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Homestead 2018: New Book, Market Garden and Custom Tackle Change

As we flip the calendar over to 2018, I want to mention some of my plans for the homestead in the coming year. 2017 was a year of transition, as I started a professionally challenging new role as executive director of a startup economic development group, AnsonEDP, in a town more than 60 miles from the homestead and chose to split my time between the two. This arrangement was a little tricky at first, but as Janet and I came to an understanding about shared duties things smoothed out and we actually had a reasonably productive year in the garden. Buoyed by that success, I am looking to take on a couple of additional challenges in 2018; a new, full-length nonfiction book and a market garden, as ell as some minor changes to my custom tackle business.

I started work on the new book, which will be called Ben and the Art of Lawnmower Maintenance, in earnest this past September, although the origin of the project can be traced back to an essay by that title I published on the Porch Dog Journal blog back in 2015. If everything goes as expected, I plan to publish Ben in late April or early May, and follow it up with a "book signing" tour of hardware stores and garden centers over the summer. Although it will be the fourth book I have published, it will be the first book of original material since Breakfast at Midway in 2008. Part memoir, part short-fiction and part humorous (but legitimate) lawn care guide, it will be dedicated to my father, Bennie Marek, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in July.

Beginning just after the first of the year, I plan to start work on a market garden. Although it will nominally be part of the Wynfield Creek Homestead, the garden will actually be planted on some land adjacent to my "weekday" apartment in Wadesboro. I will come right out and say that I have no idea how well this is going to work as it has been 30 years since I attempted anything of this scale, and quite honestly it didn't work out so well back then. Given the somewhat unusual circumstances, it is entirely possible that it will be a complete bust, but I am hoping to be lucky enough to have produce to sell at the Uptown Wadesboro Farmers' Market this summer. I will definitely keep you updated on the project, however it may ultimately turn out.

The final change for 2018 will be the retiring of the "Porch Dog Custom Tackle" brand. As many of you know, for the past five years I have been making and selling custom fishing tackle under that name. For the sake of simplicity, I've decided to bring that business under the Wynfield Creek umbrella. It doesn't really impact anything other than the packaging and the Facebook page, which as discontinued right after Christmas. I hope that those of you who previously followed the Porch Dog Custom Tackle page will switch over to Wynfield Creek Homestead.

Well, that's it. Let's get this 2018 thing under way

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