the daydream fund challenge thread

lostinrates

Winged_one wrote: »

But I am hearing lots of warnings recently, especially on radio 4, about "young people" going to the land in recent years (ages 30s and 40s), that it's not a realistic proposition until near retirement age?!
.

Oh dear; am I in for trouble? Do they mean overextending to buy, or for working on?

Davesnave

I've finally uploaded the pictures of us ( & contractors) making our poultry area. This is a pretty big space, but it will be divided-up, so the birds won't have it all at once. Hopefully, when complete, it'll be fox proof.

We also had some scalpings delivered to make a car parking area for our farm gate sales, but one load won't be enough.

Today, I was smashing the breeze blocks and other stones, bricks etc, ready to overlay them with the scalpings, but the heat made that rather hard. Retreating inside, & obviously overcome by all the adrenaline, I signed us up with HMRC as self-employed and volunteered to go on one of their free basic book-keeping courses.:eek:

Here are the images linked to our album:

troglodyte

Davesnave, that's very impressive! I'm afraid I generally lurk on here more than posting but your pictures prompted a response, I can hardly believe how much progress you've made in such a short time, it puts our DIY efforts to shame that's for sure! Well done, it looks very professional and secure.

Davesnave

troglodyte wrote: »

Davesnave.... it puts our DIY efforts to shame that's for sure! Well done, it looks very professional and secure.

Thanks, but that's because it has been done mainly by men who do this all the time, though the design is ours. We have to get the fields sheep fenced anyway, so it's been just a matter of putting in oversized posts for this part.

Unfortunately, we still have hundreds of metres of ordinary sheep fence to go! Then there's the hedges.....:( The previous owners only had horses and used electric tapes. This orchard was fenced, rather badly, to keep pigs in, again, with electrical back-up.

Locally, two separate small flocks of hens have been wiped-out by foxes in the past fortnight alone.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Davesnave wrote: »

Thanks, but that's because it has been done mainly by men who do this all the time, though the design is ours. We have to get the fields sheep fenced anyway, so it's been just a matter of putting in oversized posts for this part.

Unfortunately, we still have hundreds of metres of ordinary sheep fence to go! Then there's the hedges.....:( The previous owners only had horses and used electric tapes. This orchard was fenced, rather badly, to keep pigs in, again, with electrical back-up.

Locally, two separate small flocks of hens have been wiped-out by foxes in the past fortnight alone.

ALLWAY get into the habbit of locking your chickens away at night, just before it gets too dark.... I knw in some places the fox is out during the day.. and doesnt give two hoots about being seen.... you will have to play it by ear, and see what type of foxes you have in your area...if they are out and about in the day.. it might be worth putting some sort of electrical fence around your fence.... just to deter the bleeping things...

anyway 'jingle' and 'bell' and doing fine, and 'cranberry' hatched out last night:D

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

.. it might be worth putting some sort of electrical fence around your fence.... just to deter the bleeping things...

anyway 'jingle' and 'bell' and doing fine, and 'cranberry' hatched out last night:D

Yes, we've the option of electric, if it comes to it.

Keep us updated on the turkeys. I saw a really appealing advert for black turkey chicks in our local smallholders' association magazine. Made me quite interested, though I'm not that keen on turkey at Christmas now.....like me, it does go on a bit! :rotfl:

Winged_one

Thanks CoolTrikerChick - I am in Ireland so don't think I can do that, but will check T&Cs on other accounts to see what might be around.

LostInRates, I think they are getting at the fact that you need capital and can't expect to make a living from farming, especially if you are city bred and not used to hard manual labour. But young people need more money to live on, haven't built up their capital, and will be around for longer. I heard one person mention that older folk tend to have a lot of the skills from their youth, whereas they were dying out by the time people my age were young. Pah - I lived through and remember the 80s well!! And DH's gran still reared chickens and turkeys in their yard, 150 meters from his own house.

But for us, it is a long term dream rather than something we are rushing into. We should have our current house paid off in 8 years (we have overpaid since we first bought 10 years ago so our 25 year mortgage is dropped a lot, despite moving and having to increase it temporarily). And that will give us options at that stage (also, DD will be older, so more able to help and hopefully less in need of money, although I hear teenagers are expensive! eek!).

Meanwhile, the allotment is more productive by the year (on year 4 now), and I am picking up loads of information from various sources on lots of different skills. And topping up the daydream fund too - I have hopes that this winter, I will have a decent batch of crafted products (mainly sewn) to sell for Christmas gifts, which I can add to the stash - most of the material having come from my Gran's old stash that she was dumping or very cheap remnants I've gathered over the years.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

ooooo yes..... i can vouch for teenagers being expensive and a big drain on any money you have:rotfl: PLUS the only thing you get in return in cheek:mad:

i would check out the irish banks websites, and rmemeber just because its got 'savers or savings' in the title doesnt mean its the best deal for your money.... look at the current accounts... or if you could give me some links to the main banks/building societies that you could use, then i will have a nose through them to see how we can max your money... ( allways look just outside the box, not whats starting you in the face;))

Davesnave.... we bought turkey eggs as a potential money earner... ok only pennies maybe, but all the same some extra money towards our funds.. we bought the eggs with the intention of selling them on at a few weeks old, but we went to see friends of ours which breeed and cull turkeys etc, and they did say they were laid back birds, and you had to make sure they knew where and how to drink their water, and eat their food.:rotfl: going to order a specialist turkey book today.

will keep you posted on our progress.

we bought wild american turkey eggs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Turkey

i dont know if there are different types, prob is,


talking about the age of people buying smallholdings etc, just wanted to know people's ages.

I am 44 this year

stitching_witch

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

talking about the age of people buying smallholdings etc, just wanted to know people's ages.

I am 44 this year

I'm 51 and will probably be 101 by the time I get my smallholding! :eek:

In the meanwhile, as I've mentioned before, we're making the most of the big back garden and the allotment and have also put our names down for a vacant plot next to ours so we can have more growing space.

Davesnave

I'm 61, and it feels like 81 after breaking-up those blocks yesterday...:( My DW is 50.

What 'they' on Radio 4 are getting at, I think, is that you need another income, besides what comes in from the smallholding. I agree, and it's better if it isn't a pension, as with me.

OTOH you're only as old as you feel, and it's a good incentive to stay fit. DW had serious back problems before she was 30 and couldn't do then what she does now, thanks to exercise routines, learning lifting techniques etc.etc.

I think the skills can come at any age; I'm not any better at, say, electrics or laying blocks than I was twenty years ago, just a bit slower. There's more help to learn things on the Internet nowadays, and that's a bonus.

After thinking about it, I would like to have done the hard stuff here ten years ago, but that wasn't an option, as I'd other responsibilities then. For most people, that's how it is.