Farm Planning and 2019 goals…

I know it is the end of January but since I only blog every other week and I devoted the last blog to Mark’s 18th birthday, I am revisiting the yearly goals now…

Last year, I did make some goals for the farm.  You can visit the post HERE.  But here is a run down of the goals:

1. Fencing – not even started…but got the money saved up to begin!

2. Clean out barn – did clean out small things but LOTS of big items to discard still

3. Saving money for Mark’s chicken business – COMPLETED!  This was for a match for money that we can get from Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) to start a self employment business…now to “Start Mark’s egg business!”

4. Clean up dead trees – ongoing…I assume there will always be trees to clean up but I was hoping to really tackle a lot of the apple trees but it just did not happen.

5. Set up rain barrels – set up one made from a water tank but have lots more to add still.

So…I hope this doesn’t sound lazy but we are just going to keep working on these goals and I am going to amend Goal 3 to be “Starting Mark’s egg business!”   Mark and I had our first appointment with VR last week and have another appointment scheduled for this coming Friday.  We will probably call his business ReMARKable Eggs…

Now that we are working on starting Mark’s business, I had to get serious about the farm planning and deciding where everything will go.

I used this video to help me draw a “to-scale” drawing of our property on a marker board.

Here is a pic of our farm planning white board.  I know it is probably a little hard to see…it is not listed on here where the chickens will go but it is in the area south of the house.  The map is oriented so that the top is north…

This past fall, I went out where we are going to place the chicken/duck coops and measured everything.  Now, I am going to start placing flags out where the coops will go.  This is kind of the next thing on my “To Do” list so I haven’t got it completed yet. 

Then, once I figure out where everything is going, we will need to add a water line out to the area where the poultry will be.  We may not be able to proceed with the water line project until things thaw out this spring.  In the mean time, we will be working with VR to get partial funding for the coops. 

I also want to start working on making a small duck pond so this is another project that I will start in the spring. 

That is all…keeping this short and sweet.  Hopefully, we will soon have regular updates on getting the egg business going!

~Denise