As 2025 comes to an end, we took time to sit down and review the last year here on the homestead.
Every year, we like to review the year that’s passed so we can see how much we’ve changed during the year.
At the beginning of 2025, we had 16 projects planned for the year. However, we didn’t get them all done for various reasons. Tracey tells me that’s ok, but I’m still not sure.
Accident on the homstead
In March, while working on expanding the chicken run, I had 1 small moment of inattention, and I managed to hit my knee with the business end of the chainsaw.
So we were done for the day to run to the ER.
15 stitches later (double layered) they had be back out the door.
It did take a while before I was able to get to work. That slowed everything down for a while
3 crossed off
We had planned to put in a car port, but we decided not to do that.
Another project that we crossed off was putting a new wood stove in the bedroom building once we got the roof put on, but decided that since our long term goals are to turn these cabins into an AirBnB, we wouldn’t put a wood stove in there. We’ll just use the mini-split to heat the cabin.
We had also planned to hook up the wood stove in the storage building to help keep the batteries warm and to do that, we’d have to install a chimney. While the stove is still there, we opted not to do the chimney. Maybe one day, we’re just not sure on that yet.
Homestead Accomplishments
At the beginning of the year, we got the porch on the bedroom screened in. It was a great project! It was a great place to sit this year to keep most of the bugs away, and this hit the bill!
In 2024, we had problems with water. So during 2025, we wanted to get gutters installed so we could then work on our water catchment.
This was a larger project.
With my uncles help, we installed guttering on 5 different buildings.
- Chicken Coop
- Wood Splitter shed
- Porch
- Storage Shed
- Both sides of the main cabin
Once those were installed, I was able to set up IBC totes and barrels for rain catchment.
At the end of the project (including the IBC tote we already had on the shower shack), we now have 1290 gallons of rain catchment.
We finally got the bedroom re-roofed. That was a much needed project. The old chimney wasn’t correct, and it leaked around the chimney. Now that the new roof is on, we can finish adding gutters and water catchment to that building too, but that will be a project for 2026.
We needed to fence and trellis the blackberries, strawberries and elderberries.
It was good to get that project done. It kept the squirrels and rabbits and chickens out of the strawberries (and birds too for that matter)
The cages around the elderberries helped keep the deer away.
And of course we needed to trellis the blackberries.
A minor project was the floor in the shower.
The teak wook that we had on the top of the plastic pallet was starting to break apart, so we replaced it, and it looks great and much needed on our feet!
One of the last planned projects we got done was turning our old wood shed into a chicken brooder run.
Not only did we get it done, but we got to use it twice.
Homestead projects bumped to next year
We had 4 projects that got bumped to the new year.
The covered walkway between the 2 buildings had to be bumped.
We have some (if not all) the supplies, we just have to make it happen.
We had planned to install some solar panels by the main building to power the 12 volt fan on the composting toilet. This was the second year on the list. We had planned to put them on the carport, but since we didn’t install that, the solar panels got bumped.
We wanted to install a new window in the bedroom. It’s so dark in there, and the window would help with the light and ventilation. We wanted to install the window after the roof was done. But after once it was installed, we just hadn’t had time to install a window.
We wanted to paint the bedroom. We painted 1 wall when we were installing the porch, but we still need to finish it off.
Tracey wanted to wait to paint till we got the window installed, and since it’s not installed yet, painting had to wait.
Extra Credit
We did have several things we accomplished that was not on the original plans for 2025
We expanded the chicken run. This took longer than we expected since I chainsawed my knee. But we more than doubled the run space for our flock!
We made a stand for the water disperser we use on the porch. It sits on top and there is room for 2 water barrels under it.
We added a TV antenna to get over the air channels on the TV
We got a dumptruck load of river rock. I started moving it by 5 gallon buckets. Thankfully, some friends heard about it, and they brought a tractor and we got it moved around in no time!
We made some tomato cages out of concrete wire.
We installed gravity drip irrigation. That helped so much during our hot Oklahoma summers. It also allowed us to take a bit of time away for a trip we did during the summer.
We had our first potato harvest. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t horrible.
We had our first onion harvest here on the property. It wasn’t the best either. We had a very wet spring and it didn’t help our onions.
We changed how we adjusted our solar panels. With the change we were able to adjust the angle of the panels no mater what the weather is like, we can adjust the panels when we have the time.
I also spoke at 2 different Homestead conferences.
I spoke at New Beginnings Homestead Expo in Nowata, OK and then the Oklahoma Homestead Rendezvous in McAllister, OK
At New Beginnings, I spoke about about off-grid living.
at the Rendezvous, I spoke specifically about solar power.
Summary
It was a great 2025.