[TheBurkers]

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.

[Lesley Silvester]

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.

[TheBurkers]

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 

[Sylvia]

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" Good luck.

[Fleecewife]

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.

[TheBurkers]

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.

[rockstar]

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

[TheBurkers]

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!

[Fleecewife]

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.

[TheBurkers]

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?

[Fowgill Farm]

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 

[Fleecewife]

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  It's a balance between keeping friendly and establishing that the rights to the land are yours.

[TheBurkers]

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.