INTRODUCTION
Homestead Roots Newsletter - 1/9/2025

What a whirlwind the holidays were! Ingrid and I watched a YouTube video last night that was filmed before the holidays. I expressed to her that it kind of made me sad, thinking that now the holidays are done. Those days and weeks leading up to the holidays are some of my favorite. I can't even really pinpoint why, there is just nostalgia around the family getting together, tucking into old traditions, eating good food and all the rest.

2024 really was a great holiday season for us, we had special time with friends, our big family and our own little family. We got a last minute snow which meant a white Christmas and all that magic. We celebrated the birth of Jesus with our big family at the church I grew up in. Christmas eve was in Hudson with my family, and we then traveled to Ingrid's family for Christmas Day and a few days following.

And now here we are! A new year and new goals and challenges. At the Barlow's we are working to eat a little better, mainly cutting out dessert from every night to once per week. The kids are devastated but we told them the longevity of their parents depended on it and they seem to have come around. Generally we eat pretty good, whole foods from our land, nothing really processed, but the sugar is our weakness and we have kids who love to bake. It feels good to make a positive change.

My first newsletter went out last year on January 18. I had really no concept that I had been writing that long! I enjoy sharing what we have going on and like the process of writing. So onward we go into year 2. I am thinking 2 emails per month is my sweet spot.

So enjoy this first email of 2025. Hope you had a blessed Holiday and New Year.

HOMESTEAD UPDATE
More Wood Splitting, Getting Goats Bred, Moving Logs and Indoor Projects

On the homestead we've got a few projects ongoing. We continue to slowly work through our wood pile, getting wood split and stacked in the woodshed. It finally looks like we are making a dent in our big pile of cut logs, which feels good.

We had some challenges this year with getting our does bred. It was tough to find a buck for them. Just in the nick of time a friend purchased a new buck and so our does have been at her farm hanging out with the buck for the past few weeks. Here is hoping they come home bred and we have some babies this spring. We are certainly missing the goat milk but have found a few sources for raw cows milk that we hope to continue to take advantage of.

A big project on the list is to do some tree cutting and log dragging. I have a large area of pasture that I want to clear on our property. It is currently densely populated with red pines about 8 inches in diameter. There is a LOT of material there. My plan at this time is to cut down the trees leaving the stumps behind. We will buck the trees into manageable lengths and pile the brush out of the way or for burning. I would then like to rent an excavator sometime this spring or summer to dig out the stumps. When I consider the work I think back to the pioneers who did this same work with horses, saws and axes. YIKES!

I am still working to clean up a hillside I cut trees on last year. I have a handful of logs remaining on the hill that I couldn't access because it was too steep. A friend hooked me up with a long length of cable with hooks that I hope to use to drag the logs out. I will then use the grapple to haul the logs to the pile. The hillside will hopefully be burned this spring and then planted with some pollinator habitat. It should be quite the project. I will keep you posted!

Lastly we are working on a few indoor projects as well. I am finishing the trim around a skylight installation in our living room, and we have some finishing to do on other trim pieces in the house. I've promised Ingrid a new kitchen sink at some point. And both Bergen and Ingrid are hoping for a few more bookshelves. We will see what we can get done!

MARKET GARDENING
Back to Work!

After a nice quiet couple of months we are now back on the grind thinking about and working on the garden. Step 1 is just working to remember and record notes from last years growing season. What worked, what didn't work. What seeds should we repurchase and what can be left behind. After this process we will start planning out this years garden and getting our seeds ordered. The first seeds will go into trays in early March!

Timing is such a challenging aspect to our business. When you are hoping to get 3 and sometimes 4 crops into a bed each year, if one of them takes longer than usual or the timing gets off it can throw off the whole system. As we work to intensify our gardening practices we ran into quite a bit of that. So we will try to adjust our plan.

One of the lightbulb moments for me is that we need to find ways to succeed outside of the weather. You just can't sit and wait for rain. You have to build a system that works whether it rains or not. Obviously there are things outside of our control here but our growing practices need to be successful no matter what conditions we have. That means using our tunnels and irrigation wisely.

Two big changes for us this year that hopefully make a difference will be our use of a germination chamber and the potential of receiving a new tunnel. The new tunnel will give us more covered growing space and a space outdoors to safely start seeds and tend to baby plants. The germination chamber will help us get our seeds to pop on a more consistent basis. More and more we are finding the importance of having good germination. This chamber should take some of the guess work out of the process. There will for sure be a learning curve. We should know if we got the high tunnel grant in February. Then we just need to get it put up! We are praying for a nice early spring.🙂

FINANCES
The Importance of a Good Plan

My friend Diego at Modern Grower posted a solid video this past week about financial planning for market gardening and really any business. He included a lot of the stuff he and I have talked about on his podcast in the two episodes I have been on. The importance of having a good plan, financial security and realistic expectations are all super important before you take on a new venture like a garden business, homestead or any other business.

If any of those three items (among others) is out of whack it can leave you with a tremendous amount of stress and worry. It is hard on marriages and kids and can literally tear families apart. In my opinion NONE of that is worth it. But... with a good plan, a big chunk of savings (or a partner who is working), and realistic expectations, starting a market garden or business can be the greatest gift to your family. There is just so much freedom in being an entrepreneur. Working for yourself is one of life's great pleasures. And if we are talking about market gardening there is also the fact that you are feeding people good food, working outdoors, and meeting new friends.

Here is a link to the video from Diego: https://youtu.be/buPwDwG_aKM?si=QqHC-bbkuyYQUWL2. It is definitely worth watching, even if you are well on your way in business. If you are dreaming about a farm business this video will help you get prepared. It is very detailed but there are a ton of good nuggets.

CLOSING
Life Update

2025 is shaping up to be an interesting year at the Barlow house! Most notably early this year we are navigating work changes for myself. The desk job I have been holding down over the years has cut me back to half time. That of course means less pay, but it also means less hours. Which means more hours that I can put in to things like this newsletter, our garden business and other fun related things we have been planning. The challenge of course is that the fun things (like this newsletter) just don't pay.🙂 So I am wrestling with how to best use this new found time. Is now the time to transition away from desk work and into the farm work and all that goes with that? Or should I commit my time to doing more freelance work that pays better but also keeps me chained to a desk. It is something we are praying about right now. We have both financial goals and business goals that conflict a little bit. In the end we feel very secure financially based on working hard to save over the past several years. So while we have some decisions to make we aren't feeling a ton of stress or pressure. We are leaning into God's plan for this next phase and looking forward to it all.