When we first moved here, a year ago, we planned on a monthly blog, then after a few months a seasonal blog or at the very least when we reached key milestones; new additions, projects completed etc., but time has just flown by and posts have been few and far between as the desire to sit indoors at a keyboard diminishes.
It has been a good year, dare I say the best. We are indeed living the dream, the good life. Our Smallholding already provides us with many items on our wish list. We enjoy fresh eggs while our chickens and ducks enjoy a free range life controlling the garden pests and turning the soil and compost for us. The raised beds we made are bursting with vegetables and our hedgerows with fruits. The highland steers have helped to battle the overgrown vegetation by munching on and trampling down our fields while enjoying the freedom to roam and scratch (on gates, taps, trailers, stone walls). Our four dogs have adjusted well. 12 year old Rosie has gained the nickname Dora as she disappears for hours exploring the farm. Toby despite his arthritis races down to the gate with us for post runs and chases the farm cat Myrtle with his legs flying in all directions (never a hope of catching her). Golden Retrievers Daisy and Lily have both blossomed, enjoying a different pace of life, new adventures and more attention.
We have seen all the seasons with the full force of nature; wind blowing down 6 trees in Autumn, freezing pipes in several feet of snow and minus 13 centigrade in Winter and flood waters washing away the top layer of the stone drive in Spring. As Summer shines on us again, we reflect on the beauty of the place, in all weathers. We are currently enjoying an abundance of colour, lush green everywhere along with a spectrum of rich reds, through yellow buttercups and Welsh poppies to purple foxgloves and marsh orchids. It is still very much an untamed wild landscape but we made our mark here and there.
In our first year, we have learnt some rudimentary crafts to build up our skillset such as scything, weaving willow baskets, building a saw horse with hand tools, basic coppicing, carving spoons from wood and basic leatherworking. We also attended a chicken husbandry course and were shown the broom technique for dispatching chickens (a sobering experience). There is still plenty to learn. We have cleared brambles, nettles, reeds and rushes from about an acre of land and created growing areas and raised beds for long term crops of asparagus and rhubarb. The potting shed and polytunnel have helped us to grow a bounty of salads and vegetables but we now plan a second polytunnel and more raised beds in the hope of feeding ourselves in all seasons.
The stables of our long house have been converted into poultry sheds for our chickens and ducks, and the barn that was full of junk when we arrived, now has a log store on one side made out of pallets and cattle accommodation on the other made from farm gates. We still have workshops full of debris from the previous owners but we have sent one skip full to the local recycling centre and once we got over the shock of paying for the hire of the skip and the waste by the tonne we have slowly continued to clear space and set up a wood working area next to the house.
Our experience of farming animals has been hands on, taking on 21 chickens in October (one died overnight in the first week and another died after an encounter with Daisy), 2 highland steers in December and 5 ducks in April. We have had the odd sheep wander in when delivery drivers have left our gate open and helped to bottlefeed pet lambs at neighbours and the pleasure of lamb sitting for a few days. We are now getting ready for 4 Welsh weaners at the end of July and picked up a pig arc from Liz Shankland, who literally wrote the book on pigs (Haynes Manual) and looking forward to the next chapter of our adventure. Maybe with more regular updates, you never know.
