Writing '2022 feels odd', but time marches on.
Come March, we will be entering the fourth year of working on our property. It is hard to believe how quickly the time has passed, and what we have been able to accomplish. With the start of the new year, it is time to think back on what we have done, and look forward to what we want to do in 2022.
The first year was the Year of the House, with a focus on updating the 1980s-era home. In the second year, I wanted to spend more time outside the boundaries of our driveway, so that became the Year of the Land, exploring the woods and fields, looking for morels, making maple syrup, and inoculating oak logs with shiitake mushroom spawn. Last year was the Year of the Garden, well-suited to another year of pandemic, where we built much of the planned garden and grew enough food to eat, preserve, and share. There has been a lot of overlap from year to year among projects, but having a yearly theme has given us something to plan around, create focus, and celebrate.
For 2022, we created a theme that will help us move projects forward, transition from two households to one, and continue to build our homesteading skills. Next year will be the Year of the 'B'.
The first of our 'B' projects will be wrapping up our basement bathroom. I have been ordering materials for the shower, which is the last item awaiting installation. I am also waiting for Menard's to restart their '11 percent' off promotions to pick up a few other things for the project.
While we could jump to the second bathroom for our next project, I think the next 'B' themed project will be the basement. Once the basement bathroom is done, I can put shelves up on the sides of the walls outside the bathroom. That will allow me to start organizing tools better, and also to start bringing things from our Milwaukee-area house. We want to eventually sell that house, but we have to continue emptying it out, which we cannot do until we have places to put things. A section of the basement is finished, but needs new paint, light fixtures, and flooring, like the rest of the house did. I picked out new light fixtures at Menards (pending 11 percent off sale), and still have paint from the upstairs projects. The biggest hurdle will be moving stuff around to make room for painting and removal of the old linoleum floor. If we can get the floor out by April, we can take it to the first of the biennial town dump days.
Because we want to continue with outdoor projects, our last 'B' themed task for the year will be...bees. I bought a starter hive from Mann Lake during their Black Friday sales event, and have been purchasing beekeeping odds and ends for a couple of years. We attended UW-Extension's urban beekeeping class several years ago and have the suit, hive tool, smoker, and course material from the class. We follow a couple of Wisconsin beekeeping groups on Facebook, and recently saw a post from Kruse Farms in Hillpoint selling nucs for $160. I sent them a check, and will be picking up bees in late April. That gives me 4 months to assemble the hive and build a stand. This will be our first 'livestock', although bees are supposedly considered wild animals and not domesticated like chickens.
Hopefully we will be able to continue to put the pandemic in the rear-view mirror next year. If nothing else, we will have honey to make it a sweeter year.
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