Our progress to date

Well things are moving along slowly but surely:

1) We planted two 8 foot apple trees and will be getting six more within a few weeks. They are mostly for our own use, but if we come to that point, they can be sold or used to barter.

2) The last two weekends have been spent putting together a pen for chickens inside our small out building. We've framed out walls and windows, and chicken wired the walls out. All of this done with zero carpentry or construction skills. Just some swearing and yelling, but nothing too major! :-)

3) Calls will be made soon to continue our journey to put up a new outbuilding. The process takes me WAY out of my comfort zone, but yet, will be good for me as I need to be more comfortable taking charge of things like this. We'll be putting up a 24 x 48 building in which half will be for a garage, the other half for animals (possibly goats or sheep).

4) I've called to get part of our garden tilled up, and will be calling to see if we can get the other half tilled up as well. Again, this gardening thing takes me way out of my comfort zone as we are working ourselves to the point where we may sell some of our produce. That leads to the next one.

5) I've ordered two pounds of red wiggler worms for vericomposting both at home and at school. I'll have one bin at school and one bin at home, with hopes of having enough worms by the end of the summer to possibly get another bin started here at school. This whole worm thing is very interesting, especially the fact that we can take much of our garden waste, and use it to make great fertilizer for the garden.

6) Finally, we've got all sorts of sprouts going in the house right now (tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, etc) with hopes that they'll actually live this year! :-) I've never been successful at getting my plants to go from seed to harvest, so I've tried a few new things, and am considered a small greenhouse of some sort.

Whew, that's a pretty good summary of what our lives have been like lately. While the work is hard, it will only make us better off down the road, when we'll truly need that knowledge that we are gaining right now! :-)