My Current Homestead to-do list

       With the summer activities we’ve been doing, along with my planning and prepping for my sons 4th Birthday I’ve gotten behind on all the chores and projects I’ve planned for myself this summer. The heat hasn’t helped one bit, we’ve had way to many 100+ degree days making some of the outdoor labor unbearable and I keep saying I’ll wait until it cools down to go outside then get side tracked with all the other things involved in my daily life. 

       With my sons birthday passing and us not having much going on during this last month of summer I finally feel some normalcy, so I’ve decided to sit down and figure out my next steps that’ll hopefully lead me into catching up on what needs to be done. Hopefully this will give you some motivation to work on whatever it is your stagnant or behind on and hopefully it’ll help keep me motivated since I am so behind on things on the homestead, my jewelry business and life in general. 

       Step 1: I looked in my homestead journal. My homestead journal is this cute little journal with tabs that I found at Tractor supply, unfortunately I couldn’t find it online to link for y’all but you could definitely use any journal, spiral note book etc. The journal I have has 6 tabs on the side for easy organization and out of the 6 tabs I currently have 5 categories: NOTES, HOMESTEAD, CHICKENS, PROJECTS and GARDEN. I left the 6th tab blank and will fill it with whatever I need like if I were to get ducks or rabbits or whatever. So i looked through my homestead journal to see where i left off, I’ll usually jot down ideas and project plans or make notes about a certain category like if I noticed there’s a problem with a chicken or the date that i last fertilized a plant in the garden and sometimes I make to-do lists but I usually put my to-do list mixed in with my other personal things to do for the day like getting groceries or pay the water bill. 

       Step 2: After I looked through my homestead journal and writing down where I left off I also wrote down all the things that I currently have going on that I may have recently started or things that would make my life easier at the moment, for example, I had picked up some wood pallets from a local church that I was going to use as the frame for my compost bin and I propped them on the side of the chicken coop that happens to be the side where the water hose is connected so now I have to maneuver myself around 7 wood pallets every day to fill the chicken waterer, not fun. And that thought alone reminded me that the water hose I use to fill the chicken watered had ripped somehow so it leaks everywhere and takes sooo long to fill the waterer now so I need to replace it with a new hose. The to-do list is just getting longer and longer but now I know what I want to work on for the rest of July. I set Aug 1st as my goal to have this to-do list completed, giving myself a deadline to hustle but to not get so overwhelmed by thinking I have only a couple of days to get things done or to procrastinate by thinking I have a long period of time. I’m ADHD (well, self-diagnosed) and I’ve noticed that setting deadlines works the best for me so one tip I can offer is setting a reasonable timeline for yourself and see how much you can accomplish in that period of time. 

       Step 3: Organize my to-do list by urgency, I put the most important at the top of the list, is there something that needs to be done for the chickens to keep them safe or healthy? Or is there a squash bug problem that’ll kill the plants if I don’t get it taken care of asap? (I’m currently dealing with these wretched bugs). After I listed the problems that need to be addressed ASAP I began listing things that would better convenience me, like moving the wood pallets or switching out the torn water hose. After that I just started listing the other things that aren’t as important but still need to get done, like pulling the weeds in and around my garden bed. 

       Okay, so I broke down the thought process that led me to this list of things that I’d like to complete before the end of July. Below is the list I’ve created and some notes as to why I added the chore to the list. I tried to not make it very long and many of the things on the list are things that I can complete in one day but others may take me a couple of days.

1. SQUASH BUGS- The infestation is real y’all, I was on top of it until a couple of weeks ago, I haven’t been able to go out and search for them in a while but usually I go out before sunset with a cup of soapy water and pick off the bugs individually and scrape/ trim off the leaves that have clusters of eggs. I’m actually excited because I recently bought a small hand torch to burn the eggs off that I haven’t been able to use yet.

2. ADD SOIL & FERTILIZE- Because of the extreme heat the garden has been looking pretty bad, I’ve noticed that the soil is very dry and packed and honestly since extending the raised beds I don’t think I added enough soil before I planted in them so I’m going to add more soil and see if that helps. 

3. CLEAN COOP- I use the deep litter method but the straw bedding is nearly completely broken down, I’m going to do a quick clean up inside before adding more straw and clean/ disinfect the feeders, nesting boxes, etc. I actually have plans in the fall to completely re-do the coop interior and change the layout a little so I’m not going to deep clean it until then.

4. PLAN NEXT PLANTS- I have some bare spots in the garden and I have time to get some plants in the ground I just need to figure out which plants I’d like to plant and make sure I give them adequate time to grow before the first frost, this shouldn’t be a problem though thanks to Texas’s hot weather and two growing seasons. 

5. REPLACE WATER HOSE

6. MOVE WOOD PALLETS- I don’t have a spot yet for the compost bins, I’ve been mapping the sun and the spot I currently have set up doesn’t get as much sun as I’d like so until I find a spot I’ll just move the pallets completely out of the way.

7. PREMIX THE CHICKEN FEED- I’ve been mixing my own chicken feed recipe since February 9th of this year, I found a recipe that I like and I’ve been premixing the ratio in a large feed bucket but these past 2 months I haven’t made the time to go premix the feed so I’ve been having to quickly mix the daily ration,  if I’d just take the time to premix the dang feed all I’d have to do is grab a scoop and go! Get it together Shelby. 

8. CLEAN OUT SHED- I cleaned out the shed in January but over time the mess has built up again, we also had our well pump go out so we had a crew in there moving things around to get the problem resolved, I need to organize things and put them back where they were for easy access. 

9. SET UP GARDEN DRIP SYSTEM- I’ve had this on my to-do list since early spring but I keep pushing it back, now I’m kicking myself for not doing it since my Garden is taking such a hard hit from the heat and lack of rain.

10. PLAN AUGUST- I usually plan ahead, I love making lists and I enjoy organizing my planner but life happens and it doesn’t take much for me to be thrown of course, like now for instance, oops. But I’m going to plan ahead for the month of August a little early, this year my only child will be starting pre-school so that’ll be a big adjustment to my families life’s. 

11. PLAN A BIG PROJECT- Big projects are usually different from my regular to-do list. I get into detail about what I need done, when I need it done and how I’m going to do it. My next big project is re-doing the chicken coop as I mentioned earlier and I have most of the planning for it besides some minor details, I’m really just waiting on the cooler weather to start.

12. TRIM PLANTS- My Gardens been neglected this past month, I need to give it a little TLC.

13. SET UP GAME CAM- I’ve got a game camera that I set up for security reasons, to check for predators, pets and intruders. Every now and then I’ll move it around to places that I’ve had or expect activity but I took it down recently and haven’t set it back up yet. 

14. PLAN BLOG POSTS- I have a list of blog ideas for RDR but I want to plan out the next 3 topics so I know exactly what I’m going to post and prepare for it, hopefully I can stay ahead and organized once I do. I want to start sharing more pictures and behind the scenes content! 

So that’s it, there’s my current to-do list! I feel like this post was extra long but I shared a ton of details with y’all, let me know what your current to-do list is, if this has motivated you to get sh*t done or if you just enjoyed the article. As always, thanks for joining me and I’d love to hear what you have to say and follow us on social media (linked below). Happy Homesteading!

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