Looking Back on 2020 : What I Have Accomplished and 2021 GOALS

 

As the end of 2020 is approaching, I'm taking a moment to reflect on my year.  Thinking about my accomplishments, my failures, the lessons I've learned in the past 12 months, the status of the goals we had set for 2020 as well as a list of new goals for 2021.

At the end of 2019, my husband an I had agreed that we would put our house up for sale in the spring of 2020 and find a large land to build a homestead.  Unfortunately, we had to face two speed bumps at the very beginning of the year.  First, our house got hit by a snowplow during the night of February 14th to 15th, which led us into a dispute with our insurance company.  It was finally resolved right before Christmas.  And then, the worldwide pandemic situation...you know...2020!

But as disheartening as it started, 2020 actually turned out to be a good year for me!  I realised very quickly that we had been blessed with the gift of time and that I had to make the best out of it.  Keeping our homesteading goals in mind, I have been using this time to practice and learn new skills like gardening.  I also got to write more often on my blog and create YouTube content, which I really appreciate.

I started a blog and a YouTube channel
January 12th, 2020, I decided I wanted to share our journey toward homesteading.  I bought a domain and published my first blog post.  When we got locked down in march, I used that time to write more and started to think about what I wanted to do with my YouTube channel.  I really enjoy both these platforms because they allow me to express myself through creativity.  I have a ton of ideas for the year to come!

I made a sourdough starter and learned to make sourdough bread.
Last January, I also embarked on Heather's sourdough starter challenge (The Kneady Homesteader).  I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, to be honest, but I learned along the way, with all the other sourdough babies.  I've been making sourdough loaves ever since!

I learned new skills
This last year was a learning year for me.  In addition to bread baking and gardening, I learned new skills: harvesting wild mushroom, cutting my husband hair as well as my own hair, and making fermented food like sauerkraut.

I kept a huge garden alive
When I decided that I wanted to grow our own food, I started to read a lot and watched lots of gardening videos on YouTube.  We built a HUGE raised bed, we bought soil and I grew everything from seeds, except my cabbages.  I used to be very good at killing my plants, but not this year, my friends!  We harvested so many vegetables!

I canned more than 200 jars
I am pround to say that I canned: 48 jars of jam, 24 jars of pickled beets, 54 jars of apple sauce, 24 jars of legumes, 14 jars of vegetable stock, 7 jars of pickled carrots and 54 jars of salsa.  That is without counting the kimchi and the sauerkraut jars we have in the fridge.

I planted my cold crop vegetables at the wrong time in the season
Cabbages, Kale, Brussel sprouts, spinach and radishes are the vegetables that struggled in my garden this year.  I only now realise that it's because I planted them during the wrong growing period.  The weather was too hot.  I'm ready for spring!

I failed to bring my cat to the vet earlier
We've been noticing changes in my cat's habits and she progressively lost weight in the past year.  It was a big mistake to ''wait and see'' if she gets any better before consulting a vet.  Turns out she has diabetes and a problem with her liver.  Thank God, we decided to make an appointment before it was too late.  I learned you are better safe than sorry when it comes to the health of your fur babies.

I lost too many apples
We waited maybe a week too late to start harvesting our apples.  So when we finally got to harvest them, we had 120 pounds of apples laying in our kitchen.  Apples take so much time to peel and process!  I could only do so much in a day.  By the time I got all apples done, the third of them had had time to go bad, unfortunately.

In life, there is no waiting seasons, only preparing seasons
If you feel stuck between seasons of life, it's probably because you have some learning to do before you receive the blessings that you are waiting for.  Use this time to prepare yourself, so that you are ready when the blessing finally come.

Done is better than perfect
I used to think that if it couldn't be done in a perfect way the first time, it wasn't worth being done at all.  I've completely changed my mindset this year.  I learned that if I do nothing, I won't get anything, but if I do something, I will probably get something out of it.  

Do the best you can with what you have
I think this is the big lesson of 2020.  You should learn to appreciate what you already have and make the best out of it.

The big goal of 2021 is to sell our house and move to the country.  Ideally, we would be moving to our new property mid fall, just in time to plant our first bunch of garlic.  We would have the winter to figure out our garden plans for the next year.  Of course, we could hit a couple of speed bumps this year as well, but we have faith that our property will find us when the time is right.

My goals before the big move are to learn more about seasonal planting, grow new plants, save more seeds and start learning about medicinal plants.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Mel