One month in…

The end of July sees the end of our first month at Graig and we have broken ourselves with physical chores (bruised and sore from head to toe) but not made a dent in the work.  Many of the smallholding books we had read before the move hinted at how overwhelming the work can be and to plan small tasks that could be easily completed along side the larger projects.  Our A5 notebook quickly became 3 pages of small tasks but checking the list today we have completed half these smaller tasks.

Aside from the usual moving house unpacking (around 30 boxes), moving and plumbing in white goods, moving furniture, cleaning cupboards and learning a new community, taking a lot of junk that came with the farm to recycling centre (including cans and bottles from alcohol 5 years out of date) and making a family outing to the beach (about an hour away) we have reclaimed land from the brambles and thistles, swept out 5 stables, a pig cot and barn, unblocked the drain to rear of property, chopped down overhanging tree branches on the drive and in front of our satellite dish, replaced the rusty rotary drier in a new location, cleared out the potting shed, prepared soil in the polytunnel, sown winter vegetable, salad and herb seeds, run out of Colar Gas and replaced two empty 47kg bottles, run out of water from our private supply twice, cut a path up the hill to the water storage tanks, learnt how the water is collected and how to clear the air lock in the collection tank, got to know the semi feral farm cat living in the barn, assessed the state of the lower field and begun to prepare the orchard and old vegetable patch as an area for pigs, begun the smallholding registration process with Rural Payments Wales and signed ourselves up to a course on scything.

I suppose it’s not a bad start…

July 31st, 2017