I am definitely an accidental smallholder - I was living quite happily on my small 3-acre croft with a couple of horses and a load of veggies, when the 5-acre field next door but one that half the village had had its eye on since its owner passed away a couple of years ago had a For Sale sign hung on the gate. Since the other half and I have always fancied building the house of our dreams and there were the remains of two croft houses on it, we rang the agent. Yes, it was for sale, but the executors wouldn't sell it on its own, only with the other croft the deceased owned.
Well, faint heart never won fair building plot, so five months and a lot of paperwork later, I have just concluded missives on five fields, totalling 9.75 acres, and a 3-bedroom house that might kindly be described as 'in need of renovation'. Should get the keys next month after the transfer has been registered with the Crofters Commission and I'm accepted as the new tenant.
I am lucky enough to live just round the corner from the winner of the 2015 Agriscot Sheep Farm of the Year and Joyce is being immensely kind in teaching me all about sheep and letting me come and get some hands-on experience.
I now have three North Country Cheviot ewes (well, they don't actually belong to me at the moment, their owner has moved away, so I'm looking after them until she gets their replacement ear tags ordered up and then we'll do the transfer) and will probably be gimmering for a couple of years to get used to looking after sheep before starting to breed my own. Three of the fields I'm buying are good hay fields, so hopefully I'll get to make my own next summer.
Currently feeling a great sense of satisfaction today after successfully catching one of the ewes for the first time and checking her feet after spotting her limping slightly - I thought it was going to go horribly wrong, as she weighs about 15kg more than I do, but she's pretty tame and allowed me to pen her in one of the shelters, then I found I could keep her still against the wall with a leg and she was most co-operative in letting me pick up her feet like a horse's. She was happy enough to eat ewe nuts from my hand afterwards and when I opened the gate they stayed in the shelter for a while picking through bits of dropped hay, so I don't think anyone was too traumatised by the experience!
So the house building plans are on hold for at least five years while I renovate the old croft house and get it up and running as a holiday let, eradicate the ragwort infestation in the big field, get an agricultural building put up for storing hay and having some lambing pens in, sort all the field drainage out and gradually build my flock up - I have a souming of 50 ewes for the two crofts I'm buying plus 20 ewes for the croft we currently own, so I can go up to 70 on the common grazings. Exciting times
Looking forward to getting to know everyone
Topic: Hello from the north coast (Read 3538 times)
