Projects and Goals for 2022

Looking back on 2021 and the end of 2020 it sort of seems like I’ve accomplished a lot… but I also feel like I could have done so much more! In the end, I think I’ve managed to settle into a nice balance between working and relaxing and I’m mostly happy with where I’m at. Life in my creepy barn/cosy house is pretty sweet so far but there are loads of improvements to be made to the house and infrastructure that will make my life easier and more comfortable and I feel like I should make a list of what those things are… because who doesn’t love a list?

However I don’t recommend you trust a word I say… I’ve already written two posts with grand plans (a list of priorities and plans for moving in before spring 2021) without as much follow through as I’d have liked, so who knows how far I’ll get with these. But I’m forever hopeful, so here’s my rather ambitious plan for 2022…

High Priority Jobs

• Figure out how to make money – As Covid drags on into its third year, I’m realising that perhaps my African tourist maps might not be providing regular income as planned. I’ve been scrambling financially, doing what I can here and there but I need to sit down and figure out a better plan than that. I’ve got a bunch of schemes in mind including making and selling pickles (and whatever else I can think of… I have a couple of ideas I think are good) at markets, doing pointing and any other building work I can find, and I have a few good leads for online work which I’m hoping will be my main earner until map sales kick back in. I don’t really have a plan right now, but I think I’ll be able to figure out some sort of combination of things to earn the roughly €400 per month to keep myself afloat until Covid goes away and maps sales hopefully come back into my life.

• Finish my floor and door – I’ve been laying the floor of my place slowly as I can afford it and I’m almost done… finally! Except for one piece of expensive plywood, I have everything I need to get it done and I’m excited to rid my place of the treacherous tripping hazard that is my partial floor. But to do that I also need to chop off the bottom of my metal door which is a job that terrifies me. Luckily I have a welder friend to help and I think I have a plan. Both the floor and door will be insulated, so finishing them will make my place extra cosy so I’ll aim to have this done before the end of January.

• Install a window – A window for the front of my house is one of the first things I started working on, but I stopped halfway through the 50cm stone wall after realising that I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’m still not sure I know what to do, but I do seem to spend a silly amount of time staring blankly at the partial window hole and I think ideas are starting to come. I’ve got the materials I need to make the lintel and window box, but it’s all rather intimidating. I think I’ll have the window made by a professional, but it’s the hole in the wall and the window box that’s holding everything up so I’ll want to figure that out and start working on it as we head into summer when the rain stops.

• Make a cold frame/mini greenhouse – I’ve got lots plans for this year’s garden and I’ll be anxious to get seedlings started, but I don’t have a greenhouse. I probably won’t have a greenhouse in my life anytime soon, but I’ll need a covered, warmish space for my plant babies and that’s where a cold frame will come in. I have a south-facing spot for it with a wall behind to capture the heat and all the materials I’ll need, so I’m hopeful to have this done in time for seedlings season.

• Fix my water tank – My concrete, spring-fed, water tank leaks and I’ll need to repair this so I don’t run out of water in the summer. The spring flows year-round but, because of the leak, the water level of the tank goes too low in the summer to be able to pump. So I need to fix the leak and I also plan to divide the tank into sections and to design a water system that hopefully sees the overflow captured and then spread around my land. Do I know how to repair a concrete water tank? Not a clue. But it’s probably the most important thing I have to figure out in 2022.

• Design and build my garden – Last year, I basically did nothing with my garden except sticking seeds in the ground and keeping it watered. I focused on cucumbers, jalapeños, and cherry tomatoes because I didn’t want to think about it too much or spend too much time on it. I was focused on the house and so my garden was going to be small and not take up too much of my time. Well! Those cucumbers, tomatoes, and jalapeños went crazy and my garden ended up controlling my life over the summer. Watering it took ages and there was so much food to process! This year I’m going to go bigger because I want to grow the food that ends up in the pickle jars, and that means that I’ll need a better plan. I’m going to spend a lot of time this winter working out a permanent layout for my garden and then it’ll take a lot of work to get the beds ready. Maybe I’ll only build a portion of the garden this year, but I like the idea of working towards a design that I’ve put a lot of thought and effort into, rather than redoing things year after year. This is the project I’m most looking forward to for 2022.
• Install irrigation for my garden and trees – Watering my trees and garden sucked up a huge amount of my time last year. It was usually fine since I enjoy visiting my plants and trees while I water, but there were also times when I really couldn’t be bothered. I know nothing at all about irrigation, but it’s something I’ll need to learn about and install, especially if I’m planning to have a larger garden than last year. It’s one of these things that I know will make a huge difference in my life and free up a lot of my time, so I’ll need to make it a priority.

• Ride my bike, go for walks, and sit in my hammock more often – I don’t like to brag, but I’m really quite excellent at napping. I usually sneak an afternoon snooze into my day at least a few times each week and it brings me a lot of joy. However I feel like sleeping the days away might not be the best use of my time and I’d like to spend more time outside on my bike, walking, or reading in my hammock.

Medium Priority Jobs

• Learn Portuguese – I wish this was a high priority for me but, alas, learning a language is hard and therefore sucks and therefore it’s an easy thing to push to the side in favour of tasks that are easier and more fun. But learning the language is essential and I’m going to try to dedicate more time to studying and trying to practice as much as possible. I’m just about to finish an online, government-funded Portuguese language class for immigrants but I’ve learned basically nothing since I haven’t been revising in between. However I have all the slides and assignments and I’m hoping that, when I finally put the time into it, I’ll be able to have at least a few things click.

• Build storage shelves – I have crap everywhere and shelves for the tools I use regularly will be a simple fix to make my life a lot more organised and less frustrating. I’ll probably just bash something simple together with scrap wood that can be moved to a new location once I finalise the design for my living space.
• Build shelving and cabinets in my kitchen – I’ve used my kitchen for eight months and I think I’m happy with the spacing and layout. The fridge and oven are both in good spots and I like how it’s set up, but my shelving, cabinet, and counter space situation is bleak so I’d like to start building these things. I’d rather do this once so I’ll want to nail down a final design before I get to work, even if I do end up building it in stages.

• Find a supply of clay – I’m pretty broke so buying materials might be tricky once I run out of the stuff I already have. But if I can find a source for clay, I’ll be able to keep busy since I plan to use it for several jobs. I have a couple leads but I’ll want to figure this out by late spring so I can take advantage of the dry summer weather and get started on a cob wall and tool shed. I also want to plaster the inside of my place in clay and it’s better to do this during the summer months so it’ll dry more quickly.
• Be better at documenting this process – I think what I’m working on is pretty interesting and I expect a few others do as well, so I’d like to be better about writing blog posts and documenting. My Instagram game is ok but I’ve been meaning to also film and post stuff to YouTube (subscribe… maybe one day I’ll post a video!) and write more on this blog. I’d love to learn more about filming and video editing anyway, so lets see if this is the year I finally do it.
• Plumb water into my house – Right now I pump water up from the cistern one terrace below into a 1,000 litre tank that lives beside my house. If I want water, I head out with a bucket or pot and fill it up from the tank. This is a somewhat annoying setup, especially as the weather gets cold and wet, so I’d like to figure out how to get the water from the IBC into my house at the touch of a tap. It involves small pumps and car batteries and pressure valves and things that I know nothing about, so I’m not sure where to start.
• Design and build a shaded outdoor area – This is one of those jobs that I expected to have done ages ago but that I never got around to doing. I was mostly foiled by the fig tree right in my way and I couldn’t work out how to build a shaded area without sinking large posts in the ground, which I didn’t want to do because I wasn’t sure yet of my final design. I still don’t have a design so I’ll need to hammer that out and then get to work because I don’t have a decent area outside to sit that’s under cover and it sucks in the summer.

Lower Priority Jobs

• Build a tool shed – Currently my tiny house is packed with building materials and tools and moving around inside is like a game of Tetris as I shift things around to be able to get from one spot to the next. It’s quite ridiculous and a lot of stuff needs to go outside so I can feel more like I’m living in a house and less like a building site. Getting this done could be a stretch for 2022 because I’ll also have to rebuild a stone wall behind where the shed will go and I’m not sure I’ll have money for materials anytime soon. But there will be things I can do to work towards the project like making a foundation, so I’m hoping to at least get started.

• Finish pointing the outside of my building – I started pointing between the rocks on the outside of my building in the summer last year but when I started working doing pointing on other people’s buildings, I decided to stop work on mine before I lost my mind. I’m about a quarter of the way finished my building and I’d like to get this finished before winter 2022. I haven’t noticed any problems with rain seeping in through the walls, so if I don’t get to this in 2022 I think it’ll be fine, but it would be nice to cross this huge job off my list.

• Install plumbing for my kitchen sink and grey water – Right now I carry water into my house in pots and buckets and I dump water back outside when I’m finished. I need to put a hole through the front of my wall, dig a trench, and lay pipe that will connect with the others that come from the bathroom area. All of this needs a little inspection hatch and then it needs to be sent to some sort of still-to-be-designed grey water area.
• Build a desk – This might sound ridiculous, but I spend almost no time at my computer because I don’t have a decent space to work. In order to make money online, I need to sit at my computer and that means I’ll need to build a space for working that doesn’t make me hate life. I also really love art and design and I don’t have anywhere good for drawing.

• Tile my front porch and build a pergola – I have the materials I need to tile my porch with slate and build a pergola structure with round wood chestnut poles. I think it’ll be a fun project and it’ll be great to have a place to sit in front of the house, so it’s something I’ll probably work on bit by bit, taking my time to gain experience working with round wood.

My main priorities are figuring out how to make some money and fixing my leaky water tank and then I guess I’ll need to design and build a garden and put in irrigation. The garden and water stuff will have to wait until the weather improves so in January I think I’ll be spending the days finishing my floor, door, and window, and the evenings tapping away on my computer trying to earn a few bucks with online stuff.

I have a lot of challenges ahead of me in 2022 and if I can get through half of the things on this list this year I will be very happy!