Seeds for the New Year

The goal for this week is to catch up on everything I didn’t get done last week while not falling further behind on this week’s tasks. Most of what I need to do is paperwork, so I’m not doing as much sewing.

Our homestead foundation fundraising committee had its monthly meeting last evening. I joined this committee halfway through 2022. At that time, our former pastor was the chairman. When he retired in October 2022, I took over chairing the committee. (The church and the homestead foundation are not connected, but some of us are involved in both.) He had laid an excellent foundation for our formal fundraising efforts. The fundraising goal in 2022 was $15,000, which we met. I kept that same goal for 2023, but thanks to the hard work of a whole lot of people, our fundraising total for 2023 ended up being $24,291.05. We’re hoping to keep that momentum going into 2024.

It’s tempting to judge successful fundraising efforts by the “big” events, but when we break down the totals, the smaller events together often add up to the lion’s share of income. Every little bit helps.

I’ve got two sewing classes scheduled for next Saturday at the community center, which the homestead foundation owns and manages. We will be making pillowcases. There will be a morning session and an afternoon session, and each class has slots for six students. The class fee includes materials and machines and is donated to the foundation. We’ve had other people offer classes the same way. Susan did a pruning class last spring that was wildly successful. We’d like to build up a reputation as a place where community members can come and learn some of these skills.

Spring is rushing up at me already. I am chairman of the annual plant sale, in May, and we have a plant sale planning meeting in a couple of weeks. We have also decided to resurrect the annual summer garden tour hosted by the homestead foundation. That is scheduled for July. I need to start looking at seed catalogs and deciding what I want to grow in my own garden. The husband and I have been discussing infrastructure projects and where I am planning to put certain crops this year. My herb garden will be ready to replant in the spring, too. I know a lot of people think the month of January lasts forever, but it always seems to zoom by for me.

I haven’t been out there recently, but this is probably what the garden looks like at the moment. Maybe not this much snow. This is an old picture and we just haven’t had the precipitation this year because of El Nino. It is supposed to snow this weekend, though, so we might catch up. I’ll be happy if the freezing fog goes away. We have been socked in under inversions for a couple of weeks now.

I did quilt a potholder sandwich yesterday afternoon after running errands in town. I like having these smaller projects stacked up and ready to go when I have some time here and there. I need to get back to my neglected embroidery projects, but I’ve been reading in the evenings lately. I’m about halfway through this book and enjoying it very much:

The author relates stories about her hunt for vintage fabric at auctions and estate sales.

I also got an e-mail from Minerva and note that they have just launched a new (free!) series called Master Your Overlocker. (coughDeanacough) I think their videos are always very well done and I’ll be watching this one because I can always learn something.