I’ve never been in to making New Years Resolutions, but this year we have decided to make some goals for the farm for this year.  Julia and I went to the temple with our ward today so on our drive up, we wrote down some of our goals for this year.  Will we get them all done?  I hope so!!  We’ll be working towards these, and in a year we’ll check back and see how we did.

1. Put in a Garden – We are looking forward to finally having a garden.  Since we were first married we have wanted to have a garden.  While I was going to school, this was not possible living in Married Student Housing.  In Corvallis, we had about 3 sqft of ground to plant, didn’t happen.  In Phoenix, well, it’s Phoenix, not much gardening for us going on there.  Back in Eugene, the deer were not very helpful, but we did container garden on our deck.  We have already started getting the garden area ready.  We have been starting to compost the alpaca beans in the garden.  We’ll start figuring out what we want to plant soon and get our seed from Territorial Seed here in Cottage Grove.  We’ll then start planting in our green house, and we’ll be on our way.
2. Build Layer Chicken Coop – I’ve decided where I am going to build the chicken coop, in the old shed, in the back.  That way the chickens will have a large protected run, and still have access to the pastures when I want them to.  I have ordered the chickens and will be getting them as day old chicks in February.  I’ll need to get the coop finished by the time they are around 5-6 weeks old so I have about 2 months to get this done.  I have ordered 3 Buff Orpingtons , 3 Silver Laced Wyandottes , 3 Golden Laced Wyandottes & 3 Welsummers .  I’ve ordered them (and borrowed the pictures) from Lazy 54 Farm in Hubbard, OR.  Great hatchery, good people.  Use them if you are wanting chickens!!  We should start getting brown eggs (from light brown to very dark brown) around July.  I’m looking forward to farm fresh free range pasture raised sustainable cage-free eggs! 
3. Build Chicken Tractors – We are looking to have pasture raised chickens and turkeys this year.  My goal is to have at least 50 broilers, and 10 turkeys.  We’ll get the Turkeys in May to raise for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We’ll get the chickens in June or July and raise them for about 7 weeks on pasture in chickens tractors (so I have until about July to build them).  I’ve thought about Salatin style tractors, but I think I like hoop houses better kind of like Robert Palmondon does at Norton Creek Farm near here in Blodgett, OR.
4. Attend/Enter 3 Alpaca Shows – We want to attend at least 3 alpaca shows this year.  The ones we are thinking about are the EVAA Alpaca Marketplace & Fleece Show in Eugene, OR, Alpacalooza in Puyallup, WA, the CABA Classic Halter & Fleece Show in Portland, OR, or AlpacaMania in Medford, OR.  We also want to enter our fleece in to at least three shows.  We don’t know what shows yet, but with Spin Off’s, we can enter across the country.  So we are now working on deciding what ones we are going to do.
5. Visit 3 Fiber Mills – Julia would like to visit at least three fiber mills to see where we would like to send our fiber this year, and to learn more about the process.
6. Neonatal Class – We want to attend one alpaca neonatal class this year before our babies are born.  We have about 6 months to get this one done!
7. Get a Tractor – A real tractor, one with a bucket and a brush hog.  We need to get a tractor.  This will be one of the hardest this year because it is financial, and not just something we need to do.  We at least need to get a riding lawn mower so we can mow quicker and use it to tow our wagon around the farm.  We don’t need a big tractor, just one that will turn compost, clean out the barn, haul stuff, pull stuff, and load stuff.  We’re not picky!
8. Build a Whizbang Garden Cart & Plucker – I have gotten plans to build a Whizbang Garden Cart and a Whizbang Chicken Plucker from Herrick Kimball of The Deliberate Agrarian.  I should be getting the plans in the next little while.  I’ll be blogging about building these, so watch for this.
9. Build Road to Back Pasture – I sort of talked about doing this in my blog post It’s Getting Cold.  I want to build a road from the front of the property to the back of the property so we can drive down the side and get vehicles to the back of the property to pick-up and take animals back there, and whatever else is needed.
10. Run Water To Barn – I want to get water IN the barn.  Currently, there is water in the backyard NEAR the barn, and we have to run a hose in to the barn to get water to the alpacas.  I want to run water down the back of the barn and have a water spigot in each stall in the barn.  This shouldn’t be too hard, just manual labor of digging the trench down the back of the barn and then running pipes down and putting in some no-freeze spigots or in the future automatic waterers.
11. Make Compost Bins – We have started our compost piles, but they are out in the open getting too much water and not composing.  We have some bins we need to build and get using.  We are going to put them by the greenhouse so the compost is more useful.  Julia has some easy plans that I’ll get building soon!! (I hope!)
12. Farm Days – We want to hold 2 Farm Days this year.  Last year we participated in the National Alpaca Farm Day and had a great time.  We would like to do this again this year in September.  We would also like to hold one early on in the summer maybe when we have new babies to show off.  So be watching for our Early Summer Farm Day and come out and visit the farm.  (Ok, you can come out whenever you like so just let us know when you want to come out!!!)
13. Build a Fire Pit – We want to have a fire pit this summer so we can sit out back in the evenings and have a fire to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows.  Nothing fancy, just some rocks, logs and a fire.  This is something the girls have been asking for, and it is something we could use year round (not daily in the winter, but on dry days!)
14. Build a Skirting Table – This should be easy!  We need a skirting table to skirt (clean and prepare) the fleece to be sent off to be processed at the fiber mills.  I’ve thought about building my own, but I think I’ll just build this Skirting Table from Quality Llama Products in Lebanon, OR. 
15. Start a Monthly Movie Night – Ok this one really isn’t farm related, but it will happen on the farm!!  Last night Georgia had some friends over to watch movies, and we all had a great time.  Julia and I were talking on our drive today how much fun it was, and that we would like to do it monthly.  We’ll let each girls choose the movie they want on their month.  The girls will be able to invite their friends over, and we’ll just have some snacks and enjoy a good movie!  I’m looking forward to this!

There are our goals.  We hope to get all of them done, and we’ll work towards all of them, but if we can get most of them done, we’ll be very happy!!

So, anybody have a tractor we can have?