New Year's on I-90: the Wisconsin version

During our life in Portland, Charis and I would head home down I-5 on New Year's day from a joyful, loud, creative and invigorating night of mayhem with her college friends Charles and Dan. Passing all the evergreens and majestic Mt. Rainier (and the glorious Olympics if we were lucky) I would ramble on to Charis about all that I was thinking about and excited for in the upcoming year.

This past new year was a bit different. We were actually awake, in the dark, trying to soothe Owain back to sleep. We did not drive down I-5, we drove up I-90 from Madison and not on New Year's day but a few days after Christmas. And I was not able to talk Charis' ear off this time because she was sitting in the back seat. I pondered and reflected to myself, wrote in my journal and now unleash it on you all...

I desire to make 2007 a year of listening for me. I have so many ideas and goals and want to do so much that I need to stop and listen. I want to talk less and I want to ask more questions. This comes from hearing myself talk too much nonsense. Plus, I was talking to someone about whether Owain will go to public school and if I would hold him back a year. I had all the thoughts on what I would do until Charis said, "Maybe we should get to know Owain first and see what he wants." Yes, listening.

Bearing that in mind, here's a list of goals I have for the farm. (Is that Alanais Morrisette singing in background?)
1. Trees!
-Plant more cherries and sugar maples (syrup) in front of the house across from driveway
-Wood lot behind dead giant elm
-Wood forest with nut trees and dwarf fruit trees
-Collect and cut more wood for heat
-More windbreak around the pasture and by the creek
2. Lower garden
-Expand with many squash and raspberries
-Fence to keep the damn deer out
-Three sisters inside the fence?
3. Garage
-Finish insulating the ping pong area
-Firepit behind the deck with smoke mandela
-Wood storage inside the garage
-Chicken coop and green house on the East side
4. House
-Finish the bathroom in the basement
-Root Cellar
-Bedroom in basement
-Buy a wood stove that simultaneously cooks our food, heats the house and our water
5. Horses
-Build a sleigh/cart
-Build a sled for hauling cut wood
-Get a single horse harness for Gideon

Some questions I've been pondering:

-How do we become sustainable in feeding the horses? (raising our own hay, storage, etc.)
-How do we feed ourselves for an entire year without packing a freezer?
-When do I buckle down and learn to hunt and preserve meat?
-Chickens: eggs, meat and how?
-Goats: milk, containment?
-Do I stop and settle myself and sit by the river and fish? How?
-What is the ultimate goal of the farm? (make money or sustain ourselves)
-How do I drive less?

Outside the farm I have had time over the break to reflect on teaching. I am failing and the program I teach in is failing students. I am totally rehauling my teaching structure when I go back. Even though the classroom is set up in a circle, I talk too much and students do not seem connected or caring. I am trying to go back Cedar Lodge route where students are working in groups, working on projects and thematic units, and they are teaching each other.

-What is the purpose of school?
-What do the students need?
-What is the best way to provide that need for the students?
-How do I guide them and stay out their way?
-How is anything possible in a schedule of eight 45 minute periods?

The most important questions saved for the last.

How do I love Charis better?
How do I support Owain to be his own person?

"Whoever has ears to hear should hear."

Jay