A time to celebrate - Happy Anniversary to us.

We moved into our smallholding 1 year ago today. 


We had moved out of our family home on November 27th and into my Uncle's house which was mostly unoccupied by him for the next 7 weeks.  It sounds nothing now, but when you are waiting for something, time drags.  Here I am now in disbelief that a year has gone by.
As most of you will know, we couldn't be happier living where we do.  The failed sales, drop outs, useless solicitors and estate agents and the long scary journey to pick the keys up was all worth it. 
On moving day, Steven had gone with my Dad, brother in law and a friend to the lock up where our worldly belongings were, Mum was on childcare duty before and after school.  I had to drive 45 minutes to get the keys, that would be fine it the roads hadn't flooded, the sat nav hadn't failed and my phone gave up en route!  Literally!  I'd managed to get there ok but it took twice as long to get back and with no phone I couldn't let people know I was safe.  It was worth it though, walking in to the new house, setting the alarm off and not knowing the code - everything fell straight in to place.
I haven't missed our old house like I thought we would.  We have a lot of memories in that house, but they came with us and the house is now being lived in by another family.
We were meant to live here - I am sure of it.
So we moved into our little smallholding at the end of a lane, set in 4 acres of the beautiful English countryside, that sits alongside a river, standing proudly against the beautiful backdrop.  We have a barn, greenhouse and veg plot plus 2 small open barns that we utilise.
Here's a few memories from our journey, please celebrate with us before we go feet first into 2017's journey.
The Aga:
We would not be without one now. Simple as that.  It sounds cliché, but it is the heart of our home.  I've written about it many times.  You simply can't beat Aga food.  I'm building up my Aga kitchen wear over the years.  It's great stuff. 
We keep our bums warm on it, it dries our clothes, heats our hats and gloves, makes the dogs feel cosy, bakes amazing cakes, taught my daughter the love of cooking and provides a comforting warmth for poorly children.

The Self Sufficient Journey.

Well this has been even better than I expected.  I couldn't wait to get going with sowing seeds.  I wanted to be producing our own food from day 1!  Then I realised there are no shortcuts and no quick returns as such.  I had planned a lot though, and I am learning from it this year and so on.

The vision hasn't changed - on our smallholding, I want to produce as much of the food my family consumes.  How possible that is will change year by year, hopefully increasing. 
Last year we started with chickens for meat and eggs.  We put a stake in the ground and tried 2 of our Cream Legbar cockerels.  This was the first time we'd slaughtered our own birds and we weren't overly impressed with the first one but the 2nd one was nice.  We then made friends, read blogs, researched more and discovered a new breed (to us) that we are going to use this year, Ross Cobbs.    Over the year we put 7 more cockerels in the freezer, and had countless eggs from the hens.  We sold a lot which covered the cost of the feed through Summer and Autumn. 

Our layers that we brought with us - the oldies

I didn't keep records for these, but I am this year.  Our first egg from the hens we brought with us was a double yoker, a sign of the bountiful things to come.

Almost immediately we bought some hatching eggs and put them in the new incubator that Steven had got for Christmas.

The hatched into lovely little chicks, the first of many! 

The geese came a couple of weeks after moving in.  We'd had this planned for so long, we just needed to source some.  We found some advertised locally and made our first new smallholding friend.  A small family renting a farm in a town not farm from us.  We soon went back for ducks when we decided to get them too.  It's good to have the right contacts.

The geese hatched their eggs with no help from us.  It was such a heart warming sight.  Mamma goose didn't like us being there so we snapped a photo and left.

 The asparagus shot through, literally a few inches a day.  We were astounded. 

 Another goose hatched but Mamma goose didn't want to know.....so we took him under our wing and that's where Ryan's story started.

We started to uncover and prepare the veg beds for planting.  We had no idea what anything was like, the soil, if anything was lurking underneath or how things would go.  We couldn't wait!


Before

After

I managed to start leeks and tomatoes off not long after moving in.

We got the hang of growing as the year went on and had some cracking harvests.

We've bought 2 chest freezers, second hand and working perfectly, to house the next year's meat and any fruit and veg that can't be used there and then. 


We have learnt to look forward, plan ahead but more importantly, be flexible.  The weather, animals, kids, work, farmers, everything has an impact on what we do and we have to be ready to adapt at that very moment.  Self reliance is a key aspect of the new lifestyle.


Home cooking.
One of my fondest things.  Good food on the table (good, not expensive), with a family all sat round together, gives you time to bond.  It also means I need to occasionally lose the plot trying to get my son to eat his veg, but I am human so let's move on.
I have loved putting food on the table in 2016.  I found the summer more difficult as I wanted to be outside all of the time, so I will be prepared for that in 2017.  Now we have a dining room, I'm taking over from my Mum who used to invite the family round for Sunday lunches.  I really enjoy seeing people enjoy the food I've made.  More importantly - it's made from good stuff.  Don't get me wrong, we're not there yet, bad food slips in sometimes, but again, I'm human and such is life.
I've been making my own bread, using the bread maker.  The bread is amazing, I know what's in it and I can work it around my time.  This works for me and as we know, we do what works for us.
I have tried all sorts of cakes, my first one being to repay the farmer for helping us when we moved in.  He lifted our stables from the artic lorry to our house (along the lane) and had met us only the day before. 



The stables going up

Lovely, lovely people who we've since made friends with and have enjoyed their company from time to time.  We stay in touch via text and look out for each other. 

Most weekends we have had family and friends over and most of the time they are fed and watered and go away happy.

Fences.
Oh Fence!  Soon after moving in we started on fences.  We paid a contractor to put a fence along the bottom of the field.  Cows had grazed it before and they didn't need confining as the field next to us was the farmers, who owned the cows.  Well my horses wouldn't respect any boundaries without fences and given the river was right at the end of the field down a ditch, I didn't fancy calling the fire brigade to rescue my horses at any point!  Steven was working full time, we had no fencing tools and it made sense for the first fence to get someone in.  It was done within a couple of days and we were very pleased.

As soon as that one was up, Steven took over the reins.  We bought an auger and the power tools needed to put the fences up.  It was just as well as it seems fencing on smallholdings is a never ending thing?!

Good boy for staying put Jake!

2016....what a year.

We've got used to being supplied by oil and ordering it in, having a painfully slow internet connection at times (I work from home 3 nights a week, it's not just a Facebook moan!), going out to lock up and check on animals at all hours, put others before ourselves and taking strength from each other when days seem a bit much.
We have learnt to embrace how we see life and not to feel ashamed by it.  Wanting to grow your own, raise and slaughter your own animals, enjoy looking at a field and shovelling sh*t, seeing beauty in things others just see dirt or moan that it smell and generally living the good life, looking up at the stars just because we can and not being afraid of the dark (it's very dark here!).

Our family has grown closer, we've walked, had picnics, laughed and cried.  Raised 2 healthy puppies and kept our old man Buddy going a lot longer than any of us expected.

Buddy has always loved his cuddles.

 Siblings have occasionally got on

We have some of the best views all around us.  I kid you not, there isn't a day goes by that I am not thankful for them or some aspect of what we have.

We have managed to make new friends who helped us when we needed it....even if it was to raid their wood pile!

We love seeing new things come from old items.  Paying cash is the last option, after all, we're trying to keep our outgoings down.

The kids have played outside, just like kids should.

We used our metal detector on our field and dug up some treasure.

 The Vorwerks watched whilst we worked.

The the second part of the self sufficient movement came along.  We bought 3 lambs and are raising them to have their own lambs in 2018, filling our freezers with lamb.

We've had a lot of firsts in the new house.  Halloween was fabulous and low key.

Ensure we did things as a family 

and as a couple

Saw the first snow 

Fixed things that broke, learning as we went.

 Found free wood wherever we could to keep up warm in the winter

Had a Christmas to remember 

Got on making new veg beds for the coming year 

Tried to see a silver lining when things were frustrating 

animals are usually the cause!

So all in all, we have lived, laughed and loved.  We have found out forever home - let's carry on enjoying every minute (and forgetting the ones we don't).

Such a geek

For Christmas I received a wireless weather centre from Ste.  I love it. 


There is an outside section which is attached to a high point in between my vegetable plot and the greenhouse, which is the section of land I want to know most about. 

This transmits data at intervals (mine is set to 30 mins) to a touchscreen device that I have in the kitchen. 

I can then attach the computer to the touchscreen device and either view it on the computer or download it to a spread sheet and check a whole range of different things, some of which I know about and others I have no idea what it is.

This morning before work, I downloaded the data which is from Boxing Day until today and (here's the geeky bit) I found some interesting results. 

My computer screen

Over the days, the wind mostly blows from the North/North East, with only once from the West when it was warmer.

The coldest it's been outside is -2.6C and the warmest is 16.8C on Boxing Day!  It was super mild though, I remember having to disrobe when doing the jobs.
It tells me what the dew point is, which I remember reading about once in how it related to veg and growing - I've since forgotten so will research it again.
I can set an alert on it to warn me if the temperature drops below a certain amount, meaning I will have to cloche/fleece the seedlings when I get them in the ground.
Inside the kitchen the temperature has ranged from 19.3 to 26.1 which is when I've been having a good cooking session.  The Aga is always on so that room is always warm.  Heart of the house :).
I can find out all about relative and Absolute pressure - no idea about this one?!
Wind gusts last night were recorded but only at 30mph which I was shocked about as it woke me up 3 times and was SO loud.
Also we've had 16ml of rain since I switched it on back in December.
I do love things like this and will happily sit looking at the data for a good hour or so, probably terribly sad, but that's me :D.
I also got a tiller for Christmas - aren't I a very lucky girl!?

Thank you Steven

The other day Kev over on An English Homestead was talking about the wooden items he'd made for Christmas.  They were fabulous and in telling him so, I commented that my husband makes things out of wood, in his own style.  I've posted before about the room he built in the barn which he made into his gym, the raised beds he is in the middle of doing, the fences that he's put up single handily, the chicken brooders, pens, duck house and sheds that he's put together by the beg, stealing or borrowing (ok not stealing), the signs that he created when we built Chickenville, the egg holder when our hens started producing, the fireplace that we were quoted hundreds of pounds for that he made for £16 from 2nd hand wood, the tack room and many other thing. 
On the same day Kev was posted about his latest wooden goings on, Steven walked in from his garage workshop with this little beauty. 

I think we too may be moving in to making our own Christmas presents, although I wouldn't want to wrap this.  How fabulous.  It has pride of place in the kitchen.  The sign on the front was bought for me by my Mum for Christmas...I have no ideas why ;). 

I do love seeing the creativity of people to help sustain their lives, for whatever reason and it whatever manner. 

Brilliant :)

Pics below of a few of the items I've mentioned.  It was only supposed to be a short post but I got carried away - so as the title says, thank you Steven, you've done us proud in our first year xx

Egg holder

Brooder in garage, we quickly upgraded.

Field fence done

Gym during planning phase

Gym after

Growing pen (ignore the vorwerks!)



Tack room

First fence that went up

Before fire place

After

Duck house framework....reclaimed

Duck house

The weather today remains milder than you would expect for January.  4.8C in the barn this morning and a bright, dry day all round.  The cold is coming though!

Preparing for winter....small steps

There is a cold front coming towards the end of the week so I’m making plans to ensure we don’t get caught out.  The last thing we want to be doing is walking to the wood store or topping up the outside animals’ bedding when it’s either raining or snowing, which is predicted.  According to today’s forecast on the BBC for our postcode, the temperature will drop from Thursday.

So the plan is:

• Have all hats, scarves and gloves ready.
• Bring wet shoes in to dry in front of the Aga.
• Order new muck boots as mine are full of cracks – you get what you pay for.
• Put extra straw into hens area for warmth.
• Have horses rugs out ready to put on.
• Top sheep hay up and move crystalyx to less poached area (unrelated to cold, but I just remembered!)
• Keep animals water topped up constantly with spare buckets full in case pipes freeze over again.
• Put extra food in for hens, cook pasta for bed time treat and have porridge ready to put in warm on a morning.
• Have thick socks, thick trousers, jumpers and coat ready for Thursday morning for the morning feeds.  The last thing I want to be doing at 5:15am is hunting for warm clothes.
• Fill the log basket.
• Fill the coal basket.
• Ensure enough kindling.
• Have blankets in the room so we can cosy up as a family and if it does snow, watch it sat next to the wood burner with a hot chocolate in hand.
• Just in case, have a sledge ready for us to have lots of fun on!

 

Planning a little further ahead I need to make sure we have enough medicine in should we need it.  We take tablets as infrequently as possible and prefer as natural a remedy as possible, but if we need to, we take it. 

 

In the meantime, I know this list can be seen as totally over the top, so here’s a picture of the dogs all chilling together to relax us all J

It was nearly 9C in the barn this morning.  Far too mild for this time of the year.  It's turned out to be a bright day and the rain that was forecast didn't really arrive.

Planning the coming year’s harvest including freebies

I love freebies.  I've just been given these seeds from my lovely Dad who has given up his allotment and asked if he can help out on mine through the year. 

I have taken delivery of some fruit trees.  Sadly, I had to pay for these :).  There’s a pear, fig tree, almond and apricot.  At the moment they are all in temporary containers in the greenhouse.  Their names from the website are:

Large Fig Tree 'Brown Turkey' 1ft Tall in a 2LPot.Ready to Fruit, Sweet Taste

Apricot Bergeron Tree 4-5ft Tall, Self-fertile Sweet & Tasty Orange Flesh

Conference Pear Tree 4-5ft Tall, Self-Fertile & Heavy Cropper, Ready to Fruit

Large 4-5ft Sweet Almond Tree 'Robijn',Ready To Fruit, Nice Pink Flowers.

Thanks for the website recommendation, Dawn.

I don’t know where they will stay permanently, but they’re all small enough to be in pots for now.

 Last year we had tonnes of currants (black, red and white) and we used them all.  Cordial is on the menu this year, but I need to find out how to store it long term, I have in my head that it doesn’t freeze but I don’t know if that’s true.  Elderflower was my son’s favourite and a beautiful taste of spring in a glass, with the promises of the great things to come.
This is the fruit cage we have made that in currently being changed into temporary chicken housing.  It'll do a great job over the soft fruit come summer.

I must get round to pruning the raspberries but I really don’t know if they are summer or autumn fruiting as they fruited the whole way through!  So I am worried about killing them off or stunting their harvest. Same for the currants for their pruning.

We have cut the asparagus ferns down and top dressed with horse muck that’s been rotting away.  Asparagus was one, maybe the, first foods we harvested in 2016.  I look forward to that.  It took me by surprise last year with the amount we could harvest.  I may sell some this year if there’s too much for us.  I’ve also found some nice recipes so we don’t tire of it.

I shall soon be forcing some rhubarb too.  Just one plant I think.  Rhubarb is one of my favourites.

I started preparing for sowing this weekend.  Maybe too early I know, but that’s part of the experiment.  I’ll soon start the onions, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, chillis, broad beans, salad leaves, spinach and cauliflowers.  I am only doing a few of each (she says).  Also I am going to get my strawberry plants that I took from runners under cover to see what happens.  This is it, we’re off on the 2017 road to self-sufficiency!

A harvest of a different kind now... the chicks we hatched early December have been moved outside into the big barn.

First time they have seen big chickens!

They have heat there still but plenty more space now as they'd outgrown the brooder. I am not sure what will go in the brooder next. Steven made a heat lamp from a mixing bowl, heat lamp bulb and some mesh (to stop them burning themselves on it).  I was super impressed and a fraction of the cost were we to have bought it in the shop.

  

 

It was a very foggy day all day today with the temperatures barely getting above freezing.  The greenhouse door was frozen closed with the frost that developed overnight.  We use the tap in there for the water for the horses.  It soon thawed out.  This was taken when I was riding out this morning.  It was lovely.

Chicken and egg

We have been extremely lucky as our chickens have not gone off lay which we expected over the winter.  We’re getting plenty of eggs each day still and combined with the youngest lot coming into lay in December, we’re very pleased with our daily yield as previously we’ve gone down to zero over winter.  I am going to start recording the daily amounts in my diary, yesterday was 10 from 37.  I was  supposed to start it once the whole bird flu thing has passed but it seems that is hanging around a while and I don’t have time to wait for it, it will now be business as usual in this household.
With eggs in mind, I am very conscious that we need to be paying more respect to the humble egg.  We have them at our disposal and it should play a bigger part in our journey to self-sufficiency that it has.  Therefore I shall be making more of an effort to have them as the main ingredient in at least 1 evening meal starting next week.  Wednesday’s meal will be shrimp egg foo young.  I had this many years ago and it was delicious but I’ve never had one since.  I’ll also be using them more in my day to day life, eggs for breakfast or as an ingredient.  I use a fair few, but shall give them more stage time!
Now to the goose.  As per a previous post, we are very surprised to have 3 geese eggs hiding in the shed.  I wasn’t expecting them at this time of the year, and hadn’t researched something else to do with them (yes, they’re just eggs, I know).  Last year I made lemon cake and it was delicious.  We have enough sweet food in to feed an army and I am cutting back on sugar intake for a while, so cake didn’t appeal to me.  I will spend some time looking for other people’s suggestions, so if you have any, please shout up.
Today, Ste and my Dad have been putting a greenhouse frame together and covered it in mesh. This is going to be used as a fruit cage this coming year. It is very light to lift so I can see it lending itself to multiple jobs.

 

Grace and I collected the soil from the ever growing mole hills and put it into one of the new beds. It only took 20 mins and we may as well see the silver lining in it. 

I put together one of my Christmas presents which is a seed organiser.  I will be filling this tomorrow.

The next door neighbours children have spent the afternoon here and seem to have enjoyed it. I fed them tea after giving them a couple of hours with the ponies.

 

Also, home made pizza on the menu yesterday - love home made :)

 

 

Now for a night in front of the fire.

2016 Oil, electricity, water and other bills plus a few 2017 plans

Sorry for no photos on this one, it's more about keeping records!
In our first year in the house we’ve used 4500 litres of oil and it cost us £1402.02 plus £50.97 in additives for the oil.  There’s enough in the tank to see us until the end of Jan and maybe beyond but as we moved in on 15^th Jan, this will balance out.  I shall compare usage and cost with 2017.  I do love doing things like that. 
We bought coal, which I didn’t keep a record for, so have started for 2017.  However we use wood which is free for the most part.
Electricity we used £438 and are just in credit so our monthly payment is about right.
Water was £322.
The septic tank was emptied at a cost of £145.
On top of that we have the usual bills, all of which I knew what the cost would be through the year, so could plan for those.  I am pleased that we forecasted appropriately and things came in on budget.  This year I want to decrease our use of electricity and oil, however will increase the oil savings as we’re just on par with what we saved v what we used and I can’t see the cost of oil going down.  Water is needed.  We’re on a metre and it is for the animals too.  That is what it is.  We waste very little I think.
The groceries came in on budget for the most part of the year and December went right up which I can handle but need to plan for if it is to happen again.  It was out first year celebrating in this house and I refused to scrimp on things.
Hopefully with the plans I have for veg for 2017, our grocery bill will be right down, even further in 2018 when we have more of our own meat on the table.
We’ve also spent a lot to get up and running.  That will continue this year as we continue to get set up in all areas.  2016 saw expenses on things like:  fences, wood, veg beds, an auger, hens, eggs, poultry essentials, decorating, field gates, 3 geese, 3 ducks, 3 sheep and our first cockerel J to mention a few.  This coming year we are putting up more fencing and gates, buying 2 pigs (weaners), automating water supplies, buying more poultry housing, buying dairy goats, creating a new raised bed area and putting up a polytunnel.  That’s what we’ve already thought about, there will be SO much more comes to mind during the year as always!  Just a few things then J  I wouldn’t have it any other way.
We are hoping to make a small income from egg sales, geese and turkey at Christmas (just a few), selling surplus veg and fruit and even veg plants.  Enough to cover the cost of feed maybe?  We’ll see. 

Carrots hate me

I can only laugh.  This is the only carrot that is visible to the eye, from my 2016 harvest.  I have never ever been able to grow carrots.  They officially hate me.  I follow the instructions, I don’t put on manured ground yet still, 1 carrot.  It’s just as well I wasn’t relying on these to feed us!

My Nemesis

Let’s see how well I fair up in 2017 with the carrot saga!

It’s been a cold start to the day at minus 1.1C when I opened up this morning.  It’s stayed dry but hasn’t got too far above freezing all day.

Recipe books and geese

First on the list is using my abundance of recipe books. I love them. However I am terrible for finding something online, normally BBC good food and just having the recipe on my phone. What a waste of books and the money that went into buying them. So I am going to combine both methods. Tonight I had chicken out of the freezer and an abundance of leeks in the veg plot to get through which I feel hugely pleased about. So Mary Berry's chicken with leek, potatoes and thyme seemed perfect. I had left over green veg from the other night. I was sceptical tasting it during cooking but it turned out lovely. A very nice recipe that can be cooked ahead. Please msg me if you would like the recipe.

 

 

 Remember Ryan the goose? Well turns out he should be called Rhianna or whatever the female equivalent of Ryan would be. Our male goose confirmed it yesterday.

One of our other female geese has been acting strange again which means she is either poorly or laying eggs again. Turns out she had stashed 3 eggs in the shed.

This mild winter is playing havoc with things. The geese think it's Spring and there buds on the trees which normally wouldn't be up yet. We're due to go below freezing again tonight having said that.  Stay warm :)

Loving the January feeling

All too often, I hear people saying how miserable January is, it's ages until pay day, nothing to do on dark nights, bored etc etc. I don't fall into that category any more. I am not sure I ever did. For me, in my new life, it's all about planning and getting organised for the coming weeks, months and years.
Over Christmas and New Year, we have had family and friends over, visited with them but ultimately loved being here in our new home. Our first Christmas here was everything and more that I hoped it would be.
Thoughts now turn to what we can get done this year. As usual my head is full to the brim with ideas and things to try.  Sometimes the ideas don't make it to pen and paper quick enough and I lose them for a while, so if anything, this year I shall try to do better there. That is not a new year resolution by the way 😉.
Rather than start off with a long list now, I am going to do individual posts. Today is my last day off work, so I have put the kids to bed and am off to spend it with my husband before the organised chaos of the working week is resumed.
The weather is due to turn cold again here. I do enjoy a cold spell, no rain though, can't be done with rain.

Here's to 2017 - let's see what we can make of this one!