The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Caroline1 on March 02, 2015, 09:23:26 pm
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I was thinking the other day on the drive to work (yes I now have a lot of thinking time) I wonder how people decided to live the small holding life style. Was it that episode of the good life or river cottage, was it a lifestyle you had been brought up with or married into.
For me, it was a complete addiction to enid blyton books as a child. I always wanted to live on willow farm with chickens running around outside my window and a woodland where I could explore the local wildlife.
So what was it for you?
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No-one knows where in my ancestry it comes from, but when we stayed on a farm when I was little, I couldn't get enough of it.
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Ours was accidental really. The only house we liked came with land -a well stocked Orchard with veggie plot. The gentleman who did a few hours a week on it for the previous owner transferred to us and he educated us about vegetable growing. We then added a greenhouse and lots of chickens. Then sheep to cut the grass. Now we are over here struggling to find something worth buying along the same lines.
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It was a gradual progression for me once I had children, I really didn't want to give them baby food from a jar so I made all their food. This led me on to caring about where food comes from and what my kids are putting into their bodies. I started growing whatever I could in containers in our little backyard and loved the whole rewarding experience. The gardening led us to explore self sufficiency which led us to the decision that when we bought our own place it would be a smallholding. We have been here almost a year now, definitely a work in progress but I wouldn't change a think ( except maybe having more land ;) )
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Born and bred, along with my seven sisters and brothers. We all have ingrained mud on our hands :farmer: :pig: :chook: :sheep:
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For me it was a very tranquil part of my childhood (when the days were always sunnier) & growing runner beans in the garden with my Dad. That led me to several allotments and chickens etc
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I've always liked animals but was never in a position while I was working to do anything about it. Took redundancy and early retirement and here I am :)
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Born and brought up on a farm, even driving through towns makes me nervous! Couldn't face town life taking on the family farm not an option for us so here we are!
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I grew up on the edge of town, turn left you where in town, turn right and it was countryside, most weekends and evenings where always a right turn,
Dad was always a very keen gardener, but i enjoyed the fields more, we always had back yard chicken and ducks,
many years later, after working in towns and big cities, i felt like something was missing, the 1st wife hated the countryside, so when we split, i moved back to Devon, i then met helen, lucky for me , Helen had the same wishes in life, so we bit the bullet, and bought a small farm in France….we did hell of a lot of work getting the place up, and we where just at the point of moving over, …….Mum became very ill with alzheimers. so we ended up looking after her for 4 years, it got to the point where there was no option but to put mum into a home, we managed to sell the French place with a heavy heart….once mum had gone in to the home, we felt we where missing something, but sadly prices where getting silly over here,
we didn't want to be to far away, so we looked around south wales and the south west, on one, we where almost ready to complete, but would have ended up with the neighbour from hell..so we kept searching
i came across 20 acres for sale just 50 miles away….man it was steep, until you walked it, so i took helen down to view, helen don't normally swear, but her 1st words where WTF ;D
once she started to walk the land, the ideas came flooding in…so we bought it and now are starting to build our little farm up
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For me it started with River cottage, I was in my final year at uni growing increasingly disillusioned with my course (Media Arts). I graduated and came home wondering what to do with my life and spent a year pottering with growing veg and having a few chickens in my parents garden!
Decided to sign up for a national certificate in horticulture before I got a job as an apprentice gardener for Worcester College, Oxford. They paid for me to go on the course and that's where I met my future husband! He had 3 acres in his family which we've now inherited and after 6 years, 3 polytunnels, pigs, chickens and a tractor called Bertie, we've built up a successful business. Just now going for planning permission to live on there too which would be the ultimate dream come true. :excited:
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I grew up in a semi-rural area but spent every possible moment across the road at the large riding school. I don't remember not riding as I started at age about 3/4. My parents couldn't afford for me to have a pony then so I worked on the yard for rides ( that sort of child labour was the norm in those days). The farmer there also had a few cows, a couple of pigs and an unknown number of virtually wild chickens. Started to own my own horses from age 13. So Ive been in the muck all my life, with breaks only for University and for the first few years of my unhappy 1st marriage. It has been my ambition all my life to have a my own small farm but, like many people, it never seemed achievable. And my 1st Husband didn't like anything to do with animals.
K2 and I met about 9 years ago. He walked into my life of dogs, cats, horses and school-aged children but took to it like a duck to water. Although we had a rural home then there was hardly any land with it. K2 was an experienced home fruit and veg grower though, something Ive not much experience of.
We intended to retire to Devon ( where my wonderful 98 yr old mother in law lives) and bought and renovated a lovely cottage in the countryside there. But then my pension arrangements changed radically ( I work for central government) and I was told that I couldn't retire until I am 67 and then on a much reduced pension. K2 could retire now if he wanted to as he is WAAAYYYY older than me ;) but we faced the prospect of living 300 miles apart.....just not an option.
So we decided to sell up in Devon ( which was a very hard decision) and take the plunge on a smallholding now rather than wait until I retire. We were incredibly lucky to find this place and we moved in in October last year. We work from home a lot, which is a godsend, and we now wonder why we didn't do this years ago.
Ive finally come home :sunshine:
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I have absolutely no idea.
I don't even like animals!
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or vegetables, for that matter :-J .
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Thank goodness I didn't take after my mum, a true townie who like her easy access to shops. no interest in growing or animals. yet her father had an allotment, and always wanted a rough Collie. She stopped dad getting a farm when when I was in early teens, too far from town.
Dad worked on a farm when younger, worked in factories when married, but always had pigs or calves about. He was 'allowed' his first dog when I was 12. Out of 3 kids (me+2boys) it was me who followed dad round, only one to help him as I grew older. going from rabbits to hens + helping him with the pigs. helped on a dairy farm as soon as I was old enough.
I dug part of the garden up to grow veg, not knowing mums' dad had been a keen veg grower.
First marriage took me to Aberdeenshire, had hens and goat+kid. come home and got goats, eventually remarried - someone with land, now got goats, sheep, geese + hens.
I belong here. Hate shops and built up areas. nearly felt sick with the fumes last week when I had to drive through the local small town.
My first 'own' dog was a Rough Collie, not knowing about my grandfathers love of them.
OH had never even had a pet, so he's very good to help me when needed really :love: :relief:
oh - that's quite a life story - sorry about that but I'll post anyway ;D
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I come from generations of market gardeners, so growing is in my blood. My granddad had an allotment, my dad grew vegetables, I grow vegetables (from when I first had a tiny garden).
My ex and I loved The Good Life and decided to move to the Isle of Arran, Scotland, to live out own good life. We gained some experience on friends' smallholding. The plan was to be self sufficient bu growing veg, keeping hens and goats and for him to go out and shoot some rabbits for meat, and make some craft stuff to bring in a bit of cash. The craft we ended up doing was spinning and weaving, which left virtually no time to grow my veg as it's so labour intensive. Whatever I did grow was inevitably eaten by the local red deer as soon as it was big enough. We had hens and ducks but I wasn't allowed my goat, mainly, I suspect, because my ex was a control freak and knew how much I wanted one. I had done so since learning to milk a friend's goat a few years earlier.
The recession hit, we moved back down south so he could go to university and I finally saw sense and left him. I still wanted the self sufficiency life though I was then living in a town.
I remarried, this time to a man who didn't want to control me (the good bit) but is a townie (not so good). The money I received from my divorce was only enough to put down a good deposit on an ordinary house but we did find one with a reasonably sized garden. A neighbour and I were talking about goats one day and I said I'd always wanted one. A few days later, she suggested getting a goat and keeping it in her garden. I loved the idea so we looked into it and bought two goats between us. Within a couple of months, she decided that she didn't like one of the goats so I could have her and she would keep the other one. My OH said he didn't mind one in the garden so my son built a goatshed and Snowflake moved in. The neighbour, incidentally sold her goat very quickly as she decided that goat keeping wasn't for her. I later discovered she was like that with all her animals.
OH and I moved to Shropshire, again to a house with a big garden and Snowflake came with us, of course. In due course she gave birth to a daughter who stayed. At the moment I have four of them but two will be going off for slaughter soon.
I am now disabled, so only able to keep them because my OH does a lot of the looking after (not always graciously) and I pay someone to do the mucking out and yard sweeping. I also manage to grow a few vegetables in raised beds.
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It's in my soul. I couldn't live any other way.
I've had animals since I was very young and have always been part of the countryside. I have no idea how I "got into it": it's just part of who I am.
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i started with 3 chickens in the garden of a tiny semi in warwickshire...
my wife and i relocated to scotland for her to continue her education we were without chickens for a year or so but i did get to meet a lot of the tas members and its obviously there fault that i wanted more :-)
after mrs b graduated and got a job we relocated to fife, we now have enough room in the garden for up to 20 chickens a nice veg patch and bee's that arrive this summer...
i was also lucky to meet a friend who kindly allows me to graze my small flock of sheep on her land in return for work on her holding :-) we are due to lamb for the first time at the end of april :-)
i love my life now and if finances ever allow fully intend to buy my own land so i can go on like this for the rest of forever!!!
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I grew up in central London, and never had a garden except for the postage stamp at the front of the maisonette, which was used to keep the rubbish bins in. I never had any inclination for growing veggies as a kid, as no one in my family did it, and neither did any of my friends or their parents.
My interest in growing veggies started when I left London and moved to Reading for uni, I met a girl who lived in Henley on Thames, she opened my eyes to a different way of life, and one that I liked the look of. Ever since then I have been trying to get my little bit of the good life. On top of that, the yearning for not doing an office job and spending my days in the countryside also add to passion for all things self sufficient.
At present, I live on the very edge of Reading and have managed to buy a house with my long term OH, the house has a reasonable sized garden, in which I grow as much as I can each year for my ever expanding family, additionally I brew my own beer and cider. :farmer:
I would like to get chickens in the near ish future, I just need to convince the Mrs that our garden is big enough. I think it is, she does not. not sure what the dog and cat would make of them!
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I'm from a long line of Fenland famers and smallholders on one side, not sure about the other side. I grew up on a farm, a bit wild. I always wanted a goat but wasn't allowed one. For years I wanted a pony but wasn't allowed one either. I did have a tiny flower patch of my own though. My brother and I spent one summer working out exactly how to make the farm totally self sufficient - we had everything sorted except coal - funny we didn't think of the woods behind the fields ::)
At Uni I had to go out and buy some pots, compost and plants as I was suffering withdrawal from having nothing to grow. We moved around a lot in the RAF, but I always planted veggies in every garden we lived in, even if we didn't get to crop them. Our first owned house had the front garden all planted up with veg, much to the horror of the rest of suburbia. At our next house there was no room for veggies so I took on two allotments. Then twenty years ago, once our children had moved away, we moved here to our smallholding. Oddly, I never have had my goat or pony, or even a donkey which I so wanted and still do, but we do keep sheep and poultry, and for a while we had Tamworths. I had dreamed of a nice big polytunnel and we've had that for about 18 years, plus a soft fruit garden, an orchard, and an outdoor veg garden, as well as a flower garden. We both love wildlife and have dedicated areas not to be disturbed or managed for birds, bees, small mammals and insects. After a huge health scare each we have cut back on our livestock numbers and the amount of garden ground we cultivate, and we fully intend to end our days here :farmer: :garden: :tree: :spin: :sheep: :chook: :knit: :love:
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Fleecewife, its not too late for that pony. I suggest a nice quiet Highland. You go for it girl. I have a friend who bought her 1st horse at age 60.....and she didn't even have her own land.
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Fleecewife, its not too late for that pony. I suggest a nice quiet Highland. You go for it girl. I have a friend who bought her 1st horse at age 60.....and she didn't even have her own land.
Thanks Kimbo but the other half would never let me have a horse or pony now, as I couldn't do the work to keep it. BUT a lovely new neighbour has moved in with, amongst other equines, a big Clydesdale type beauty, which she is happy for me to ride from time to time. I'll love that ;D
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Cavendish
We had three hens in our small back garden. Within a short time there was no garden. We then built a proper run, restricted but allowed their out of run time and lived together happily after that. Our boisterous terriers and feisty cats were soon put in their place by the hens. There is nothing like a 'home grown' egg.
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I think it is fascinating how everyone came to live the lifestyle that we are all enjoying. It also feels somewhat addictive. I started out with chickens then ducks, then bees. Now I have more space am loving the pigs and keep thinking right what else can add and how much more can I grow :thumbsup:
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Old life - IFA, married to a solicitor, normal, comfortable etc
Recession and divorce led to a few things... 1 was shopping and noticing prices of things apples, 50p each, tomatoes 50p each - madness, i was shocked.
I was also 40, no money and starting from scratch in life. As an IFA I realised in order to be able to retire I needed to save about £1m to have a £35000 a year pension and also buy a house,.. in just 20 - 25 years. Fat chance.
So, with my new wife, we thought hard about how to make a plan for living. I can cook, she yearned for a more old time lifestyle... we figured out a plan.
We have bought 13 acres of Cornwall, she is building a farm while I 'work' (ahem!) * and the plan is that over the next 5 - 8 years the farm business will develop to the extent thatwe can be largely self sustaining, with enough income to make the shortfall and then a bit more - a kind of retirement plan in itself.
Early stages yet, with plenty of things we are learning the hard way but our enthusiasm is undampened.
Adrian
I mean she works and I earn money to pay for the farm to be created
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We decided that our employers could not pay us what we felt we were worth so the obvious route out for a farm workers son with several different city & guilded trades mainly in electrical & mechanical trade under his belt & Alison as a top grade licentiate IPD PA was some land way out from the towns & cities where I could smal hold ,& Alison could try her hand at bees and both of us design & develop a decent paying business whilst still doing paid employment .
It was decided that after it was up & running well , giving about five times my paid employment net wage I'd be the first to take early redundancy as it was starting to be offered on some excellent terms .
With the farm up & running I was about to apply for the redundancy when at work an office chair collapsed under me a & gave me a major life changing injury .
We had to sell up in the end and move to a small bungalow in a city near hospitals etc , eventually getting fed up with city life we decided to come & live here in South Wales.
We are living in a modern bungalow that had options for landscaping the gardens in to 900 mm high brick built raised beds , so I /we could carry on growing our own food & for erecting an outside quality finished log cabin office for our new business ventures .