the daydream fund challenge thread

lostinrates

JayneC wrote: »

Have booked to go to a 'green' festival in August called off grid where there are lots of workshops about self sufficiency (inc one about living without money!!!) so should be interesting. Will report back...

That sounds really interesting.

The problem is anything I' like to go to requires precision planning because I have to have someone animal sit and this year probably won't be able to afford to go away anyway.

FWIW, although its exciting getting ''the place'' I have to admit to getting rushes of panic about how I'll get everything done.

When I went to it in the rain last week made a note of where leaks are, and annoyingly they are n the asbestos roofs...one in a place I could never reach, and really don't want to pay for that this year. Can try to bodge a leak repair from inside this winter.


I know it will al be allright but....I can't imagine doing some things without money. However much I'd love it to be possible. I am, for example staggered by the higher costs charged by contractors for haymaking just one county over, and trying to work out if I can save money by binging it in myself (I can't, it will me only me, far too much hay, and its the week I move, I won't know anybody to help, so its something that needs paying for. )

Davesnave

Blairweech wrote: »

Dave - I have noticed at the carboots that the plant seller usually sells out. The farm that I have been working on uses an external plant raiser to raise his veg seedlings - minimum order 2500 though, so any smaller quantities he has to raise himself

In 2001, when we split from our original business partners, who owned all the land, DW and I decided we'd never buy-in again. It's a perfectly good business model, but it isn't what we're about and it eats into profits. For arable farmers, it probably makes good sense to have someone else doing the propagation.....as long as they have the varieties they require.

We are trying to tap into the local market and reduce our time input & overheads. For example, yesterday we sold £30 worth of plants from here. If we can do that on most days in the future, then it's a significant income trickling in. Hopefully, it will average out as more than that, but we won't be spending time loading/unloading, burning diesel & then sitting in strange places hoping the event will be a good one! We'll still do local shows.:)

rhiwfield wrote: »

Just catching up on what's happening. 61 Davesnave? I'm 59 and couldnt manage your plot! Not sure whether you're heroic or in need of therapy

Definitely the latter! But, seriously, it's much easier on a plot like this than in a back garden type of place, with restricted access for machinery. That's what we had before, so no 4 tonne dumper and even a mini-mini-digger would have been a struggle. We might have 200m between our front garden fence & the yard, but we have an all weather road between them, and if using a barrow, the gradient is easy.

When people look at smallholdings, it's important to consider the practicalities before looking at the 'niceness.' Steep slopes, difficult soil and access issues will all figure more than many people think once the euphoria of ownership has worn off.

But everywhere has its down-side. Today I shall be off to the dump with yet another van load of rubbish, buried by the previous owner and exhumed by us, all of it carefully packed into single bags so that it doesn't look like trade waste! On Sunday, we also burned another six dumpy bags of weeds and prunings. Without dry storage for that lot, I don't think we'd find it easy to clear the site.

What else? Oh yes, a tonne of composted bark for £35 was a bargain I picked-up last week. I'm intending to use it in a compost mix, but it would be great for the garden soil structure too.

Davesnave

lostinrates wrote: »

FWIW, although its exciting getting ''the place'' I have to admit to getting rushes of panic about how I'll get everything done.

I still get them! The wilderness-clearing, the maintenance of areas already done, the fencing and the landscaping are my main spinning plates, but then I remember propagating for next year.... Then the overall plan also looms, where we knock down half the house.....:eek:

All the time I'm thinking: 'I hope we don't do something that really gets in the way of something else later on, so that we have a Homer Simpson moment and go "Doh!!!' :rotfl:

In the calmer moments, I also realise that a lot of the worry is because others have 'expectations,' whereas we're fairly laid-back and contented. It's not easy being relatively unskilled & coming from a 'building' family, or rather a self-building family - if they were real builders we'd be laughing!

Chin up. The imagined is usually worse than the reality.

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

I still get them! The wilderness-clearing, the maintenance of areas already done, the fencing and the landscaping are my main spinning plates, but then I remember propagating for next year.... Then the overall plan also looms, where we knock down half the house.....:eek:

All the time I'm thinking: 'I hope we don't do something that really gets in the way of something else later on, so that we have a Homer Simpson moment and go "Doh!!!' :rotfl:

In the calmer moments, I also realise that a lot of the worry is because others have 'expectations,' whereas we're fairly laid-back and contented. It's not easy being relatively unskilled & coming from a 'building' family, or rather a self-building family - if they were real builders we'd be laughing!

Chin up. The imagined is usually worse than the reality.

Oh davesnave you ARE a darling. I had imagined you as never once getting confused or having panic moments..that you do too makes me feel a little better!

those d'oh moments are really annoying, but I think unavoidable. I hate having to do things twice, but its inevitable sometimes....

Winged_one

Well, I took a proper lunchbreak (well, half a lunchbreak) on Tuesday and wandered down a street near my office (being in town occasionally has some perks). I ambled into each financial institution (6 of them) and asked about their savings etc. Even the basic regular savings varies from 1% to 4%. So I will be filling in forms at the weekend to alter my savings. And I think I will use the current savings as a starter sum for my new savings (lump sums are getting very low rates) so put in the max €1,000 a month for the first few months, keeping my existing savings open. And then reduce the amount somewhat to my regular amount from then. But that should get me an additional €100 or more a year in interest. I had never considered how much I might be losing out on!

rhiwfield

JayneC wrote: »

Still working on ways to make a living from home, so I can give up work and be more self sufficient. Need to do more doing and less dreaming and plotting!

Have booked to go to a 'green' festival in August called off grid where there are lots of workshops about self sufficiency (inc one about living without money!!!) so should be interesting. Will report back...

Guess we all approach the ideal of self sufficiency in different ways. But one constant seems to be the need for additional income with maybe a partner working full or part time or some form of home based income. Some of us who are long in the tooth have used savings/early retirement pensions to cut out the need for employment, but the flipside is that frugal living then becomes a total necessity.

When we downshifted we had to cope with an income cut of 75% and that meant all spending was questioned. Now income and spending are in balance, and with no employer to lay down the odds, life is so much more enjoyable.

Its also about an attitude of mind that doesnt rate self worth on how much you earn, whether you holidayed in Barbados or you have a top of the range Merc

COOLTRIKERCHICK

Hi all:j

went to a farm auction this morning, but it was carp... maybe because the game fair is on. so we came home.

been looking for the cheapest place to buy dog cages, to use for the chickens, as there are some great table top poultry sales starting up, so going to do one in a few weeks.

A few years go, i used to take layer cuttings etc from my honeysuckle, and used to go up my m.i.l. garden and 'nick':D a load of her various sedums, and london's pride plants, pot them up, and forget about them in a corner of the garden, until the following year, and then sell them for 50p a pot in the bootsales.... think i might start this again, as i just havent had time to sell my broad bean plants this year, and now they are wasting:o, planted up as many as i could,

Davesnave..... any advice on what 'hot' and whats 'not'...lol... pitty you dont do mail order, or had a website, as i am sure i could have bought some cuttings etc from you...

Just been watching the 'good life' on the gold channel.......brilliant..... does anyone know where i can watch the first episode/series on the internet? dont want to buy the dvds if poss, as that means i will be spending money i could be saving....;)

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Davesnave..... any advice on what 'hot' and whats 'not'...lol... pitty you dont do mail order, or had a website, as i am sure i could have bought some cuttings etc from you...

Sorry, I haven't even enough baby plants for myself ATM! Other things have taken up time, so the nursery side has slipped a bit. We'll now have a gardening week to try and catch up. Mind you, we've sold a few plants, including more tomatoes, so I guess around 130 of those have gone now. There's nothing 'hot' because people can only have what we've got....one of this, one of that, and so on...

This week we've been watching the hay being baled and still sorting out our parking area. I've updated our Photobucket site with haymaking photos:



From our point of view it's great to have found a farmer we trust, who I'll call Pete, to take over the husbandry of the fields. Pete is also the guy who does the fencing, so once the haymaking season is over, he'll be pushing-on with re-fencing the pasture land. It is going to cost an arm & a leg in materials, but Pete's charges are very reasonable and he'll rent the fields at a decent rate, so we're all happy.

This is the way things have gone in recent years; small farmers like Pete renting extra land near their own farms and also doing contracting work in their 'spare' (ha!ha!) time. It's the only way they can make farming pay enough. Round us, much of the land is owned by a few large landowners who work on an industrial scale with huge machines and very few employees, so it's good to be involved with people who are still doing things on a 'human' scale IYSWIM.

Hate to say it, but now the hay is done, we could use some rain! July is often quite a wet month and I suppose that will be early enough, but it can come quicker, if it does it at night!

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

Hate to say it, but now the hay is done, we could use some rain! July is often quite a wet month and I suppose that will be early enough, but it can come quicker, if it does it at night!

I need four days, please, of dry, for my hay, in July. When I checked the long range forecast was this latter half of June seeing some rain and the first half of July being drier, then wetter through the latter half of the month. Don't know now though, what the forecast is...

rhiwfield

lostinrates wrote: »

I need four days, please, of dry, for my hay, in July. When I checked the long range forecast was this latter half of June seeing some rain and the first half of July being drier, then wetter through the latter half of the month. Don't know now though, what the forecast is...

In an ideal world some rain during the night please to water the veg, fill up the water butts and clean the solar panels. Brightness but with some light cloud until 11:20am preventing trees casting shadows on the panels and impeding generation, then when sun's apex clears trees I want sunny, cloudless skies with no haze or contrails until night-time.

Not too much to ask, is it?