My Goals for 2012

I tried to look for my 2011 goals so I could reflect on them, but alas, I've been a bad blogger this past year and I didn't even write a post about goals in 2011.  I guess you could say I accomplished all of them!

Well, I'm going to jump right into them since my first goal plays nicely into the above fact:

1. I'm going to be a better blogger.  I've set goals numerous times about how many times I'd post per month, or this year, or whatever... and I've never met them.  So this year, my goal is simply to be a better blogger.
2. I'm going to finally reach my target weight of 185, maybe even 180.  I started 2010 at 240+, started 2011 around 215, but made my way back up to 235-240 by August.  I finished 2011 around 205 though as I found a new way to think about food that has helped me a lot.  I think the remaining 20 lbs should be pretty easy to drop in the next year, and if I keep losing, then so be it.  You can read about my lifestyle change, and how I think it pertains to permaculture and homesteading over at my other blog, www.paleopermaculture.com.
3. I'm going to read 50 books this year.  I'll start by explaining how absurd that goal is, and then explain how I'll accomplish it.  Last year, I set the goal of reading 25 books, and I read a meager 11.  But moving to Olympia from Tucson, starting a new very demanding job, and meeting the love of my life all happily got in the way of reading.  This year, not only are some of those things settling into place for me, but I've expanded my definition of "book."  I've decided to count the novels that I listen to that are serialized into podcasts.  If I decide to restart my audible.com account (for which I have very little time I think, so it's unlikely) then I would count those too.  I also have started reading a monthly homesteading ebook that is roughly the size of a 20 page newsletter, but I'm going to count those as well.  My deciding factor is whether or not goodreads.com lists the publication.  If they don't it doesn't count, for instance they don't list magazines, so those won't count for me.  All in all, I'm probably cheating a little, but it'll help me read more in the long-run I think.
4. I'm going to keep trying to build passive streams of income.  So far, since I wrote a goal about that in 2010, it has amounted to barely more than $100.  But, I'm getting more and more ideas and (I think) more and more savvy about how to implement them, so eventually something might take off.  I'm going to keep at it at least.  To be fair, and set a concrete and measurable goal, I'm going to try to make $10000 in one month this year (counting my regular hourly job income and any other streams of income).  The sooner the better obviously, but even December would be great.
5. I'm going to keep plugging away at trying to grow my Land Fund.  Student loans, increased cost of living in Olympia, and eating healthier (which is unfortunately more expensive) have all eaten away at the expendable income I thought I'd have, so the Land Fund has been sadly forsaken.  If I can get passive streams of income working for me, they'll definitely get funneled that direction, at least in part.  You can always help too!  Click on the Land Fund FAQ page above and read about what it is and what I'll do with it.  
6. I'm going to try to pare down my belongings in many categories close to the bare minimum, such as clothes, stuff that lies around that I don't use much, even kitchen appliances.  I have some guidelines, such as "have I used this item in the last 6 months?"  If I haven't, I'm going to get rid of it.  Or try anyway.  Sometimes I have a sentimentalist attachment to something, or the homesteader mentality of "that could come in handy someday."  Unfortunately, until I have a place of my own with vast space for storage, those come-in-handy-someday items are more of a burden than a blessing.  So I'm going to work at donating, selling, or just recycling a lot of what I'm weighed down with right now.  For a little more thought on this, read my recent post on purging some clothing.
7. I'm going to spend more time outside.  I had some good adventures in 2011, but not nearly as many as I wanted to have.  Now that I'm a little more settled into the changes in my life I should have more time to get outside, both on wilderness-type excursions, and to do projects like gardening and other homesteady-type things.

That's all I have for now.  I know it's not very many, but I think that some of them are lofty and will require a lot of attention.  If I think of anything important to add, I'll update in this post or another.

Happy New Year, and thanks for reading!

Purging Some Clothing I Don't Use Anymore

Recently I've been feeling somewhat burdened with stuff that I don't use anymore... clothes, shoes, old gear, and other such things.  I've been itching to lighten the load a bit, but haven't found/made the time.  Last night, I finally committed, and packed up a bunch of clothes and some shoes to take to a donation center.

Some articles of clothing required a bit of thought before I tossed them in the donation box, but generally it felt good to drop stuff in there.  A lot of the clothes were things that are too big for me now that I've lost weight since going Paleo.  Dropping those items in the box felt like saying goodbye to the Kyle who needed to wear clothes that big for good.  I don't really care to spend my time or money shopping for clothes, so it gave me a small incentive to never let myself go that badly again.  Some of the other clothes are things that for one reason or another I hung onto, so I just got rid of them if I didn't see myself wearing them in the next 6 months.

I'm going to continue to purge other stuff in the coming days.  Perhaps even in the coming weeks.  It feels good to let go of things that others might find good use for that will otherwise be sitting on my shelf gathering dust.  I feel like it makes my life more nimble, and I also feel like I might be helping someone out who might need what I have more than I do.

The spark that lit this fire to finally donate/purge was the influx of items that came to me for Christmas.  I received a lot of really awesome gifts, but I had a little trouble finding places for everything without displacing something else.  I think after this purge, I might try to institute a personal policy that if something comes in, something else must go out.  Perhaps 2 things must go out.  For example, recently I've been thinking I'd like a messenger bag that fits my needs more readily than the big school backpack I have leftover from college.  But before I purchase the messenger bag, I think I'm going to try to sell my old backpack on craigslist or to a co-worker.  By the time I'm able to sell the backpack, I'll know for sure if I really want the messenger bag, or if it was just a consumerist impulse.  And if I really do still want the messenger bag after taking the time to sell my backpack, it'll make sure I don't start to collect stuff just to have it.  I'm excited to try this out and see if it results in leaning out my possessions to only things I use on a regular basis.

What do you do to keep your burden light?  I think that getting by with less can help you feel more free than if you have a bunch of stuff you never use.  When you have a bunch of unused stuff, you end up needing a bigger place just to store it (or a storage locker, which is a concept so ridiculously consumerist that I don't want to go into it in this post... but maybe someday).  But I wonder, why store it when you don't even use it?  Storage costs money one way or another, so it's almost like a continuous tax on something you've already payed for.  If you don't use it, why even have it? Do you agree, or am I just crazy?  Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts in the comments if you do, and thanks for reading!

Revisiting My Strategic Homesteading Goals: Productive Shelter, Part 1

It has been a very long time since I've written about my homesteading goals.  So long, that when I re-read the goals I put down in my first post and my post about My Homesteading Goals, I was amused by how undeveloped they were.

If you re-read the steps outlined in The Start of the Journey, you'd see that in my homesteading/permaculture naivete, I really thought that it could all happen that fast for me, even though I really had no money saved, didn't have a job at the time, and was planning on applying to a permaculture internship that was WAY over my head.  Needless to say, almost all of 2011 has passed, and none of those steps actually took place, other than working and saving up a little money, and practicing gardening (a little).  In many ways, I'm glad that things have happened the way they did.  I've had a lot of time to read about a variety of styles of sustainable living, I've met a lot of people who have shared many good ideas with me, and I have a career that is much more stable for achieving my real goals.

So what are those real goals, and how have they changed over the past two and a half years?  First, I want to revisit the goals I outlined in My Homesteading Goals post.  It was a relatively long post, as this is turning out to be, so I'm going to examine them one or two at a time.

1. I want a house on my homestead that is as reliably self-sufficient as possible. I want it to produce its own energy in the form of solar, wind, micro-hydroelectric, or any other sustainable technique. I want it to have the ability to passively heat or cool itself using good design principles tailored to that end. I want it to make the most effective use of its waste, such as recycling greywater, effective removal and treatment of black water, or using heat from cooking to heat the home during the winter. And the house itself should be some sort of producer, perhaps by incorporating an integrated food-producing greenhouse into the design, and definitely by capturing and efficiently using rainwater. To my knowledge so far, the best design for a home that meets all of these goals is an Earthship Biotecture as conceived by Mike Reynolds. Though it may not be the first structure I live in on my homestead, this is my ultimate goal for my house.

Well, the heart of my goal here has not changed.  I do want my house to be as reliably self-sufficient as possible.  Energy production will be an important part of what I'd like to have, though not in the way I was thinking about it over 2 years ago.  I've since learned that reducing my energy consumption will be far more valuable to me in achieving the liberty I'm looking for in this house.  In mid-2009, I was thinking I'd need your standard 5kW solar array, etc., in order to meet my energy needs.  Although I didn't know it at the time, I was on the right track with passive heating and cooling, because those would constitute a major reduction in energy needs.  But I was still trapped in the TV/washer/drier/lights/computers/etc. mindset, and thought I'd need the kind of energy used in a normal house.

I would now love to get to a place where a 1-2kW solar array was more than enough.  I would still like enough electric power to run a computer and the things that go with it.  I would still like some electric lighting, and a drip coffee machine, and limited kitchen appliance use.  But there are things that homesteading for a living affords me that I had not realized before.  When I am homesteading, I won't have an alarm clock to wake up to.  I know not having an alarm clock is not a big electricity saver, but it implies many things.  It means I'll be able to allow my body to find a more natural cycle in tune with the sun.  It means I won't use as much (if any) electric light on most nights.  Candlelight will be preferred above electric lighting anyhow, as it is much more natural and doesn't throw off your circadian rhythm the way electric lighting does.  I'll have the freedom to go outside, read books, play with my dog, play with the earth, and not try to be entertained by the television because it's dark outside by the time I get home from my job.

My need for a refrigerator will be reduced as well.  Eating fresh vegetables and herbs and storing produce in more traditional methods means not needing as much refrigeration to store them.  In fact, I can conceive of  a situation in which I could utilize a deep freezer, packed as full as possible for efficiency, for storing meats that I gathered from livestock or hunting and only a very small fridge that I use for limited amounts of dairy, butter, opened jars of home-canned goods, and a few bottles of homebrew.  This fridge and deep freezer would likely constitute most of my electricity needs.

I would like to eliminate the need for a washer drier by just having less clothes.  If I don't have a "traditional job" in which I need to maintain appearances by wearing a different set of clothes everyday, then I'd be much more likely to wear the same pair of overalls or pants for a few days in a row, switch out a couple of similar undershirts for a few days, and then wash the 8-12 or so articles of clothing (underwear and socks in there too, of course) by hand.  I've seen many neat contraptions that utilized a stationary bike to "power" a washing machine, and think I could rig up something similar, which would make my clothes washing bacon 'n' eggs powered!  (NOTE: I have yet to even attempt to convince my girlfriend of the virtue of less clothing.  I think I'll save this for when the time comes.)  Washing and drying by hand will save a lot of electricity.

With computers/coffee maker/limited electric lighting/freezer/small fridge taken care of with some possible combination of solar/wind/micro-hydro, and clothes washing taken care of by hand, that leaves heating and cooling as the only thing left to address on the energy side of things.  Here I again think I have a good solution.  But, I'm going to save it for my next post, because this one is already too long.

Come back soon to read Revisiting My Strategic Homesteading Goals: Productive Shelter, Part 2.  Thanks for reading!

Book Review: Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier

Back in April I was given the greatest gift I have ever received... The two volume set of Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier.  The books are written in textbook format and are formidable tomes of knowledge.  They contain a thoughtfully laid out and ecologically centered description of what a forest garden is, and how one can be designed and put to use.

I am slowly but surely making my way through these books.  As I do so, I am hoping to review each chapter and/or section of the book, not only to attempt to do a service to these fine authors and encourage the purchase of their books, but also to make notes for myself of interesting and useful knowledge that might come in handy in the future when I finally get my hands in the soil of my homestead.  These review posts may contain written out, descriptive-type reviews as well as outline/note-like information.  My main intention is to remind myself about key points I have learned as this subject is collegiate in its depth, and my second intention is to inform the reader of information contained in the book without plagiarizing the authors.  If you have interest in designing a forest garden, please purchase these books and support the great work these two men have done.

Lastly, some detail oriented information about these reviews.  Any post that contains a review will be formatted as follows:  Review of Edible Forest Gardens (EFG's): Volume # and Title; Part # and title; Chapter # and title, Section (such as Case Studies, etc., if applicable).   Additionally, I have as of the original date of this post (August 25, 2011) received no money or other incentive to review these books.  The information I present is solely because I feel like supporting these authors by getting the word out about their books.  If I am ever compensated for these reviews by the authors or publisher, I will disclose that in all future posts, as well as by editing this post to reflect that information.  Finally, I am an Amazon affiliate and will receive pennies on the dollar if you purchase these books via clicking on the link in this post.  I encourage you, however, to purchase these books from a local book dealer and support your local economy, or to visit the official website of these books, Edible Forest Gardens, and support the authors directly.