Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great Christmas. If like me you had too much to each and drink, then I’m sure you’ve made a new years resolution to lose some weight, or get fitter.
I like to set myself goals each year, and break them down into monthly to do lists so that I stay focused on my goals. When it comes to Self Sufficiency, I’ve set myself a number of goals this year. Having recently moved, we have a blank canvas when it comes to being Self Sufficient, so whilst we are well equipped, and have some skills, we have a LOT of work to do! It could easily seem overwhelming, hence the reason I set annual goals and break it down into monthly activities. I try to be realistic about what I can achieve in a month, alongside all my other commitments. Unfortunately, sometimes despite all best efforts “stuff happens” and you have to reprioritise. That’s life! The point is to have a plan and to execute it so that you get to the end of the year in a better situation than you were at the beginning. For our purposes, this means being a little bit more Self Sufficient each year.
I thought I’d share with you some of the goals we have for 2011:
Composting: I said, we were starting from scratch and we really are! We intend to get back to composting as quickly as we can, as it’s frankly scary how much waste we generate that could be reused in this way!
Establish the Vegetable Garden: This is the “must do” one for me! There is no existing vegetable garden at this house, in fact it’s pretty much all grass, which is good in some ways as it will hopefully make it an easier site to prepare. We’re planning to build raised beds and start off our garden this year as I’m really missing home grown produce right now! From experience I know not to be too ambitious and try to do it all in the first year, but I know I will get carried away with it!
Greenhouse: This is another thing I’m really missing at the moment, and as we do the garden, we will be adding a greenhouse this year, so that we can be as productive as possible. I’ve been toying with the idea of building one rather than buying a ready-made one, but I need to look into this further.
Heating & Hot Water: Realistically, this is a seriously high priority one. Our heating and hot water comes from an LPG fired boiler which looks like it’s older than I am (I’m sure it’s not really, but it’s clearly well past it’s sell by date). With the soaring cost of LPG (and oil, and most other fuels), we’re currently investigating what to do here, with a view to making some changes in the spring (I’d do it sooner, but given the recent spell of arctic-like weather, I don’t want to tempt fate too much!). I can see solar thermal and a Woodburner in our near future.
Chickens: We’d like to get Chickens onto the plot as soon as we can, which is one of the nicer goals that requires less “heavy lifting” on my part.
So these are some of the goals we’ve set ourselves this year, and they should make for some great opportunities to write, photograph and film for the website. As we go through the year, we’d like to add richer content to the site, and include more “How to…” articles, and share our experiences for the benefit of others. I hope you find those interesting. If anyone has any suggestions for things they’d like to see, we’re all ears.
On the subject of setting and achieving goals, I read something recently that reminded me of a piece of advice I was once given. “There are only so many hours in a week, a month, a year, or a lifetime. You can’t buy them, save them, or give them to someone else. Use them wisely”. Here’s to a happy a productive 2011!
