How did I do on my goals from last January

Every year I put a list together of things I want to accomplish. Ideas and thoughts change, so sometimes so do my beginning of the year goals. Some I really stick to, while others become less important and even irrelevant. That said, if I write a goal in January, it means it was important to me at that time. Within a day or two, I'll post my goals for 2017. For now, here is how I did on goals I wrote out last year. Regular script is my original goals., I just copied and pasted them. Italics script, is how I did.

1. I want to do a three day/fifty mile hike in June. Actually it is three different hikes, but they are over 4000 footers and honestly I want to finish them. These hikes are- Owls Head (18 miles), Isolation (14 miles) and a loop over all three Carters, Carter Dome, and Wildcats in one day. The last hike is by far the hardest. It is really three different hikes but since these mountains are so far from home, I want to get them done in one day even if it exhausts me. I choose June because it has the most daylight. Short of doing all three of these mountains in three consecutive days, I still want to wipe these hikes off my list sometime during the summer.

Owls Head's wooded summit

Although I didn't do so in a three day period I did all these mountains except Wildcat. Doing the Carters and Carter Dome was all I could do in a day. By the time I got to the base of Wildcat it was 5:20 and I still had 4 miles to get to the car. Calling this one a win anyway. Owls Head sucks!

2. There are a few expensive daytrips  and overnights I want to do. Money might be an issue so I might not be able to do all of them. The reason that they are lumped together is, I don't want a few daytrips/overnights to define my year.

                      A. Go on a Pelagic trip out of Chatham. These trips go out to see seabirds. They are scheduled infrequently, so I would need a day off to align with a trip

I tried three times to go on a pelagic, each times the weather didn't cooperate and they got cancelled
                 
                     B. Go up to New Hampshire for another snowshoe hike the week daylight savings time begins again. The only issue is, I have jury duty scheduled that week

I didn't go. The jury duty did screw me up. By the following week I was thinking spring and trout fishing

                      C. Cuttyhunk Seal Cruise in the Winter

The Cuttyhunk Seal Cruise actually fell on the day of one of my cancelled pelagics. I called that morning, but the boat was sold out. Bummer

                      D. May overnight in Newburyport. I want to stay up there Wednesday-Friday. I want to do a couple of Audubon walks.

I did an overnight at Plum. I stayed at Salisbury Beach. I birded hard for two days but found time to go shad fishing also. It was a great two days

                   
3. Spend more nights outdoors. Whether in New Hampshire or Mass, I want to camp more than last year. I'd rather sleep in my tent than my bed

Absolutely, between eleven days in South Dakota and seven trips to NH, I spent  25 nights in my sleeping bag. 

4. This one is strange and doesn't seem outdoorsy, but bear with me- I want to go on more picnics this year than go out to eat at restaurants.  Here is why, I love picnics, I simply want to do them more. Secondly, I don't really love going out to eat. It is more of a something to do thing. However, it is a complete waste of money. There are so many other things I can do with thirty dollars that I consider way more fun than eat. I can do an all day fishing trip or fill my tank for a weekend in New Hampshire for the same money as an hour meal. Much more importantly, I want to go to Key West this November. Any money spent at a restaurant here, is money not spent on fun there.

Rules- food has to be homemade, Subway does not count. Picnics can be eaten anywhere outside, they don't have to be on a blanket or a picnic table. Also eating less than $5 worth of fast food does not count as going out to eat, but I rarely get fast food anyway.

I was trying to keep track of my picnics. I stopped doing the tally half way through the year. I'm sure I ate outdoors at a 3-1 ratio to going out to eat.

5. I signed up my Rhode Island bird list on ribird.org .I  have absolutely no chance of placing in the top 5. It is not a competition anyway. The list is just an easy way to keep track of your own list. It only counts for birds seen in RI, which is another reason why I won't place high. I like going birding in too many places in MA. Of course there is a little competition in all of us, so if I can, I want to place in the top 10. I saw 144 species of birds last year. My other goal is to see 144 in RI. If I see 144 in RI and place dead last, then it doesn't matter, because that would be a hell of a feat for me.

I crushed my old record of 144 species. I saw a total of 182 species. Of those, I saw 161 in Rhode Island. I did not count my birds in South Dakota in that number. I could have seen over 200 birds locally if I spent more time birding and less hiking and fishing. More on this in another post. 

6.  Go to New Hampshire as much as possible.

I went seven times. That is the most I've gone ever. This is easily attributed to owning a car without 300,000 miles and the confidence it won't break down.

7.  Write two  fishing articles. I already have one planned. I need another idea. I can get lazy with coming up with ideas. So the plan is to spend some time thinking of something up to pitch to editors.

Only wrote the one article

8. I would like to see a sea turtle of any species

I wish

9. This one will take pure luck. I'd like to get a great photo of a bull moose. I have a lot of really good close ups of cow moose, the problem is, female moose are ugly. I want a good picture of an antlered male

I saw one moose all year. It was a big bull. Unfortunately it was across a huge pond and walked into the woods

Percentage wise, I didn't do so well. If you count each letter in my second goal, I went 7/12. Not exactly killing it. Some of the failures are completely my fault such as not writing any other articles. Other things I couldn't control such as finding a big bull moose or sea turtle. Also, goals change. I got so fixated on hiking mountains and catching stripers, I barely birded the last half of the year.