Friday, February 15, 2013

Looking Back...And Ahead


The purple crocus down by the creek have finally awoken to signal the earliest signs of a much anticipated spring.  We still flip-flop between cold, dreary and thunderously rainy days to warm, agonizingly bright sunny days.  Currently, it's one of those bright, sunny ones but with a forecast of snow flurries tonight.  Such is Alabama and all this does wonders for my sinuses and bronchitis, which is still clinging for dear life.
So, in an effort to cheer myself by looking at what all we've accomplished this past year and what I want to get done this coming year, I offer you the standard Blog Year in Review!

In the Garden:
1.  We established a sizable asparagus bed with 1 year old plants.  I'm really looking forward to being able to cut a few stalks this spring.  If it comes up, that is.
2.  I redid my existing strawberry bed with plants more acclimated and bred for our southern climate.  It shows some promise already.
3.  Established a small grove of tea plants.  They are still alive anyway and hopefully will show quite a bit of growth this year.
4.  Planted yet another apple tree to replace the one decimated by moles (or whatever) this past year.


In The House:
1.  As you may see in the photo above, all of the incoming power and cable/ Internet is now underground. Just so happened that the phone company came out the next week to upgrade things for us (no charge) and happily ran new Internet/ phone cable through that dedicated underground conduit.  Now there are NO overhead wires anywhere around the house.
2.  Installed new kitchen cabinets!  Yay!
3.  Installed duct work and electrical for range hood vent and completely closed up the dividing wall in the kitchen.
4.  Painted main kitchen wall and trimmed out all windows.
5.  Started wall covering on west end of kitchen.
6.  We finished the clerestory area of the house completely!!  Way, way overdue.
7.  Also finished all the painting/ siding and miscellaneous on exterior of the house.  Even installed the porch light fixtures.


Chickens/ Land/ Misc.:

1.  Added a bitty coop to the Big Run so batches of young chicks can be more easily separated from grown hens and have more room.
2.  Built a large wood drying and storage shed. 
3.  Established my pottery business to a greater degree by securing 3 more outlets for sales and enlarging my product line/ new glazes etc.
4.  Added to the landscaping by enlarging my daffodil and iris collections.

There may be a few other things that have slipped my mind at the moment but I think that is the majority of it.  Seeing how long this post already is (more stuff done than I thought!) I think I'll do a separate post on what we want to do this year.  Now, if I could just get well enough to work before any more of this year slips away!

6 comments:

Jenn said...

Fabulous!

JMD said...

I would say that is a very substantial list of accomplishments. Sometimes it is easy to lose track of what has been done when you think of all you want to do. Not that I would know about that. cough...

pamit said...

How about:
101. Kept blog readers interested and coming back for more!
102. Married a most excellent man / partner / helpmeet..!

MamaHen said...

Hey Jenn! thanks!

Hey JMD! thanks! yeah, it's always a lot more than you think when you list everything out like that and that's one reason I do it. I get overwhelmed by all I want to do and don't feel like I'm doing enough.

Hey Pam! well, i hope I kept ya'll interested. lol! And I really did start to list getting married, because for me, that is quite an accomplishment.!

HermitJim said...

Sounds to me like you got quite a bit done!

You two make a good team for getting things done. That's the way it should be!

MamaHen said...

Hey Jim! Yeah, once you list it all you can see it's quite a lot of stuff.