The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: shearling on August 23, 2011, 07:18:43 am
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Following on from reading about the 'going green' house for sale anf under 10 acres not being enough. Just been round my estate ;D ;D got three quail eggs (three girls, one boy), a hen egg (two girls, one boy), patted the dogs (2 girls), checked the sheep (6 girls, 4 boys), checked the new chooks (10 ??? yet to tell me ::) ). Later to collect the beans for dinner, pick the beetroot (boil and pickle), ready to pick the apples for storage and cider production. Pick remaining plums for storage....We cannot sustain oursleves fully, but flower, fruit, veg, and alcohol bill dropped to nearly nill (due my first lemon grown in the house for three years). Not keeping pigs or having enough older birds to cover meat production fully yet. We got photvoltaic before the governments offer so only get 8p per KWh, instead of 45p and yes ouch that hurts. So we eat and live well - but not enough to pay for university fees ::) ::)
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I could have written the last post myself...glad to see theres someone else in a similar situation ! Just done my morning rounds Ive only got about two acres all told. This am starts as normal being greeted by the horse "why am I not out then yet?", so he goes out, last new section in his present "field" tomorow I have to move the electric tape over to the next plot.
"yes sheep Im comming" I extent thier electric fence avoiding the apple tree that needs picking by me not sheep. (Mum and this years twin girls and last years girl)
Feed the ducklings,they are three weeks oud now still in a pen although they are quite big (Four hatched in the incubator) ((Theres Quail eggs in there now to make christmas birds))
Let all the hens out, one big one still laying (4), moan at the Bantams as I only get 1 egg from the three of them (+ 1 boy). The next lot of chicks havent decided whose who yet (7)
Check the vege patch...oops the courgettes have got huge again (Im sure I checked them yesterday) Out onto the streetside table with a donations jar...I really must come and weed the beans again.
Like you we want photovoltaic but the grants here come as tax breaks, quite generous ones, my little job does not even bring us near to the tax bracket so no help with PV.
Now in munching toast, checking computer, must do those apples today into juice (for cider) and those plums need picking...Just another slice THEN I WILL get on...
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Hi, as a wannabe small holder i ahve a couple of questions to ask if you do not mind answering?
My first question is how do you afford to buy these types of properties? I live in the south and even in my wildest dreams there is no way on earth I could afford something round here with a big garden let alone 2 or more acres.
My second question is, how do you support yourself, If you spend alot of your time managing your small holding and have a mortgage and bills to pay and still need money left over to do things with and of course afford all of the animals feed etc?....
I know that you will be making alot of your own food and potentially make items to sell but unless you are raking it in you would still need a sizable income to cover the martgage and bills.
Sorry if I seem too up front with my questions, I have been doing my sums and cannot figure out I could ever afford to have the lifesyle that I aspire to.
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Cavendish
No worries about your questions, land prices in the South have always been a lot greater than for example here in the North and you'll find the majority of people on here live in rural areas off the beaten track or have bought properties that need serious renovation and upkeep.
The other thing is that most of us also hold down full time jobs as well as running our smallholdings to keep the wolf from the door or at the very least one of us works, and we do without, holidays, buy clothes & footwear as necessary not on a whim, and make do & mend equipment and household stuff.
You will also find that quite a few of us have had to wait until we are in out late forties to set out on this path so we've done the work, paid off a goodly chunk of our mortgage and have had a bit more cash to play with.
Its not easy setting out, we started off 7 years ago and are just getting to the point where we can actually start to enjoy the bounties of all our hard work but keeping a sMallholding is a bit like painting the forth road bridge its neverending upkeep and maintenance.
HTh
Mandy :pig:
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Thanks Mandy, I suppose I need to keep chipping away at the dream, I am just about to get the keys to my first house, so hopefully once the years roll by I will be able to find a little smallholding somewhere off the beaten track.
But first things first, I need to build my first raised beds!!!..
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Well we are motgaged to the hilt, bought a wreck (last in several that we have done up ourselves and then sold on to afford the mortgage) and doing it up slowly - to be livable in - ourselves mainly but with specialist help from a local tradesman who is brilliant. Price of property varies in the south so we moved to where we could afford, ie not a nice commute to London.
For the last 20 years no central heating, no booze, no fags, few trips out, no holidays, one car shared by four, few new clothes and these only for paid work, no new furniture, carpets, etc. Heating is two log burners. we spend all summer and every weekend cutting wood. cut down/copse trees on the edge of our field and clear up fields from locals who cannot be bothered to deal with the wood, until its in a packet. All spare time when not on computer and TAS spent on paid work or doing up house, caring for livestock, garden, veg etc. We get up at 5.30am everyday and work solidly (one way or another) until 10.30pm or later when needed. No time to make items to sell (not enough profit in terms of time vs value for money). Animal feed is not that expensive and some just mainly eat grass, or plants we have grown from seed and they get straight from the veg plot (not via kitchen). We need to buy very little food and are pragmatic about stuff such as flour (not going to mill my own - time vs value for money again), coffee, tea etc. Routines are what manages the animals and the land, mostly they require little intervention and when they do, such as lambing, then that when I take my holiday from my paid job. So you see for us there is no money left to do things with other than survive and one day we may have to sell to pay off the mortgage but thats life. It has always been our dream to have this way of life and it has taken 20 years of scrimping and saving to get to where we are. So make a plan, stick to it and maybe in 20 years you could get here to.
PS The luxury is having the dogs who do not really pay their way except for company and fun. ::)
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Hi Cavendish, good luck with house move :hshoe: and the raised beds. Why not get some quail - good egg layers and not too much work or noise, either that or chooks. That way you get a tasty egg and it will start you off to the 'good life'. no need for a cockerel. We kept bantams in our previous houses in towns. Although we have good jobs we made most of our profit buying and selling houses, buying ones people did not want (too much work to do) and selling them on when the market was right.
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So there are two opposite ways of looking at things - buy the biggest most run-down house you can afford and do it up to sell so you can afford the next project (make a TV programme about it if you can which will up the resale price and be quite a nice little earner too), or buy the smallest house you can find (again needing a lot of work) but with the land you want, and stay there. We went for the second option after many years of looking at properties which were too big, or just too much work, or too close to town so too expensive. Unfortunately by the time we found our place our children were leaving home, so they missed out on a country life. We had had two allotments for many years though so always plenty of veg. Now all our grandchildren can enjoy our life with us.
I sometimes idly look through the properties with land for sale and I am often struck by the fact that the house is big and expensive with just a couple of acres. Maintenance costs alone for such large properties (without even mentioning the mortgage, although mortgages are eventually paid off 8)) are going to mean you would have to have a well-paid job to support them. Often it is the old farmhouse which could not be supported by the acreage the farmer had, so he sells it off and builds himself a small efficient bungalow.
We have never made a profit from our holding although our sales of pedigree sheep and eggs cover the price of winter hard feed for all the livestock - it then just becomes a big garden from the point of view of paying for it.
Like the others, we don't have holidays or buy expensive clothes, go out for meals (why would you when your own produce is so much better than anything a restaurant can serve?) or have expensive taste in anything. We buy mostly second hand equipment and my OH does it up and maintains it. Our enjoyment comes from living where we do and how we do. We have worked hard but now with my major health problem we are having to cut right back on the animals. But adaptability to circumstances is one of the skills of the smallholder, so things go on but differently.
Walking (or in my case now trundling in my all-terrain mob trike ;D) the boundaries and just looking at what we have - animals, hedges, crops, equipment, sheds (you can never have too many sheds), produce, a wonderful view, neighbours a respectable distance away, eachother - it's just great. Our estate, as shearling says :trophy:
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Thanks Shearling & Fleecewife, your descriptions of your workloads certainly gives me alot of food for thought, I will certainly be looking into chooks, but not sure we quite have enough space for them, I am intending to put in 2 or 3 raised beds, which will then leave a little lawn area for us to bask in the sun when it comes out, I dont think the Mrs would be too thrillled about our new garden turning into an alotment straight away but I shall certainly try!.
She is enthusiastic about being self suffucient, but it's me that does most of the work in the garden, although she does make a good victorian chutney!.
Property prices in Caversham, Reading, are insane but still not as mad as in London. Our ultimate ideal is to relocate to the Wilshire / somerset area, although they are not cheap areas we would get alot more for our money then we are currently getting, which could involve a small plot of land for me to teach the children about the world of self sufficiency, when they arrive. :farmer:
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Maybe I could boost the resale value of my house with a new TV series "Piss Poor and Green"
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Hiya all, just sat and read these posts with interest. We are living in a 4 bed bungalow with a cpl of acres of land and best of all no neighbours!!! We moved here a year ago and bought it as our daughter is in a wheelchair and wanted some more independence and at 7yrs old it was getting harder carrying her up and down stairs! The land was basically a bonus, I am a proper city girl who at 35 yrs old still enjoys lunching with the girls and nights out and so was unsure how I'd manage. Fast forward a year and we now have a dog :dog:, a rabbit :bunny:, 2 Shetland ponies :horse: :horse:, 6 Shetland sheep :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep:, and will have ducks :&> by the end of the week- everyone is amazed, I'm in wellies as often as in high heels :D and yep I'm loving it ;D
I really consider us accidental smallholders as we've never planned this, or to be honest even wanted it, but we wouldn't change it for anything, we've grown all our own fruit and veg and also enough to keep all friends and family going, the only thing we don't do is eat our animals :o we consider everything we get as additions to our family and so will be with us till their natural end!
I'm lucky I guess as I don't work (though my hubby works enough for 3 ppl, but still manages to be at home lots!) so I basically get to enjoy our country life, playing with the animals and having friends over to visit, as they all like to see what we've got up to recently!
We like a few of you bought and sold a couple of properties well and managed to achieve this, there's a lot to be done on the house and land, and I didnt realise how much continual maintenance is needed, but we can see the end picture, living the good life in a house designed for our needs and with only the sounds of wildlife to accompany us!
I don't know if I could manage without central heating, new clothes, new furniture etc etc, but I'd be willing to sacrifice a lot, I hope you manage to achieve your dreams and till then good look with the raised beds :)
Xx
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So there are two opposite ways of looking at things - buy the biggest most run-down house you can afford and do it up to sell so you can afford the next project (make a TV programme about it if you can which will up the resale price and be quite a nice little earner too), or buy the smallest house you can find (again needing a lot of work) but with the land you want, and stay there. We went for the second option after many years of looking at properties which were too big, or just too much work, or too close to town so too expensive. Unfortunately by the time we found our place our children were leaving home, so they missed out on a country life. We had had two allotments for many years though so always plenty of veg. Now all our grandchildren can enjoy our life with us. ...
That was a lovely post, FW. :bouquet:
There is a third way. There are a surprising number of intentional communities around (including several within commuting distance of London), where a number of like-minded people - singletons, couples and families - share an 'estate' and the work of running it. Many have jobs outside the community and some work full-time within it. Some communities require members to buy in, some have ways of letting people work their way in, rent or whatever. A number of these communities are WWOOF hosts, and/or run volunteer working weekends, so you can go along and get a taste of what it is like to be a part of such a setup.
A couple within striking distance of Caversham are Braziers Park near Wallingford http://www.braziers.org.uk/ (http://www.braziers.org.uk/) and Redfield in North Bucks (near Aylesbury) http://www.redfieldcommunity.org.uk/ (http://www.redfieldcommunity.org.uk/) Redfield is the home of LILI (the Low Impact Living Initiative), which also runs the WWOOF UK office. They run a lot of courses there, many of which would be of interest to smallholders and wannabe smallholders.
Another truly inspiring WWOOF host nearby to you, Cavendish, is Lower Shaw Farm in Swindon. http://www.lowershawfarm.co.uk/ (http://www.lowershawfarm.co.uk/) They also do working weekends; I went to one in May 2004 and it literally changed my life. If you can't have your own smallholding yet, maybe helping out on an established one nearby (and no doubt coming home with a few bits and pieces of surplus produce from time to time) would help fill a void. And would certainly equip you with experiences and techniques that would stand you in good stead when you do get your own place.
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Thanks for the links Sallyintnorth, they will be interesting read, had a quick look and they look like things I can and should try my hand at.
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Thanks for the links Sallyintnorth, they will be interesting read, had a quick look and they look like things I can and should try my hand at.
You are very welcome. :)
Let us know how you get on if you do have a go!
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Yet another way......
i upped sticks and ran away (literally) from my old life in normality and now live in a 2 room static on a field belonging to a friend.
then i fell in love with the time and space such basic living allows.
2 days a week working for the man earns my rent, food and animal feed, AND the rental of a 1 acre field along the way with goat proof fencing and a river. i have never been happier in my life!
My husbands earnings can be saved to buy us our own land in a few years, so hopefully we can become self sufficient :farmer:
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I know of many many estates and farms that run to many thousands of acres each. I also know that while most are very well run others are a complete horlics! Perhaps the horlics ones should be turned over to folks like you to make a proper go of!!!
Now i've finished my upright socialist statement I would like to say i've a soap box with space for rental! (capitalism at work ;)) :D
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You will also find that quite a few of us have had to wait until we are in out late forties to set out on this path
Late fifties, I'm afraid
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Yup and the same goes for a bit of garden too. The main thing is there is not one way.
- my way may not be your way (same as my shoes are not yours)
- your dreams and pleasures may not be mine (although sometimes they might be close)
- my frivolities may not be yours...etc
However, this is a brilliant site to network, learn about stuff you need to know, what you didn't know you should know, and stuff you do not need to know but might help in the future!
Latest estate news is: roof on house is now secure and did not flood in today (yup we have it in the south too). Would love to hear more estate news - pot, box, balcony to island sized
I know of many many estates and farms that run to many thousands of acres each. I also know that while most are very well run others are a complete horlics! Perhaps the horlics ones should be turned over to folks like you to make a proper go of!!!
Now i've finished my upright socialist statement I would like to say i've a soap box with space for rental! (capitalism at work ;)) :D
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We ran away even further ! We were looking for a year or so at the sort of thing we could get in exchange for our house + endowment that was due to mature soon. We looked at The UK, France southern Italy, Bulgaria.The Cezch Republic and Poland. MY OH worked with a few Poles and they sugested eastern Germany (the nearer the border the cheaper) He recomended the prices and mature infrastructure as the best place to go...and here we are. £26,000 is all we paid(no I havn't missed a zero off!) We live off OH's work pension, the rent from a small property we bought in the UK and a tiny job that I have teaching English.
All the Kids had left home and we were the ones who went to see them...now its just a bit further!!! 15 hours or so by car.(11 to the chanel) They make more of an effort to see us, make it into a proper holiday. And theres always Skype. Whatever you do enjoy it whilst you are doing it. You only get 1 life so make the most of it, good luck to you.
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I have to say I feel very humbled by all your hardwork to get to where you are; and that really I have nothing to moan about on our 'estate'! We really landed on our feet, our 3acres was in my husbands family, just sitting there doing nothing except playing host to a fireworks night once a year. Subsequently its been signed over to us as our inheritance, and we recently inherited the flat where we live (tho not on the land, is a 6min cycle ride away.) Consequently we are in our late 20s/early 30s, with no morgage, no land rent, and since of last year I gave up my work as a full time gardener to set up our own market garden business. Reading your posts makes me realise how truly lucky we are, and what an opportunity we have; I don't mean to rub it in honestly, it's just realising how hard people work to make their dreams come true & holding down full time jobs etc. it makes me re-evaluate all the little niggles and things that bother me on our plot, it will sort itself out with time. So thanks for the reality check! :-*
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Most days I still can't believe that we've been so fortunate to get to where we are. We're just making plans for a party to celebrate one year since we bought this place at auction. Following a common pattern, we sold up our small but sensible house and managed to buy outright a wreck of a place with six acres. It was too structurally unsound to get a mortgage against and there are travellers nearby which also helped to keep the price down - fortunately though we've had no trouble from them.
We are very fortunate to be in our early-, ok, mid-thirties so our young children get to enjoy growing up on a farm. My wife looks after the kids and does a little bit of evening work whilst I work the farm and hold down a part-time job. Money is tight, but we don't need much of it so its not much missed in the end. We've discovered that in most cases its a lot easier to not spend money than it is to earn it.
I guess where we differ from most here is that we've set the place up as a community farm, getting twenty other families to help pay for the running costs and sharing the produce (and some of the work). Perhaps you could see it as somewhere between a normal smallholding and the intentional communities Sally linked to. For me, its perfect ;D
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I agree that you can only get true freedom if you are very rich or very poor, I am neither but understand money and how it effects the quality of life. If you have to scrimp and save you certainly appreciate what you get!
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Hi Dougal can I borrow your socialist soapbox?
I just looked up the figures and apparently in Scotland 103 people own 30% of the land and in Britain as a whole 0.6% of people own 69% of the land. Bring on the revolution I say. We could call it the British spring! I'm sure small holders are a more varied, efficient use of land than super monoculture farms.
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I can't comment on the UK figures, but I suspect (and am happy to be corrected if anyone has the actual data) that a lot of the 36% of Scotland owned by the 103 people (if they are people as opposed to companies, the Crown and pension funds) is in Highland estates. Not fabulous smallholding land, generally, but the shooting does provide work for local people and income to the local economy.
I'm afraid just another example of how different Scotland is to England (not better or worse), and why we need our own governance. The stats below are some I gathered for a magazine article.
"Scotland has a land area of 7.7million hectares. Of that, only 8% is urban (compared to 21% in England); 67% is grass and rough grazing (36%); 7% crops and fallow (30%); 17% forest and woodland (8%); 2% other agricultural land (5%).
The population is 5,168,500 and rising – 8.5% of the UK population. There are, on average, 65 people per square kilometre (compared to 400 in England) and about 25% of the total Scottish populace lives in the Greater Glasgow conurbation, with much of the rest living in the Central Belt.
Around 86% of all the agricultural land in Scotland qualifies as “Less Favoured Area”, with much of that classified as “severely disadvantaged”. In the European Union, less-favoured area (LFA) is a term used to describe an area with natural handicaps (lack of water, climate, short crop season and tendencies of depopulation), or that is mountainous or hilly, as defined by its altitude and slope. Thirty five percent of agricultural land is in what was Highland Region, with 11% in Grampian and 10% in Tayside. Most of the “good” agricultural land is on the East coast – Grampian, Tayside, Fife, the Lothians and parts of the Borders. "
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Rosemary - a graph of those figures would be very interesting I think. Could you do that?
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Could you please take back the Scottish banks....
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Could you please take back the Scottish banks....
Sorry do not understand?
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Very true. Also applies to waiting. For, example an allotment too few around and not enough people having access to their bit of earth who would like to. I have been very encouraged and excited by the number of schools in the UK who now give pupils/students a veg plot and keep choocks. Some I know of also keep sheep and the odd pig. Sometimes these are purely for making courses practical but a good number also use them to help young people get a feel for the land and animals.
I agree that you can only get true freedom if you are very rich or very poor, I am neither but understand money and how it effects the quality of life. If you have to scrimp and save you certainly appreciate what you get!
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Trouble is I am a bit of a loner and rather unsocial, so not for me. But, it makes good sense and I am glad for you and yours.
I guess where we differ from most here is that we've set the place up as a community farm, getting twenty other families to help pay for the running costs and sharing the produce (and some of the work). Perhaps you could see it as somewhere between a normal smallholding and the intentional communities Sally linked to. For me, its perfect ;D
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I have been doing my sums and cannot figure out I could ever afford to have the lifesyle that I aspire to.
Work hard running your own business, be fortunate enough for that business to be successful - or marry someone well off enough to be able to buy it for you.
:farmer:
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I'd also second running your own business, even if its just a small sideline. If you want to do smallholding full time then you're going to need something to keep you busy and make money over the winter so best to get started now!
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I'm in my
early mid thirties (34 in a couple of weeks, so can't really get away with early anymore ;)) and I'm lucky enough to be on a farm which has been in my family for 5 generations.
It's not been farmed for the last 20 years, so we've a massive amount of work to do - fencing, clearing LOADS of accumulated junk which my dad loves to collect ::) clearing ditches, fixing up shed and barns which are salvagable and demolishing those which aren't. Most of the 130 acres have been planted forresty style with mixes of spruce trees and broadleaves, but we've about 6 acres close to the house which is not planted (except with boats and scrap cars ::)) so we are concentrating our efforts on those. We're getting there slowly, with 4 kids (two of them being toddlers) most of our time is spent just keeping up with them ::) :D Bruce works part time at the weekends and I try to boost our income making signs, crafty stuff and doing reiki, hopefully next year we'll be selling weaners and upping our pork production too which will help. We don't life a life of luxury by any means, I tell my kids that we might be cash poor, but we're rich in love and life and I definately agree that it's a lot easier to not spend money than it is to earn it. ;) ;D
Karen :wave:
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we're rich in love and life
That's what it all comes down to for me, and I wouldn't swap it for the world! (even when I have the odd grumble! ;D)