdust toilets but evidently having a 'flush' in the bathroom, even if it just goes down the hill is important to some people I am thinking of just getting one to set in the corner and not connect it. ) The sale will give us the freedom to look at our leisure for a small bit of land and a small house for our next chapter in this adventure....and to travel a bit

2. organize and 'dig and divide' party for late February in preparation for moving.(instead of my yearly april plant exchange)

3. visit our original 'homestead' land (forty miles away)at least once every two months and plant more fruit and nuts and other perennials there. Work on it's permaculture design. It was a challenge back in the seventies..now we have some more realistic and informed ideas after 'permies'...we are keeping it even though I doubt any of us will ever live there. Our son has always talked of building a hobbit house there so now I am sending him links to wofati builds.

4. start using my plant press and begin a journal with at least my dye plants. Finish some of my workroom projects to do with dyed cloth and quilts and sewing.

5. family things: take more pictures, write more letters, visit the grandkids more, work on family genealogy (much of which is reorganizing and scanning onto flash drives things my mother had begun...lots of old pictures, letters and family charts). continue getting rid of 'stuff'.

I totally forgot about this......We managed #1, and that alone is huge, sold the house and land and moved to the perfect spot for us all the same month.....totally happy with how that worked out.....and lots has happened on #5, I'm well along in 'preserving' family history and also hanging out with the grandkids more and we got rid of a lot of 'stuff' when we moved.....as for #2,3 and 4, maybe another time, no big deal.....

I see Ann has goals for 2016 up now.......I probably have some, just not sure what they are yet :