Overview of 2025 plans!

​Every year starts out with the Scrum Plan – a great project planning tool that helps you think through the Big Projects and all the steps to get them done.   We just got our 2025 plan done this week, mid-January.  The overall planning is collected in a spreadsheet (boring), but the fun part is writing all the specific tasks on sticky notes and hanging them up in a prominent place.  Whenever you want to work on something, you mosey over to the stickie board and select a stickie with what you’re going to do next.  When you’re done, the stickie moves over to the “Done” board, and by the end of the season, the stickie board is empty – or, nearly empty.  All the tasks are done!  More or less like that.  See two earlier blogs about scrumming: 2017 scrumming; 2024 scrumming.

​We also start the year fielding inquiries about staying with us on the farm for a few weeks or months in the upcoming season, and inevitably, folks ask us, “What are you going to be doing in the month(s) that I was planning to come?” and then, for some reason, my mind goes blank.  Mostly I can remember “Ah, um, chicken and sheep chores”, but for the rest, it’s a wild scramble in my head looking for plans and projects. 
 
So, I thought I would transpose the Scrum Plan into a Seasonal Overview that I can refer people to.  Here it is:

January/February/March

Daily chores	Bring hay to the sheep; morning and evening feeding and watering; do food scrap route for the chickens; collect and clean the eggs.
Sheep and wool	Wool processing: card and spin (or bringing it to the mill).
Chickens	Expand the food scrap route with fliers, social media; start chicks
Mushrooms	Test grain expansion indoors; cut and inoculate 80 logs with oyster and shiitake.
Nut trees	Prepare fertility islands with new woodchips around trees; clean field - cut back invasive weeds taking over the field, like bittersweet, multiflora rose, brambles, etc.
Blueberries	Winter pruning and spread mulch to deter blueberry mummy disease.
Gardens	Plant peas (late March)

April/May

Daily chores	Morning and evening feeding and watering; do food scrap route for the chickens; collect and clean the eggs.
Sheep and wool	Baby lambs born (!); sheep in three sisters and mediterranean garden for mulching (April); start grazing rotation in fields with e-fence; shearing end May
Chickens	In chicken food forest - plant fruit trees, peas and barley (early April), comfrey, nettles, wheat (late May); start rooster chicks (May); fix chicksaw for easier pulling and entry; chickens in gardens in May couple of weeks.
Mushrooms	Expand grain spawn; start weekly straw bucket mushrooms; plant king stropharia bed under aspens.
Nut trees	Plant 200+ chestnut, walnut, and pecan trees; make or install tree protection cages; start bush clover seedlings
Blueberries	Weed in blueberry nursery rows; move baby x-mas tree firs to blueberry nursery; finish making wood chip piles for blueberry plantings.
3 Sisters garden	Start squash seeds (early April); plant corn (mid-May)
Mediterranean garden	Pick peas (late May); start tomato, pepper, basil, marigold seeds (early April); add hoops and strings to trellis; clean balcony pots
Market	Go to farmers market Saturdays, starting May.

June/July/August

Daily chores	Morning and evening feeding and watering; do food scrap route for the chickens; collect and clean the eggs
Sheep and wool	Rotate ewes and lambs through pastures with e-fence including moving in sheep car and moving mobile summer barn; in August pick up new ram and sell selected lambs; harvest tree hay and make bundles; suint wash fleeces
Chickens	Rotate through chicken food forest; plant millet; start rooster chicks; rotate roosters through pasture.
Mushrooms	Weekly straw buckets; make fruiting frame for logs; soak and fruit shiitake logs; start almond agaricus bed; check king Stropharia bed.
Nut trees	Weekly watering if no rain; check weeds; divide comfrey plants put in nursery.
Berries	Pick blueberries; pick raspberries (yum!); weed and weed wack blueberry and raspberry row.
3 Sisters garden	Plant beans and squash (June); early summer weed-bending and mulching (June to early July).
Mediterranean garden	Pick peas (late May/June); plant tomato-, pepper-, basil-, and marigold seedlings; train tomatoes up trellis; weed-bending and mulching.
Market	Go to farmers market Saturdays.

September/October/November

Daily chores	Morning and evening feeding and watering; do food scrap route for the chickens; collect and clean the eggs
Sheep and wool	Rotate ewes and lambs through pastures as in Summer; pick up and store hay bales!  Sheep in both gardens (see below) for cleaning, possibly followed by chickens; start carding and spinning wool
Chickens	Rotate through chicken food forest; plant millet; start hen chicks (Sept, Oct); rotate roosters through pasture; start 2 sets of chicks; clean compost out of barn; collect leaves put in barn
Mushrooms	Weekly straw buckets (til mid-Oct); soak and fruit shiitake logs; harvest (hopefully) almond agaricus and king Stropharia.
Nut trees	Plant polycultures around trees: peppermint, comfrey, bush clover.
Berries	Possibly plant blueberry bushes in field (size dependent)
3 Sisters garden	Harvest corn, beans and squash (hopefully); dry and cure corn, beans, and squash; make corn bread and bean soup!
Mediterranean garden	Pick tomatoes, peppers, and basil; can tomato products (sauce, jam, salsa, pickles, paste); freeze basil and peppers.
Market	Eggs and mushrooms to market until end October; include corn and beans as available.