the daydream fund challenge thread

Rummer

Choille pigs are adorable creatures to own as well as being tasty to eat, I think you will really enjoy having them as they are so intelligent with great personalities. I like the idea of home raised livestock. Then you know the animal has had a happy life and you will make sure that every part is used to the full.

JayneC

Wow choille you're doing brill. I live in a terraced house in town with a tiny back yard but am trying really hard to live by permaculure ideals. I try and reuse things where I can, grow as much as I can, waste as little as I can and 'consume' as little as I can get away with (pester power has a lot to answer for lol). I make good use of freecycle and rarely buy anything brand new.

Rummer there's a website run by the permaculture association www.permaculture.org.uk and a magazine www.permaculture.co.uk but there's not much on the web or if there is I can't find it! I believe the 'Farm for the Future' prog is still accessible on 'you tube'. There are a few books available on Amazon but I've not read any yet so can't recommend I'm afraid. I'm thinking of getting a couple so I'll report back .

Any way I'm off to bed now, back soon. x

choille

Hi Rummer/Jayne - That's the thing with animals being adorable.....

I had so many male lambs this Spring they are off to market soon, just as their little personalities are coming through. We normally only get enough for the freezer & a couple to friends, but surplus to our requirements.

Rasps - now my rasps haven't been great really. I used to have crackers where I lived previously. I just moved some over to a better bed - I think, but I'll have to wait till next year to see if they've improved. They probably aren't mature enough yet, but they have been in 3 years - I think!

I did a permaculture course about 10 years ago & it seemed to be less food miles & less footprints sort of stuff - doing environmental friendly stuff & not chucking stuff out & reusing stuff - not buying out of season veg & fruit & flowers that have been flown in from Rhodesia sort of stuff. There was a bit about sustainable communities, but that wouldn't be my bag as I live a remote sort of life.
Where I did it - in Oxford they were very into digging up flower beds & lawns & getting in green manure & veg, but I think most folks on here are quite permaculture really.
I think if you're skint then you are really permaculture! As you use everything & don't chuck owt out!

Rummer

Ah so it is a different title for the way of life a lot of us are trying to live at the moment? I will have a wee look online and see what I can discover!

choille

The guy who taught some of the course was into sustainable communities & that is an interesting concept, but I'm too much of a loner to be part of that.
I did have a book but it'll be packed away somewhere.

rhiwfield

There's a quote in Tom Pethericks book "Sufficient" that we are not good at communal living because "of each individual's failure to do the washing-up". I'd go along with that, locally its always the same faces involved in community events, though there are plenty happy to share the benefits!

Its still work in progress here, trying to get a few hours in when the weather is ok.

New raised beds under construction

Autumn raspberries planted in new trellis bed

New compost heap and area for tool shed (unfinished)

Ugly result of removing neighbour's overhanging leylandii

Trying to dig out a stake hole this morning and met a manhole cover 3" down. The house had a septic tank before mains drainage was installed nigh on 30 years ago and this appears to be an inspection chamber. No problem, just raise the bed to create 15" growing depth . This also has the benefit of adding exposure to sunlight as the wall part blocks the sun in the winter.

choille

I've tried the communal living & there are too many passengers - too many arguments & differing opinions to get much done really.

Goodness - what an incredibly neat & organised garden - it's quite wonderful. How I love stone walls - that's a cracker of one. If I had loads of dosh, I'd have someone reinstate all the 'melted' walls on the croft. I must learn how to dry stane dyke, but plenty to do afore then.

The dreaded Leylandii - does it make your soil ungrowable beneath, do the leaves leech onto your ground?

Well - I've pottered a little today, surveying all the jobs that need attention - gawd!
My last brood of chicks are now out of the run - even though they are a bit wee as yet, I'm watching them & they are so good sticking with their Mum. They are having a great time scratching up the leaves & exploring. The bigger hens & chicks seem to be fine with them, so that's always a relief.
Just getting dark & am going to cut the comfrey down for the last time. I've so much liquid feed made up that I'm just going to place the leaves around the kale plants this time.
I am still taking it ginger as my back seems still quite achey, but it's too nice to be stuck indoors today, although hardly done much at all.

rhiwfield

There's something quite satisfying about stone wall construction and we've been lucky to have all the limestone on our doorstep from local building works. As we've dug foundations we've unearthed loads more stone and often reached bedrock. Most of the work we've done ourselves, mainly converting unstable slopes into beds and terraces. I love dry stone walling as well, BTCV trained several local volunteers a few years back and we built about 70M of wall for the nearby meadow.

Leylandii are a real pain! We inherited loads, planted well within the boundary line so we were losing lots of our garden. They take nutrients and moisture from the surrounding soil and were shading out our veg and fruit. We'll put up with a bit of ugly to see the garden bloom

Choille, youve got the space to live your dream, we're more make do and mend with what we've got so getting the garden fully productive (and hopefully attractive as we dont want to lose value on the house) means organising the space we have. Chickens were on our wish list but space is so tight that we decide not to go down that route....glad that you can enjoy them!

Davesnave

Great photos, Rhiwfield. I long for order and tidiness like yours. I will try to get my Flickr page sorted out soon so I can show you what a muddle I inherited. It is still a muddle, but a slightly more cared-for one.:o

Off to the dump tomorrow with another van load of the rubbish we inherited. One of those big materials bags full of rusty metal and two of mixed plastic. There's also ash from a huge bonfire; not just wood ash which would have been OK, but ash from burning the house contents, which was all kinds of stuff. Not nice. Then there's the previous owner's collection of broken mushroom trays and pots; say another tonne bag, half full.

After that lot, we might be able to see a real difference. Still 50 tyres though, which arty daughter is threatening to turn into a 'living installation' if they're still here next spring.:eek: Bob Flowerdew and Tracey Emin have much to answer for!

choille

Rhiwfield - you're very organised & looks like you've made wonderful use of the space & the slope.
I sometimes think that we've taken on more than we can chew - but it's the only way we could have afforded to buy anywhere with ground.

Davesnave - I know the getting rid of rubbish thing - it's very satisfying though. We keep unearthing rusty corrugated iron that's blown off various ruined byres decades ago & nasty barbed wire that's embedded in trees.
I did find a church token while mucking out the byre when we first came & also a top set of incredibly bright pink dentures that seemed to be grinning at me from the decades old dirt.

In the house we moved into 10 years ago - the previous owners had not only left their dog, but also most of their possesions - they's emigrated, but the house looked like the Marie Celeste
- they'd even left washing on the line. We couldn't get our stuff in as it was crambed with their stuff, which was mainly rubbish (& I'm not choosy) but it was 4 tractorloads of stained matresses & dented aluminium pans etc that had to be hauled down to the pier & got across a sea loch!