Accomplishments for 2010

As the year comes to a close, I, like lots of other people like to reflect back and see what I accomplished for the year and what I could improve on. Here are a few of our accomplishments for 2010.

1. I successfully raised 9 hens from one day old chicks. They are all doing extremely well and it has been quite the adventure. We built a chicken house and run in the spring with the help of friends and family. We have been getting plenty of eggs to feed our family as well as even made a few bucks selling the extras.

2. Even with all the rain this spring and summer our garden did really well. We fed our family most of the season with fresh veggies from our own backyard.

3. I was able to can quite a bit of fruits and veggies this year. My pantry is filled with canned corn, green beans, peaches, pears and applesauce that will last us the winter.

4. We had family raise us some meat chickens this spring and we took part in the butchering process. We filled our freezer with 14 birds and plan to do it again next year.

5. We have been taking steps to buy more locally grown foods. We attended Farmers Markets this year to buy what we couldn't get from our own garden and we purchased beef and pork from local farmers.

6. I have been making more food from scratch. This includes making my own breads and rolls now instead of buying it from the stores.

7. I am really trying to be more earth friendly and have started switching all of my cleaners over to homemade cleaners using everyday household ingredients.

I'm pretty happy overall with our accomplishments. Of course there is always room for improvement. I am working on a list of goals for 2011 and I'll share that with you soon.