the daydream fund challenge thread

choille

I haven't told her yet - I will email her this evening.

My hens are looking all bedraggled as they are starting to moult.

Maybe you should clip some wings.

I let mine free range but some of then do hide their eggs - when they are laying!

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

I haven't told her yet - I will email her this evening.

My hens are looking all bedraggled as they are starting to moult.

Maybe you should clip some wings.

I let mine free range but some of then do hide their eggs - when they are laying!

Like yours mine free range. I'm not sure I want to clip wings, though I've been very close to just doing it this week!, because I've been told I might have a fox issue here....it won't help my non-flying cochins though.....I'm thinking I will have to electric fence soon, as a precaution.

Since the move, ours our quite chuffed with the hiding places in the milking parlour. automatic feeders, under milk bottles etc etc. I did find a couple of dozen eggs at the weekend behind a box.:o Other wise they like the hay barn and a particular bit of the bit that might be their winter paddock.

Main problem with them jumping all over the place ATM is that one of the dogs isn't chicken proof and I just can't convince her everyone's life would be better if she were!

choille

Foxes, pine martens, otters - we have the lot so have to make sure they (hens)are in at night.

The other morning a marten had left its spraint right outside the caravan door - the cheek. They've also totally mangled several peanut feeders that I had strung up for the birds.

Yes - free ranging has its problems when it comes to egg collecting/finding!

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

Wish I had the big boy's toys.

I wish I had them too, choille! This week I have been instructed (I thought I was in charge!) to concrete-in the gateposts, fit the hinges on the field gate and 'just dig out' the quickthorn saplings along the hedge line.

Well, I've done the first two and spent all afternoon on the last task, but it's the edge of a stony field and digging is well-nigh impossible. In the absence of a digger, tractor, or truck, I think I may take the van up there tomorrow and try to pull them out with that....

Rhiwfield, I also hope Mrs rhiwfield makes a speedy enough recovery. She has quite an incentive, so I'm betting that she will be there to see her lad pick up his degree. I know they'll do you a video, but it's not the same.

I love the space-saving design of your two tier ark & run, but it was your title 'When you haven't got the land' which caught my eye. It made me think that having too little or too much land both call on one's ingenuity, but there's no doubt which situation leads to greater efficiency. Your garden is producing far more per m2 than mine, and that will probably continue for some years yet.

Next season, I'll get a few of the 'boy's toys' choille spoke of, which will improve my efficiency, but there are still things I struggle with where I'm not sure whether it's technology or technique which would bring better results. Can't just throw money at everything, especially on MSE.

If those of us with an acre+ highlight issues which someone with a smallholding has to grapple with, while other contributors pick out problems and solutions for more garden-based elements of self-sufficiency, then this thread will serve everyone who views it really well. Between us, I'd imagine we must cover most kinds of garden environment.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

The woodland trust, who actually sent out a consultant of thiers, said it was the most exciting project that they had been approached with. The croft ground is one of the most diverse for species she's seen on a 'wetland'. She was brilliant & was pretty complimentary about how I have used no chemicals & am protective of the rare plants. There is evidence of ancient woodland & what I would have been doing is recreating woodland that would have naturally occured pre deer & sheep.

It'll wait but probably the grants will vanish - I would have to deer fence & lay out quite a bit of money - which I don't have so would be reliant on a loan & grant assistance.

Went down the shore this afternoon & the tide was really well out & found some mussel beds beneath the fresh water burn - so that was a good find for later. Good to know that I have a supply down there.

Your holding sounds so diverse & interesting choille, and I'll bet it's totally idyllic at the right times. When we spent a week on the West Coast near Oban twenty five years ago, the sun shone every day, there wasn't a midge in sight and it was as close to Heaven as anything we've experienced. However, I have a cousin in Sutherland who keeps us fully informed about the other aspects of life up there!

On the subject of diverse wildlife, I came face to face with a dormouse while cutting back for the fencing today. A lovely little chap, he decided to climb right up the tree, away from this evil person invading his space. Beneath him, and a little way along, were 8 pheasant eggs, long abandoned.

I'd give up the dormouse and the pheasants for mussels though, and a plate of winkles!

rhiwfield

Although I love trees I help to manage a 3 acre meadow for its wildflowers and in this case natural succession would see the flower meadow replaced mainly by ash and sycamore.

As for dormice, I think there are just 3 recent records in our county, so I'm mightily envious!

Thanks for the nice comments on our garden, it seems to me that most people can grow some of their own fruit and veg, and maybe keep poultry, the turning point comes when you're growing to sell or keeping livestock. Then you need the extra land. We didnt start out to become self sufficient (and we're a long way from it) but steadily that's the road we are travelling. We look at some purchases and say "could we have made that?". It may mean some up front investment (like my new pillar drill and bench vice- small boy's toys ) but it does change your mindset to a I can do that approach.

Visited DW again last night, I dont like hospitals but the staff are wonderful and cheery. No tvs in the ward and DW had no knowledge of the chilean mine rescue (at that point 17 rescued). But its only in recent years that we can view events on the other side of the world, wonderful in this case, in others maybe a two edged sword.

RAS

rhiwfield wrote: »

Although I love trees I help to manage a 3 acre meadow for its wildflowers and in this case natural succession would see the flower meadow replaced mainly by ash and sycamore.

Hi I think it is horses for courses and basically, you have lots of good decidous trees that need keeping under control. Having seen the two inch high forest of seedlings that cover most grass land in srpring, I understand your concern.

Whereas choille's area has lot of land that was forest and is now deer forest or non-native conifer plantation. In those contexts, putting on deciduous and native pine does a huge amount to help the land recover. Plant high on a hill side, the leaf litter starts to improve the ground below very quickly.

choille wrote: »

The croft ground is one of the most diverse for species she's seen on a 'wetland'. She was brilliant & was pretty complimentary about how I have used no chemicals & am protective of the rare plants. There is evidence of ancient woodland & what I would have been doing is recreating woodland that would have naturally occured pre deer & sheep.

And there is precious little wet woodland up there.

RAS

choille wrote: »

I was planning to take out an apportionment of my share of the common grazing for a native woodland scheme, but the neighbour raised loads of rubbishy & ridiculous objections. I could quite easily of fought it but he's a not great person & just withdrew the application. We keep hoping they'll move!

the joys of crofting; anything to do with common grazing is always a nightmare. What did the Grazing Committee think?

choille

Dave - Is the quickthorn saplings not worth keeping - transplanting? I think they look lovely as a hedge. I would love some big boys' toys. Sometimes the wheelbarrow & adze seem a bit caveman/cavewoman, but all the cash is on building materials at the moment. My croft is probably filled with wildlife because of the fact that I don't have a tractor nor use chemicals & have not rushed in chopping down all the natural regen.
Lovely for you to see a dormouse. Although I've picked winkles to sell, I could never get one over personally - could never put one in my mouth. My last squemishness from childhood I guess. I must start to fish - off the rocks, as I like fish but rarely buy it.

rhiwfield - tools are wonderful things. If we win the lottery - which we won't as we very rarely get a ticket, we'll get a digger, a tractor.........
I am less self suficient than I was. I don't bake as much being in the caravan - just not that easy. However we use very little electric - although I did used to stay even more remote & we had no mains so had a windmill. We do use all our dead wood up in the wood burner & when it's on I have a kettle on & cook soup on it.
I've too much ground in many ways - some of it still completely out of control - but loads of nature & rare flowers, which helps to make me feel less guilty & inadequate.
RAS - The grazing committee were against as they are a bunch of knobs - allegedly! None of them have any stock, have no anaimals to graze but would like to hive bits off for housing - sore point.

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

Dave - Is the quickthorn saplings not worth keeping - transplanting? I think they look lovely as a hedge. I would love some big boys' toys. Sometimes the wheelbarrow & adze seem a bit caveman/cavewoman, but all the cash is on building materials at the moment.

Sorry, I'm getting my thorns mixed up. I should have said 'Blackthorn,' which I'm not so keen on, though the ones sited well inside the hedge can stay. We have quickthorn too.

Yes, I transplant where I can, and I'll be buying in some hedging to increase the diversity. I've had no luck with growing on slips from my elm hedge, so there I shall be putting some hornbeam in the gaps and hoping it won't notice too much.

Wheelbarrow & adze for me too ATM, as I'm determined to keep our big pot of cash for the house rebuild. All the toys in my photos are someone else's!

Had a trailer-load of well-rotted pig manure today, so now we have pig, goat, horse and chicken poo to choose from.

Fencing is going OK, but the soil is still dry up by the road, and there are so many stones in places that the posts only drive in under protest....or snap.

Your grazing committee sound like...er....your description! I hear the pain-in-the-bum 'Director' of the residents association, next door to us, has just resigned. Happy days!