The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: spandit on August 16, 2013, 04:30:56 pm
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The owner of the place we are buying has very kindly let us move some stuff into the outbuildings so I helped my father-in-law move some bits from his shed. It's mostly scrap timber so not of great value to would be thieves.
Anyway, she had expressed an interest in meeting the dogs so I took them round. After a few minutes, where she expressed her delight at them, we let her get back to work and headed up into the 10 acres of paddocks that come with the property.
It's certainly going to keep us busy - very boggy and lots of different species aside from grass. It's been recently topped but there is a load of bracken already and a fair amount of dock coming up too. Plenty of young brambles are creeping out from the hedgerows too although they'll have to compete with the rushes that frankly dominate. The owner did admit the land could do with better drainage. I'm planning on getting someone in to dig the ditches out but I'll be planting a lot of willow and alder which should thrive there. In the years to come, I'd like to divert the ditches into a lake as there's already a patch of standing water. I'll dig this out a bit once we move in to see if it fills up before investing in some heavy machinery to excavate several thousand tonnes of soil!
Pleased to note the new oak trees that have self seeded. I'll put some guards around these, I think to stop them getting eaten/mown down. A few new birch coming up too but it's mainly grey willow around the edges, but with some nice oak standards and large birch.
Dogs were like pigs in poo, diving into the undergrowth. Lots of rabbit burrows to sniff so they'll need some management. Molehills aplenty abound but we won't be cropping hay so not too worried. At least the soil looks good (to my untrained eye!)
Can't wait to move in for real in a fortnight!!
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:thumbsup: Sounds that you will be kept very busy and out of trouble for a few years...... :thumbsup:
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Sounds like it going to keep you busy. Good luck with the move
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sounds superb, :thumbsup:
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Great, you are almost there :thumbsup: a few photos of the almost-your-place so I can have smallholding envy ASAP please :eyelashes:
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Great, you are almost there :thumbsup: a few photos of the almost-your-place so I can have smallholding envy ASAP please :eyelashes:
That's the house on the left and my playroom on the right! :D
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk76/richardspandit/Old%20Farm/DSC_2779.jpg)
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Why oh why did I ask for piccies. Suffering total smallholding envy now :huff:
That place looks absolutely perfect. I wish you the best of luck in your exciting new venture :excited: keep us informed as you progress ( with more envious piccies of course :eyelashes: )
First you get through the longest fortnight ever.
next step - the keys :sunshine:
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Next step is moving a lot of stuff. We're moving two households in but fortunately the owner is letting us fill the outbuildings. Feel a bit guilty we're kicking her out of her home of 16 years but my in-laws have been in their place 38 so that'll be a wrench too...
It is pretty perfect. No running water, though and you can't see the sea but it's rural without being remote and the house is big enough without being cavernous. The barn is too small for all our crap :D
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Looks great. You will have a wonderful time. Enjoy :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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For a BIG playroom like that your going to need some BIG TOYS :innocent: fantastic...I am excited for you :thumbsup:
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All very exciting stuff. :thumbsup:
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For a BIG playroom like that your going to need some BIG TOYS :innocent: fantastic...I am excited for you :thumbsup:
Unfortunately the BIG price tag has put the damper on my planned expenditure... for now!
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Oh dear, well you can have a wish list and do some cosmic ordering......otherwise, you could have one hell of a party in the huge barn :thumbsup:
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Spandit, that looks lovely. So :excited: for you.
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Only 10 days to go! :fc:
We were moving a load of stuff up there but think the vendor started getting a little annoyed with the amount so taking a break from it now. Garage piled high with boxes...
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As it got a well or bore hole for water the ground looks ok. Have a nice time in youre new place work hard and the money will come.
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As it got a well or bore hole for water the ground looks ok. Have a nice time in youre new place work hard and the money will come.
There's a well, desperate to find out how deep it is! The photo I added is of the bottom paddock, the top paddock is more sloped and poorly drained. I'm planning on digging a lake in the bottom paddock and draining the top paddock into it.
We're very fortunate that we don't have to earn a living from the land to pay the mortgage but hopefully we can earn a few pennies in due course
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We made a big lake out of sleepers and slabs the bottom was 4ft deep and as big as a house plot we crossed the sleepers and back filled with stone and concrete it still looks good. Yes if you can grow you re food would help to start things of
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Already got a shepherd lined up to put some sheep in. Going to get chickens soon afterwards, although all this talk of red mites is putting me off a bit!
Vegetables already planned and hoping fruit harvest should be good this year. Plums and pears not quite ready but apples didn't look far off.
Wife is buying me a medlar tree for our anniversary - it's "wood" so quite fitting
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good start having a shepherd lined up sheep breed and yes you must get some rare breed hens red mite will soon get jack frost to sort .
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We're going to start with rescue hens, not sure where the money for a henhouse is coming, though...
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if i was nere i would give you some hens to get you to help me to in prove some stock and a pen would be no bother iv got 5 folk like this 6 hens and a cock bird and rotate the cocks round .
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We're going to start with rescue hens, not sure where the money for a henhouse is coming, though...
Good luck :fc: with your move :excited: . Don't worry about a fancy hen house at first - just get a small shed and convert it. the :chook: :chook: (esp rescue ones) will be perfectly happy. The neighbours could not believe the old crap that moved with us - had to build a barn to house it all :roflanim: :roflanim: .
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Had a very stressful few minutes this morning. Was waiting for an invoice from the solicitors that should have been in the region of £85,000 (which we had in our account). It came through as over £113,000, which we didn't!! By scrabbling around all our accounts we realised that we could just about afford to pay that amount, although it would mean paying the movers etc. on credit cards (and the estate agents would just have to wait...) - left doubt as to whether we'd have enough to pay the initial mortgage though...
Fortunately, the useless tit of a solicitor sent through the right amount a little while later and I've just come back from the bank having arranged a CHAPS transfer... :sunshine:
Now significantly poorer than I was last night, but on Friday it should all be worth it :fc: :thumbsup:
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:relief: :relief: :relief: ........not sure I could scrape that much up but it certainly appears a tense time! :fc:
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I would have been having kittens. Glad it was sorted out.