the daydream fund challenge thread

ukmaggie45

LiR, I think that having flu is nasty, and it can impact health wise for a while after. Try not to feel too down about all that needs doing - the aftermath of the flu can make things feel impossible. Indeed can make it impossible due to not being able to manage the energy required. You will get there in the end.

Plus it's possible to grow veg higgledy piggledy in with weeds, just clearing the space you need immediately. This is what we did at our new garden... Not got much in terms of produce as the build is now going on so I don't get to garden in the week now. The toms are rotting on the vine, though we did rescue some green toms this week and OH made chutney today.

Too many beans! Or rather too many to use at once, and I think some may be sneaked into the compost.

Hopefully we'll spend longer there next year (might even manage to move in!) which should make veggie gardening easier. We'll see.

rhiwfield

Lir, I'm sure you'll get over the flu, but take it a bit easier until you do, nothing worse than stalling a recovery by trying to overdo it.

Looks like the weather is going to be pretty iffy over next few days, but there will be lots of opportunity for winter land management, unless like Davesnave, a river runs thru it

Not being too far from the ryder cup, we've seen a fair bit of rain here lately . We're not quite on the ridgeline here, even so the ground is waterlogged atm, even though we are on limestone.

Lotus eater, thanks for reminder of beans being poisinous, no harm done but its wise to be careful with the gds.

On the veg front we're well into the carrot harvest and just clearing the third bed. Really pleased, no root fly and good sized carrots, just slug damage. The swedes recovered from the mealy aphids under the enviromesh and we've had a fair crop already with most still left to harvest. Started on the brassicas, but I'm allowing the last of the beans to set seed for saving. Lots of toms left in gh but ripening slower now.

Crafting to take a back seat as we sort out some house maintenance, thou tbh we're better prepared for the winter than for many a year.

lostinrates

Thanks guys, last week was actually flu recovery week...which is how I actually got round to getting to the computer for the first time in months. Now its just remembering how to pace ourselves sustainably!

Butterflymind

Hello all

I don't seem to get on here much at the moment. Thank you everyone for your kind words I am hoping I don't have a bad result.:)

I know we all have horrible things happening all at once. But, its only temporary I hope. Sorry to hear that CTC has had unwanted 'visitors'. We do tend to get men in a flat bed van regularly running down peoples drives to grab anything people leave out for rubbish, or for the council to collect. Especially if it's got some scrap value. It's a hard world out there at times.

I am glad to see the rest of you doing well in your growing. Thanks T. for the tip on perpetual spinach. I'll have to keep one step ahead of those sluggy blighters. I thought that putting a strip of copper on the floor of our greenhouse doorway would keep them out. Forgot that the manure I used for the soil plot inside probably had slug/snail eggs in it already! Crafty little so and so's....

Keep trying to convice the OH that late night torch raids on slug patrol aren't signs that I have finally lost it. Although the neighbours already think we are borderline crazed for growing our own when you can buy it in the shops. Seeing us stumbling around by torchlight will only confirm it I guess.:rotfl:

'Keep Groooowing!'

BM

rozeepozee

Thanks for your further thoughts, guys.

Finances loom large as we are very financially secure at the moment and although we only have a fairly small income, we are mortgage free and own properties with very little debt attached to them.

We would be technically cash buyers but using a BTL offset mortgage facility which is currently at the very low rate of 1.45% - a £300K purchase would cost us just over £300 per month. Essentially, we would be remortgaging two of our BTL properties to fund the outright purchase of any smallholding.

Income would come from our properties and we'd rent out our own home and the second unit on the smallholding as a holiday let. One of our essential criteria is that there is a second lettable property on the smallholding and we'll be in a tourist area therefore it should be holiday lettable. So our income would be very dependent on receipt of our city rents and holiday let and fluctuating interest rates (I'm sure the only way is up!) The alternative is we stay put and improve our own home but life is not very challenging and we just feel that our's and our kids lives would be so much better in a different place, more in touch with the land.

We are thinking more and more about renting in the area and will go down there in a few weeks and look around at the schools, properties to buy and properties to rent. I'm still trying to find time to track the market accurately but one thing is for certain, I'm seeing lots of reductions. Renting in the short term would also give us the opportunity to see what the longer term effects of the austerity drives will be. How bad is it going to get? How might it impact on our rental properties? Interest rates etc? Declining house prices if we buy? If we do make a purchase, we want to make sure we have as large a contingency/emergency fund as possible and the less we spend on a property, the more this will be....

Looking at past house prices has been tricky so far. The one property that has ticked all the boxes (two cottages, sea views, near the village, one acre, ability to have a small campsite on site) has not been on the market since records began.... It's been up for sale since July with no offers and has already been reduced by 40K.... We will make sure we check previous prices of any other properties we look at.

My current burning question is: how much land do you need? We are a family of five and mainly only want to grow our own veggies but may want some livestock but not for commercial reasons. I'm torn between the idea of having some animals (I've always dreamed of this, a goat or sheep, some poultry, a Dexter cow, perhaps a donkey) and the tying effect of them - but I also know that veggies are tying too! From what I've read, more than an acre is needed for this amount of livestock - what do others think?

Thanks for all the feedback so far and the continued posts of others. We're in our early forties now and I sort of feel that if we don't make this move in the next few years, it's not gong to happen. We'll get tied in with the kids' schooling etc. I want to make a sensible decision but not live to regret that we didn't take the leap when we could for "too sensible" reasons IYKWIM.

R x

RAS

rozeepozee wrote: »

My current burning question is: how much land do you need? We are a family of five and mainly only want to grow our own veggies but may want some livestock but not for commercial reasons. I'm torn between the idea of having some animals (I've always dreamed of this, a goat or sheep, some poultry, a Dexter cow, perhaps a donkey) and the tying effect of them - but I also know that veggies are tying too! From what I've read, more than an acre is needed for this amount of livestock - what do others think?

We're in our early forties now and I sort of feel that if we don't make this move in the next few years, it's not going to happen. We'll get tied in with the kids' schooling etc. I want to make a sensible decision but not live to regret that we didn't take the leap when we could for "too sensible" reasons IYKWIM.

R x

Apart from making sure that you do not move part way through one opf the childrens' exam programme, you may also need to think about the relatively short time they will be at home.

I do not know their ages, but some of all of them may want to move out at least part of the year within a decade. Beyond that the other factor is to think about where they might get employment if they do not go in HE.

The sticks is OK if you are working on-site but if you are 17 and need to travel 10 miles to work... it can cost £3,000 or more to insure a car.

lostinrates

RAS wrote: »

The sticks is OK if you are working on-site but if you are 17 and need to travel 10 miles to work... it can cost £3,000 or more to insure a car.

If insurance cost when I was a new driver what it costs now my life would have been MUCH the poorer. Most of the opportunities I had were because I had a car and could beetle about myself. Its a huge issue for rural kids.

ALL THe TREES ARE GONE. It feels bald and open, and our odd boundary line means we feel a little exposed, but light is POURING in to our previous secret but dark garden, and we have wood to season for four years. It looks like it might take that long to get the wood logged and stacked

we also got a big bramble patch strimmed too, needed to get the fencing sorted. The fencing MUST be patched by the end o this weekend and the electric fences up. Oh I long for someone to come in and re fence the lot, but needs must for this year.

eta: I was frustrated with one of my favourite chicken, Bangs, because she has been off lay for AGES...but today found three dozen of her unmistakable eggs. The chicken just hates to share!

Davesnave

Lots to think about there rozee, and I can't advise, beyond saying that with 60-70% of jobs in Ceredigion being dependent on government money, there are bound to be tough times ahead. As for your BTLs, it depends where they are. The recession won't have much impact on student accommodation, for example. More concerning might be the matter of servicing those properties from deepest Wales without incurring extra fees.

Holiday lets do have longer voids than ordinary BTLs, but I'm sure you realise that. Certainly, I've not stayed in one where the visitors' book has shown higher than 50% occupancy, though I've never gone through an agency.

Land-wise, an acre is more than enough for veggies, chickens and a pig or two, but once you are into larger animals, like cows, or horses for the kids, the amount of land needed rises to a few acres +... and so do costs! Non-farmers in our village keep pigs purely for their own consumption, reckoning they do little more than break even. That's fine, if they have the time, but the main thing to consider is how much of that precious commodity each activity you plan to do will take up.

RAS raises the issue of what the kids will do when they are older, and that's always been a problem for rural teenagers. Had we bought in Wales, our daughter would still have gone to Bournemouth rather than Aber or Cardiff unis, so the train journey would have been much the same in terms of time. She arrived here at about 21:45 tonight, having used four different trains to get home for the weekend! However, two of her student flatmates come from Finland and Germany, which certainly puts that consideration into perspective.

Davesnave

I forgot to add a 'well done' to lir for clearing the old cypress trees. Now they are down, you can start planning that garden properly, even if you can't actually do the work yet.

We too have been fencing, so by next week, our two fields may be ready for their first woolly guests. :j

Meanwhile, I've been selling a few veggies to a local restaurant, though as the chef is only on a temporary contract, I won't get too excited about that. I learned an important lesson when I grew all those unnecessary tomatoes early in the season! Incidentally, the guy who caused me to do that has had a few problems himself and appears to be leaving this area.

Nice weekend coming up, albeit a windy one.

rhiwfield

Agree with RAS and Davesnave on kids in rural areas. Transport costs get higher and higher as the mum + dad taxi service meets teenage years, then its uni (one local, others soton, york :eek: and warwick).

We regularly booked letting cottages in west wales and there never seems to be a shortage of vacant property, hence the number of deals available.

Back home, have built the under-run for the hens and will dock the movable coop and run with it later today after fixing tarps to the west-facing weather side. This weather is just what's needed and beginning to catch up on outstanding jobs. Trouble is things wont stop growing, even the cucumbers are trying to set more fruit though the courgettes have finally given up. Oh and we had a half-kilo carrot this week

Tomorrow its the annual rake of the 3 acre meadow (need lots of volunteers!!) so thank goodness the weather's set fair (last year it chucked down and most of the hay rotted where it was cut). All the work over the years seems to be worth it as CCW have now started the notification process as a SSSI. If that happens maybe we'll be able to get some spot grazing for bracken and scrub management. Got to repair some of the wooden rakes where the tines have snapped off.

And just to top a busy weekend DW has her second knee replacement op on monday morning!