Try

What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn't go for it?

In 2011 I want to try lots of things.  I could spend the full day just writing them up, but here are three:

            First, I want to can more of the food that we grow ourselves.  This year we canned tomatoes and catsup, things that were acidic enough that we could do them with our hot water bath canning system that we use when we make jelly.  Next year, however, I’m hoping we can branch out to canning other things using the pressure canner that’s Kathy’s Christmas present to us. 

            Second, I want to try to find a humane way to deal with the groundhog that caused such havoc in the vegetable garden this year.  Maybe that’ll mean moving more of the vegetables he ate to the front of the house (and, following Fritz Haeg’s model, getting rid of the rest of the lawn there).  Maybe it’ll mean a sprinkler system on a sensor. Trying to do it this past year with pin wheels and Epson salts just didn’t slow him down at all. I’m not sure yet what I’ll come up with for 2011, but I want to try to be creative in how I do this while also not harming him.

            Third, I want to find the time to explore more systematically what I think a Christian faith that addresses 21^st century issues—the hunger for community, environmental and ecological concerns, new ways of connecting using technology, a more glocal worldview, etc.—would look like.  I’m curious what images, what structures, what worship approaches, and what ecumenical relations this would create.  I had hoped to do this more consciously in 2010 but the time for it never materialized.