The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: bungalow Bill on December 27, 2015, 10:16:03 am
-
Dear TAS members,
Earlier in my present career, I made plans to retire to an idyllic Greek island once my employment as a petroleum Engineer came to its inevitable end. In preparation I bought a plot of land overlooking a turquoise bay and constructed a large villa with swimming pool. So why am I lamenting to a group of strangers with little to do with the oil industry or perhaps Greek islands. Here is the connection.
:
The title of this forum appears to me most appropriate as I indeed became a small holder quite by accident when my wife, bless her, informed me that she had purchased a derelict barn while on a shopping trip to the UK. The barn is located in Anglesey, North Wales and on my first trip to view her new purchase, I discovered that Anglesey has a different type of rain. It rains horizontally as opposed to the more conventional vertical type I have observed elsewhere in the world. Attached to my wifes derelict barn, (which she told me to make her dream home and had no bearing on Greek islands, villas or swimming pools) was 4 acres of land divided up into four small fields, each separated by blackthorn hedging. So there you have it.
It is now four years since that fateful day and the barn as instructed is now pretty much to my wifes liking and hasn't been burned down yet. I know nothing of hay making, ditch cleaning hedge cutting, or tractors but hope to pick it up as I go along with hints and tips from the more enlightened TAS members. I have made a start, I have planted 100 cider apple trees in the hope that the results of the fermentation process may blunt the sting of the horizontal rain and the fading memory of a Greek villa.
If any TAS members are willing to pass on their knowledge for land husbandry, I would be happy to share the results of my fermentation process as the occasion so dictates.
Bungalow Bill.
P.S. Does anybody want to buy a Greek Villa?
-
And that sounds to me like a very happy accident!! Who needs endless sunshine when they can have horizontal rain and sleet? Who wants a warm swimming pool when they have icy streams to wade looking for straying sheep?
Good luck to you in your new career, you will love it!
-
Wow, what a change but nonetheless I am sure you will enjoy life in Angelsey :thumbsup:
-
One of the best introductions ever. Welcome to TAS :wave:
-
hi and welcome to the forum, also from wales :wave: sounds brilliant, are you planning on keeping any animals at all? I couldn't afford a villa in Greece sadly, but why not rent it out to people who go on holiday there; maybe start up a travel business :D
-
Brilliant intro Bill.
And if it is of any consolation I can confirm that the horizontal rain also occurs here up my hillside in SE Wales.
I've been going 2.5 years after ignoring the fact that I am the clumsiest person alive which is not the perfect trait as a smallholder and having the opposite of a mid life crisis; selling the fast car and buying land and a truck. It's mostly brilliant ( I have chickens, pigs, veg patch and new orchard) although today has ranked as a 'git' of a day owing to two scrapping 150kg sows and accidentally covering myself in pig antibiotic whilst cleaning equipment. It's never dull.
Welcome!
Martha R
-
It rains horizontally in Isle of Arran, Scotland as well although it's a few years since I lived there. Still it rains here in Shropshire as well and, at the moment, is very windy. Goats weren't keen to leave their shed at milking time this evening. Fine, I told them. I didn't want to leave my armchair either.
-
yeah, great intro welcome aboard
-
Hi Bill, welcome!
We are on a similar journey, but without the Greek Island bit, although I think a couple of years behind you on the renovations.
We are in West Wales and while we have almost no skills to share we do have dangerous amounts of enthusiasm,
all the best
-
Welcome from Caithness :wave: You will soon learn how to go about things on your land. Enjoy the pleasure of achieving new things, its all part of the experience. :thumbsup: