Six changes for 2025

Hello or maybe I should say happy new year. In my mind I keep thinking goodbye chaos 2024. Hello calm simplified 2025. At least that’s what I’m going for in 2025. More simplicity, back to nature, and more simplicity. It’s time for us to downsize just just a little bit. Today I’m going to tell you several things that we’re going to be doing this coming year and why.

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What I’m changing for this year.

1. Simplicity: Switching Wheat to Einkorn Wheat and Flour

The first thing that we’re doing for simplicity is our wheat. Over the past thirty years, I’ve been grinding wheat. I buy wheat berries and we grind them. We make cakes, cookies, breads, etc. This past year I started messing with Einkorn wheat and flour.

I’d like to announce proudly that we’re only using Einkorn wheat from now on for several reasons. No, none of us have a gluten intolerance. Yes, I have been tested because when you say you don’t have a gluten intolerance people say are you sure? The norm seems to be that everyone thinks everybody has a problem with gluten. No, we don’t. However, I started looking into Einkorn wheat. I began reading more and more information about it, which also gave me some ideas about simplifying and how nature really really knows best.

I bought this book “Einkorn: Recipes For Nature’s Original Wheat”, by Carla Bartolucci, the founder of Jovial Foods. I love this book. It has great information, is easy to read, plus, buy weighing I can convert recipes easily to full whole wheat fresh ground Einkorn berries.

The book also has information on sourdough, which is another thing we are changing. I’ve been getting away from yeast all year because my yeast no longer is just yeast. It has three ingredients now and two of them aren’t necessary. This year I’m learning to be better at sourdough. I still have some yeast left, so there’ll be some yeast breads. However, I am not making sourdough bread and using the sourdough or wild yeast as my yeast to replace store bought yeast.

I am trying my hand at sourdough now with some success. Our sourdough pancakes have been turning out really well. The loafs of bread need help, but we’re going to get better and we’re going to get better. Now that I’ve gotten used to the feel of Einkorn and I’ve fallen in love with how Einkorn bakes, moving forward with sourdough is getting easier and easier.

Einkorn is a whole different wheat, but one of the things that got me thinking was from this book, and I want to read it to you. Not the whole book, just a few lines. It says all wheat is descendants of wild Einkorn, but wild Einkorn has not been messed with. It only has two sets of chromosomes two. I don’t know how many chromosomes are in modern wheat. Next came Emmer, which is hybridised with a wild grass and Einkorn. It has four chromosomes. Then cam Spelt, which was hybridised again and it has six chromosomes. Every time the wheat was crossed, more chromosomes were added. They weren’t even doing genetically engineering, just crossing wheat and grasses in nature.

As the wheat was crossed for certain traits such as larger grains or faster growing, etc. more chromosomes were detected in the wheat. In the December 20024, FDA has approved that they can start planting GMO wheat which we don’t need at all. Another reason to go to Einkorn is because it’s never going to be GMO. It’s the original wheat, and it’s not being sprayed. The husks on the Einkorn also make them less vulnerable to mycotoxins. I started thinking more and more about how nature knows best. As humans, we like to make everything better. How about we just work with nature to make nature better? As I read more and more about the Einkorn, I kept thinking, let’s get back to nature and let’s get back to just some basics.

Switching to Einkorn has already simplified my pantry. I have one type of wheat and I can use it for everything. No more soft wheat, heard wheat and different varieties of each. No, now I just have Einkorn. This gives me room to store more in my buckets. We are also going to flake the Einkorn to see if it can replace oats.

2. Downsizing and simplifying my seeds.

It’s funny how one idea merges into the next. I’ve already organized all my seeds, in this post. Now it’s time to get rid about 90% of them. Over the past several years, I’ve been hoarding every seed I can. Now it’s time to decide which seeds should stay and which ones should go.

I will make three different areas for my seeds. One, they stay in the box and I save them. Two, the seeds are pulled and sprouted for the house. Three, the seeds will be pulled and sprouted for the animals. I’ll sprout for the humans first to see if we like the seeds as micro greens or sprouts. The seeds won’t go to waste, and they won’t waste precious space.

I am getting rid of any seeds I saved from a hybrid. Hybrids grow, but they aren’t true seeds to the plant. Any varieties I haven’t planted or chosen to keep will be pulled. I don’t need 20 different varieties of tomatoes. Plus, I am keeping heirloom and older seeds.

Any seeds I need to buy, I will get from companies that are non-gmo at minimal, heirloom, and open-pollinated. I found one company that is from Italy. In Italy, they don’t allow the GMOs and pesticides, so I feel the heirloom seeds are worth getting.

Lastly, I am going to look at each seed for its value. For instance, I found a string bean that can be used as a dry bean and a young string bean. It is delicious as a bean and has a huge seed. This means growing more of these I get a dual purpose plant.

3. More secure food growing year round.

We successfully grew winter crops in two of our above ground beds that were covered with a plastic hoop house. We were picking fresh carrots and beets weekly. Yes, the growing slowed down, but it was a success. Success until the last week of the year when a rabbit climbed under the plastic and ate everything in the bed. When he was done with the mature bed, he figured out how to get into the immature bed and did the same. We are hoping he didn’t get everything in the second bed because that bed wasn’t as developed. We figured we wouldn’t see food from that bed until March.

Yes, I am very sad about losing the crop. I am grateful that we have plenty stored, and the fresh was our over the top growing. We’ve never had an issue with a rabbit decimating our garden before. Then again, this time of year there isn’t much growing, and they were lush carrots and beets. Anyone or a book that tells you rabbits don’t typically eat the roots like carrots and beets have never had this rabbit in the garden. We did catch the rabbit, or at least the one we think was guilty.

I now have two choices. Replant the beds hoping we get an early crop of beets and carrots in may or just wait. I am most likely going to replant, but not until we fix the top, so they are rodent proof. Wood and rocks kept the plastic tops down, which a rabbit obviously snuck right through.

We will be doing more succession planting, starting early with hoops, in the greenhouse, and whatever means we figure out for winter, rodent proof growing. Yes, I’m going to meet miss my fresh carrots and beets, but I wasn’t smarter than the rabbit. Lesson learned the hard way.

4. Evaluating our livestock to downsize

One of the things we normally do while breeding or harvesting is evaluating the livestock. This year we are looking at our livestock a little differently. One thing that happened this year that we had no control over was that our fodder seed and our feed supplier retired. I am so glad they got to retire after 30 some years. We all deserve to retire. The feed part of the company wasn’t bought out, so it just went away. This means we no longer have a supplier to get our feed for our chickens. We don’t use bought grain but grow fodder for the chickens and feed them scratch grain. This is also our biggest expense feeding the animals.

We used to get 50 pounds for $15. Now we will have to purchase seed, not feed, which is about $40 for 50 pounds. Big difference. We had to buy in bulk in order to have it come down to us in a truck, but we don’t have access to that anymore at all. We will use up everything we have stored, which we figure is about 5 more months. In that time we will figure out what we will do, but it also means down sizing the chicken flock.

Besides wanting to downside due to the lack of feed, we want to be able to get away from the homestead to see grandkids that are further than a few hours away. This means fewer animals so someone can step in easier.

The rabbits are being flipped to fours New Zealand does, one New Zealand buck, and one California buck. Six Silver Fox rabbits will be butchered at the next break in the weather. We will keep our same hybrid colony and cage system.

Our goats will be downsized to four breeding does, one breeding buck, and one doe that has amnesty as an old age home. It was an agreement we made when we took. Once the Does have their kids in March and April, we will decide who is being sold and who is going for meat.

The beef takes the longest to raise, but are the easiest in our book. Our beef gets hay and pasture. Yes, we have many hours on the hay field each summer making hay. Once this is done and the pastures close, it’s feeding and watering. We will shift our animals around, so that by next fall we will breed five cows, have one bull, and carry three meat animals per year. Since we take about 30 months to raise a calf to meat, we will carry 12 animals at anyone time. We are increasing our butcher to family by one cow and will have less to sell off each year. If we need to, we can always go down to breeding three or four. We like having the extra calves as a cushion in case something happens to a calf. Plus, to sell off, which pays for fuel, equipment upkeep, and butchering fees.

We reevaluate our livestock yearly. This year we are doing more on a downsize to fit our needs.

5. Creating feeders that are less wasterful.

It’s bonkers how much wasted hay we have from all the animals. I asked the animals this morning if they could stop wasting so much, and they said, Nope! We’re going to figure out something so that we have less waste because if we have less waste than we don’t need as much hay cut and stored. We store our hay inside which helps with the waste. We need to revamp all the feeders and feeding system so we have less waste. This past year we picked up a V shaped goat feeder for super cheap. It’s helped with the waste from the goats. They still have some waste, but not as much as before. We just need to figure out how to incorporate the less waste feeders to the cows and rabbits.

6. Set up the homestead to be able to get away easier.

The last and biggest change we are making on the homestead is what I call organize to walk away. I don’t mean to leave and never come back. Rather, to leave so someone else can step in easily. I really like growing my own food but walk away and go do some things as in visit grandkids that are all the way across the other end of the country. In order to do that and feel comfortable with somebody else stepping in we’re going to need to automate a few things, we’re going to need to downsize which we’ve already started, and we’re going to need to be able to bribe somebody.

We do have somebody we bribe. He’s called an adult grandkid, and he does very well. We aren’t always going to be able to depend on him because he has to have a life, too. By doing some changes and organizing and downsizing, we’re going to make it so that at any time during the year we can plan a vacation and somebody can literally walk in and all is smooth. We’ve thought about this before and we’ve done some things in the past. We have some experience with needing to walk away and have someone step in. Several years ago, we needed to take care of a sick family member several hours away.

The animals were safe, and we were grateful for the help. It wasn’t smooth for the people taking care of the animals or the animals. It would be so much nicer for us, the animals, and whoever was helping us if we had a few things set up in a much easier manner for feeding. Now of course, if we’re in the middle of a hayfield, it makes it a lot harder to take off during that time of the year.

That’s our 2025 plan for food and freedom. Plus, sanity and downsizing. Remember, growing your own food, gaining freedom, and having sanity is all about how you decide to do it. It’s your rules.

What are you going to change to make 2025 more like you want it? Pick one thing and go for it.