Hopefully by now you have decided to reap the benefits of keeping a farm journal. You may even have a journal to write in and a time to write in it. There is one last question to answer: What are you going to write about?
There is only one important rule to remember here, and that is that there is no such thing as a right or wrong way to keep a journal. The journal is your record, your learning tool. It should be flexible enough to meet your specific needs. You have a lot of options.
Here are just a few of the things you could write about in your farm journal:
- Egg production.
- Planting dates.
- New goals.
- Total precipitation.
- Providential circumstances.
- Ideas that you want to remember for later.
- Mistakes that you learned from.
- Advice that you picked up from a book or a friend.
- New methods that you are experimenting with.
- Cause-and-effect relationships that you don’t understand yet.
And this is just the beginning!
So how do you customize your journal? First remember why you are keeping one. What are you hoping to accomplish? Make sure the information in your journal matches your reasons for writing in it.
As you write, you will start to learn what type of information you need to record. You will look back over your journal and find some gaps in the record as well as some superfluous details. Adjust accordingly.
It is this kind of customization that makes keeping a journal meaningful. Writing a record of events you don’t care about is a chore; writing about events that are relevant to you is invaluable. Suddenly your farm journal is not just a set of blank pages to be filled—it is the best learning aid in your toolbox.
Complete Series
Homestead on the Range 