a look at 2012

Once again, a year draws to a close. Christmas decorations are packed up and stored away for next holiday season, and the winter begins. A time of rest, reflection, and finding a new routine. Some are thinking about new years resolutions, others may be happy with their life and decide to continue living their own status quo, but right now I’m spending time thinking about the past. I feel that remembering where we’ve been is important to making sure we are moving forward on the path we want to be on. Have decisions and actions we’ve chosen over the past year helped us to live the life we want? Have they moved us closer to goals we’ve set for ourselves?

Pardon me while I ramble a bit, jotting down significant events and changes that have happened around our homestead this past year.

In January I wrote a post on our old blog about what this year might look like for us. It took a few unexpected twists and turns, but there were trends that we followed. In no particular order… We did make progress on groundwork necessary to build our new home. We did open our new website in April. We did grow and can green beans. We lived well through the whole winter in our camper. We did homeschool our children for another year. We did publish our book, A Year In a Camper. And of course the most exciting thing that happened to us, was the birth of our fourth child, Chickie.

At the start of the year I had a few simple goals in mind, trying not to overburden myself with expectations because I knew I would be spending a lot of time getting used to being a mother of four children, ages newborn to 5 (now 9 months to 6 years). I had hoped to dry more teas and sell them to family and friends (remember the herbal remedies I made in 2011?). I had hoped to produce enough food to can for the winter. And we had hoped to raise our own chicks, straight from eggs. Other than the aforementioned cans of green beans, none of these goals were met. My solar dehydrator became inhabited by ants so forget making tea, we started our garden too late and much of it was killed by early frost, and even though we knew our hens were in no mood for nesting, we failed to get our act in gear and develop a way to keep eggs warm. Turns out that Papa’s full time job made things a lot more difficult to get done around the homestead than it did last summer when he was unemployed. And with a new baby it was more difficult for me to get outside. Excuses, I know.

On the other hand, we have a new outhouse, a new grey water leach field, the ground is broken for our new house, we’re currently revising house plans that the code enforcement officer is pleased with, book sales are raising money for house-building supplies, and we have a much more practical plan for achieving our goal of growing most of our food, hopefully to be set in motion in the spring.

In my January post I also said this year would be a year of growing roots, of getting past the moving stage and making this place our home. We went on vacation for a week in July, and when we came back we were all excited to be coming back to our camper. No longer did it feel like just a place we slept, ate, and played in, it was home. And it felt right. Despite the lack of tea, vegetables, and chicks, 2012 turned out to be a fulfillment of the label I gave to our feelings about home – we put down our roots, and they are set fast.

An old year is waning and a new year will begin tomorrow. Full of questions and unknowns, but we will stick together and thrive despite them. Let’s remember the wonders of our past, may they give strength and beauty to our future. It will be a bright one.