The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: TheBurkers on February 05, 2012, 05:23:45 pm
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Hi, :wave: I'm Rozee and my OH and I have just bought a place at auction. It's in coastal North Pembrokeshire, has a South facing three and a half acre field, which is heavy clay and quite boggy in parts and has been grazed by a local farmer's young cattle for a few years as the previous owner was very elderly. For the same reason, the place is quite neglected and overgrown.
Then there's a North facing smallish area of garden (less than half an acre with some trees that might be fruit trees) part of which was apparently used as the veggie garden and to the rear of much of the land there is a long strip of woodland, I guesstimate less than half an acre of fairly mature trees, with a stream running through.
We're living in temp accommodation whilst we do up the house and I'm hoping we can move in there by the end of the summer. Meantime, we'll live in a static on the site once the lease on the rental property runs out in May. We have 3 children under 6, so that's a little daunting.
We're very excited although a little clueless as we were living in the city before this move and have always had office based jobs.
I'm hoping I can learn a lot from those on here with more experience than we have.
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Hi Rozee and welcome to the forum. You're in the right place at the right time.
I would start with the fruit trees. Best time to plant or heavy prune is right at the beginning. Then get on with everything else. By the time everything else is set up they should be fruiting. If you do them last you've got a long wait. Think of your requirements. Apples are good for livestock. Cherries are a good cash crop (we picked 112lbs last year and made £224). Greengauges can also be sold. Damsons can't be given away and give our chickens impactions, so ours are being cut down. Pears are wind affected.
Sound like the first call is decent land drainage. You can't do much with boggy ground. The advantage of clay is it holds water in a drought, so potentially good grazing if drained. There are plenty of books around with suggestions for a smallholding layout so good reading on an evening.
Sounds like the strip of woodland was planted as a wind break so needs to be maintained as well with thinning out and replanting, so a wood burning stove would be good.
Would love to get my teeth into a project like that but can't afford it over here. Moving to France in September.
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A warm and sunny welcome from Brittany.
WoW! you have jumped into the deep end!
While renovating the house during the spring/summer you will be able to take time and find out what your fruit and other trees are/produce and what other goodies you have hiding in and around the land.
For fruit and veggies the 'Expert' books are good basic books for beginners...............
If you are thinking of keeping feathered flocks Katie Thear's books are good - so are the (American) Storey Guides.
Sheepy folk on here recommend a good sheep book but I haven't been able to find one yet................
Get stuck in and have fun!
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hello from powys and welcome to TAS site.what a lovely place pembroke is.i brought a 1.75 acre field joining our house ,i have been fencing and hedgeing, my oh and son have 4 chickens and we plan to get some lambs and pigs , has your place got a holding number? :wave:
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Thanks for those very swift replies and the warm welcome.
There is a thin line of woodland which follows the front (road and west facing boundary which I think is probably a windbreak for the orchard/veggie garden (does it make any sense to grow veggies on a North facing plot? Apparently, that was what was being done, but there's the least amount of sun that end). We are on a hill, so it can get a little windy. The weather is fairly mild in this part of Wales.
The more substantial woodland is to the rear of the property in a dell. It's been suggested we could keep pigs in there. The previous owner built a pig house (outside the boundary tut tut) but apparently couldn't face the thought of sending them to slaughter so only kept hens, guinea fowl and geese. There are various sheds that have been used for fowl and storage but most are sadly rotten now.
The problem with the fruit trees is I'm not sure they are! They have no leaves on them at the mo and are covered in lichen and moss.
As far as the refurb is concerned, we're going to have at least the shell sorted out and the inside remodelled by professional builders before we move in. We need planning permission for some of what we would like to do so it's a drawn out process. Our money may run out then....
The building work will mean it's probably unwise to invest too much effort in growing or starting to buy livestock (which I'm uncertain of anyway because at the moment, we have our hands full with the children! I think I'd rather wait the couple of years 'til the twins start school). It strikes me that it's prep work that will be the best way to go. As you suggest, Chris, pruning trees and hedges (apparently we need to do this to the hedge on the field before the birds start nesting - soon!) and fencing - the land that isn't hedged only has trees as borders so we need something more substantial - to keep the children in and potentially stock in due course. The front of the property fronts a fast country lane (it's a cut through from an A road to a large village) and the rear has a country track along the back so we want to make sure that the children can't escape through the back nor can the dog walkers let their dogs come onto the property and poo everywhere or disturb any of the animals we might keep.
We've dreamt about doing this for a few years now. Buying in Wales was the only place we could feasibly afford to buy, but I love Wales and Pembrokeshire is about the most beautiful part of it, so I can't complain.
Rockstar, we haven't got a holding number yet as we've only just bought the place. (What are the advantages?) In fact we know hardly anything about the place - we not even sure where the septic tank is - because it's a deceased estate so the old boy sadly isn't around to answer any questions, although the neighbours have been really helpful so far.
In danger of writing an essay here - so I'll stop for now.:)
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hi and welcome
you'll be haing plenty of fun developing and planning
.a word of warning..... its addictive
we were going to have a new type of animal each year...... well in our first year we had chickens (layers and table birds) pigs, lambs, turkeys and bread 20 for christmas from them
.... you'll also find your freezers grow as well
you will need a CPH number before getting any animal (except chickens) easy to do and defra and animal health have actually been helpful
plenty of folks on here that are experts
good luck
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Hello and welcome from WOrcestershire!
We have a similar amount of land to yourself, are renovating a Victorian farmhouse and have 4 children aged between 5 and 10. Its hard at times but great fun!!
Enjoy watching the seasons change life on your holding over the next year - its an amazing feeling :)
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Hi and welcome, i'm sure you will enjoy your new life. We are on the coast near the ceredigion pembrokeshire border. Lovely part of the world, you have chosen well and as you say mild. We have only had 2 very slight frosts so far this year. :wave:
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We bought on the continent as we couldnt aford any thing we liked in the UK. If you do want to start with animals in the first year two or three chooks would be great. If you feed them they dont(usually) wonder that far so you can start on the thousand and one jobs you have on your list with them around.
as for edibles...try pots and grow bags for the first year whilst you watch ( and take notes cause you WILL forget) what is already growing where, how the weather works on various bits, etc. Its always better to start digging when you are more sure that is where you want to be digging.....good luck with your project...
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Hi and welcome from Carnoustie :wave:
Sounds like you're going to have loads of fun - you're where we were 12 years ago (except we only had one kid). That's why we started this website ;D
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Hi and welcome from West Yorks.
How exciting.
presumably the fencing can't be too bad if cattle have been grazing there?
I'd let him rent it for at least another year while you get the garden and other things sorted first, get him to do some fencing instead of rent?
It may already have a CPH no, local council or Defra should be able to let you know that.
Congratulations, sounds lovely
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no advantages really with cph number you just need one to keep livestock, what part of country were you from before moving to wales?
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Fantastic and the best of luck. I agree take your time there is so much to take in whats that old saying, buy in hast repent in leasure or something like that. There a lots of folks here that will give freely of there knowledge. The adventure begins.
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What an opportunity! You are going to have such a great life for yourselves and your children. Make a plan, make lists, so you stay focussed, but be prepared to change them as you go along to suit your current liefstyle and budget. Well done fro taking this enormous step, you'll love it! ;D
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We were living in Sheffield before moving here but have lived all over: Manchester, York, South Wales, London, Sydney... Never the countryside lol!
Yes, we are very excited. I'm so glad we took the leap. I'm hoping my kids' lives will be richer for living here. We want them to be free range! We've been here 5 months now and are enjoying and adjusting to life in a small face to face community. Although our participation in village life is restricted to the daytime because of the children, having them aids integration no end, as we quickly got to know many of the primary age kids' parents, many pre-schoolers' parents and all the retirees love to stop the pram to say hello to the babies.
Having them all so close together & rearing them as naturally as possible has put me off rushing into acquiring livestock though, as I know how work intensive & all consuming it can be :)
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:wave: Hello and welcome. I reckon the best piece of advice I can give is go and make friends with all your neighbours. They are generally a font of knowledge, will return lost livestock/children and will help out with all the jobs you've got coming up. My farmer neighbour is fantastic. He lets me graze my ponies in his fields in the summer, he fetches the odd big bale for me and he also helped my OH move my beloved welsh cob that had died in the far corner of a snow covered field and the knacker man couldn't get to. A horrible job that not many people would have done. If it's a small community you will be talked about and judgments will be made but as long as you are friendly you will be fine. It also helped when I let slip that my OH was an electrician, it was amazing how many neighbours had been living in near darkness for years ;D Enjoy your new venture.
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:wave: Hi and welcome from snowy Shropshire. I envy you your four acres. Would love to do that myself but lack of funds together with my OH being and out and out townie, I'm restricted to a large garden. Still manage fruit trees, veggies and three (soon to become two) goats.
I echo what has already been written here. Don't rush into anything in your garden until you know what you already have.
I did once have about a quarter acre, with my previous OH, and three young children (youngest 9 months when we moved there) and chooks are very little trouble and gets you into the smallholder mindset, not to mention lovely eggs.
Having lived just outside a village, I agree that people will talk about you but you will always know where your children are and what they get up to (my 15 year old nephew on a visit from a large town couldn't work out how I knew he'd been smoking and trying to buy from the local shop) and I found people were willing to help each other.
Looking forward to hearing more about your adventure.
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Having them all so close together & rearing them as naturally as possible has put me off rushing into acquiring livestock though, as I know how work intensive & all consuming it can be :)
Wise move!!! Having juggled school run time (breakfast, getting 4 girls dressed etc) along with a VERY poorly goat with phonecalls coming left right and centre from the vet as I scrubbed the 2 yr olds teeth - I can resonate with this!!
This year I am juggling kidding my gorgeous goat, buying in bottle lambs whilst managing to be mum to 4 children, carer to my own mum and running a soap business but...I'd not change a thing. I love the busy-ness of it all and the kids thrive on the outdoors. Our 4 are hardly ever off school with a cold - unlike their x-box playing peers ;D
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Hi,
We are in the process of buying a place in Camarthenshire and will be moving soon (I hope). We will have 2.25 acres and I'm not sure what to do with them either.
Ours comes complete with two resident geese and two ducks. I have no idea what breeds.
We are lucky in that the house doesn't need anything doing to it, other than change the decor to our taste. so I will have more opportunity to concentrate on the outside.
I think a small orchard is the first on my list. I have seen some nurseries specialising in local trees so this will probably be my first stop.
Enjoy your new life.
Sally
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Hello you all. You are a friendly lot. I feel very at home here. Thanks!
Good advice about the neighbours. They're all lovely, and, yes, I'm sure there will be some "villageyness" about it, everyone is a lot more enquiring (or we could say nosey! ; ) than strangers might be in the city, but I like it. It's how you get to know your community members. We hope we will be a positive addition. Our DS is already speaking Welsh in the Welsh mediul school and his 21 month old sisters can tell each other off in Welsh already and they've not been speaking English long!
Where are you buying in Carmarthenshire, Bionic? We looked down there, as I do love an estuary and Laurghn (which I can never spell) is very romatic, but I'd fallen in love with Pembrokeshire. You can just about see Cardigan Bay from our bungalow.
LAUGHARNE ::)
We're very happy to have a few acres, although I think we'll be limited by the heavy clay soil. Still, we don't anticipate or delude ourselves that we'll be self sufficient. As long as we can have a reasonably regular supply of some fresh veggies and fruit and perhaps some poultry, I think that might do us.
What I realised as we searched and searched for the right property is ow complicated it is, as you never get exactly what you set out to buy. Nonetheless, we are incredibly pleased with what we ended up with and I often have to pinch myself that we actually live here - and that's before the house is done up or we've moved in. We are about to go "on holiday", prearranged with a group of friends, to North Wales and we're actually feeling a little down hearted about leaving our house as it's much nicer here than there! Still, that was part of the plan: to live somewhere that people choose to go on holiday to.
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TheBurkers,
We looked at many places from Pembrokeshire, Camarthenshire and Ceredigion. If I had been prepared to buy somewhere that needed a lot of work then we may have bought elsewhere but for me a big consideration was that the property was ready to move into. I'm hoping to exchange contracts this week and am keeping quiet on the exact location at the moment so as not to put the mockers on it.
My selling/buying has been a bit disasterous and I posted a topic on here some time ago with the subject Will we ever move?
I will post again once its all been settled
Sally
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I know where you're coming from, Bionic. I'm looking forward to you being able to let the cat out of the bag.
I hope it all goes to plan. It's stressful - one of the reasons we bought at auction
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Having them all so close together & rearing them as naturally as possible has put me off rushing into acquiring livestock though, as I know how work intensive & all consuming it can be :)
Sounds like you've got a great ethos - and livestock will be a piece of cake after three wee tots ;D
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Hi theburkers, :wave:
The great thing about this forum is that everyone's very understanding and full of constructive advice - even when you admit you've done something REALLY stupid (speaking from personal experience).
If things go according to plan I'll be buying a place shortly with more land than I know what to do with, so I'll be in a roughly similar position, although I have spent the last 2 years on a 1 acre site and managed to keep a few beasties alive and happy with help from the folks on here.
welcome!
mab
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That sounds just like us...we have just under 5 acrea, with a stream that runs through it...We had lots of work to do to the house, and were down to soil in 3 of the rooms...my kitchen is the old milking parlour and retains some great character ( and no I'm not being sarcastic)......We managed to get the Conservatory finally sealed and dry last week, so we should be ready to move in in March.....When I look at what we inherited, to what we have achieved in 4 months, over the winter and festive period...I know we made the right choice and being skint while we pay for the renovation material will all be worth it...
Fruit trees are already pruned, Chicken Hut already shored up and treated, new roof etc...duck hut...still the same, stables all painted, need to fix the roof leaks first and given that I'm no stranger to a fish supper, this will be a job for my dearest with the sealant !!!
We have managed to procure a Greenhouse which I will change the glass to polycarbonate for the kids....
Animals........so far, a rabbit, 2 x kittens for the stables (who are both wired to mars bars and terrorise my daughters wee Dog) and a rescue springer for me....
Sleepers ready to build the raised beds for the clay soil.....
Spring Summer......bring it on !!!! :thumbsup:
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It sounds like we're all moving to Wales, although we 're not quite as far West as you guys, just East of Ammanford.
We havn't move in as yet but on every visit the neighbours have made a point of coming to say hello and I couldn't agree more with the earlier post, good and friendly neighbours make a big difference.
Our house is ready to go, but the 4 acres, we have now discovered had not been properly dealt with in almost 18 years, boggy mountainside, brambles, ferns and reeds, so we know it's only going to be hard work from day one, but we'll be moving in hopefully before the summer and I can't wait ;D
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We're in North Ayrshire....
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Goldencraig,
I lived in Drongan for a while and then Alloway. Two different worlds. I liked it up there though
Sally
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Hi we're not far from you in Carmarthenshire and even nearer to Jimbofish67 and moved to West Wales just over a year ago. The whole area is stunning and North Pembrokeshire amongst the best! Some Pembrokeshire Walks on our blog.
http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/ (http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/)
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Hello! We wish you good luck and a big welcome from Northants! :wave: :wave: :wave:
The top part of our land is the same,in the end,we placed lots of raised beds and used it as the top allotment! The Willow grows very well here too,so If you wish to grow lots of this and coppice it in years for firewood,I shall gladly send you lots of cuttings which you can just stick in the ground and they grow ;D
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I've been reading your blog Liz. Interesting stuff & stunning photography. My OH is known for his outspokenness and he's second generation irish too. I bet you guys make fascinating dinner party guests! Coincidentally, Sean & I "retired" from our professional lives (ICT and law) a few years back as well as it wasn't.... enough, I suppose.
Leghorn, the offer of willow is fab! Thank you. We bought the Sunday Telegraph this weekend as the snow had disrupted deliveries and the only thing of interest in there was how to make a willow arbour for a love seat (one of the few garden items that isn't rotten is a bench with the names on it of the old couple who used to live here, strangely for the 1977 Jubilee. Apparently wife was an Aussie Royalist!) and a living den for the kids so I would *love* some willow to do that with.
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Cardigan Bay is a lovely area. Last November, I spent a long weekend on a writers' retreat in a place called Cwmtydu (not idea how to pronounce it). Beautiful part of the world and I'd love to go back there.
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MGM it's come-tuddi. Just up the road from us. We're surrounded by amazing countryside and coast. We are so lucky and it seems like North Pembs is a bit of an undiscovered gem - probably because it's so bloody difficult to get here and away! It's about 5 hours plus from London :o
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I'll bet you are looking at your four acres and thinking"What will we do with all this land!!" and I'll also bet that in a few years time you'll be longing for "just another couple of acres" ;D Good luck. :hshoe:
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I think you are right to concentrate this year on getting the house sorted and just seeing what you have with the land. Better to see it in all seasons before you launch in.
'Good fencing makes good neighbours' is a saying worth bearing in mind - it works both ways, keeping their animals off your land and yours off theirs and in your case keeping your children safe too. Our first job when we moved to our smallholding 16 years ago was to get up good mesh fencing around the whole place. We hate barbed wire so took off any which was present and replaced the top wires with plain (all barbed wire does is tear any animals or humans to shreds but doesn't stop either from getting across). Then when Foot and Mouth came along we decided we needed some biosecurity too (to stop neighbouring animals touching noses with ours), so we double fenced the place, with hedgerow in between the two fences. Animals and humans seem to be kept in by that system, but it is expensive, and worth learning how to do it yourself. We have never regretted the outlay on fencing. We still have one length of hedge to plant, as we have done that stretch by stretch when we have had time and cash.
For your possible fruit tress, just observe this year to see what they are, then you can launch in with pruning and so on next year when you can see what's there.
For the veggie garden, again I would wait and see as siting it in a shady place will be a disadvantage. You will also know by then if you want to site it close to the house, and where the best soil is. You might have a problem with rabbits, deer, or pigeons and that will influence your site choice too. Meantime, as someone has suggested, you could start off some plants in containers.
I'm looking forward to following your progress with this - I love seeing how others do things on their smallholdings.
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Hello Sylvia and Fleecewife.
We were warned that, whatever we bought acreage-wise, we'd always wished we'd got more, but we started off thinking about an acre, so we're happy with 4ish. We aren't farmers and I suspect we might be rather fair weather smallholders (at least, I will, my OH is far hardier than I).
Fencing is high on our list of priorities and we definately won't be scrimping on it. We're fortunate that much of the field has a very established hedge. The rear boudary is made up of trees mainly and some old barbed wire which I'm very keen to remove. The problem with the trees is the many gaps in between. The North East facing bit of the land is also boundaried by trees althoug they're rather more dense but lead onto a road so again, we want to make sure there no place for small children or animals to escape.
We are very preoccupied with the house at the moment and our focus is on getting a vaguely habitable shell before the winter. Not only do we not relish the idea of living in a static in the cold, it's also the prospect ofbeing cooped up in there in bad weather with three children. Our timetable goes something like: leave our rental property in May, move into static on land, hopefully start building work soon after, hopefully finish building work by October. Move into house and possible be camping out a bit, but more comfortable/spacious than the static.
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we bought our land in september and we had to do hedgeing ,which was done over christmas period.wehave about 500metres of fencing to do aswell,if this helps we have cut back the hedges very hard before fencing. dont want to loose out on valuable grazing!!! also there is a certain dates when the cutting of trees and hedges is prohibited
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I'm hoping we can reinstate the arrangement our neighbour, a cattle farmer, had with the now deceased owner. He apparently grazed ten young cows on our field and harvested the silage in exchange for looking after the hedges, field & boundary. Our three pressing issues ATM are siting the static, sorting out the plan drawings for the house refurb & cutting the hedges because we've been told that this needs to be done before the birds start to nest. I'm really hoping we can see the farmer about this tomorrow or early next week.
There is so much to do!
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I think the cut-off date for hedge laying and trimming is mid-March. Are the hedges very overgrown, because if so you might want to have them layed rather than flailed - this makes a more stock-proof barrier, fills in the gaps along the bottom and is better for wild-life.
A slight caution - make sure you have a written agreement with the farmer - others on TAS have had major problems when letting others use their land without clearly worded agreements. I think you said one of you was in law, so you will know what I mean.
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Good point Fleecewife. I had been warned about the legalities. I'd been thinking about buying a book on agricultural law! Are there any "of the shelf" agreements I can buy or templates for the wording of agreements?
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We are very preoccupied with the house at the moment and our focus is on getting a vaguely habitable shell before the winter. Not only do we not relish the idea of living in a static in the cold, it's also the prospect ofbeing cooped up in there in bad weather with three children. Our timetable goes something like: leave our rental property in May, move into static on land, hopefully start building work soon after, hopefully finish building work by October. Move into house and possible be camping out a bit, but more comfortable/spacious than the static.
You are inexactly the same situation as we were 8yrs ago except minus 3 children (you're so brave!) and we moved into our static in the Feb of '04, OH took 3mths off work to get the shell and roof of the house done, it snowed our first week in the static (good fun not the loo even froze!) but we moved into the house in Nov '04 living very basically while all the contractors worked round us to get done by Xmas.
Wish you the best of luck and a good summer. It won't be easy and at times you'll feel like throwing in the towel but it IS all worth it in the end (i tell myself this all the time , we set ourselves a target of 5yrs to get everything shipshape but as i said 8yrs on and ours is like painting the fourth road bridge!)
Bestest Mandy :pig:
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Good point Fleecewife. I had been warned about the legalities. I'd been thinking about buying a book on agricultural law! Are there any "of the shelf" agreements I can buy or templates for the wording of agreements?
I have never had to do this, but someone else on here may have done. Official rental agreements are usually done through the agric auctioneers I think, so there would be a standardised format for those. However, in your case you might want a more tailored wording to cover precisely what you expect of him and he of you. What I can think of off-hand are things such as: time limit of grazing - up here they run from lammas to michaelmas or something obscure like that, and farmers are used to that; animals to be wormed before they come onto the ground; farmer to be totally responsible for the care and checking of the animals daily; what you expect from him to cover rental such as a specified amount of hedging work; and so on. All this would be done after a full discussion with the farmer to agree the terms first. He will probably say that he never needed a formal agreement before, but well - times change 8) It's a balance between keeping friendly and establishing that the rights to the land are yours.
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I may be more exacting as I'm a lawyer by profession: trained to prepare for the worst case scenario, but by personality I hope for the best! I am friends with the auntie of the farmer and they seem "old school" highly honourable folk but I think it's wise to set out expectations in writing. It won't be grazed year round & money won't change hands. I just want a tidy hedge and field. You can purchase off-the-shelf "grazing agreements" online for about £15 and I think I'll do that unless someone comes along with another way round it.