Around the middle of July, just 7 weeks after moving to our new house, we started our first attempt at rearing pigs. The two Tamworth weaners were collected by car using a borrowed dog cage with surprisingly little difficulty and only a slightly unsavoury smell. On arriving home they were installed in their woodland home …
Continue reading ‘Our first weaners – from start to finish’ »
Slowly I find that we are settling into something resembling a routine and each day that passes sees us getting more used to the realities of our new life. Even the few animals that we already have here are adjusting well to the new regime although we’re still not too sure where some of the …
It barely seems possible that we only moved in just 4 weeks ago given that there has not been a dull moment in that whole time. We have no problem in coming up with plans for things to be done but there is a definite lack of spare time to get on with things at …
Now that we’ve reached the end of our first week here it makes sense to take stock of our (limited) progress so far. There are many things we’d like to do at some point in the future but we can only do a few at a time if we’re going to do them well. Chickens …
I have to start by saying just how lucky I feel right now with our house move completed. After what seems such a long time thinking about the various options, reading up on the subjects and planning for the future, it was almost surreal to turn into the driveway knowing that it belonged to us. …
With the completion of our move looming tomorrow I find that, in a quiet moment at work this morning, my thoughts turn to a dilemma which has been on my mind intermittently over the last few weeks. Among all the hassles of selling and buying property not to mention applying for a mortgage (twice!) this has never …
Today is exactly 1 year to the day since my first blog post and at that time the overall idea for Small Plot Big Ideas was still coming together in my head. A big idea or grand scheme is all very well but you need to start somewhere and all I had was a suburban garden, …
I’m not sure how it has happened but after a quick check of the calendar I found that it’s been around 6 weeks since the last blog update. I know that in general not much is growing at this time of year and so there wouldn’t be much progress to report but even by my …
Every so often I come across posts on other blogs that I follow which resonate strongly with my current personal situation. One such recent example is Back to the land which is on a blog from Devon – a place which has assumed mythical proportions in my head because I’ve been told we can’t buy a smallholding there …
Continue reading ‘Big decisions take time (but not too long I hope)’ »
First up is a viewing for our house by potential buyers this afternoon – it’s only been on the market so it’s still early days and we’re not expecting too much from this viewing. This will be closely followed by an evening appointment to view a potential property. This place is so far west in Northumberland …