Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year 2013!

You may have noticed a serious dearth in blogging going on around here. I can't say that I'm going to pick it up yet again, but I thought I'd post since I'm on vacation and have a bunch of free time on my hands. I recently shut down the blog for a spell, in order to remove some of the more personal posts, in case you noticed. I'm not sure if I got them all, but I felt a little too much like my panties were hanging out in the wind. So, if you go looking for anything family related on this blog and can't find it, there's the reason why.

What am I up to these days? Hanging out with the kids, working and squeezing in a little urban homesteading when possible. I'm still following the lifestyle I've discussed on the blog over the last 6 years, except for a few things I've gone back to. I'll post about the slippage later. But the big thing for 2013 for me is that I'm going to graduate school. Oh, and we are down to one vehicle (due to an irrecoverable car accident), which has proven a little challenging but we are persevering.

So, here's what's happening in 2013 in our place:

1. Graduate school - That ought to absorb most of my not-so-abundant spare time. I won't go into details because it's not pertinent to this blog, but suffice it to say, it's very technical.

2. Get some gardening help - I've had two bouts of serious back outages in 2012 and I'm not sure I'll be healed enough in time this year to do what I want. So, rather than injure myself again, I'm going to get some help digging up a few beds so I can plant on time. That much I can handle.

3. Get rid of the rats - For whatever reason, our chicken coop is attracting rats and we are finding them on the chicken coop roof and in our grill (WTF?). There's no external food source and they aren't getting inside the coop. I think it's the food scraps and poop that's causing the love affair.

4. Go in on a cow share - Our pig share in 2012 was a resounding success and, as we are on the last bits of piggy, I'm thinking forward to an organic, pastured cow.

5. Don't over-plan or over-commit - Since I'll be busy with school, I'm not going to over think too much this year with the garden. We have new neighbors who are planning on getting chickens and are doing some serious garden overhauling in their yard, so I'll have someone to share the insanity with. But, at this point, the new bed I put in before the fall will be about the only extension to the backyard. Primarily, though, this year I hope to actually plant some things. Last year was a big bust in that area.

One more thing. I asked Google to un-index my blog. So if you try searching this blog for something or on Google, it may come up empty. I suspect it will take a while to re-index all the posts that are left.

Happy new year! And, as always, you can find me on Facebook!

7 comments:

Frogdancer said...

It's funny. I'm blogging more now that it;s summer holidays and I have more time.

Good luck with the studies!

Farmer's Daughter said...

Happy New Year to you and good luck in grad school!

Svetlana said...

With your back being injured, you might consider lasagna gardening. Back to Eden has an excellent video on the method.

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking of removing the personal stuff off of my blog as well, which I know will take A LOT of time. I can only imagine what led you to pull the trigger on that here, and... well, yikes. Hang in there and good luck with school. Clearly we'll all keep checking in. :)

Anonymous said...

I have appreciated and respected people identifying themselves while posting personal stuff on their blogs, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. I'm anonymous (as much as that is possible these days) on my personal blog and have identified myself only on my word-related blog (my work) that has no personal content. Yet, I still feel a bit "out there," as you so aptly say. Good luck with everything (I really enjoy your posts).

Bucky said...

I was just thinking that I was missing you. And then, DAMN, if you don't post and tell us that you have forgotten us entirely.

Mas shame.

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