It's a perennial problem the world over I think. By the time you have scraped together the wherewithal, you are past your prime, and it's up hill all the way after that. But only if you need to make a profit. We get by by being fairly close to self sufficient in food, the projects pay for themsleves and we have to find enough to cover car, bills etc from other sources. But our health has deteriorated (not because of being smallholders) so we don't have the spare energy to break our backs raising vegetables for younger and fitter folk who are too lazy to grow their own but still want to eat the best. Any spare energy goes into breeding and conserving the sheep, because we believe in what we are doing there, and not everyone can get hold of land to raise animals. What we really regret is not having been living here when our children were young. We make up for it a bit by having all our grandchildren over as often as we can, so hopefully they will get the bug, or at least pick-up the skills.