January 2026 Recap

January seemed to drag on, but here we are heading into the even longer month of February. This past month we were faced with bone chilling temps of -25*f . I feel like I would much rather deal with snow then those cold temps again. The new month isn't starting out any stronger in the temperature department, but we do have a LOT less snow than last year so far, even though we've had a fair amount. January we continued to try to sort out Emmetts illness. We haven't gotten very far, no horses were ridden, gardens were just buried in more snow. But despite there being more snow, spring plans are being made. Mapping out of the garden is happening. I have a dedicated graphing book for that.

This years garden will be done differently than any I have done so far. Last years winter destroyed half of my raised beds by collapsing the walls. So many of them were disassembled and then merged together to keep a few. Garlic and Shallots were planted this past fall . We also added more blueberry bushes last year as well, I am hoping they come back strong this spring. I've been doing a lot more reading up on the care that the blueberries need and I am feeling more confident in what I need to do with them. Last year we purchased a tiller for the back of the tractor, then tilled up a HUGE section of our yard to plant corn, unfortunately the drought killed it just as it wanted to pollinate. But, the field did produce beautiful stalks prior to the lack of rain. The fact that the corn did produce nice stalks showed me that the ground was going to be great for the garden I want to put in. So this years plan is to plant a little less corn and use half of that space for other vegetables I want to put in. We are also looking into how we can water this area without running our wells dry. We are fortunate enough that our barn and our house have separate wells. But with the lack of rain last year even our barn well went dry, which has NEVER happened in the 9 years we have lived here. Our house well also ran dry, but that's to be expected every year at some point. We have things set up much better this year for if the wells go out. I think that's the biggest thing we all need to take away from every passing year, lessons and improvements we can make to make the next season less stressful. I mean there's always going to be stress. But... what can you learn from it? How have you improved things at your home being it a farm, homestead or regular home? I love hearing all sorts of ideas if we can help each other to not have to experience downfalls why not share!