2015

I thought it would be fun to look back on the 2015 year and see some of the highlights of our year.

This is a picture heavy post. I'm glad I take lots of pictures all year and have a blog to record all the fun, and not so fun, things that happen in our lives.
 
 Remember that time I lost my mind and decided to put together this huge puzzle? That was how our year started off. We glued that puzzle, framed it and stuck it on my boys bedroom wall.
 

I had my first article and more published in a magazine. I am still writing for the Molly Green Magazine, and I suggest that all homesteading/homeschooling people subscribe to it!

 
I painted my sons room the color of the ocean to go with his keeping fish obsession.

 We planted over sixteen acres of food plots for our 2015 deer season.  
 
 We started selling produce at our local farmer's market and had the worst garden growing season ever.
 
 We found our first decent shed on our property when we were shed hunting (aka looking for antlers that deer lose in late winter months.)
 
 
 We added this bad boy to the homestead and it has been a great investment.
 
 My nephew and my uncle got married last summer which meant two trips to Michigan to see our family and friends.
 
 

  
We planted three acres of non-GMO organic sweet corn to sell at the market and learned about picking sweet corn in Kentucky in July....
 
Of course you know that I filled my shelves with a ton of fruits and vegetables this year. Even though our garden did terrible, and I had to rely on my farmers' market friends to help me out, I still put away even more than last year. I took an inventory this year so I can compare it to following years and see how much we use. You can find that here. 
 
 After my husband lost his job at a company he worked at for twenty-two years, we splurged with his severance money and bought a small motorhome. We love to camp and we are so excited to start making camping memories with our son. We went to Jelly Stone park this past summer and he loved it and is already talking about going back again this summer.
 
 We also purchased a boat this summer and we are excited to be adding fish to our freezer from or local lakes versus buying from the store. 

 My son won first place in his homeschool co-op spelling bee.
 
 Unfortunately, we tore down the aquaponics system. With my husband's new work schedule he has to sleep in the basement and the grow light couldn't be on. We are thinking about building a cattle pin greenhouse and setting it up outside one of these days.

 
 We took some fieldtrips with our homeschool group.

Evan won some awards at our annual Tobacco Festival with Peaches again. He is getting quite the collection of awards with our fur baby. 

We started hunting other animals besides whitetail. Whitetails will always be our first passion, but my boys have started squirrel hunting and Evan has been going out turkey hunting. This is Evan's first squirrel.

Me? I turned thirty-nine in December and I have a lot of personal and homesteading goals I want to accomplish this year. It was a hard year with the transition of jobs, lowered income and not knowing exactly what our future was going to hold. We were worried we would have to move away from our homestead, but we made some difficult financial decisions and did what we could do to stay here.
 
 
Here is a wrap-up of things that happened this year:
 
1. We processed all our own venison this year and learned how to make summer sausage and meat sticks with our venison.
 
2. I canned and preserved a whole lot of food this year.
 
3. We started a produce and crate business.
 
4. We lost our income but found another job rather quickly.
 
5. I am really falling in love with essential oils and have started to host oils classes in my home. I plan to keep working on that this year and incorporating the oils more into our lives.
 
6. We had our best deer season ever in 2015
 
 
 
7. We bought a boat and a camper to start fishing and camping.
 
8. I started working with the Schoolhouse Review Crew and I am excited to see what homeschool products we will get the chance to experience this year.
 
9. I started to see some income from my blogging and writing. It is a very small income, but every little bit helps.
 
I am so appreciative of all of you who log onto the Facebook page everyday and take the time to check out my blog. Without all of you I am pretty sure I would have thrown in the towel, and trust me, I thought about doing it more than once.
 
Thanks for a great year! I will be posting our 2016 goals here within the next week. We have some exciting things planned for this year and I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us. Don't forget to enter into the drawing that I started the year out with. You can enter here.
 
Keep working toward your homesteading goals, my friends! I hope you keep dreaming of all the possibilities in 2016.
 
~Jenn
 
 



4 comments:

  1. Looks like a great year Jenn! I'm amazed at how many deer you got, that's such a blessing. Jeremy got 3 in our freezer and another for his parents. I love walking past the meat aisle at the grocery store and not having to stop. I can't wait to see what 2016 has for both of us!

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    1. Isn't it an awesome feeling to have your freezer and cupboards loaded with things you put up yourself? I am addicted to it!

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  2. Sounds like you had a very busy year! We're trying to decide this year if we want to sell our current home in town and move out to our land. Keeping up with a 3000sf house and dealing with RA is taking a heavy toll on me. Plus the added upkeep of hunting land and cabin out there is double-duty.

    Many blessings in the new year 😊

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    1. I have no regrets downsizing. It's one of the best decisions we have made. I can clean my whole house in less than two hours if I really buckle down and that's including mopping and scrubbing the bathroom.

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