Agri Vehicles Insurance from Greenlands

Author Topic: when you started  (Read 7370 times)

john and helen

  • Joined Mar 2013
  • Devon
  • WARNING,,,MAY SAY WHAT HE BELIEVES
    • Facebook
Re: when you started
« Reply #15 on: April 08, 2014, 10:12:29 am »
WOW…. that was some great reading,  :thumbsup:
i think every newcomer should read this thread,

plumbs, i have found your site on FB ….YOU REALLY ARE AN INSPIRATION, as all of you are,

love the stories ... :thumbsup:

andy…to late mate..we have fallen in love with the land, and out of all the land we looked at…this one gives me a good feeling, maybe its because everyone has said..why the hell you buying steep land for  ;D

i want to make enough money ,so it pays for its self, i have a few ideas on getting, and keeping some regular customers….which will involve a little investment, no more than a add in yellow pages …
 
i just can't wait to get stuck in  :excited: and of coarse, i will be running a video blog  ;D warts and all

sarahdean_66

  • Joined May 2012
  • Yelling Cambridgeshire
Re: when you started
« Reply #16 on: April 08, 2014, 05:21:05 pm »
I am just starting, had a few chooks for years, got a pony and 16 sheep, 9 due to lamb and lambed 6 last year, have helped out lambing on friends farms for years so not too worried about that plus mum is a vet, but the biggest trouble im having is finding more land. My field is not big enough and i am looking to extend and get more poultry! any ideas of where to look or ask would be lovely!!

john and helen

  • Joined Mar 2013
  • Devon
  • WARNING,,,MAY SAY WHAT HE BELIEVES
    • Facebook
Re: when you started
« Reply #17 on: April 08, 2014, 05:59:13 pm »
see if there is a local smallholding page on Facebook for your area…  :thumbsup:

Shropshirelass

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • South Shropshire
  • A country lass who loves it all!
Re: when you started
« Reply #18 on: April 08, 2014, 06:07:06 pm »
I was born into a farming family so it's sort of second nature but there's always stuff to learn & the industry is always changing x

MAK

  • Joined Nov 2011
  • Middle ish of France
    • Cadeaux de La forge
Re: when you started
« Reply #19 on: April 08, 2014, 09:23:59 pm »
By accident !!! I jumped in with 2 feet and planted every veg I could think of - within 3 weeks of moving here we had chickens, ducks within a month then 2 pigs within 3 months. Neighbours ploughed up land for us to grow our winter store veg, gave us breeding rabbits and access to their fruit tress for animal feed, cider and winter stores. We also got given some woodland to cut trees for fuel.
In summary - we had no plan, did little research and rather fell into things that well intended neighbours initiated by their kindness. We are pretty much self sufficient in meat, veg, fruit, fuel and we swap produce when we can - I am not sure if I could have planned all this but feel very lucky.   
www.cadeauxdelaforge.fr
Gifts and crafts made by us.

mab

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • carmarthenshire
Re: when you started
« Reply #20 on: April 08, 2014, 09:35:10 pm »
When I started a few years ago, with 1 acre on loan, and a rather vague idea of when I'd get my marching orders, I started with grass seed (land had been bulldozed), then sheep & electric fence then chickens in that order.


Now I've got my own place it was stockfencing (still ongoing), pony, more sheep, and new chickens. still to come: build a house, goats and/or pigs, and would like a house cow one day, but I don't want to get in over my head as each new species is a bit of a learning curve and there's only one of me.

benkt

  • Joined Apr 2010
  • Cambridgeshire
    • Hempsals Community Farm
Re: when you started
« Reply #21 on: April 08, 2014, 09:53:13 pm »
Where to start.... we moved to a small village outside Cambridge when we got married, I was doing software stuff for various start-ups and my wife was training to be a doctor. She won our first three chickens at the church summer fete and we slowly expanded into breeding our own, keeping ducks for meat and growing veg - all in a fairly big back garden.


Then my wife had the opportunity to do her elective where she had to practise medicine anywhere in the world for a few months. I wanted us to try Orkney (where she's from) but she came back from church one day and said ' we need to go to Africa' so we did. I found a water aid charity who could use my help and she practised medicine in a rural health clinic in Uganda. When we returned, on the tube back in to London from Heathrow, I saw a carriage full of people looking sad despite the fact that they were clearly rich - they were wearing shoes for goodness sakes! That got me thinking more and more about doing something useful here instead of wasting my life away in the office and after a summer spent running a 'pig club' (six families, three pigs on some squatted land) I knew what I wanted to do.


I found this place in the neighbouring village up for auction, six acres and a falling down farmhouse and we went for it. Moved in just before Christmas and our youngest (of three) was born a couple of months later - in the sitting room half an hour before the midwives arrived! The next week we advertised for members to come and help us start a community farm and within three weeks we had eighteen families signed up to receive weekly eggs, half a pig and a Christmas goose in return for £20 a month and a morning's hard labour every month. Since then, we've had a go at so many things constantly growing the farm and the community - it just gets better, and I think the mistakes are slowly getting fewer!

plumseverywhere

  • Joined Apr 2013
  • Worcestershire
    • Its Baaath Time
    • Facebook
Re: when you started
« Reply #22 on: April 08, 2014, 09:56:29 pm »
Benkt - I love your story  :)  I do hope that you plan to write a book one day! Would love to hear more.
Smallholding in Worcestershire, making goats milk soap for www.itsbaaathtime.com and mum to 4 girls,  goats, sheep, chickens, dog, cat and garden snails...

benkt

  • Joined Apr 2010
  • Cambridgeshire
    • Hempsals Community Farm
Re: when you started
« Reply #23 on: April 08, 2014, 10:17:42 pm »
Maybe! I turned down a book deal this winter as I had new chicken runs to build but perhaps one day I'll have time..
Thanks,
Ben

Somewhere_by_the_river

  • Joined Dec 2013
  • Near Llandeilo
    • Angela French Graphite Artist
    • Facebook
Re: when you started
« Reply #24 on: April 10, 2014, 05:57:27 pm »
Slowly is my answer! Veggie and fruit patch, orchard, chickens, pheasants and partridge were all we could manage for years. It was always my dream from when I was very young to live in harmony with the land, my own patch of land that I could look after, and it matters to me where my food comes from. If it were possible for one person to grow/raise/make everything this modern life necessitates then that's what I'd be doing... one step at a time I guess!  ;)

A chance conversation and a move to Wales later, plus years of wearing down OH and he's got the bug too (not that it took much, he was almost there anyway). I have to be honest and say that TAS and the friends I've made through it have helped no end. The bee course was booked not long after we arrived and Backinwellies has my eternal thanks for the sheep fix, along with a few others from the Feb TAS meet who convinced OH that full steam ahead on the sheep front was a terrific idea, what were we waiting for?! - you know who you are, thank you  :hug: I think the only mistake so far has been in waiting so long to make it all happen; two legged were never going to be enough, it was only ever a matter of time before multiples of four (and six, in the case of the bees) joined them!!

Benkt, I agree with Plumseverywhere and shall await the book eagerly.

Backinwellies

  • Global Moderator
  • Joined Sep 2012
  • Llandeilo Carmarthenshire
    • Nantygroes
    • Facebook
Re: when you started
« Reply #25 on: April 11, 2014, 08:23:27 am »
Keeping up with this thread .... makes good reading.    Think it is my OH who should write a comment as he is the complete novice.... and keeps telling me he doesn't see what I see in the animals (then I catch him talking to a chicken!).

I have a farming family but grew up in Surrey surrounded by pony mad rich girls!  Hence I don't do horses!  I was the only person in school to do an O'level in agriculture (we had a school 'farm'  which until I came along had been for the 'naughty boys').... so I  was a complete fish out of water!  School careers teacher told me that you couldn't do a degree in agriculture ... good job I knew better!
So 3 years of dairy experience and a degree and I had my dream job... teaching livestock in an Ag college... loved every day of my 21 yrs.  So plenty of practical knowledge but no money!   

7 years on  (redundancy, and 2nd marriage later) we have just done a year here on our smallholding in Wales...... having lots of experience is great but doing your own decision making and management is a whole new ball game.   Started with 16 acres and plans for a poly tunnel, poultry, sheep and cows and pigs (and anything else I could sneak past the OH!!).    We now have 28 acres (a lucky acquirement when neighbour decided to retire ) ducks, hens, 15 breeding Llanwenog ewes, 2 Dexters and 2 Shetland cows.... and lots of lambs!

I am still learning lots everyday .... and learning what I had forgotten I know!    I talk to farmers, read books and TAS ....

Biggest mistakes so far have been not to trust my instincts ... have lost a ewe and a lamb or two because I was too cautious and didn't go with my instincts at the time.

Biggest challenges (apart from the wettest winter ever on a farm named Nantygroes which means 'crossing streams')  have been related to trying to obtain drugs and fertilisers and almost everything! for small numbers/acreages!  Just found out that nitrogen fertiliser cant be sold in anything less than 600Kg sacks ... and delivery is a min of 6 tonnes!!!   

.... onward to year 2 ....

 
Linda

Don't wrestle with pigs, they will love it and you will just get all muddy.

Let go of who you are and become who you are meant to be.

http://nantygroes.blogspot.co.uk/
www.nantygroes.co.uk
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RUSTYME

  • Joined Oct 2009
.
« Reply #26 on: April 11, 2014, 12:29:16 pm »
Sow clover or grow legumes , no need to buy poison then , oops . I mean nitrogen .
The local agri store should deliver just one sack , if you must buy it , but you would maybe have to pay delivery .
Failing that , a local farmer would buy an extra one for you at cost surely .
But if it is just for grass , why use it at all .
Farmers only need it for max production of grass for silage etc , plus the grass they have may be one of the new varieties that require nitrogen in huge amounts .
But clover will supply all that a good mixed ley needs .
 The deep green lush fields are only really obtainable by farmers who may tend to grow a monoculture grass , or a limited number of modern grasses , and pump tons of nitrogen on the field .
More traditional leys , with more varieties of grass , and that need far less nitrogen , will not only look different , but they  will get all they need from clover , as long as you are not hammering the field for maximum production 365 days a year .

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: when you started
« Reply #27 on: April 13, 2014, 05:51:29 pm »
We were fortunate when we decided to get paid what we felt we were worth rather than what an employer was going to pay us.
I am  an electro mechanical engineer with all sorts of other skills &  qualifications as well . Alison used to be a top flight PA  plus she has a degree in personnel management  and an A level GCE in accountancy .

 We undertook a government sponsored local business  enterprise trust course , had a guy seconded in from Lloyds bank small business division to oversee the course & take us through current rules & regs plus tax liabilities , as well as having lectures from several others appertaining to how to successfully run a small business and how to make sensible business plans and development plans .

 We produced an acceptable 1 , 2,  3 & 5 year plan , They gave us match funding identical to our financial input.
This planning & funding was the real help we needed .

We joined the local Countryside Watch Scheme ( CWS) , paid for & put up a three x two foot ( 900 x 600 mm )  CWS sign on our garage door & added a few dummy cameras I made myself complete with winking LED's around the property & buildings .
 Became part of the local CSW ring around group & took up gundog training ( something I've always had a deep desire to do ) .

We suddenly found all sorts of people who would stop by and chat with us & offer us help or advice ,  as for the most , they were all the local farmers & small holders.
 
We designed our life on the small holding , planned it to to the N th degree as a progressive set up &  stuck to it . ( this included education for things we'd need to learn ) .

 I reckon we'd still be there but for the disabling back injury at my day job . The plan was for me to work till we had netted five times my BT income ( £78  K pa ( ish ) then put in for redundancy at work, then work 18 hr. days  for a year on my own.
Towards the end of that year to take on two well paid honest reliable part timers and then for Alison to take redundancy a year later .

The eventual plan was for us to employ seven people & do several in house animal husbandry training courses

 As a result of everything I firmly believe that continuous education towards your goal is absolutely necessary . Without it , at the best , you will stand still , whilst others progress forward , so in effect you end up going backwards .

Oh ... The plans of mice & men !   :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
« Last Edit: April 13, 2014, 05:56:30 pm by cloddopper »
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

 

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