January 2022 – Looking back, a 2021 Recap

January 2022 – A Recap of 2021. Last year was a record breaking year for MN and for all bad reasons… Lodi and I had huge plans here for the spring / summer but, before that, we got several things complete inside the house too. This recap always makes me feel at least a little better about the last year. Generally when I write this post I’m almost always feeling like: We didn’t get enough done. Its a sickness. Its just how I am lol. If I feel like I fall short of my goals anywhere I tend to feel like that’s true everywhere. Though we did accomplish the majority of what we set out to do in 2021 it sure did feel like pulling teeth a lot of the time!

January and February of 2021 were quite a bit like they always are in northern Minnesota. Its cold. Its dark. No one wants to do anything and everyone is just kind of hunkered down waiting for spring.

Unfortunately for the two of us we both have our birthdays in both months. Bummer.

That’s probably why I always devote my first blog post of the year to a recap like this one. There really just isn’t much to report when it comes to January here in northern MN.

(Pic taken from 2018 right after I moved them into this new shed. Jazzy laid down just a few feet from here. Sweet girl – she will be missed.

We did accomplish a few things at the end of 2020 that I was very excited to share with you guys throughout the first months of 2021. We completed Lodi’s new room, finished the back hall, swapped a door with a window and put in a new doggie door!

In March 2021 we had a winter storm warning, a thunder storm warning and a tornado warning, in different parts of the state, all at the same time! It was kind of wild lol but we had a very mild early spring that was absolutely awesome.

I very much so hope we can look forward to an early spring this year too!

(2021 Recap – January 2022)

In April we suffered the loss of Jazzy, one of our horses. Sweet old girl is still very much so missed. 🙁 Not just a couple of weeks before that Lodi and I got engaged so April was quite a bittersweet month for us here at Grandma’s house.

Throughout all of April and May we were gearing up hard core for some major plans which, admittedly, thoroughly kicked our butts through the rest of 2021.

It all started so lovely and NORMAL.

A beautiful early spring!

We expanded our dog kennel and spoiled ourselves by purchasing a RZR Side by Side ATV and a much needed trailer as well.

And then we hit heat records over and over and saw record breaking drought. With all the plans we had here of three concrete pours and an entire garage addition… There was not a single day this spring / summer that wasn’t a total misery to work in.

It was crazy!

(January 2022 – looking back on hell week)

June 2021, when we said “Come hell or high water.” We didn’t know we were making a choice!”

That first week of June we tackled the yard with a skid steer, prepped for three separate concrete pours and a new lower deck.

It was awesome to get it done – it was the worst of circumstances to do it in.

To add insult to injury we both got our second vaccine for Covid literally the day before the skid steer was getting dropped off. The vaccine kicked my butt, catapulting my temp to over 102 that night. My fever broke by dawn but neither of us were at 100 percent or got much of any sleep.

Rarely have we needed an air conditioner here. This year we put one in our dining room and another in our master bedroom.

That day we took constant breaks to cool down and take care of ourselves as best we could and still get the job done.

July 2021 brought much the same with insane heat. I watered our poor little garden every day for months.

It became an oasis in our desert of a yard.

We were also surrounded by wildfires and hit record breaking bad air quality here in Minnesota. Poor Canada burning covered our entire state in smoke that was just unbelievable.

The haze in the air covering the sun for weeks, the choking smell, it was wild.

In late July we got about an inch of rain to justify mowing the lawn once but that was it. To say our yard and everything around us looked like it just died is not an exaggeration.

In August 2021 many of our trees started turning regardless of the 90 degree temps – like they decided to just pack it in and hope for a better year next year.

But this is still northern MN and it did finally cool down in August to more “normal” temps.

Also, in August, Lodi took me to see one of my all time favorite bands Green Day!

One regret (or not regret at all) is we really did too much to ourselves this year between concerts, fairs, events, projects and gatherings. We simply over booked ourselves with all we wanted to get done here on the farm plus all we wanted to enjoy after quarantine all last year.

January 2022 I don’t blame us after being cooped up for so long but next year there will be LESS on our plates.

We did three concrete pours here before July, adding a full apron to the front of our garage as well as a slab for the addition of another stall.

During that same time we also finished our new pea gravel lower deck and new stone fire pit too PHEW!

Moving on then throughout the summer / fall we also got the garage all framed out and, finally, after numerous setbacks all the way into November, we did complete our new garage addition too.

By the time September 2021 got here I was just cranky. I was ready to just go inside (to bed) for the rest of the year.

Even when it was finally nice out, we were so sick of everything to do with the outdoors that we hardly used our new lower deck and fire pit at all. I know though that by next year (and we’ve got some rest and some time between us and this boiling summer) we are going to absolutely appreciate all we got done here this year.

Like with most Septembers I finally get to a point where I secretly kind of hope our garden would just die already lol.

Especially this year with all of the constant watering we had to do! But it was a joy to have and fed us well for months. I put away a dozen quarts of refrigerator pickles and, of course, lots of frozen veggies for this winter.

October’s weather was absolutely gorgeous this year and we started the month off by my returning the favor and getting tickets to go see Lodi’s favorite artist Eric Church!

It was wonderful and so fun but when we came home we declared the rest of our October to be a quieter one!

(January 2022, remembering to rest next year as we didn’t do it enough this year.)

This year we got to enjoy completing so much of our basement. We did the majority of the work last year and I was really excited to show you guys the basement living room reveal and the basement bathroom reveal.

It felt like such a triumph and it all came from an icky unfinished space to end up so fun and comfy.

When December rolled around we were definitely starting to feel better about each other and our lives.

Over October, November and December we had almost no plans and the giant headache of the garage we finally got off of our plates at the end of November. We also decided not to go to a concert in December that had been delayed for two years because of Covid.

We were glad we didn’t go especially because of the weather that hit us that very day!

More record breaking craziness!

Over December 14th and 15th something happened weather-wise I can’t ever remember happening in my life in northern MN. It was 40 degrees with the thickest fog I have ever seen all day and then it down poured for three hours that evening.

Hearing rain pouring down on the roof in December was so bizarre!

Unfortunately it came with a 30 mile an hour north wind that plummeted our tempts down to single digits. We watched that down pour turn to ice and finally snow.

Driving around those couple of days was incredibly unpleasant…

At the same time southern Minnesota was seeing 80 mile an hour winds and tornado warnings.

Oh but that wasn’t it for us into January 2022 lol

Not even two weeks later and we got almost 20 inches of snow in two days and then lows in the -30s immediately afterward! Sure, why not!

Lodi spent hours snow blowing off our deck to get the weight off of it and making a dog run in the kennel for Annie because the snow was almost over her head! He went all the way to giving our horse (Garcia) paths as well because it was up to his belly in most places.

Garcia would have been fine (he is a HORSE after all) but he ran around and around in appreciation!

With the extreme cold though we were fortunate to get so much snow – the insulation protected water lines and septic tanks throughout the state not to mention several layers of extra insulation for our roofs.

I think 2021 may always be the, “OMG if only I could have known!” year.

In hind sight we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and headache if we had possibly known what kind of heat we would have been seeing this year (and done things earlier) not to mention countless delays in shipping for materials etc. (also ordered everything MUCH earlier in the year too.)

HOWEVER, the delays actually made it possible to slowly pay our projects off a little at time which meant we incurred a lot less interest and were able to buy Lodi a small used car also without incurring any debt.

So, it may not have gone as planned (and drove me bonkers) but, no regrets!

Definitely looking forward to less work and more FUN in 2022!