Listening today to Jack Spirko's episode of Miyagi Mornings, his short morning videos that he does during the week, he posed the question "what three goals do you have, and what three skills would you like to develop in 2021?" I figured that'd give me a good prompt to write on, and a good way to give him an answer on another decentralized platform.
I think this is a good idea, as I need to be doing a better job of setting my intentions.
My goals and skills in this list will be in line with the things I've already been doing. As Jack said, it's easier to continue in a vein you're working in than it is to switch gears entirely. At this point, I think it's very late to be branching out and going deep in new things. Just a hunch. So as I continue on my path, I'm deciding to deepen what I've started.
Three goals for 2020:
- Raise more meat to eat.
- Establish a blackberry patch.
- Preserve more harvest.
Three skills to develop for 2021
- Rabbit processing.
- Active composting.
- Canning.
As you can see, those all go together and running line with my main direction over the last few years. Canning is something that has been on my mind since we lost all of our frozen green beans from last year's garden. We lost power while we were living at my parents during the home repairs, and we lost some groceries. Not a lot, but some. Since I'll be growing on more space this year, I'd like to make good use of that with canning and preserving my harvest. The rabbits are going to start being a significant source of food for me. With three does, and infrastructure and bloodlines that can facilitate fast and easy scaling, this may end up being one of those things where I just eat rabbits and eggs as my exclusive meat sources, but we'll see. Daddy loves some bacon. The composting and berry patch are simply more effective and involved processes than I've used before. I've got blackberries, and I've been making good use of my rabbit poo, but now that I have such an enormous source of fresh local wood chips, I want to start seeing how far I can push this fertility operation.
Did I make a post about my wood chips? I don't think I did. I got a HUGE load from a crew that was working in my neighborhood last week, they dropped me a pile bigger than my truck! So now I've offered some to all my friends and started mulching my beds with that, rather than using the ply wood. Now I can use the ply wood to expand my rabbitry, I've got some plans for that that I'll be running here soon.
It's not a great picture, but that pile is nearly a meter tall, and maybe two meters wide by six or so meters long. Plenty of carbon, and I've been using it well.
I might actually prep another bed or two since I have enough mulch now... Maybe try some corn again this year. Or maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll do a little thinking on it, cause I'd like to have a kick ass year and not have to worry about overdoing it. Whatever, I'm rambling, so I'll call it a wrap for today.
Do you have any specific goals or skills you're developing in 2021? Maybe Jack's episode from this morning can give you some inspiration too.
Love from Texas
Nate 💚