The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: little blue on December 10, 2010, 08:03:22 pm
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A comment in Jackie's NK thread got me thinking....
why and how did we all get into smallholding?
post below ;D
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town boy born and raised... spent the odd few hours in my youth visiting petting zoo / attraction type places, but had never been on a real farm really. Always interested in animals though, YOC, staffs wildlife trust - not a very cool kid!
anyway, I went to uni to do software engineering in 2000, and as part of that degree, I had to do a year in industry. so 2002/03 I worked at a high school in brecon - next to a lady who owned a farm with her husband. She found out that I'd never really been on a farm before, so invited me over for the weekend. That was it - I was hooked! I went back every weekend and summer hols there after, during uni. I helps with the horses (equine retirement), and with the sheep - also go in with the local YFC (man, that was fun!!).
so, in 2004, I graduated and got a proper job in leicestershire, and a few months in, I met a women who had a couple of fields she wasn't using - 8 acres to be precise. I rented them off her, fenced them, and then bought my first 8 pedigree texels :) also bought a few other sheep that year, and ended up with about 20 or so - havent looked back since - just wish I could be full time self-sufficient.... soon I hope :)
Adam
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Village raised, berry picking, tattie picking etc but folks not too fond of pets/animals and I was always animal mad - lived in Perthshire all my life till 3/4 years ago and garden was bursting with avairies (birds of prey) chicken shed, 3 dogs, 3 cats - when we sold up and move to Aberdeenshire now filling this place up - luckly I have a very understanding or patient OH and as a joiner he's very useful!!!
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We have forever had animals, my OHs family had chooks and horses and we had horses. When we got together we had a rented field with the usual pigs, chooks, rabbits etc. Then we lost the land cause of building and stopped with animals for a while. Then when we got a shoot and raised our own game to release, learned how to train gundogs etc we got the bug again. I had a five acre field for my two horses but could not keep anything else on it. After many a holiday on crofts we decided to go for one of our own and when a couple from London knocked on our door willing to pay over the odds for our house(even though it wasnt for sale) we thought all our holidays had come at once and sold the house and bought this croft.....and never looked back.
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I come from country folk who've always had chickens and rabbits for meat and who grew their own vegetables as a matter of course. My parents were re-inspired by John Seymour etc in the Seventies and we've gone on from there. With Peak Oil on the horizon . a large population and global warming, it makes sense to be as self-sufficient as possible. We started with goats and chickens, have gone onto sheep and it'll be pigs next. We also grow a land of veg and have a large orchard.One of our 4 children shows signs of keeping on the tradition...
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Not a smallholder I'm afraid and suspect I never will be but I now have chickens and veg patches in a fairly small Birmingham back garden. I also have four dogs.
I used to spend all my school holidays from the age of about four at my Aunts' house in Evesham. It was a tied cottage set in about 50 acres of orchard. It was heaven! I used to drive the tractor for my uncle (age 12 onwards) and my aunt and uncle kept chickens, ducks and rabbits. I've only recently realised that the rabbits weren't pets :o :o ;D :D ;D
We went shooting rabbits and hares and I would dearly love to live that life for myself again. Happy days!
Ian
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I'm a farmers daughter - but my brother got the farm ::) Anyway, smallholding suits me better ;D
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Born and brought up in a tiny farming village, my dad was the minister so we had a large house and garden but no money ::) and mum used to grow fruit and veg, make jams, pickles, chutneys, cakes, rugs, knit, crochet, you name it she did it and tried to teach me a few things tho I've never been talented on the domestic side ::)
We grew up picking berries, tattie harvesting, bale stacking and around animals and one neighbour kept ponies he bought at Appleby for his kids, so I got a few rides if I was in the good books, and they used to use our garden to graze too. My brother became a farm contractor, loved his tractors and machinery, was a pig man for a while :o and bought himself hens. Another neighbour gave me and my sister a couple of Aylesbury ducklings which I adored but my sister wasn't fussed. We had cats, a dog, chickens, geese, ducks, ponies, hand milked cattle next door, idyllic in many ways tho quite hard in others..
After dad died when I was 11, we moved to a town and I was lost, but found animals everywhere I could, from gundogs to exercise, donkeys to muck out, to dating a falconer ;D
Eventually found my way back into the ponies and once I was working I bought my own, starting 20+ years of breeding them and with numbers growing I started to rent land rather than use liveries, bought a field, sold that and bought this place which is a 10 acre smallholding just to accommodate the ponies and cats :) Discovered I had a mature fruit orchard, started to put in veg beds, buy fruit bushes and try and remember what mum had taught me. She came a few times to show/help me with jams and chutneys again before sadly getting cancer and dying last year - one of the key moments where I opted to change my life and live the dream before it was too late, so jacked in the day job and am now trying to make a living self employed and do more wiht the garden/orchard than I could when working full time..
I keep looking at other animals (sheep, chickens etc) but with things rather dicey financially it seems wrong to take on more lives to be responsible for but I'm already looking for more land where I might move to a caravan and prove myself as a business to get a house on it ::)
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I've always been into self-sufficiency, even as a student grew my own "produce" on the balcony. Coming here with an enormous garden gave me a taste of the real thing and then OH came across with over a dozen ducks which needed a new home. Then came the chooks. I failed at "growing" meat, just can't kill anything bigger than a moscito... :&>
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I remember this article from the Smallholder some time ago, it seems that smallholding (self sufficiency) is not just restricted to the countryside. I wonder how long it will take for the whole country to embrace this and not be dependant on supermarkets for everything.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/Green/3108456/Todmorden-lays-a-claim-to-be-Britains-greenest-town.html
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I, too am a farmer's daughter and wouldn't know what to do without a few animals in my life.
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i think we are definately accidental smallholders as we both come from townie/city backgrounds.
i've always had horses and when we got married, husband used to say "when we win the lottery I'll buy you your own stables"! both thinking it would never happen of course!
well it didnt but we saved really hard for lots of years and came across our 'jewel' quite by chance about 4 years ago. house was falling down; no veggie garden; no stables; no fencing; no arena....nothing that you could ever fit under 'smallholding' i guess. but we've worked our socks off - made a million mistakes and had the steepest learning curve ever and now have, horses (of course!); stables; arena; shetland sheep (and our own lambs in the freezer); had pigs (also in the freezer) and the new ones are in their wee paddock as i type; ducks (and some in the freezer!); table birds (yup you've guess it, some in the freezer!) and layers. Also have bees and the plan is to get goats in the spring.
we, we me actually, have learned how to grow veggies and for most of the year we dont have to buy any from the supermarket i'm proud to say and i make all our own jams, chutneys, jellies, etc, etc, etc.
Havent bought meat in months (and wont ever again); haven't bought a cake, biscuit or bread for about 4 years now and supermarket eggs are a thing of the past.
cant quite believe that we are the same people we were a few years ago and havent had a business suit on for 3 years! in fact, i dont even think i own one anymore.
like everyone else says, it is a great life - definately much harder than we could ever have imagined, but wouldnt change it for the world.
so it all started really from hubby saying "when we win the lottery I'll buy you your own stables" all those years ago....dreams really do come true (if you work hard enough!)
great thread btw!
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My Dad was a farmer (Beef and arable) up until I was about 12, they diversified into elderly care, but kept our 'pet' sheep, goat (the one that used to wear cardigans when it was cold ;)) and shetland ponies.
Growing up, I wanted to distance myself from the 'green wellie brigade' probably thinking myself far to cool and sophisticated to be involved in farming. (I had arty farty ideas back then !) But after living in a very built up area in Westhill, Aberdeen(for all of a fortnight) I decided that country life was for me after all ;D Once the kids arrived, and especially once I moved back home (the care home was still running) I knew I had to return to farming. The loss of my granny a few years ago made me even more determined (she had a very good reputation as a stockperson apparently) and I hope to continue her legacy of farming at Yonderton.
It's a long process and it's not always easy, but I love it ! ;D
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Fishing village boy here, always loved the thought off farming and dad grew all sorts in the garden, peas tatties sweet corn beetroot turnip purple tops mmm brocoli cauliflower cabage carrots strawberries rasps goosberries grapes tomatoes cucumber we never ever bought veg, the taste is far from a super market where shape and size is what counts. feed the wild birds from a very early age and had my first aviary at 12, Ive breed all sorts and now have hens, I plan to expand my business where I will grow fruit n veg just like dads. with the hens and some sheep and pigs etc, god it turns me on lol. anyway all that from a fisher man hahahah
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I'm a fake! I kid on I'm a smallholder so I'm even more accidental than most. My background is Aberdeen city centre town house, business grandparents(cousins took over the business when Grandma died and ran it into the ground otherwise you'd all have got a 'cappie' - Donald's Ice Cream), but always daft about animals and particularly horses - used to go and see Mary, an old carthorse on a farm near our primary school every day before walking the 4 miles home. (that farm is now Aberdeen Royal Infirmary) After marrying and living in Aberdeen till the kids were sort of independent, hubby and I moved to the country, where we grew veg and fruit, although both of us were working then. When Sandy was killed and I met John a couple of years later we moved to the other side of Aberdeen, again in the country, buying a run down croft needing massive renovations both in the house and the land. We again were both working and although John was a great gardener he wasn't a stockman so we let the field out to a neighbour for cattle and sheep, and just lent a hand when needed. He was made redundant too late in life to be able to get another job in the oil industry so he started a project growing day old chicks to 13 weeks free range - chose the wrong time of year to start and it was a disaster! When he died, I sold the croft and some of the land, built a house on the remainder, and again grew things, but also branched out into ducks and chickens for eggs. Then the kids wanted me to move to a warmer climate and nearer them - warmer huh! my foot! But definitely near enough to see them regularly which is the best bit. Still have dooks n chooks, as well as all my dogs, and my son built me a fruit and veg cage, and a nice ornamental garden, and is keen to set up a polytunnel, and a canopy over the chicken run. Although a city lad, he obviously still enjoys coming over to my 'smallholding in the city', (well village really) So as I said, I am a fake accidental smallholder!
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;)born and brought up on a farm, dad has always worked in farming so a village life i fell into when i left home,now the kids have left home we have started keeping a few animals on my parents smallholding 12 pigs, 1 dexter steer and the labs and goats have all been rehomed (in the freezer) for 2010, my chickens all live here along with my very expectant BT. i could not imagine living anywhere but the country raising animalsand growing our own veg its all i have ever known. yes i know i am lucky.
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Born and brought up in London in an animal-free family. Commuted into the City for nearly forty years with the last ten years spent travelling around Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. There really isn't anywhere I want to go so the family has nobly been taking care of over a million air miles. I've slowed down now and don't travel but I really am very good at what I do: trouble is do you really want to understand what's happening out there?
My wife always had animals so we gradually accumulated cats, dogs then horses, chickens, bees and sheep. They all seem very rational compared with the economy.
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My Dad was a farmer (Beef and arable) up until I was about 12, they diversified into elderly care, but kept our 'pet' sheep, goat (the one that used to wear cardigans when it was cold ;)) and shetland ponies.
Growing up, I wanted to distance myself from the 'green wellie brigade' probably thinking myself far to cool and sophisticated to be involved in farming. (I had arty farty ideas back then !) But after living in a very built up area in Westhill, Aberdeen(for all of a fortnight) I decided that country life was for me after all ;D Once the kids arrived, and especially once I moved back home (the care home was still running) I knew I had to return to farming. The loss of my granny a few years ago made me even more determined (she had a very good reputation as a stockperson apparently) and I hope to continue her legacy of farming at Yonderton.
It's a long process and it's not always easy, but I love it ! ;D
And what colour are your wellies? ;D ;D ;D
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It didn't really start with me but my parents. My mum was a townie- bought up in Edinburgh, but animal daft. So when she left school, she went to The Dick to train to be a vet. During her training she saw practice in Kirriemuir, and then Kinross, where she met my dad. My dad grew up as a gamekeeper's son, but when he was 12, his dad had to go into a wheelchair due to an accident. As they lived in a cottage tied to the estate, someone had to work on the estate, so my dad had to leave school at 12, and he became an apprentice gardener. I don't know if chose that, or if just so happened, but it definitely was his love. He opened his own business by the time he met my mum, a nursery producing veg. They got married before my mum qualified, and by the time she did qualify she was already pregnant, and thereafter she helped with the business (and raised 4 children, and a pedigree herd of goats!)
Initially after they got married, they lived in the town (Kinross), and despite his cajoling, my mum refused to walk 2 miles twice a day (with a toddler whilst she was pregnant) to our strip of land to look after a couple of goats which my dad wanted to get. However, when my sister was 3 months old, they bought the old fever hospital which sat alongside our strip of land, plus an acre of field, and my dad got his wish to get some goats.
I grew up with us keeping goats, ducks, chickens, rearing calves, orphan lambs, and once pigs. We still had the nursery, and had things like 1/2 acre of purple sprouting broccoli, an acre of raspberry's, and produced 2 tonnes of tomato's (in greenhouses) a week. We had a fruit and veg shop- a proper one. To this day I can still smell a proper fruit and veg shop smell, and if I do find a shop that has "the smell" it can nearly bring me to tears.
My dad died while I was still quite young, and we stayed at the old fever hospital for another 10 years after he was gone. But it was a lot to look after, and I was only young so it was too much. We moved here 6 years ago, only have just over an acre, and now of course, I wish I had more land. I guess my mum is really the "accidental smallholder" as opposed to me- I'm just a second generation smallholder.
Beth
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So many years spent listening to the Archers :D :D :D
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I was brought up inBirmingham by parents who wanted to be smallholders and were avid good life fans. They desperately wanted to up sticks and attempt sef sufficiency at one point we nearly ended up in the shetlands but it never happened.
So I grew up with the dream in my head too and after taking the plunge and going self employed I finally earnt enough money to buy the dream home, 250 yr old cottage with 4 acres. It's darn hard work when I also work full time but hubby helps alot so we now have 1 horse 1 pony 3 pigs soon to be a few more when girls farrow, 21 chickens, 2 dogs and a hamster! Sheep next year maybe :-)
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Well, I grew up on the north side of manchester on the edge of a small town, in a family that likes animals but never went beyond dogs, rabbits and the odd hamster.
My best friends' grandmother had a farm (mostly arable - only cats and dogs) very near where I lived and we spent much time there, haymaking, chopping firewood, potato picking, sacking on the back of the combine harvester (it wasn't like the 'modern ones with a hopper for the grain - it had a sacking station behind the driver where a 'crew' could bag up the grain produced and stack the sacks on a platform at the back), or just wandering through the wooded valleys.
Despite the absence of animals on the farm I really loved the countryside itself and always wanted to spent most of my time there. I wanted animals myself but as we didn't have the space for any other that the afore mentioned dogs, etc, I had to do without.
I think I would have gone to be a farmer, but that wasn't encouraged as a career path at my school (or by my parents) at that time, so I "followed the path of least resistance" and trained as a physicist (that's what I was good at at school), and had the vague plan to get a good job and buy a house with land where I could keep animals as pets rather than for a living.
And ended up working in a lab in southwest london - alas the property boom had started and I was limited to a studio flat.
I stuck that out for a few years, then got a job in devon with a telecoms company... just before the dot.com crash in 2000 :-[ . Got made redundant 8 months after I started, and slunk back to my old job in SW london - and the very same rented studio flat. Stuck that out for a few more years then decided I'd wasted enough time and that I needed a job which could be done anywhere.
So I've re-trained as an electrician and am looking to find my own place (I'm currently in a house in Suffolk with an acre of land, that I get for a very modest rent - thanks to a good and sympathetic friend) and I'm preserving my deposit (that I built up whilst working in SW london) and learning how to build up and run my own business. When I find a place with land and at the right price (probably with a ruin and PP to restore), I'll be ready... I hope.
It's my ambition to be a fully qualified shepherd - though my physicist friends think I have an odd notion of a career path :) - yet they always seem envious when the come and see my acre with it's sheep and chickens and veg patch ;) .
mab
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I've always loved animals and used to want to marry a farmer when I was little. Had lived in towns and cities but have always dreamt of having a place in the country with lots of animals. Luckily my husband was also keen on the idea. We were living in New York City but he wasn't too happy in his job and wanted to move back. I said on one condition, that we don't move back to our one bedroom flat in London. So we started looking for our dream home with some land.
I feel very fortunate that we found where we are now with two acres. Sheep and hens were always on the cards but it wasn't until I spoke to someone from the RSPCA who said she may have to rescue a goat but wasn't sure how to rehome him. The rest is history and now we couldn't imagine living without goats.
Of course I would now love some more land to keep some piggies too but for various reasons we have to stick with what we have and enjoy the fantastic animals we keep - goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, dog and cats.
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My Dad was a farmer (Beef and arable) up until I was about 12, they diversified into elderly care, but kept our 'pet' sheep, goat (the one that used to wear cardigans when it was cold ;)) and shetland ponies.
Growing up, I wanted to distance myself from the 'green wellie brigade' probably thinking myself far to cool and sophisticated to be involved in farming. (I had arty farty ideas back then !) But after living in a very built up area in Westhill, Aberdeen(for all of a fortnight) I decided that country life was for me after all ;D Once the kids arrived, and especially once I moved back home (the care home was still running) I knew I had to return to farming. The loss of my granny a few years ago made me even more determined (she had a very good reputation as a stockperson apparently) and I hope to continue her legacy of farming at Yonderton.
It's a long process and it's not always easy, but I love it ! ;D
And what colour are your wellies? ;D ;D ;D
Ah ha - they're actually Doc Martin boots, I'm a rebel at heart ;)
Soon to be replaced with pink tartan muck boots as soon as I get the chance ;D ;D ;D
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Born and brought up in central London, but always knew I was a transplanted rural type - loved animals from the age of dot, we finally got a dog when I was 18 (!) Spent the summer after A levels working on a farm outside Exeter, then worked on 2 farms during Uni summer holidays in Germany (was studying Pure and Applied Biology). Had intended to train to be a Land Agent (figured it was the closest I could get to being a farmer as I wasn't born into a farming background) but got sidetracked by international sporting duties for 15 years which meant I was pretty much required to be in London. Finally managed to persuade my OH that he really really really wanted to live in Cornwall with a few acres so we are now here, with 2 dogs, 6 hens, pork from 4 pigs earlier this year in the freezer, and wanting to expand to veg growing, more pigs, poss some sheep and just enjoying the rural environment
;D ;D ;D ;D
Tish
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I always wanted to be a vet, but major amounst of attitute and truancy curtailed that! Met my husband at the Highland Show, (I was a bouncer at the Herdsman), and moved up to the sticks where I was allowed to have my own pure Jacobs. I then wanted goats, then came the pigs, hottly followed by the highland coos and I'm now looking for a clydesdale horse!
He, on the other hand, is a REAL farmer!!( So he tells me)!!
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Grew up in the middle of nowhere in Africa, grew our own veg, kept a mixture of poultry, milk cows, pigs, goats etc, made our own bread butter jams etc, so it has been a way of life I have maintained ever since!
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(I was a bouncer at the Herdsman)
Thank god I was never kicked out of the Herdsman by a bouncer. In fact- I don't remember there even were bouncers!
Beth
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I'm doing it to prepare for the future...
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I'm doing it to prepare for the future...
That sounds like a friend of mine with concerns for the future whose plans are "cash, canned food and cartridges"
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Born under Heathrow in a maisonette, only child of a teacher and a brick layer. Went to a London art college, toured the country in a not famous rock band, became a teacher, Escaped to the country, brought some chickens and suddenly felt like I had found myself. Now OH and I own three acres and get more militant and determined to be self reliant the older we get. I keep finding things out that make me angry - mass vaccination programmes, fluride in the water, growth hormones in the supermarket food, I could go on ,,, but wont. Being a smallholder gives me back just a little bit of power over my own
density destiny. Meantime I subtly alter the minds of the young people i teach and encourage them to ask more questions and not swallow everything they are encouraged to consume.
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Just found this thread again by accident - any more of you want to tell your story? Makes great reading
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I loved the programme The Good Life and wanted for years to give it a go. Always enjoyed growing my own veg and, when I moved to a Scottish island, I had hens and ducks. I did want a goat (after learning to milk a friend's) but my then husband wouldn't allow it. Now I am doing my Good Life bit with goats in my garden and growing fruit and veg. I never did make it as far as getting a smallholding but my micro holding is my pride and joy.
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Not a drop of farming blood, but I have always liked animals and I like food. These sort of converged to a point where I'm growing food and working with a beef herd now.
:farmer:
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Born and bred in a victorian London terrace to clean parents who despaired of a daughter that liked getting muddy. Taken to my Aunt's sheep and cattle farm in Wales for all of my school holidays while growing up, where I got to experience lambing, shearing, dipping, hay and strawmaking, etc. Lost touch with it all in my mid to late teens when i discovered boys and booze.
Was introduced to food growing in my late 20s after visiting a work colleague's house and admiring her strawberry patch. She dug up two plants and I stuck them on the windowsill of my rented first floor flat and over the months that followed I caught the growing bug. I had a huge bay window so tried growing whatever I could, including herbs, dwarf green beans, beetroot, carrots and mini sweetcorn (talk about enthusiastic!) in massive tubs. I have fond memories of visiting B&Q every evening on the walk home from work to pick up tiny bags of compost.
I outgrew the flat, literally, and ended up moving from to a house with a garden, but the landlord didn't want me growing veggies in the borders so I got a local handyman to knock up two 5x2 foot wheeled containers and I practiced square foot gardening in them. I learnt about foraging and scoured the canal paths and footpaths in the area for hedgerow fruits that I could preserve. I took on an allotment but hated traipsing backward and forward with my tools (i didn't have car) and not having any cover from the elements (sheds were not allowed) plus there was a public right of way through it so produce kept going missing.
After I met my husband, we came across, quite by accident, a very run down three-bed ex council house with a 1/4 acre back garden and decided to renovate it. We grew our own fruit and veg and kept chickens and ducks, practiced preserving, baking, rural skills, as we slowly restored it. Then at the beginning of 2016 we got wind of a massive warehouse development planned just outside the village, so large it would join two rural villages together. By then his hobby had pretty much used up all the available space on the property and I wanted to keep bigger animals so we decided to move.
We'd visited this area before on holiday and loved it so decided to find a farm or smallholding up here. We found this place, again quite by accident, fell in love with it and that was that. Although it was only 1.5 acres, the house was a 20 year old self build and immaculate, and it came with victorian brick barns in good condition and a half acre paddock with mature fruit trees.
There are no veg beds here, so I've started square foot gardening on the patio using pallet collars, and am working on introducing proper veg beds into the paddock, with the help of the chickens who are clearing a large rectangular area every few months. In time we'll acquire some more land and maybe expand, but for the moment we're focused on doing something new and major every year (this year pigs next year sheep) and building up slowly. We still have full time jobs, but i work from home so i can keep an eye on animals during the day and do a bit here and there.
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Not accidental at all, but definitely not expected by friends and family.
I grew up in the East End of London with a love of animals and nature. As a kid my sister grew veggies in the garden, so I guess I maybe got a bit of the bug from her. I dreamed of being a vet but my grades weren't quite there. I went into the biological sciences instead. I discovered paganism and it rang with my soul, I became more interested in connecting with the land around me, more interested in where my food came from. I finished uni, got a job and then a masters and all the while dreamed of having a bit of land with no real form to the idea. I learnt about brewing and foraging in the meantime. I moved to Scotland for a PhD and had my first ever contact with sheep, I promptly fell in love with the idea of having some. I started picking up other skills, mainly crafting with wool. Finally, when the PhD was done we managed to make the dream a reality with 2.5 acres in Lincolnshire. We have sheep and geese and chickens, grow our own fruit and veg, eat our own meat and buy from other smallholders, make our own preserves and brew and juice. We aren't self sufficient yet, especially not in chicken, but we are getting there. My food shops are starting to contain more sugar, vinegar and seasonings than veg and meat. We really need some kind of dairy animal though as a lot of our shop is dairy. I'm loving the change in life and that my 2 year old is growing up in a completely different way than I did. I'm lucky I found a supportive husband who agreed that we can go on this crazy venture together. My family don't all get it (my mum thinks I should pay someone to come in and look after the animals for me and do all the heavy work as well). I still look at places with more land, maybe one day we will move and be able to get ourselves more large livestock but for now this is home.
Dans