Inspiration, we all love a bit of that!

Hello there. How is everybody? 💖 Not wishing to sound like a broken record but we are just keeping on keeping on here, except for the fact that my youngest was sent home on Monday. A classmate tested positive and he has to isolate but is returning to school on Wednesday, something he is VERY pleased about as he is not a big fan of online learning!

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Saturday.

I'm in the living room, no woodburner lit yet so have an extra layer on, but having some ish-quiet time with a brew and a biscuit. The weather outside is miserable as sin, the dog is asleep in the kitchen, Jon has popped to Aber for dog food (missed off my shopping list yesterday) the boys are upstairs putting up Christmas lights and Aled Jones' dulcets are wafting down the stairs, don't ask, as I sit here and write my blog post.

This morning I came across a note scribbled in my Household Notebook about sowing some tomatoes which can be grown outside. I've never been brave enough to do this because my efforts growing toms have never come to much with those IN doors, although this last year I did have better results in the poly tunnel. So this coming growing season after feeling inspired by my good friend Tracy of Our Smallholding Adventure, as usual, I've decided to give it a go. She's always very enthusiastic when it comes to growing tomatoes, most things really, and tries so hard sowing early, different varieties etc. So as well as trying some outside I'll be sowing a good variety of this very useful fruit - yes I think we all know tomatoes are a fruit not a vegetable!😄

So here are the sowing choices I've made for next year.

IDI F1: Quite a tasty variety I found this year and great to add some different colour to a plate. They are small, yellow and pear shaped, an indeterminate, vining variety and produced by the RHS and Mr Fothergill's.

Tomato F1Tumbling Tom Red : Next year will be the first time I've grown tumbling tomatoes, these seeds are from Simply Seed, and thought I would have them in a hanging basket in the poly tunnel as this variety is not frost hardy.

Maskota : This is a cherry variety by Mr Fothergill's, the seeds of which I was given by a neighbour. Now these were not a real success last year however I'm trying with them again which gives me the chance to grow at least one variety outside. These are also a bush type and ideal for pots, tall ones as they can tumble.

Big Mama F1 : I so do want to grow some big plum tomatoes to make sauce, my dream is to have jars of them in my cellar store room. These are said to be good for sauces, soups and salsa and they skin easily after par-boiing; wish me luck with these seeds from D T Brown.

Maghrebi : These are from the Heritage Seed Library and originate in Morocco They are said to be blight resistant and work well fresh, cooked or pureed. 

Marmande : From Kings Seeds these seeds produce large, attractive fruits which mature slightly later so you can hopefully extend your growing season. They are bushy and don't require side shooting. I hope to do better with these next year.

I'd be interested to know if you're growing anything different or special next year - inside or out.

Inspiration also struck after watching  on Homesteading Family on YouTube who are based in North Idaho in the States- I was put onto them by Tracy! In one of their many videos Carolyn the lady of the house talks about home management including about turning from consumers to producers. Now I think this is pretty much the main idea of those who own or wish to own a smallholding or homestead depending on your description of choice, see my blog post wth some of my thougts about that here.

Obviously we'll still be trying in what will be, amazingly, our 6th growing season to provide as much food as we can; with the advent of my poly tunnel I hope to improve on my harvests as we will have 4 extra months at the beginning of the year compared to last. I'm constantly learning when it comes to sowing and growing and I know those who have been doing it much much longer than me are also still learning and I think that's just great. When it comes to indoors and providing food I think next year I'll try having a couple of days a month to batch bake and make in the kitchen. This will cut down on buying certain things like snack biscuits but also to have meals and dishes to just take out of the freezer when at times we need to make things easy for ourselves or we are busy. We plan on getting a bigger downstairs freezer for the cellar room next year so I'll surely have space. 

Inspiration also came from Hugh and Fiona over at English Country Life on their latest YouTube video. Suggestions were given for books as Christmas presents for those who wish to learn about or gain more information about smallholding and all it can bring. I will now be asking Santa for a copy of this: 

I really want to up my game next year and I think this could be the book for me. Funnily enough Tracy has this on her list, too. You get the feeling we are a couple of peas in a pod!

....Life continually gets in the way so I'm now finishing my little ramblings on Sunday morning at the kitchen table. I've already fed the chooks, lit the Rayburn, put a wash load on, put another load to dry and had my first coffee. Jon took Belle out first thing and I can hear the kettle boiling for a second cup as we've now had breakfast and he and the boys are on a shed clearing out day.

I'm continutally inspired, like lots of people, by lots of people and I'm sure you are, too. 

Please leave a comment if you have time as I'd love to hear about how you are inspired along with any plans you have for the coming growing season.

Bye for now, 

Lou.xx

Making Time, Or Just Another Ramble?

Good morning.

Some of you may know of Sam Gray. She is a smallholder in Shropshire, has written a book called Doing It In Wellies and also contributes to Country Smallholding magazine; you can follow her blog here.

In an article here she talks about how to make time. I have used it as the basis of the post - don't worry I have checked with Sam and she was happy for me to reference her.

Trying not to take on too much in the first place is a really good piece of advice. However, it doesn't stop your head being so full of ideas of every kind with regard to what you want to do that you fear there may be a cerebral explosion! I had visions of keeping pigs, chickens, having a larder full of homemade preserves and the like before we moved to Wales. We have achieved some of this but Jon works, I have the boys to look after and then there is the cost of setting up the projects we have in mind!

You have lists of things that need to be done before these projects can get off the ground. There are always one or two things which need doing to prepare for the start of any major job/project. For example, the Poly House needs re-covering after the wrath of storms Ophelia and Brian et al - thankfully it didn't get off the ground due to Jon building it so sturdily! But we need to wait for some tiles we are due to "acquire" from a roof which is to be replaced. They can then be put on the conservatory roof which means the plastic roofing will be available to repair the Poly House. See what I mean?

Following on from that I really try not to worry about the little things.. There will always be something to do so don't worry that you will always have something to do. This is the lifestyle, an ongoing life, not one that is going to be finished any time soon.

Knowing and realising this is a part of also stopping to enjoy what you have. Don't be so busy that you don't enjoy what you have around you. Try and enjoy your animals as well as them being there to provide you with sustenance or an income. I need to take more time to talk to my chooks; I love cleaning them out and making sure they are happy and comfy so they lay lots of tasty eggs for us. (Managed to sell my first box of the year last week!)

Sam started writing her book after four years on her smallholding. It helped her realise why she had chosen that way of life. She perfectly described how I felt after a year or so of living in Wales. Even though we have A LOT to do, have plans - some on hold - some sorted - some ongoing, the dream is now a reality and we wouldn't dream of living it anywhere else!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Homesteading v Smallholding

This really is a bit of a blog ramble and I'm not quite sure of it's purpose but whatever. 

I recently came across something here on t'interweb about the difference between the terms smallholding and homesteading and the ideas behind both. I like both these but after reading over a few things I think we are more of a homestead than a smallholding.

Our property doesn't have purpose-built housing for animals on site, although our buildings could very well be converted into animal accommodation - we prefer to make money from them via humans!

We are using the land at the house mainly for sowing and growing because we plan on making use of the three acre field we have up the road from us, in part, for some animals - hopefully pigs first. I really must take a picture of that sometime, but here you can see what the shape of the land looks like; a bit weird I know!

The narrow part is what I always refer to as the walk way, although it is wide enough to get a car down it once there is a decent layer of hardcore or something similar put down; the road shown going straight up from the narrow end is a five minute walk to our house.

However, back to my original thoughts. Homesteading is also about using the things around you to make other items you may need. All the way through our time together Jon has always been very good at reusing and recycling. He always likes to keep things 'in stock' just incase they come in handy. (We had a coffee table that we didn't know what to do with and it is now the base for the school chicken house he is building.) Therefore around the house and garden we have chairs, seating, clothes peg boards, tables, the housing for the chickens and soon to be ducks not to mention my Poly House, amongst many more. 

Anything to save money and not waste what we have come across/acquired along the way! This is a way for us to be self-reliant because we don't have to buy everything we need and also we don't have to pay for tradesmen; this is for simple things like replacing a lock on a door or decorating the rooms to rent, plumbing jobs etc; we are so lucky we rarely have to pay out for that kind of thing.

I am keen to preserve more of what I will, hopefully, grow each year so that I don't have to grow the same things thereby trying different food. Last year was my first attempt at preserving anything and I did manage some great pickled beetroot, apple sauce, a good supply of onions which kept very well in the cellar store room and turnips were a great addition to meals along with courgettes, cucumbers, salad leaves and lots of herbs. I have some root vegetables growing this time along with potatoes so this will allow us to be more self-sufficient when it comes to food shopping.

Oh this really IS a ramble - sorry but my brain is ticking over, sorry!! 

At this point I could say that for the first four months of the year we had 519 eggs from the 11 chickens; this works out at 47 eggs per chicken. We are selling quite a lot, about £26 worth last month. We use some of the money to buy feed but as it seems it is the only way the boys are going to save money for their summer holiday we are buying things like grit for the girls, but at least we are doing something towards spending less of our own money at times. The ducks may come before we go away, depends if the supplier calls Jon again.

In other areas spending is not quite the same but we hoping to have the next Airbnb room done as soon as we can and that takes a bit of investment; but that also has been of great benefit since we began renting it out. Financially of course but also that we are confident people will return when we have more space - we already have our regular business gentleman who has been to us three times already since last month!

So right now I think we're homesteaders; whatever the description we are beyond happy.

I think I'll stop just now or you may get p***** off with my epistle!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Postal Delights And Other Goodies.

Good morning!

On Friday I received a parcel from Thompson & Morgan; it was my garlic cloves and onion sets! They are currently in a cupboard until they are needed. 

The boys and I left Jon at the train on Saturday morning as he went to pick up a car we were buying in Abergele. We three went to do the food shopping and a few jobs in town. I picked up a copy of Smallholing magazine and it came with a chicken mag, too.

I've always fancied taking a look at a copy of this just to see how people do stuff! I was chuffed there was a competition to win some electric fencing but then, darn it, I realised the competition time had run out! I should say that the man who owns the sawmill where Jon works has said we can have some of the piglets when he puts his sow to boar (I think that is the correct term). When home the postman had brought my Grow Your Own magazine, along with my calendar for next year and I love it; this year in addtion to the usual stickers there are fridge magnets!

I was trying to think how long I've been using this particular calendar and it must be about eight years as I know Alfie was born; it is THE best way of organising me and mine.

On Sunday morning I got busy in the garden and sowed a few more cauliflower seeds and finished the garden prep on the bed I had started; carbooard and then polythene topped with a pallet to keep everything flat. Lovely to think the manure will all rot down and hopefully the bed will be a treat for the brassicas once Autumn and Winter have passed.

On Monday morning I weighed myself following the changes to my diet and I found I had lost 2¼lbs. Wish it had been a little more but as least it is a loss.

I set to with a couple of jobs outside once the bread had been started. I finished preparing the spot on the main veg plot by first taking down the last tomato plant, giving it to the chooks then adding the contents of the grow bag to the plot and forking it through ready for the garlic to be planted.

I also put some fleece over the beetroot just to protect them a little while longer before I take them up, thanks Dawn. It isn't the prettiest looking effort but I hope it will do the job. (I have tidied it up a bit since this photo was taken!)

The postman brought more delights. I have been having trouble deciding where to put the washing line/whirly gig when we finally got round to buying one.After dicussion we decided the best thing was to have a retractable one and then it wouldn't matter where it was as we could just pull it back in when not needed, so...

and it is already in full use.

I had a friend over for coffee this morning, Tuesday, so a couple of hours of garden, craft and other chat and she came bearing gifts of more apples. Yay!

These are awating some attention and may be turned into apple sauce and stored away in my new Kilner jars! The ones given to me at the weekend I have blanched and put in the freezer for another day. 

Just as said friend was leaving the postman delivered my part of the stationery swap I have taken part in. Eeeek!

Washi tape, post-it notes, a note book, stickers AND some cute candles.

This morning I managed to dust the living room before the kids went to school then before my coffee chat put the washing on. I've also got round to sowing a few more Pak Choi seeds, collected the eggs and am currently having a very late lunch whilst writing this post. 

I'm amazed the boys will be home shortly as I'm not sure where the day has gone AT ALL!

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Mid-Week Musings

So the boys left with the Gramps Sunday lunchtime with Jon going back to work on Monday.

I have been keeping myself busy and on Monday...

I finally planted out ALL of the beetroot. You can look at it in one of two ways, either I sowed too many seeds in the beginning or I was cleverly thinking that I wouldn't have to grow it two years on the trot as I will have jar upon jar of it pickled! You decide!

Then I weeded around the turnips, onions and broccoli.

I had a few sugar snap peas in a drainpipe in the Poly House and have now put these in one of the tyres around a tripod; I hope they perk up as they were looking a bit poorly. I think they were a bit overshadowed by the cucumber plants; this is a close up to show said cucumbers which are growing very healthily and that there are lots to come, it seems.

I re-did the canes on the beef tomatoes and they are much more secure now.

I managed to turn over the compost heap with the help of both wheelbarrows. It is definitely coming on well but I really need to get right down to the bottom.

(I should point out that I've had to move the laptop to the other end of the kitchen table because the sun is streaming through the front kitchen window and I couldn't see a thing on the screen!)

Yesterday I gave the Poly House a really good tidy out including brushing out seed trays that are now empty ready for next season's sowing. There is not much going on in there at the moment; I'm sure there is something I could be doing but can't figure out what.

I managed to do some good work on my December Daily and finished three pages. Then domestic stuff was washing done and put outside, some ironing and clothes and bedding put away. I have the boys' school uniform washed and put aside but not doing anything with that yet as not sure how much of it will fit them by the end of the summer hols!

Jon and I went to the builders yard for supplies, more of that in a moment, after he finished work and he bought this for me. Aaah.

You can just see in the background my lettuces coming on. Decided to try growing these along with the leaves that are in the drainpipe above.

I am a little concerned about the tomatoes. I have picked some and we have eaten them, yum, but the bush ones are not turning red at the moment. I have, however, been reliably informed that when they turn red they emit a gas which helps to turn others red; maybe I just need to be a little more patient and not pick any for a while when they DO turn red. My middle name is definitley "learning all the time".

Now, regarding the trip to the builders yard. You may remember back in January I wrote THIS post, and then I wrote THIS one! The end room is really coming on and this is the bathroom. The tiles I mentioned a while back which the boys were helping to carry into the shed were used for the back wall, Jon made the frame for the mirror we had in stock as well as the duck board for the shower tray. That was another freebie; the tray was lying around at the saw mill, was a bit long so Jon shortened it, glued it back together and sanded it down and you would never know, then the toilet was from Freecycle and the door was a bargain on Ebay.

Last weekend Jon painted the living/sleeping space and we chose this fab purple for the end walls and used magnolia on the other two.

Carpet is coming in a couple of days, grouting on the shower, which is to the left of the mirror, will be finished tonight then it will be done for now. Later we need to look at curtains but we have a great side unit that was going for free, you see we love that word! which will go in later of course. So, where am I going with THIS ramble you are probably asking? 

Well, surpsingly we have changed our mind, yet again. The end room was to be a guest room and nothing more but I have a friend with a self-catering cottage down the road from us and she said we should put it on Airbnb. You may remember that I said I didn't want people in the garden, the space taken up which we had dreamed of for so long etc. etc. However, Jon and I think we can do this without too much impact on ours and the boys' lives. The other thing is the field we own down the road from the house would take a lot, and I mean a lot, of money to turn into a viable plot for camping and would take a good year or more to get done. 

Therefore we are going back to, not sure what plan X, Y or Z, where we use the field as more of a smallholding to be as self-sufficient and self-reliant as we can with our pigs, Jon's agricultural building store, his tool shed, maintenance materials, all his other manly stuff and who knows what else. He would be able to give up work then as we are not looking to be millionaires, just get the qualtiy of life we have both been looking for and want for the whole family. I pretty much do as I please and always have since we got here, and I am very lucky in that, but this would mean Jon could be at home, we would work together, have our desired pace of life for us and the boys and do what we want to do.

Another phew! We may get this first room let out in around October just to see how things go and after that Jon can look at converting the next two rooms.

Isn't life a killer? What can I say but what a ride! As it says at the bottom of my blog posts - 

It isn't love that makes the world go round, it's love that makes the ride worth while.

I can't think of anybody other than Jon that I would want to travel on this wild ride of ours.

I think that really is quite enough rambling.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Beating Myself Up Unnecessarily, But I'll Get Over It!

Just found this post by Dawn on Doing It For Ourselves In Wales about smallholding and self-sufficiency. Truly inspirational as you normally are, Dawn. 

Jon and I feel so very, very lucky that, in effect, Bronllan came with the field which we now own - we didn't actually pay any extra for it. It definitely needs work before we can use it to any degree as we cannot get any vehicles onto the land before we literally make an in road down the lovely tree-lined, grassy walk-way leading to it. But we are determined to make use of it because so many people dream of having a smallholding or land of their own but for lots of reasons are not able to follow that dream. 

I keep reminding myself and Jon that we have only been here just over six months and in that time have achieved lots of things and haven't failed just because we are not raising chickens, our grow your own plans are to nothing and are without my yearned-for-pantry full of preserved produce! Primarily the house has pretty much had a complete renovation, we have settled the boys and ourselves into school and the community, had our first Christmas, Jon has found himself a job which is close to home and aids our new life as we have access to additional free wood for heating the house and we now have our day to day life.

However, we do want to do other things and living here now is giving us options to, eventually, make the right decisions for us as a family. We are lucky to have established outbuildings on the land of the house and to many people these would make a wonderful business opportunity as I talked about here. 

However a short while ago Jon and I were sitting by the fire talking, as we do much more these days, and we both came to the conclusion. We spent so much time looking for and finding our dream home where we have no part of our land that includes shared access, no near neighbours to take into account and all that we have is ours. And to be honest we have come to the conclusion that we are not prepared to give that up all that to have people traipsing through our precious paradise.

People reading this will probably think, "crikey, make your minds up will you?" and maybe I should learn to keep my mouth shut so I don't look like I'm full of big ideas but putting nothing into practice, but you have to be happy with decisions you make. Before we came here the plan was for Jon to have his own business making things from wood, re-purposing, re-using and recycling items etc and we are now going back to this but he will not be giving up his job straight away.

As Dawn said, until you get to do what it is you want to do you can prepare, read and organise so you are good to go. Therefore in the meantime we are going to be using part of the garden for US for a greenhouse or poly tunnel and maybe chickens - I hope so and see what we can do for ourselves before Christmas whilst I continue to refer to all the lovely people online for help, wisdom and advice who are doing their own thing and whom we hope to emulate in the future. 

Lou.xx