the daydream fund challenge thread

alfie_1

choille wrote: »

Hi Poo - there is a campsite down the road - the folk live down south, but if they caught us taking in campers they'd report us to any authority that they could. I don't know if you can just open the gates. If, indeed people will now still rough camp.

hi, here you are allowed so many days LEGALLY for camping a year [ think about 28 days] without having lots of amenities? my friend has 20 acre smallhollding in surrey and she does it! so i wouldnt worry about treading on toes if you can do this.[i bet the "people from the south" wouldnt give a monkeys if it was the other way round!also good idea if its poss to get the word out amongst BIKERS as they often like to be as a touring group and chill out ] obviously your regs may be different but check out ?

also you can have "guests" to camp as long as no money changes hands [ie .a set fee] BUT you can get DONATIONS.... TOWARDS THIER COSTS......
but you didnt hear that from me!!!!

choille

I'll get OH to look into the camping thing as it sounds a goer. I wonder what people charge per tent or per person. Anyone know?

Davesnave

choille wrote: »

I'll get OH to look into the camping thing as it sounds a goer. I wonder what people charge per tent or per person. Anyone know?

In Wales, at a camp site we considered, the going rate for a pitch for a caravan/camper van was £7 a night, but that did include an electric hook up and elsan toilet disposal facilities.

If someone just brought a tent it was £5, or £25 a week. That was in 2008.

stitching_witch

Twenty-two bottles of Rosehip syrup are now stashed in the pantry and another bag of hips waiting to be processed. Those, along with the fifty-odd jars of jam and chutney, should see us through the dark winter nights.

The chickens have started to moult so we're only getting one egg a day at the moment. That's plenty for our own use, but none left to sell. It means I'll have to dip into my own pocket to buy their food this month

I'm a bit cross with myself as yesterday morning I finally got some paid sewing jobs to do then I took a chunk off the top of my finger with an axe. It's not really serious, but throbbing and awkward to do anything with it strapped up! Silly stitchy

rhiwfield

stitching_witch wrote: »

I'm a bit cross with myself as yesterday morning I finally got some paid sewing jobs to do then I took a chunk off the top of my finger with an axe. It's not really serious, but throbbing and awkward to do anything with it strapped up! Silly stitchy

Ouch!

And another ouch at cost of these!

rozeepozee

Dave the place you describe, or at least the buyers and your experiences sound really familiar! The property where we were pipped at the post had been marketed for less than two weeks. It was with jj Morris and my assessment of them was as your's. Even tho the accepted offer was under the asking price slightly and we too would be cash buyers there was no suggestion that we put in a higher bid. The deal was done. A bummer for us but at least we know they don't encourage gazumping if we do find something else with them. We have in any case put in a formal offer in case the current deal fails for any reason - unlikely but they now know we are serious.

Re camping we are caravan and camping club members and I think they will accredit you at no cost and you can have up to 5 tourers and unlimited tents without PP. Don't quote me on that but it wouldn't cost you owt to call them and ask. I also think you can have one static without PP. It's certainly something we'd like to offer. Another potential income stream tho you won't make your fortune with it! There's a lot of competition and the season's short. Small sites with a toilet block were charging around a tenner a night for our campervan.

troglodyte

I would say around £5 to £7 per night for camping, but it varies, some places charge per person, some charge per tent, and of course tents can be tiny one person ones or huge ones big enough for two familes! If you are going to go for rough camping, I'd think you would be targeting a different market to the 'proper' camp site down the road anyway. We stayed at one site in the Doone valley in Devon, it did have toilets and showers though they were certainly not fancy, there was no electricity or anything like that, the big draw for practically everyone there was that they allowed open fires and virtually no sites allow that any more. People went there who wanted a no-frills site with the real 'sitting around a camp-fire' experience. I'd think if you advertised it as a wild camping experience, you could install a cold water tap of some sort and perhaps a composting toilet (either build one or buy a ready-made one, there are more and more available now) so that it wouldn't need water or drainage and if it needed a fan you could have either a battery-powered or a solar-powered one. If you have spare wood you could sell them that too, it would go down well I expect. I'm sure people would come who were looking for something different - and as Alfie said, if word got out that you welcomed bikers then again, they are not always welcome in other places, especially for a group, so that might be a niche you could exploit.

Thanks for the juice ideas! We do make wine, but already have all demijohns full and a stock of bottles. The year before last we made a couple of gallons of wine with the grapes, and last year made 5 or 6 gallons, and now we just tried the 2008 'vintage' and weren't that impressed so not sure that is the best use, while the juice is quite nice.

Poosmate

Hi Rozee, ooh I'm getting all excited for you! You really must have your hands full with the twins!

Choille, I hope the camping thing works for you, even if it's just a few campers for a few weekends
a year, every little helps. Back in my yoof (ok after I got married, left home, got divorced and went back home), I started riding bikes.
I joined a small biker club and we'd often go on biker club rallies. They were often very basic (some even just a field in some valley).
I never did any of the bigger rallies like The Bulldog Bash, but often weekends were spent (even in the winter) under nylon. We did find
it a bit difficult booking onto campsites around Cumbria (this was 20 years ago) but not sure what it's like now. I had to sell my bikes
some years ago as life threw some poopy my way.

Davesnave, sounds like you had fun when you were looking for your place.

Stitch, sorry to hear about your finger, hope it gets better soon.

Rhiw, I love that concept but they are very expensive. Did you see the other thread on here? Some bloke moaning
about his municiple allotment fees going up from £24pa to £75 (over the next 4 years!). He didn't seem to think
he'd get his money's worth from the allotment when it hits £1.45 per week.

Take care all,

Poo

choille

It would have to be rough camping - showers? We don't even have one of those!

Dry toilet would be a home made one. We used to live with one - used to use humanure, but that's another story.

I don't know how I'd do with the gorge being here - quite dangerous unless you know the ground & are sober I expect! OH has gone a bit muttering............

lostinrates

rhiwfield wrote: »

With one thing and another not getting much done atm. Makes me wonder how do you cope with sickness and injury when you have livestock that need looking after?

You cope. I've cleared out muck on my hands and knees when I can't walk. Not nice, but it has to be done..if we want them. And we do.

When I was in mid teens I got bronchitis: my parents pointed out I was making lifestyle choice everyday I mucked about with ponies, and I had to see it through. The bronchitis turned to pneumonia...but my ponies got done. As it turned out this has in recent years, been one of the best lessons of my life, though it seemed very harsh at the time.



As someone with dodgy health..and an even dodgier body-I could neither walk nor talk about 7 years ago; (MSE actually became addictive to me as the most interesting way to redevelop linguistic skills) sometimes chores that usually take an hour or two in the morning end up taking pretty much all day....but its usually possible.

You also have to prioritise. e.g. one of my neurological symptoms is sciatica....on days that's bad I don't sweep the acres of concrete yard we have....but on the good days I prioritise that. My neuralgia I minimise with wrapping my head in various scarves and hats, trying to lessen impact of wind/weather. In a real push if you let creatures out to grass, they do what they evolved to do, so getting up, getting them fed, watered and out. I always try and get stuff done in the morning ready for the evening, so that if something happens through the day its going to be the easiest it can be in the evening.

we move the big stuff at the weekend and mainly I just try and keep stuff ticking over when dh isn't here, then we go crazy at weekends. I've also coped before and after being a sufferer of long term health problems with torn ligaments, dislocated thumbs, broken ribs, ....loads of stuff....you just ...cope.



some days you get through it with panadol and tears, but you know what, without it I think I'd not get through many days at all: less to get up and fight for. My guess is its the same way parents cope with the same problems when they have small children..you have to.

As it turns out, we moved near someone I trust to do the basic chores in case of real emergency now, and I can return the favour for her. Neighbours are invaluable. In the ice of last year, DH's old LR coped on the roads that lessor 4x4s couldn't handle: I spent all day everyday towing people out of hedges and ditches, fetching groceries and animal feed for our hamlet...and when we ran out of water to defrost in troughs (we were so badly hit) a kind farmer brought water to us to minimise the amount of snow we needed to melt.

re the pond, no we haven't yet tested for fluoride and certainly the pond was at the very least adapted to take run off..the surface water drains are to there. Historically there was another pond that's ''gone'' an might be a cause of the subsidence issues. its all part of what we are frustratedly waiting for investigation into. feeling very badly let down by our professionals and flaying around trying to find possible replacements.

We took this weekend off ..keeping up with chores but not breaking new ground, its been a bit of a social whirl, and its been nice...but we are as tired as we have been slogging it out here...

Oh, but I did clip the wings of all the young hens (I left the young roosters for ability to get out f each others way should they realise they are not meant to get on soon.) Remarkably the hens have learnt to allow for the imbalance, I've not seen much like it before: they are standing at about 45 degrees instead of straight on to what they want to flutter up to, so that the lilt takes them to where they want to be :rotfl: