Since joining the local volunteer fire department late last year, I’ve been spending the last 6 Saturdays in class for an Emergency Medical Responder class that has kept me in a constant state of feeling like my head might explode. Due to various circumstances, our final test in class [...]]]> It’s been a challenging couple of months.

Since joining the local volunteer fire department late last year, I’ve been spending the last 6 Saturdays in class for an Emergency Medical Responder class that has kept me in a constant state of feeling like my head might explode. Due to various circumstances, our final test in class got postponed until next weekend and then all of my other commitments for this weekend fell away. This weekend was the first weekend in a month and a half (maybe longer) that hasn’t been jam packed full of things that needed to be done and I took full advantage of it. I went down to Charlie’s (our local potter friend) to get some studio time in for finishing up a set of dinner plates that I’ve been wanting to make and then spent the evening at home watching a movie (so decadent! I haven’t had time to watch TV much lately.)

Fire Fighting:
Fire fighting has been going well. I have been on three calls now, two of them have been actual incidents (the third was a false alarm). My first real fire was last week, the day after I got my new gear (handy that) and while I really didn’t know what I was doing, I think I did an ok job at helping out as much as I was able. We are going to be working more in our weekly training meetings at getting into gear and going through the steps that we will need to take when we get on various fire situations and I’m looking forward to being more prepared.

I had to get a picture of my nice, new, clean gear. Because the day after this it got filthy, sooty, muddy and didn’t look near this pretty

Horses:
Just after the holidays, we had the fencing and water lines behind our house finished creating a 5 acre pasture and a few weeks ago we brought Tex and Sonny, our two horses, home from the boarder’s. They’ve taken to the donkeys and Bessie Mae (the beef cow) who also live in that pasture with them (for now.) A few days after he was here, I took Tex out for a ride around the pasture, then we rode around the property a bit and, feeling brave, I took him down the dirt road we live on. He did amazingly well, I think he’s more than ready for longer trips farther away with my eventual goal to ride him up to the nearest small town four miles away where we have a really fabulous pizza shop. I’m looking forward to many more rides with him and working more with Sonny to get him comfortable riding a little farther away from Tex as well (He does great if Tex is right next to him, but by himself he’s insecure and gets unmanageable).

Garden:
About a month ago I finally broke down and bought a three tiered growing rack for growing our own starts for the garden. The nearest garden center that has most of the starts that I would want (heirlooms, open pollinated varieties) is over an hour away and I’ve not had much luck trying to grow starts on top of my washer with a hanging sodium light, nor outside on my porch with indirect sunlight (and if it’s too cold, having to bring them in and out was not really fun). It was not cheap, but so far it’s proving to make really fantastically vigorous starts. We’ve planted roma tomatoes, cantaloupe, honeydew, bell peppers, watermelon and cherry tomatoes for the spring. My mother and I sat down and talked about what we wanted to grow this year and came up with a pretty good list, including the above and also sweet corn, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers (though not as many!), bush beans and sweet potatoes again.

It’s been a very mild winter and we’ve been fortunate to be able to have a wonderful bounty coming out of our garden from the nice weather and good rains. We had full beds of cauliflower, broccoli, and romanesco cauliflower, chard and various lettucey greens as well as three different kinds of kale. The carrots are coming in very well this year, as are the radishes. The radishes. Woof. We haven’t had much time to pick them, so we’ve left them in the ground and they’ve taken on mutant superpowers. Case in point:

What do you think that is that is in his hand? No, it’s not a turnip. It’s a radish. I swear to you. And it wasn’t pithy or bad-tasting, it was just HUGE.

It’s been raining almost constantly for 2 weeks with very little time for drying out between the rains so it’s made it hard to get in the garden and do any maintenance or weeding. We planted onions, peas and more spinach a few weeks ago, but we still need to pull out the old broccoli and cauliflower and put in the new starts we’ve grown as well as weed just about everything. It turns out that a good portion of the bermuda grass we planted in the pasture last spring blew into our garden, which is likely going to make gardening rather challenging for a while. I plan, Mother Nature laughs.

Cows:
I had Grace AIed again at the end of November and she took, so we’re expecting a cutesy cow baby sometime towards the end of August. I switched to once a day milkings sometime after October last year and she’s taken to it pretty well and we’re still getting 1 3/4 to 2 quarts a day. We got slightly more milking twice a day, but the reduction in hassle is worth it. She’s been in milk since early April last year and I’m planning on drying her off in the next couple of weeks. Mostly to give her a rest, but it will also make it easier on my mother when Hubsand and I go on a mini-vacation in March. She’s already got horses to feed in addition to all her other chores, I wanted to try to make it easier on her when it came to the cows. We’ve been freezing the milk that we’ve been getting into half gallon jars (which have been having a tendency of cracking unexpectedly) and then once I bought some, gallon milk jugs. We’ve got enough milk frozen at this point to have a gallon of milk a week between now and the time she calves. (And before you ask, yes, that’s a LOT of freezer space.) The consistency of frozen milk is a little different, but it still tastes just as good to me and I like that we have our own milk saved and we won’t have to buy milk while she’s dried off. That has meant that I haven’t been making butter or cheese, so I will have to supplement those with butter from the store (or the freezer) and cheese from my raw dairyman friend.

Henri is doing quite well, getting taller all the time, but still a total kid, kicking and playing and running about like a fool. Her horns have been growing out and I’ve been concerned that we should perhaps have them polled soon. I really wish I had more time to work with her, get her halter trained and calm her down some. I’m thinking soon that may become more of a necessity as I need to work with her more if we plan to breed her this year. I can have her bred in April will have her calving when she’s just over 2 years old, which should work out. I’m anxious though about trying to work with her, I don’t know the first thing about it and I’m not really sure how to go about it. But, it would be nice to have her worked enough that I can manage her when the vet or farrier comes. I might need to look into bringing in some help since this is my first time doing any of this. At this point, it’s time that I don’t really have.

Health:
I’ve been working since last summer to shed some extra weight with success. Since the last time I blogged about health in September, I’ve lost an additional 8.6 pounds and am 14.2 pounds down from this time last year. I had a slight hiccup in early January when cedar fever got the best of me and I was down for the count for a couple of weeks but otherwise it’s been a fairly steady downward trend. I met my first goal a few weeks ago, being 17.3 pounds down from my highest weight last year, having lost about 9% of my body weight and 3 BMI points. My next goal is another 12 pounds (and 2 BMI points), with the eventual goal of another 12 pounds (and 2 more BMI points) at which point I will be right where I’d like to be.

I started running in November, which anyone that knows me knows that I have, in the past, despised running. I haven’t been able to do it. Even in high school, I was the slowest runner, quite often just walking fast in lieu of actual running. However, I decided to give it a shot here on these back country roads by my house. I downloaded a Couch to 5k program, not for the actual goal of running a 5k, but for the goal or running 20-30 straight minutes without feeling like my heart was going to explode out of my chest. The first day I tried the regular running tact, following the program but spend the next several days feeling like someone took hammers to my knees and hips and realizing that perhaps one of the main reason that I hated running so much was because I had been doing it incorrectly. I read up on “barefoot running” style and went to a running store in town to talk to them about it and see about minimalist shoes to help. In the end, I’ve taken to running in “Earth” shoes, which have a negative heel which help me keep on the ball of my foot when I run. The first few days of running like this proved very stressful on my shins and ankles, but a slow breaking in has built up my muscles that I don’t get sore anymore from it. A few weeks ago I was able to run 18 full minutes and for a full mile and a half, which is an all-time personal record for me.

Sometime during all this, I’ve discovered I am really enjoying running. Running down these dirt roads, through the hollows, past the cows, occasionally running past an errant armadillo or rabbit has really changed my mind about it. The distance from my front door to the dead end of the road and back is exactly two miles, which is the perfect distance. I haven’t got tired of running it yet, it’s always so stunning the way the sunlight dapples through the trees.

It’s been rainy lately and I’ve not been able to go running. I keep meaning to do a half hour on the elliptical, but I forget or things get in the way. I’m going to try to change that though, I’d like to get in at least five days a week of 30 minutes, be it walking, running or elliptical. I haven’t really been actively trying to cut out sugar and carbs, though it’s been being slowly edged out lately in favor of more protein (and fat). More nuts, and canned sardines. For breakfast every morning, I often opt for having a protein shake (like Amazing Meal or something of the like) instead of regular breakfast. If I’m too busy for lunch, I may have one with some cheese or something as well.

Weather:
We’ve been in a drought for so long that it feels weird to talk about how much rain we’ve been getting. A slow moving storm blew through last week and dumped 3 inches on our farm, but not far south of us they got 9 inches of rain in two days which led to a lot of flash flooding, roads under 3 feet of water from swollen creeks and the river in one of our closer town being 31 feet over its banks.

As a comparison, here is the local mill on a nice sunny summer day:

found via Google via geolobo

And last week when the spillway was 30 feet underwater:
Quicktime movie of the river – be sure to turn your volume down, it was windy that day.

I’m glad for the rain, but it’s starting to saturate the ground and make everything a mushy mess all the time. I’ve had to invest in some upgraded rubber boots because I stand in two inches of water in my milk shed every morning. Only 20 more inches to go before we are hydrologically out of the drought, right?

We’ve had some rather moist mornings lately. The other morning I was up and milking early in the fog, and on my way to class I pulled over and snapped this shot with my iPhone of a neighbor’s field in the [...]]]>

We’ve had some rather moist mornings lately. The other morning I was up and milking early in the fog, and on my way to class I pulled over and snapped this shot with my iPhone of a neighbor’s field in the mist.

I’ve heard so many things about West Texas over the years, opinions seem to vary between indifference to outright vehement bashing, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for wide open places and huge skies. I hitched up my britches and Hubsand and I decided to do a mini driving vacation to Marfa, [...]]]>

I’ve heard so many things about West Texas over the years, opinions seem to vary between indifference to outright vehement bashing, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for wide open places and huge skies. I hitched up my britches and Hubsand and I decided to do a mini driving vacation to Marfa, Terlingua and Big Bend.

We drove the long way, off the highway taking 90 once out of San Antonio and going through Uvalde and Del Rio. That long lonely stretch of road going to Del Rio and right after was a little unnerving though. I had horrible visions of breaking down there and then dying of dessication on the side of the road, nothing but a bag of leather and bones with my hands still on the wheel of the vehicle on the side of the road. I’m sure I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the Mexican/American border is surprisingly undramatic and innocuous looking. The Rio Grande is little more than a large creek, far from the images I had in my head of this mighty raging river that would surely keep people on one side or the other by sheer force. There’s no fences that I saw, but neither was there any people. In the span of several hours, we passed three or four border patrol trucks, but other than that you wouldn’t know that it’s another country right over on the far bank.

We arrived in Marfa just after sunset, and immediately upon entering town got a speeding ticket in their very clever trap where the speed limit goes from 75 to 55 to 40 in the span of only a couple hundred feet. We later discovered they were camping out there, pulling people over one after another after another. As we sat outside the Pizza Foundation, we saw them pull over no less than a half a dozen people in the span of thirty minutes. Not the best way to enter a town your going to for vacation, but I shrugged it off and figured I’d just worry about it later.

We made our way to El Cosmico, where we were set to stay in a 1950s era Branstrator Airstream-type trailer for the night. It was bitter cold when we got there but we hauled our stuff to the trailer with a wagon (!), and once we got the heaters turned up to full blast and came back from dinner at the Cochineal, it was fairly toasty in there. There was a draft coming off the windows and doors, but still quite homey and ridiculously cute. I had brought along one of my cowskins, which turned out to be the exact thing that was needed to keep toasty all night; that was probably the best I had for packing.

The trailer park backed up to a Border Patrol station, which made it difficult to get pictures that weren’t full of towers and lights, but I was able to snap a few that were pretty great.

Our Branstrator

The inside was this beautiful honey-colored paneling with an adorable kitchen with a little metal tea kettle. There was a large claw foot style tub outside on the porch behind a screen, but it was a little too chilly to take advantage of bathing under the stars that night.

While I absolutely loved El Cosmico, my impression of Marfa was soured by the speeding ticket while coming into town, the hour plus wait to get in to eat anywhere, and then once sat to eat the ridiculous, elitist hipsters that seemed to permeate every spare inch, complaining about how their coffee wasn’t hot enough and they didn’t have the right vintage of a specific wine in their 350 bottle wine selection. I think perhaps I’ll skip Marfa next time in favor of more friendly places like Alpine or Fort Davis. All that aside, I do recommend El Cosmico and Pizza Foundation (for good east coast style pizza) if you are heading to the area.

Tuesday we drove up through Fort Davis to the McDonald Observatory for their daytime tour and sunspot viewing program, their twilight planets program and the evening star party.

It was a fantastic program, seeing the countryside from atop the hill, getting to check out the telescopes, learning how they worked, seeing real-time sunspots and learning more about constellations and how they relate to one another (something I keep trying to teach myself and not doing so well at).

After the star party, where we saw Jupiter and it’s moons casting shadows on it’s face, the Andromeda galaxy, the Orion nebula and the Pleiades, we drove south to Terlingua. Let me tell you, it’s PITCH BLACK out there, and those roads are windy and kind of scary in the dark. You can’t see if there are hills to your left or right, and there are so many blind hills and curves that I ended up going well under the speed limit just to prevent careening off into the brush.

We arrived at Upstairs at the Mansion, the old ruins of the Perry Mansion from the town’s mining days that Kaci Fullwood has turned into a two room retreat on the top of the hill.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside, in fact, most of the house is falling in on itself, pieces of it rattling off of the metal roof on the porch, but the rooms are large, wonderfully decorated and very interesting. The tower on the building came from the pirate radio station that they ran out of the mansion some years back, furthering it’s interesting history.

She uses found objects, like driftwood and flower stalks from yucca plants for decoration. We decided the driftwood sculpture in the upper right looked like a cat wearing an egyptian headdress

The porch is really the place you want to be. Texas Country Reporter did a spot on the Mansion, and Kaci referred to a guest that described staying there as being like, “extreme porching” which is entirely accurate. The porch is really where it’s at. Great views, cozy seats, it just invites you to come and sit and eat and relax.

At night, she’s got lights up under the arches and it is just the perfect amount of light for sitting and talking in the evening. We sat out there for a while, looking at the lights of Terlingua, watching all the neon and the cars go by, listening to the band playing at the joint down the hill.

Wednesday morning, we stopped in at the Ghosttown Cafe for breakfast and headed into Big Bend National Park. I didn’t realize that it was just so huge. It took us almost and hour and a half to get across the park! We stopped at the visitor’s center first, where they had a really fantastic 3D relief map of the park on a table, and we got our tchotchkes and maps. We headed first down to Rio Grande Village for another view of the river and Mexico, and again, it was nothing like I expected. No fence, no men with guns, just a gently flowing river and tall reed grass.

We hiked out to the Ernst Tinaja (water hole) which was a long, “improved” (I say with a wink) dirt road and a short hike. It was really gorgeous, but the light was middle-of-the-day with harsh shadows, so almost none of the shots turned out well. I managed to snap a fairly decent shot of Hubsand and I there, but it was still blown out and not as good as I would have liked.

We drove out (without losing any pieces of our car) and hiked out to the hot springs on the edge of the Rio Grande. There were quite a few people there, and lots of children, much to our chagrin but the water was warm and inviting and I sat and soaked in there, taking photographs until the sun started getting sliding to far down the hillside.

We drove back to Terlingua in the setting sun and stopped for obligatory sunset shots along the way.

We got back to Terlingua just in time to catch the most stunning sunset over the cemetery (where most of the people there died from the 1918 flu pandemic).

We stopped in at La Kiva for dinner and drinks and I do have to say it is definitely one of the most interesting bars I’ve been to. You walk through the front door (that’s canted down and away from you and opens more like a storm shelter door) and walk down stairs into almost a cave. The bar and tabletops are made of redwood, the walls are local stones mortared in place and the drinks are stiff. We had some Oban 14 while we waited for our steaks and ogled the dark, smokey decor. There were a slew of regulars, some that I recognized from some of the videos I’ve seen on youtube expounding the virtues of the area and it’s colorful citizenry.

We walked around Terlingua after dinner, up to the top of the hill behind La Posada Milagro staring agog at the sky that was so dark and so huge. We get pretty dark skies out in our patch of country, but the darkness out there just beats all, hands down. No horizon glow from anything, nothing really getting in the way. I read that Big Bend area is one of the top places in the country for the darkest skies, perhaps next trip I’ll camp out in the middle of Big Bend and try to get some shots of that magnificence.

We were going to go checkout the band at Starlight Theatre later that evening, but made the mistake of going up to the room first and we just never made it back out. We slept in the next morning, packed up, hula hooped on the front porch with Kaci and then headed off for breakfast at the Lajitas resort up the road and driving back through Big Bend Ranch State Park (which requires MUCH more investigation including hiking the slot canyons, playing in/near the river and ogling the beautiful scenery. The drive between Lajitas and Presidio is supposed to be one of the most scenic drives in the country, and it’s easy to see why. I wasn’t able to get pictures of it since I was driving, but it’s in the mountains, up and down, right next to the river and simply amazing. Here’s a great link to another photographer’s view of some of those spots.

I’ve been posting one thing a day over on Facebook, but I figured I’d collect them here for posterity [...]]]> I suppose this is akin to my Best Moments of the Week lists, but a blogger at Bless Her Heart posted about here 30 days of a grateful heart and it sounded like a good idea.

I’ve been posting one thing a day over on Facebook, but I figured I’d collect them here for posterity and expounding.

I am grateful for:
1. Good friends that want to learn and grow together, ones that can pick up right where we left off, ones that call me on my crap, ones that lend an ear, ones that teach me things, ones that want to share my life.
2. Tasty leftovers. Stuffing, mashed taters, sweet potatoes, tetrazzini, cranberry sauce, sausage, bacon…it’s a never-ending bounty.
3. Rain. Slow, driving, moistening, life-sustaining rain.
4. Music that is perfect to listen to while it’s raining.
5. Socks. Warm, wooly ones in the winter to keep my feetsies toasty. Little short ones in the summer to keep the dirt off my toes. Ones that go up to my thighs, ones that prevent my feet from getting blisters, boot socks, ankle socks, thick chunky hand-knitted socks, socks with toes, socks I knitted myself.
6. Tea. It is what warms me up on cold winter days, lifts my spirits and gets me moving. I’ve never been a coffee person, but I can appreciate all different kinds of teas from Earl Grey every morning before school, to matcha genmaicha in the mid morning, English Breakfast in the afternoon (with cream and honey), Rooibos at dinner, Chamomile and Lavender at bedtime. Lemon Lift with honey when I’m sick, a strong green tea when I need a kick, and iced orange pekoe in midsummer.
7. My momma, who is many things to this farm, a surrogate mother to many of my friends, and a best friend, mother, wise-woman, healer, fixer-of-pants and general, all-around magician to me. I am SO glad that she moved down here to live with me on my farm and share my crazy adventures.
8. This farm. I never realized how much I needed cows, chickens and donkeys until I got here. I’m grateful for our bounty that allows us the luxury of living out here and tending to this land. Doing the work here has been more fulfilling and life-giving than anything I could have imagined.
9. Small town Texas, where the people are sweet and friendly, where there are kitschy little shops, mom-and-pop BBQ and fried chicken places, and the community comes all together for fundraisers and chili cook-offs. Where the feed store manager tips his hat to you at the grocery store, the dogs greet you at the post office and the volunteer fire department knows just about everyone by name.
10. My partner, my companion, my hubsand. We put up with each other’s crap, brought this farm together, and share this crazy dream. I never pictured my life like this, but now I can’t imagine it without him and all this in it.
11. Baths. When I’m cold in the winter it is the sure-fire way to warm up. I have an almost never-ending supply of Lush bath bombs in which to soak all my cares away a tub big enough for two with jets, chinese lanterns, candles and a huge shelf on which to put my giant glass of wine. It’s no wonder that thing gets used like three to five times a week!
12. Cows. I love to watch them mosey and play, I love it when they come galloping up full speed to the hay crib like little kids kicking and prancing. I love their soft ears, the way they smell, the way their soft mouths move when they eat. I love huddling up next to Grace when I milk her on cold mornings, and brushing her and scratching behind Henri’s poll. They’ve taught me patience beyond imagination and so much more. I hope that there will always be cows in my life from now on.
13. My job. To have one in the first place and to have a really good one that allows me to work from home and gives me the flexibility of time. I lucked into this and I couldn’t be more happy for it.
14. Air conditioning and heat (whichever is required). I have always appreciated heat, having lived in snow-filled states but I had never realized the need for air conditioning as much as I did this past summer when it got up to 112 degrees.
15. My health. While it’s not perfect, I am able to do just about anything I might want to do. I can run (!!), jump, hike, walk for long periods, ride, twirl, sing, dance. I’m very grateful that the issues that I do have are able to be kept under control. I am also taking steps to improve my health in order to guarantee that I am able to continue to physically do the things that I like for the future.
16. Community. I have become part of this community in this little corner of this little out-of-the-way county. Being part of the fire department, I am getting to meet all sorts of people and get to be part of the crazy family that it all brings. And it feels nice to *belong* to something. I like that.
17. Breakfast. I love breakfast. For dinner. For lunch. Anytime. That eggs are the most perfect and versatile food makes me so full of happy. French toast makes my heart sing. Omelets make me dance. Sausage. Bacon. Benedict. Breakfast buffets are the best thing ever in my mind. No better way to start the day. Or end it.
18. Photographs. A picture certainly can say a thousand words as well as inspire, explain and bring together. I love that I can document the little things in my life, the things I see that bring me happiness and share with my friends and family far away. The ability to share my life like this gives me connections that I wouldn’t otherwise have.
19. Wine, specifically red wine. I love the mouth-feel, the tannins, the flavors. I used to only like sweet white wines, but now I’m down for the driest, most-comb-your-tongue red wines there are. I love them in giant wine glasses that sing and especially while soaking in the tub.
20. Sunrises (and sunsets). I’ve seen many but it never ceases to amaze me how stunning they all are and how they always make me smile. It’s like a fresh start. The light changing by the second, then bursting over the horizon and bathing everything in it’s soft golden glow.
21. Planning. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where the act of planning something is as exciting as the actual going and doing. Things are so open to possibility when you are planning that it just seems like you’ve got the world as your oyster. It gives me the ability to check out possibilities and have an idea of what I want, even if the plan changes.
22. Sleep that refreshes, renews and makes everything seem ok. Heavy blankets to tuck me in, adjustable beds with a magic fingers feature (but without the need for quarters), and white noise generators that double as air filters.
23. Friends that come rescue us and our trailer (and those that offered) when we blew a coolant line and took the extra patient step of taking us to get our much needed fencing supplies and driving us home. Beer and the finest pizza in three counties can’t repay the favor, but hopefully it’s a good start!
24. Patience and not feeling rushed, both of which I’m getting better at and utilizing. As I look at things, there really is no rush, I just don’t often take the time to see that.
25. Starbucks that are open on Christmas day, especially when one has to drive 3 hours (one way) to family. Caffeine and sugar has at least made me a little more human.
26. Long-standing family traditions (like making cookies every holiday season) and silly, self-made traditions (like crab legs on boxing day.) There is something very comforting about rituals.
27. New places, new sites to see, new places to stay, new experiences and good music. Road-tripping is my favorite past time!
28. Big giant Texas skies, especially in West Texas where there is less light to get in the way. The dark is astounding out there.
29. My own bed, especially after being away from it.
30. Getting things done. I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes when I get things crossed off that to-do list, when I don’t feel the pressure of it weighing on me.
31. Just about everything. I am blessed with so much bounty and overflowing awesomeness.

Things that [...]]]> First, the Internet is a wonderful thing. Every year, since 2003, I create a CD that was a compilation of my favorite music of that year, things that I listened to obsessively, songs that plucked my heartstrings, each instilled with moments and memories. I present to you this years offering via Spotify:
Quixotic Dichotomies – 2011

Things that I accomplished this year:

- Successfully went through an entire year of gardening, three full growing seasons. It was full of ups and downs, some things did well, others didn’t do so great. I try, try again.
- Henrietta the calf was born on our farm. The first animal born here since we’ve been here.
- Miguel built for us the pig pen, hay sheds, bramble patches, greenhouse, tool shed and various other projects.
- Put in the generator and our own large propane tank on which to run it. (A huge relief)
- The heartbreak of having to take Spot, my first milk cow, in to be butchered after she failed to thrive and contracted an incurable case of mastitis.
- Selling the old house.
- Refinancing the new house and property.
- Acquired more useful farm implements.
- Acquired livestock trailer.
- Taught more people how to make soap and can meat.
- Made more soap, started to find a market for it.
- Took hand-building pottery classes.
- Joined the local volunteer fire department.
- Began medical training classes.
- Learned much more about photography and how to take and edit better pictures.
- Got a better well pump and filtering system set up.
- Got the milking machine and taught the cow (and my mother) how to use it.
- Took vacations to Utah (a place which has been on my list to go explore since I was a teenager) to hike, take photographs and visit with friends.
- Rekindled my love for road trips, traveling, seeing new things and experiencing everything.
- Lost weight: 11 pounds down from the start of the year!
- Survived the hottest summer I’ve ever seen (which was also one of the hottest the area has ever seen).
- Learned to ride horses (again and better this time).
- Acquired a horse (!).
- I’ve continued to wake up earlier, with the sun usually. It’s helped for getting good sunrise shots too.
- I tried to cook with the solar cooker, but wasn’t able to get it working properly yet. I’ll try again next summer, I’m determined to make it work!

It feels like I’ve done so much more this year than that, it’s definitely been a year for coming around the learning curve on many things. Learning all sorts of new useful skills and becoming more part of the local community. I really am loving it out here on the ranch, it seemed to be the thing that I needed and wanted, without having ever known that I did.

I think this past year has been about building up, getting things started and in motion and learning new skills, learning how a farm works.

Here is the status of the goals for this year.

1. I’d like the old house to sell – It was a huge weight lifted off our shoulders when that albatross was gone. It wasn’t ideal, we didn’t get near as much as we would have liked, but considering the market, I think we did ok. Better than continuing to pay on a house no one is living in. This freed us up to have more work done on our property and working more towards our goals.

2. Start putting money towards outstanding debts – This has gone slowly, but progressing somewhat. We racked up a lot this past year getting settled in and work done. This next year I plan on scaling back somewhat to try to pay down the debt we’ve worked up over the past year.

3. Rabbits – We got the rabbits and started breeding them and discovered they are slightly more difficult than we anticipated. There is a short window in which to get things done right due to heat or cold, but with some experience under our belt, we’re working on it. The rabbit poo has been key to our garden refreshes, so I’ll call this one a success. Next stop, pigs!

4. Meat birds – We did not get to this one this year. It’s still on the list, but there are some logistic issues that I’d like to look into first (mostly keeping predators at bay).

5. Ramp up the garden, start growing in earnest – We’ve done a lot on this this past year, though I’m sure there’s always room for improvement in regards to fertilizing, rotation, how to grow things in 105 degree weather, among all sorts of other logistics. This will be a constant task, I think.

6. Learn Spanish – This one fell by the wayside unfortunately. Many other things came up that trumped it in priority…it’s still on there somewhere, but I may just need to bust out and take for-real classes or tutoring.

7. Lose weight – In the past year I have lost 11 pounds, with more planned. I have not accomplished the cutting out of carbs and sugars which was part of the goal, that’s a toughie. This is still on the list, but I haven’t worked up to it yet. I know it’s coming…I’m just going to have to commit to it and do it though.

8. Find more ways of integrating exercise – This has not been hard. Between hefting feed, chasing cows, general clean up and farm work, there are a million things to do. Add in to that that I HAVE started running, even if sporadic, and I’m doing pretty well on this one, hence the success of #7.

9. Finding new creative uses for milk – We didn’t end up having as much milk this year as I had hoped, but I still found ways of making cheese, butter, yogurt, all sorts of things that it never went to waste. Wardeh’s class at GNOWFGLINS helped a lot.

For next year, my plans include:

- I do want to get meat birds still, but I’m having a hard time trying to find the right place to put them and how to keep them. I have ideas for chicken tractors with self waterers like some of the local farms around here have, but I’ve not gotten around to putting into action.
- Pigs. Perhaps even if just one or two to raise up from piglets, it would be good to raise our own pork to save money (maybe?)
- Travel. I want to hike the Narrows in Zion again, going further this time. I want to see Moab, Arches, Canyonlands, Monument Valley. I want to start planning our Alaska trip for 2013.
- Bring the horse here to our property, and ride him around the area (and up to the pizza shop/fire station).
- Get the back 10 of the property properly fenced off so we can put Bessie and possibly one or two other beef cows back there.
- Lose weight. My goal is to lose another 15-20 pounds this year. Ideally 30, but I’m going to take it 10 pounds at a time. Really, I do need to start cutting more carbs. While my blood sugar is doing well, I think that being more selective about carbs would help out other health issues. I think the time is finally coming to cut sugars and flours back this next year.
- Learn Spanish. This has been on my list for years, and I have the Rosetta Stone for it, I just need to buckle down and spend time with it. I think it’s probably a little more imperative being in a spanish-speaking community for firefighting.
- Pay down debt. Last year was about building up, learning, putting the pieces together to get this farm started. This coming year needs to be focused on paying down some of the debt that’s crept back in to pay for this past year. My goal is to more than half the debt that I have by September.
- Get my EMR (Emergency Medical Responder) and potentially EMT Basic certification.

It’s not amazing, but it’s still pretty fun.

Certainly makes my boring pasture a little more double plus than it actually [...]]]> I was messing around with my new copies of Photoshop and Photomatix and went out to shoot some pictures of the cloudy sky one day to test out the HDR.

It’s not amazing, but it’s still pretty fun.

Certainly makes my boring pasture a little more double plus than it actually is.