Year End Homestead Reflection: Lessons and Plans for Next Year

December 23, 2025

The Importance of Homestead Reflection

Congratulations if you are celebrating the conclusion of your first year in the exciting lifestyle of homesteading. If you are a seasoned veteran, this read pertains to you as well, as it is still an important practice in growth.

In this chat, we will be discussing the importance of reflection, lessons that we have learned, and exciting plans for next year to evolve, expand, and improve efficiency. I am glad to know that there is always room for improvement, learning, and maximizing efficiency.

“Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.” — John C. Maxwell.

Reflection is crucial for wisdom, growth, and effective action, as it turns experience into insight, helps us understand ourselves, and allows us to avoid repeating mistakes. This year was an exciting and profitable one for us. By profitable, I don’t only mean making that chedah, but by bountiful harvests, preservations, and knowledge gained throughout the busy season.

We not only practice reflection by chatting amongst each other and having conversations about the “What, So What, Now What” framework, but we also ask ourselves open-ended questions.

What: We describe our situations on the farm, in our home, and our actions specifically taken.
So What: We analyze the significance of the experience and what we learned from it.
Now What: We determine the next steps or changes we will make based on our new insights.

With open-ended questions, we prompt ourselves with:

What happened?
What did I feel?
What went well, and what did not?
What will I do differently next time around?

This homesteading lifestyle is a four-way street for us in our family. We are all involved and we are all a part of the “closed loop system” that we strive to live and work with. As some of you may know, this lifestyle is not great fun if there is only one person in the household on board. Therefore, we must all be a part of this invaluable conversation together.

But this is not a scheduled meeting per se. It is more of a working mutual chat that continues throughout the year. Open-ended conversations between you and your team are just as important as the foundational open-ended questions.

So be open about your experiences, downfalls, achievements, and your relationships with everything around you in this life—with your family. The successes in this lifestyle depend greatly on everyone in your home. You are all involved, even if there are differences amongst you.

womans hand out to touch a marigold flower

Lessons From the Year

The lessons that we learn from the homestead lifestyle are not only important to learn and grow from, but the whole process brings us closer to nature, ourselves, and most importantly, to each other. We just have to let it happen.

“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” — Laura Ingalls Wilder

This year we learned that there were some leaks in what we thought was a well-oiled machine—leaks in efficiency, leaks in our systems, leaks in land management, and leaks in space usage. Overall, we had such an effective, abundant, and successful year in our endeavors, but the journey always provides us with room for improvement.

One good practice is to have a working daily journal during the busy season to reflect on all things. Then you can look back and read about frustrations, mountains and molehills, successes, and what you may have deemed as failures. All great pieces of the puzzle that we are all trying to streamline.

What makes us grateful for this lifestyle is that it is full of opportunities of all sorts.

full spring garden with tomatoes and marigolds

Yearly Planning for the Homestead

This leads us to the great ideas for next year’s journey. Without reflection and the lessons that we learn, one could simply just carry on in the same manner with no real growth, learned lessons, expansion, or maturity.

Winter also provides us with inspiration and motivation to think up new systems for more efficiency, making all of the work that piles on that much more pleasant.

Upon noticing all of the opportunities for improvement, we already know of some changes that need to happen in order for the machine to stop leaking that oil. There are so many times when we just put a rag down to catch the dripping oil—dragging our feet instead of just fixing the problem. We are getting better at this learned skill. However, we are still human, and we still fall into the procrastination cycle of things. It is all too common to just put things off until it is go time.

So we continue to aim high and hope that we achieve our goals and fixes.

cinnamon queen chickens in a compost pile

Plans for Next Year’s Homestead Improvements

Some opportunities we have stumbled upon can and will be addressed this year so that we aren’t dragging through another season with a limp.

Slap A Hippie inventory room: It needs a thorough reorganization sweep. There are many opportunities to make things more functional and efficient. Instead of walking into another room to grab the label maker, it will be right in the heart of the operation. Less time taking unnecessary steps and more time to productivity.
Expanding for farmers market produce: After careful observation during this growing season, it has been decided that expansion is in dire need. When we first started, the goal was to fill our pantry with freshly grown foods. Now that we have reached this goal, it is on to the next—serving our community and providing our slice of nutrient-dense foods.
Water issues: We discovered water issues during a heavy rain. We will remedy this by incorporating micro swales on contour in areas that need alleviation from runoff.
Garden bed redesign: Our existing permanent raised beds run perpendicular to sloped land and are all different lengths. This was poor planning on our part. If all the beds were of equal length, we would be able to better plan crop growth, maturity, and harvest. Since we are on a slope, the new beds will be on contour and of equal length for more efficient management and rainwater usage—especially if we are looking to offer our produce to the community while keeping our pantry fruitful.
Greenhouse and high tunnels: These are on the necessity list, but funds need to be in place before that can happen. So we will continue to impatiently wait on the whole system to come to fruition

Encouragement for the Year Ahead

Although it sometimes seems that the things we need, desire, and have to change are on an endless list accompanied by a cloud of frustration and impatience, it is important to remember that we are all in this lifestyle together.

These things will not all get done or be achieved overnight. This is a lifelong journey, and the nooks and crannies will be filled one day at a time.