As the sun rises on a new year, it's a good time to reflect and evaluate. Actually, I think anytime is a good time to reflect and evaluate. It just seems like turning the calendar to a new year stirs that sort of thought. I hope you have identified whatever perceived shortcomings you would like to address in the new year, and most of all, I hope you stick to those positive changes.

On the farm, we are reflecting on several major projects we started in 2025 that will continue to develop this year. We are excited to provide you with Strawberries this spring and even open our farm for you-pick. The Sourdough bread and bagels are still in the works, and we hope to get those available soon. In addition to the new things, we also want to continue improving our current endeavors, like producing the best meat, milk, eggs, and forage. The forage has been a focus of mine for the past few years (you can see the current ryegrass crop in the picture), because cattle health, both beef and dairy, begins with high-quality forage (grass).

If you have been a long-time reader of this newsletter, you may also remember that I try to find a theme word for myself each new year. I try to choose an area of my life I want to work on and imprint that word in my memory for the year. This year's word does not seem like a New Year's theme word, but it is what I feel I need to focus on for the near future... Waste-Management. I need to do a better job managing the things that I waste. As life gets busy, we tend to let things fall through the cracks. I was first thinking about subscriptions that I pay for and don't use, things like that. Those things are important, and I intend to address some of those. But my thoughts soon went to wasted time. Ouch. Very few of us are probably proud of the amount of time we spend looking at a pocket-sized screen each day; most of that time is wasted. My goal for this year is to spend way less time on meaningless endeavors. I will allocate specific time to make social media posts on my desktop, thereby enabling me to delete the social media apps from my phone. Waste-Management will help me tighten my budget, improve my work efficiency, and, most importantly, deepen my relationships with family and friends.

2026- the year of Waste-Management.