My 2012 Prepping Goals

Happy New Year everyone! Do you remember when you first heard about 2012 being such an ominous year? I do. I learned about the whole Mayan calendar deal from my seventh grade science teacher. Mrs. Spracklen delighted in sharing tidbits of knowledge that were either outrageous or disgusting. I still refuse to walk barefooted across the lawn because of her lesson on how hookworms get transmitted to humans.

Back then, 2012 seemed light years away and I couldn't fathom being 30+ years old. Of course I thought that anyone over thirty was over the hill. The intervening years melted away surprisingly quickly and I'm thankful that, although I'm now a prepper and presumably paranoid about such things, I'm not too worried that the world will end in December. I trust what Jesus had to say about this issue.

TEOTWAWKI, on the other hand, is a different story. There's been a few bits of positive economic news recently, but there is still the potential for a complete crash of our economy or some other mayhem. We continue to prepare.

My goals for 2012:

Homestead related:

1. Chickens!

• I ordered 17 chicks to arrive in March. We need to get a coop and finish building the chicken moat. I'm really looking forward to fresh eggs and (possibly) meat.

2. Gardening

• Hubby Dear and I have spent the last month pouring over seed catalogs and made our orders for 2012. We're going to be growing some of our favorite crops from 2011 with a few changes and new additions. We are growing more open pollinated, heirloom varieties this year. 
• We are also expanding our garden slightly as we work towards our goal of doubling our garden's size.

3. Composting

• We haven't really done much in the way of composting before. Our two existing pet rabbits plus the chickens we have coming will provide us a lot of manure that we can use to boost our garden's fertility. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock has given me a lot of ideas on how I can get the chickens do most of the work of incorporating kitchen scraps, garden waste, etc. into our garden fertility plan. 

4. Research other methods of adding fertility to our garden

• I'd like to learn about what cover crops I can use in a raised bed.
•  I'd like to plant comfrey, stinging nettles, and other dynamic accumulators. This is not only a wise practice for organic gardeners but it is also great for preparedness since it will make us less reliant on outside inputs into our garden.

 5. Continue to build our orchard

• We need to take care of our newly planted pecan trees. 
• We hope to plant apples, pears, blueberries, and hardy almond trees in 2012. We're going to try again to expand our raspberry and strawberry plantings after last year's plants failed to thrive. 

General Preparedness: 

1.  Finish getting the remaining odds and ends of food storage.

• We more or less have a year's worth of food stored. I have a few more items I need to add to our food storage. We will be replenishing our supplies as we use it.

2. First aid and hygiene items

• I want to finish our first aid preps this year (finally). I've got quite a bit of the basics, but we need both a deeper and broader base of supplies. 

3. Miscellany

• We will stock up on some of the basic tools and miscellaneous items we are missing - things like socks, work gloves, aluminum foil, etc. The Master Preparedness List from the LDS Preparedness Manual will be our starting off point. 

9. Add more books to our survival library

• In case you haven't figured it out by now, I like books. :) Information is important so I have an excuse to indulge my book addiction.  

7. Diet/Exercise

• I'm trying to attain a more healthy lifestyle. I have a thyroid disease which makes losing weight challenging, so I'm going to focus more on nutrition and fitness than on the scale.  

What are your goals for 2012?