Happy 2013!

What does 2013 have in store for our little farm? Self reliance is the goal we're working towards this year. The ultimate goal of self sufficiency/ reliance is a step by step process and will take time to implement.

We're starting small with additions of things like rain barrels to water our garden and expanding our garden to avoid the grocery stores as much as possible. We plan on canning, dehydrating, and/or freezing any excess garden goodies. I've already made a big dent in cleaning out our huge chest freezer by canning everything from hotdogs (OMG they are so good!) to bacon and other meats to make room for more.

We're cutting back on our use of electricity this year in the hopes of someday adding solar power. Adding solar is pretty expensive so if we can reduce our electrical use dramatically we can accomplish several goals. It would cut our current electric bill and reduce the amount of solar power needed which reduces the cost of installing it. Slowly making our house more energy efficient by replacing windows, insulating better, etc are also on the "to do" list. The goal for the fiber studio building this year is adding insulation and solar heat.

Another small step we have just started using is composting. Since we're an alpaca farm we've always removed the poop from their immediate area and allowed it to slow compost. We've never attempted to speed up that compost time but that's in the works now. We have reduced the kitchen garbage bags headed to the local dump by filling a bucket headed to the compost pile instead. It is amazing how much stuff makes it to the compost bucket instead of the garbage bag now!

As you can imagine, self reliance/sustainable living takes time and hard work but the rewards are limitless. I will keep you posted on our slow progress and if you'd like to see/hear about some of the things we're doing in more detail make sure to comment below. I'd also love to hear any of your ideas (especially low cost ones) on how to be more self reliant in 2013.

Happy New Year!
Dawn