It has now been one year since we moved on to the farm. The one thing I wanted to avoid was moving on Christmas eve and we were feeling distinctly un-festive this time last year. What with packing up our house and moving to the land it was all I could do to get presents for everyone let along spread any festive fun. A year on and we are still in the caravan and still waiting for a decision on our planning application so it does good to remember what we have achieved in the last 365 days:
- We have power, real, actual electricity. There are twinkling Christmas lights EVERYWHERE!
- We have removed all the stinking rotten silage from the yard
- We have made paths and started to give shape to the land. This one may not seem like a lot but this has even the single biggest thing that has occupied us in the last year
- We have created a mud bath in the process
- We Had a baby!
- We got hot water (one week before baby was born)
- We have found caves and met the local cavers. They can be found on our land every Wednesday and Saturday. They like dynamite
- We have bats (common pipistrelle thankfully and not anything rarer). They will be living with us in our home when we finally get to convert it
- We have tidied up endless little corners
- We have registered as small holders ready to get our first sheep and chickens in the new year. We are still arguing about wallabies and emus
- We have put doors on the barns and locked them with old locks we have found in the yard
- We have removed the concrete floor from the long barn
- We have created an entertaining space in the milking Parlour
- I have finally made the curtains that I smugly bragged I would have time to make between finishing work and giving birth last spring!
- We have held the first of what we hope will become our annual Christmas yard party
- We overcame a rat infestation
- We got a cat
- We spent a week, in a caravan during a heatwave with a newborn baby, a kitten and all the doors and windows shut
- We have unearthed hundreds of tyres
- We have moved thousands tonnes of soil
- We have planted an orchard
- Removed the concrete walls of the silage clamp - which incidentally lies on top of the ruins of an old house which I will endeavour to find out more about in 2018
- We have finally chosen the tree for the tyre swing
- We have made some lovely new friends
- We have acquired and learnt how to use loads of exciting machinery
- We re-diverted the stream
But perhaps the most important thing is that we followed our dream. I know that I have said it before but on paper, moving into a caravan without power, water or heating, in the winter, 5 months pregnant, with a toddler, to convert a barn that seemed to get no daylight, in a yard at the bottom of a hill where the fog settles for most of the year, without planning permission in place, with a listed barn and no idea what we were doing, sounds like the worst thing we could have done. In reality it is the best thing we have ever done and I would urge anyone to move heaven and earth to make your dreams a reality.
On that note it only leaves me to wish you all a very happy and fun-filled Christmas and to share some pictures of the progress we have made in the last year:
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| The Cattle Shed before |
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| The Cattle shed after |
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| Tidying up windows |
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| Tidying up corners |
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| Ready for planting bulbs |
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| Re-building walls |
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| Quarry path when we had just gained access... |
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| ...and quarry path now |
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| Back of our home before we fully dug it out |
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| Dug-out and re-built wall of what will be our dining room |
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| Silage clamp walls before |
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| and mid excavation! |
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| Flood proofing the stream with the dumper... |
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| ...and flood proofing the stream with the tractor! |
