It is just a time marker, I know, and nothing more dramatic than that, but I am well in the habit of using it for the sake of making progress and moving forward, and sometimes just putting things behind me. While 2020 has had more than its share of horrors, it has had its pleasures, too. This year started with my sister-in-law out here visiting us from the UK, and while things quickly deteriorated with the advent of Covid just as she departed for home, we never did suffer too much personally. I cannot pretend that 300,000 people in America alone has not had its affect. After all, I am not heartless. That is horrible! 300K, and that is with some efforts to stop it spreading! What could it have been if we threw caution to the wind and just let Covid have at it? That said, is many ways 2020 has been our best year yet as a family. Having to lock down and stay close to home all year had little effect. In fact, for us, it was more like others were getting into the groove of doing what we already were. We already were in love with online grocery shopping, and not having to walk around the store for hours fighting with the kids over what goes into the basket, and not taking things we see just because we saw them. We were also already home schooling our kids, and have been doing so for many years. The world seemed to have tumbled into the niche we were well established into.
Now the new year has started and the world is looking at getting vaccinated and reestablishing normal and we are making our plans for the year to come. We have a lot to fix on the house still in order to improve our return on it if we ever decide to sell it. It is a beautiful old house, and I would hate to see it lost to the wrecked hulks that have been falling down in our community around us. This place has stood an hundred years, nd could easily stand another if we can get a few things fixed. They are big things, though, including foundation work. There are things we will do ourselves and things we will hire out for, and part of this is determining which is which, and what other investments such as tools we will get to do ourselves and save the money which will set us ahead on the tools.
Missus makes a decent salary, and we have seen the fruits of it this past year more than any in our time together. We have some more picking to do if the tree is still bearing fruit.
That said, we are still do-it-yourselfers. We still like to live fairly cheap in order to live as well as possible on what we have got. It just has happened that this year past we have had a few more things new rather than all used or barely gotten.
So, nothing profound to start this year, and only a small set of specific goals. Most of those goals are setting up workshops for Missus and Me, and getting my tractor to do a load of work around the house and daily chores, and a bit of farming across the street. We will be rearranging our animal and livestock situation to be more specific to our needs and less of a run amok farm. I have got to get water supply out to the farmyards because bucket carrying in the winters sucks bigtime, and I am not getting younger. If I get a wood mill and continue to have access to the free wood I have been getting, I would like to start milling our flooring this year. That is an ambitious one, I know. But there are a lot of other things I could use a mill for, too. I have woodsheds that need putting up, and I would like to build some furniture for the house. I turn fifty this year, and still have some good working time in me, so I would like to accomplish some things with it. And these are things that have been put off for too long. I have some ideas that I would like to work on on the spare bits of the pasture, too, to make the place look better and to give us a place to be in nature. And most of that work will be just diesel fuel. Well, and some scissors to take cuttings for replanting.
Always moving forward. Always, always. Happy New Year!