Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Before we get too far, we want to give a shout out to Neta's cousin Pam Hagan King for the housewarming gifts she brought us just before the holidays, including this sign.  It was the first thing we hung up in the new house!

So true!

One year (and two days) ago, we blogged about Looking Ahead to 2016 and had a list of our Top Ten items that we wanted to accomplish.  They were:

1.  Finalize our house plans - Done
2.  Clean out both houses - Done
3.  Renovate the Cabin - Done
4.  Clean up/grade the yard around the cabin - Partially done
5.  Demolish the farm house - Done
6.  Build a new house - Done
7.  Buy a new tractor - Not done, though we did get the newer one running, but it now has a flat tire.
8.  Get the land ready for gardens in 2017 - Done, ahead of schedule as we had a garden in the spring/summer
     of 2016.
9.  Clear/Thin the Timber - Done/Done.
10.  Clear brush and small trees along the lane - Not done.

So we're 7 1/2 for 10.  Not bad.  I guess we get a C, though we're inclined to give ourselves a higher grade based on extra credit for knocking out the bigger and harder tasks.

We've come up with a new list for 2017 and in a year we'll look back and see how we did. The list for 2017 is:

1.  Buy a Tractor - Still on the list.  Along with the normal garden prep, we've also added clearing the debris from the timber operations.  We want to clean up some of those areas so we can plant (fruit and ornamental) trees around the farm.

It looks fun, but I need something flashier...with a front end loader.

2.  Finish grading the front yard of the cabin - While our builder smoothed out one load of dirt, we still need a bit more to fill in some low areas.  We'll also do some landscaping and plant some flowers and shrubs to "class up the joint".

3.  Clear brush and small trees along the lane - Even though it's officially a county road, we see it as our lane.  We want to clean it up and make it a bit nicer as you approach the house.

4.  Prune the grapevine and pull the vines from the catawba (catalpa) tree  - OK.  This isn't entirely fair, as we did this one today.  But it's been on our "unofficial list" for a while. The grape vine had been extremely overgrown for quite some time and was barely producing.  It had grown up into the catawba tree so badly it almost didn't look like a catawba tree anymore.  We cut every vine going into the tree and pulled almost all of them out, except for a few we couldn't reach.  (Clicking on each picture will enlarge it for better detail.)

BEFORE

AFTER

5.  Start our orchards - We have no idea how far we'll get this year, but we will at least get started.  We hope to eventually have apples, cherries, peaches, apricots, plums, persimmons and many other fruits.  We currently have two mango trees and one avocado tree that will need some help from item No. 8.

6.  Get our gliders refinished and on the front porch - We're going to see if a local body shop can sandblast them and give them a nice, long-lasting finish.  They'll make a nice addition to the front porch.  Perfect for evening relaxing.

Our two vintage gliders from a 2014 picture

7.  Build a farmhouse table for the dining room - If all goes well, it will be built with a combination of salvaged wood from the original house and some new wood where needed.

8.  Clean out the little barn, make it a workshop and add a greenhouse on the back - Big plans here!  There is a lot of work that we want to do to this building.  New posts on the overhang, new siding, new windows, new doors, electricity, add the greenhouse, etc.

9.  Plant a wildflower meadow - We did a small corner of one field last year as a test.  It worked!  This year we go bigger.  WAY BIGGER!!!

10.  Put up some bird and bat houses and bird/hummingbird feeders - With so many birds around, we want to do all we can to be good neighbors to them.  We have a nice purple martin house and we'll get more for other varieties as well.  We can't wait to see how many hummingbirds we can attract to our feeders.

This gives us something to shoot for.  We'll be happy with the same success rate as this past year, though if I don't get a tractor there will be a lot of sulking, pouting and...overgrowth.