2018...so now what....
2017 went by pretty quick. We spent a bit of a frantic year trying to balance work, school for the girls and stealing away to Wildwood whenever we could. Spending extended periods there just wasn't in the cards and of course we really didn't get to everything we had planned on doing in 2017, either because of tight timings, constrained budgets or the weather (or all three at once!).
So in 2017 we:
- Established the first part of the garden - done
- Got the outhouse up and running - done
- Put in a bunky - done
- Foam seal the bunky - mostly done
- Seal exterior of the bunky - mostly done
- Windows for the bunky - started
- Finish interior of the bunky - LOL, not even close
- Establish a foodplot - done
- Put out treestands and blinds - done
- Start beekeeping - done
- Expand the garden - done (at least doubled in size)
- Can tomatoes for the year - done 97 liters
- Experiment with making soap - done (AWESOME!!)
- Make mead - Some worked out really well...some didn't
- Collect honey, purify wax, make homemade Christmas gifts (scarfs, honey, beeswax candles, muesli) - done!!
- Build a shed - ummmm....started and it hasn't fallen over yet!
- Build a treehouse - ummmm...not started
- Expand the orchard - ummmm...next year
- Clear brush - well...whatever what was immediately in the way was taken care of (or we went around it...LOL)
- Water system - nope
- Solar system - nope
- Refrigeration - nope
Lessons learned:
- Doing anything takes a lot longer than anticipated. Either because it just does, bad weather delays, work/life/other stuff comes up, the budget is tight, etc...
- Spring and fall is the time to work outside. Better to work in the cold than the killer sun/heat!
- Buy extra construction materials for multiple projects at once. Trips to the store for this or that...or being short a couple of boards is a super time killer when we're trying to squeeze in a build day and the weather is cooperating.
Keeping the past year in mind, here's our rough plans for 2018. The objectives are much tighter and focused in general. We have a much better plan/idea of how our budget will go. We'll see....
- Bunky
- Finish sealing exterior
- Spray foam interior
- Cut in remaining windows
- Finish interior
- Garden
- Compost and mulch cover new section
- Plant corn, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember but I'm sure I was told repeatedly what they'd be.
- Orchard
- Clear grass/brush, mulch and fence spots for 2-3 trees
- Establish 2-3 new fruit trees and mulch/tend to the surviving fruit trees from last year
- Establish raspberry, blueberry bushes
- Shed
- Finish roof
- Finish siding
- Divert rain to water container
- Bees
- Start 3 new hives (we had 2, one didn't survive and fingers crossed that the other one makes it through this winter)
- If it's available, repurpose an old metal shed as a dedicated shed for bee related stuff and for extracting honey/wax
- Deer/Turkeys
- Keep going with feeder/food plot for Turkey
- Build one platform stand and clear brush around it
- Relocated tree stands to alternate locations
- Treehouse
- Build tree house platforms and clear area
- Water/Solar/Refrigeration
- Maybe get a water tank and start filtering/pumping from the well for drip irrigation for the orchard and garden
- Maybe get a 3-way overland freezer/fridge to run off of either 12v, but probably propane.
- Maybe setup 200w of solar, 1 battery and an inverter for device charging/lights
It's a big list...and I'd be stunned if we got to it all.
We're planning on tackling things earlier, gathering construction and gardening materials for multiple projects at once, plan on working through the colder/wetter spring and fall and avoiding the most labourious hard work during the hotter parts of summer.
We'll see. It'll be fun (fingers crossed) to look back at this list in 11 months and see how it held up!
