Creating my 2015 homesteading goals

I am hard at work the past two days creating my homesteading goals for 2015. I had a good portion of them written down, but many more I needed to add.

I also decided I needed to organize the list a little more so it had categories, as well as for each “goal” it would detail the cost, effort, desired season, and if it was at the top of the list of importance or if it was just something I would desire to do this year, and OK if it ended up being put off till next year.

I have 10 pages written so far, and I fear much more will be added to the list… There are so many things I wish to put on the list but KNOW will not happen this year, so there is no point in even writing it on the list for 2015.
I know the first year is the hardest one to organize, plan out, reach those goals, but I am looking forward to it.

I also really like making lists…

I should also keep in mind this is 10 pages of goals relating to urban homesteading, so I have a lot of other “to do” or “goals” lists that are not related, or possibly related.

This homesteading goals list will also have sub-lists, especially for the medicine making portions, as I do not feel like putting in tons of lines. I will just make a separate list for the ones I know I want to make, so I can mark what I got to, and then add to it the ones I made but did not plan to make.

Right now my categories are as follows:
The ground
The garden
The seeds
Projects
Blogging, writing, and paper projects
Community immersion
Inside the home
Skills to learn

Once I feel content with it (hopefully here soon) I will post it up so you can see what I have on my list and how I laid it out.

Anything I do not accomplish this year from the list will either be scrapped altogether or moved to next years list.

Tending to the garden

We all know gardening is both a joy and hard work. One thing that I have struggled with lately is getting my garden watered properly while I have been sick with a cold.
My husband will help me water it from time to time, but not always.

Since the hose burst, it has to be done by hand, which means many trips to the spigot. It is a bit harder on my body while I am not feeling well than using a hose would be. Being so close to the end of the season, I had decided not to buy a new hose until next year.

I am still watering my garden, just not as often as I would like. I had hoped the rainy days would continue but of course during this time the temperature decided to heat back up again.

I would have put wine bottles into the ground but the water would have dried up within a day I am sure, and I would not have been able to refill them so easily without the bottom being cut off. Usually it is a battle of spraying the dirt out of the neck before refilling. Seems like more of a hassle to refill bottles that are not cut, than watering the garden by hand.

Sadly I do not have a self watering system in place for my current garden, but I do hope to implement one next year if possible. Doing so with a larger garden would make things a lot easier. Even if only part of it  is self watering through watering wells, pots, etc, it would help take off the load.

I have a sprinkler system in my back yard, though it does not reach the slope. I do not see a drip system being possible for next years plans so I am coming up with other ideas like wicking beds and such.

Some of the tomato plants look a little wilted but are otherwise fine. I see a little acorn squash growing, though no others for pumpkin or butternut yet. The zucchinis are doing great. Most of the beets are growing wonderfully. Peas/beans are flowering.
All in all my garden is doing just fine despite lack of the proper watering.

I have still been able to water my indoor plants. My ginger is really taking off. Lettuce seems a bit hard to grow indoors. I wonder if the temperatures fluctuate too much for the little lettuce heads. Either the heads die off or start to bolt. I think it just gets too warm and our AC unit has problems keeping the place cool even with the fans going.

Watercress has died off but I do believe I was able to get a few seeds that will hopefully germinate later.

I started a mushroom growing experiment. I took the stems of two types of mushrooms, button and the brown topped ones I can never remember the names of, and put them in some moist soil. I have them in my crafting room on the windowsill in 2 liter plastic bottles with a big hole in them.

They appear to be decomposing, which I am not sure if that is part of the re-growing process or if this is a failed experiment. I read somewhere that you could grow them that way but I am not so sure as of yet.
I wanted to try growing shiitake mushrooms but those are hard wood mushrooms I believe, which means they grow on decomposing logs, not in soil.

In any rate if it does not work I will most likely get a mushroom growing kit in the future.

As for the outdoor garden area, I will give it lots of love via coffee, tea, and other yummy things as a thanks for their patience with me while I am ill. I have already put a little coffee out there for the squash.

Whenever I make coffee I make just a little extra that goes into a cup that I put into my garden later. I also save the grounds as well as you already know.

Thankfully even with as bad as I have felt with this cold, I can tell it will not last as long as others have. A testament to what good herbal remedies can do for ones body.

Bringing the essence of the woods to me

I know a lot of people who suffer from depression, anxiety, social anxiety, fear, stress, migraines that are triggered by the above at times. I am one of those people.
While it can be hard to talk about at times because I know I am not weak, but while it is happening the feeling is that of helplessness. Also for me acknowledging it verbally is, well it is not something I generally like to do. It is as if I accept defeat by acknowledging it happens. I am a fighter and not one to lay down and roll over accepting defeat.

I have tried lots of herbal remedies for the above in single and multi herb blends. I have also tried vitamin, naturopathy, just not prescriptions. I refuse to take those particular prescriptions as I usually end up experiencing any and all bad side effects with prescriptions. I have taken prescriptions for migraines but they never showed any positive result, so I stopped taking them.

I was doing more research on the subject tonight and I was feeling frustrated that all I was seeing were all the herbs I already know and have tried.
Now this is not to say that some of those might not work for some people, but if you are like me at all, taking a sedative herb like passionflower, whether it calms your body down or not, your mind is what keeps you awake. Basically I end up laying in bed tired as all hell with no chance of falling asleep.

Some herbs help mildly if I happen to have them at the very beginning of that off feeling I get before something comes at me full force.

Most don’t even take the edge off. I would not accept that I have to live this way.
Everything could be fine and I could feel down or have a panic attack for almost no reason. It is scary to have something like that happen and not have a definitive reason for why you can’t stop the hurt feeling in your chest. I usually chalk it up to being stressed for too long and it finally catching up with me.

I am explaining this because I had an interesting thought… One I cannot wait to test out my theory on.

I was reading this article. Don’t ask me which because I read far too many tonight to even begin to remember… And in it this guy was talking about how a lot of peoples stress, depression, anxiety is caused by modern urbanization. This made a lot of sense to me.

One of the few places I am almost never stressed and feel my best is in nature, in a forest, by a stream, on an ocean shore, in my garden. I am not the only one. It is quite known that taking a walk through nature is a stress reliever. 
The writer goes on to talk about how people in more simplistic communities, such as the Amish, who don’t do things quite the same way, tend not to have as much of a problem with stress, anxiety, or depression.

I realized that yes, my fears also can drive depression, attacks, etc, but one common thing with almost all of these things is a feeling of being disconnected. Either disconnected to myself, others, my surroundings, a situation… Just over all feeling disconnected and not knowing how to feel connected and grounded despite meditation and will of mind.

After reading that article, which was very brief but really sparked some thoughts, I decided to go about this whole thing a lot differently. Or at least give it a try.

I am always talking about how I need to go out into nature more, or how I need to go forage, how nature is my sanctuary… A big problem is that aside from the occasional hike, or watering my garden, it is not enough for me. I just desire to be out tromping in the woods more than some might.
Knowing that it helps but also knowing I cannot get out in nature as much as my mind and body would like is frustrating to say the least.
Everyone *well, most everyone* has to work, has responsibilities, and other things that will take up most of their time. You can’t just do whatever you want to do every day of the year. You have to plan things out and sometimes plans fall through.

This is what got me thinking. Understanding what causes my triggers, and what helps keep them at bay, I came to an interesting thought. What if I had been looking at this herbal formulation the wrong way? None of those herbs quite do the job that are commonly used for stress, depression, anxiety… If the forest works for me, which is also probably why I am growing things inside and out… How can I bring that feeling I get when I walk through a wild landscape with me when I am in a urban concrete environment?

So this time when I am experimenting with a new herbal aid for these things, I will be trying to use ingredients and scents most commonly found in the woods. Try to bring the essence of the forest to my senses and see if it actually helps more than previous failed attempts. Honestly of everything so far, in theory this makes the most sense to me.

So now I have to come up with a list of (obviously safe to ingest) things to gather from the woods for my next herbal formulation. It needs to be well rounded and may take some time to mull over. Replicating some scents will not be easy as I will not be putting dirt in my herbal remedy laughs but I will do what I can to bring the essence of the forest into a little herbal concoction, smell or no smell, that will hopefully have the intended affect.
I also need to decide upon the type of preparation for the blend i.e tincture, syrup, lozenge, tea.

I will most certainly be needing to go on another wildcrafting adventure to gather fresh supplies for this once I get a list down.