Looking Ahead to 2014

The new year is fast approaching and I have been thinking a lot about what I want for my future.  Ideally I would buy a few acres and start making big plans about how I want to use the land, but with out the land, no plans can be made.  So for now I just earn what money I can and set it aside for a later date when hopefully I can afford something worth while in an area that I like.

Many things have happened in the past few years that have brought my ideals into clearer focus.  I have learned that food straight from the garden tastes much better than food from the store.  I've learned that growing a large garden involves a lot of time and a lot of labor if you are doing everything by hand.  It has taught me a little bit about how much food different types of crops will produce on a given area, but even those numbers vary from year to year depending on the weather.  I have learned that I love to eat fresh eggs and that I love to watch the antics of happy chickens in my own backyard.  I wish that more people could experience that.  I have also learned to trust that I can preserve food at home and it will be just as good (if not better) than what I can get from the store.

I have also learned that I am getting too old to work myself to death at multiple jobs while still trying to maintain my hobbies.  Something had to give and it wasn't the hobbies - though they have been temporarily put on the back burner (I still think about them constantly).  I have been thinking through different ways that I could make a living from my hobbies so I wouldn't have to work so much at jobs that don't necessarily bring me as much joy.  Besides that, the jobs don't earn as much as they seem to cost me in terms of time and energy.  I still haven't figured out the logic behind working so many hours to pay for the roof over my head that I only use when I am sleeping (aka - not working).  Sometimes I think that long term camping doesn't sound half bad, that is until I think about wintertime and my pets (I don't think cats would take kindly to living in a tent.), and the fact that the forest service probably frowns upon turning the forest into a garden.

So this up and coming year of 2014 is going to be the year that I really put my nose to the grindstone and start this dream of mine that has been taking root in my head for years.  I am going to save the money, buy the land and start living the dream - no excuses and no looking back.