I think the beginning of the New Year is perfect for the fourth principle. A look back at the previous year. What worked, what didn't. What tweaks in the system do you want to make? How is what you are doing serving the bigger picture and your goals? As I watched the birds flit around the feeders on an extremely cold January day I couldn't help but think about how climate change is one of the ways the earth applies this principle. Self regulation The last month has been challenging for our family. I'm not going to go into details but it's made me reevalute the next steps for the farm and specifically the CSA. A CSA can be a really lucrative, up-front income but it also requires a certain amount of knowing you can live up to your end of the bargain by providing your investors with a relatively good return. I'm not feeling so confident about that right now. I've only grown on this land for one year and we only just put most of the beds in place at the end of the season. I'm going to go with my gut this year and opt to delay the CSA another year. I will be at the Ridgeway Market on Saturday mornings and will use the website and a roadside stand to sell the produce I have available this year. This will allow some breathing room while we get the gardens more established. It's a gamble but I think it's better than leaving people feeling like they didn't get a good return on their investment if something goes wrong and we can't fulfill our committment to the CSA. This decision also follows another principle that counsels slow and small solutions. Building this garden farm slowly and thoughtfully is what I need to focus on. I tend to be impulsive and I'm trying to learn how to pull back and take my time Accept Feedback Accepting feedback can be really difficult but within every failure is a seed for success. You learn a lot more from your failures than your successes most of the time. I feel like I've failed a lot so I have a lot of seeds to plant. This winter is teaching me a lot about what I want to change for the chickens next winter. The hens have been doing really well even in this nasty cold and a rough start to the winter. Just as it was getting cold we lost one and there was a fight with another getting injured. The injured lady made it through and was back with the flock in a few days. Since then they have their pecking order in place. The older ones have mostly finished molting and the younger ones are still laying eggs. Even in the depth of the cold we are still getting 2 or 3 eggs a day. The ladies do not like the snow at all. They will not step on it if they can help it and we have had a lot of snow since the middle of December so they have been cooped up most of the time. I open the coop every morning just in case they change their minds. The warm few days we had and are having now have brought them out for some scratching. Yesterday I put a dry bale of straw in their yard, on top of the snow, that they happily scratched in all day. I'm sure they are as happy as the rest of us to see the end of January (they've been crossing off the days in their calendar) and hopefully we'll see some more eggs in the next few weeks. The rise in temparature coaxed the bees out for some "cleansing flights". Apparently they wait to have their bathroom breaks when they can leave the hive. They don't hibernate, they cluster together in the centre of the hive to keep themselves warm with the queen in the middle and feed off of their stores. Do you want to know a little more about Permaculture? A google search will give you loads to choose from but check out this link to the Permaculture Principles website. It will take you straight to the principle for today's blog and it's a great place to start if you want to learn more about this permaculture stuff.
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Hi, you should know that the link to the 4th principle on Permaculture Principles at the bottom of the post doesn't work, it should go to https://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_4/ but a space got added at the end, I think. I'm checking Permaculture Principles links (the site has been changed a bit) and ran into this, thought I'd let you know. All the best with the blog!
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JackieI'm a garden farmer, herbal enthusiast, motherwifesisterfriend and Archives
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