Short Term Goals For My Future

It has only been three short months since I made the move across the country to where I now find myself.  I am happy to be living in the countryside again.  It is quiet here in a way you will never find in the suburbs.  I am doubly happy that I moved to the mountains.  I am the outdoorsy type, and am thrilled to have mountains to play on in my backyard.  Perhaps I will share some of my many adventures here with you.

I was lucky enough to find a rental in the country that would allow me to have a garden and eventually chickens.  As we enter the autumn of the year I have been trying to figure out the best place to have the garden and chickens.  The area I live in is semi-arid and I do not have access to irrigation, so I will have to do my best to plan my garden in a water conservative fashion.  I have observed that the front yard has the best exposure to the sun and seems like it would be the easiest to work with.  The soil however, seems very rocky and dusty, with very little organic matter, so I will do my best to amend what I can before I ever set plants in the ground.  Since I don't have much in the way of funds to work with I will also be doing things as frugally as possible.

This fall I hope to plant garlic somewhere in the yard at the very least.  Towards this end I have purchased a couple bags of mushroom compost, a shovel and a garden rake.  I also have a handful of garlic bulbs that I saved from the garden I had this summer, though I think I will buy some large local garlic to round it out.  I hope to solidify my plans about the size of the garden so I can turn over the beds and mix in more compost to help the soil be ready for spring planting.

I also hope to work on building a small chicken tractor (or two) to house the chickens I want to get in the spring.  I have already seen plenty of foxes in the area, so I will have to make it as secure as possible.  I am still a little undecided about the number of chickens I want to get.  I don't need a ton of egg layers, but I do want to start growing my own poultry for the freezer.  I also need to decide where the chickens will live.  The only summer shade would be under the tree in the front yard, and that is also on a more protected side of the house.  That is likely where they will end up.

Eventually I want to make a small side business of selling hand spun items such as hats, scarves, and clothing.  To that end I need to work on building up an inventory so I can have items to show vendors, and items to display at craft shows.  I have been throwing around ideas for business cards and web pages, again starting small to keep costs down.  I also need to price and tag the things I have already made, perhaps also taking pictures of items to sell online.

I think that is a pretty good list so far.  Plans are always changing, so I'm sure there will be plenty of revisions to these goals. For now I think I have found a pretty good place to start.