What a difference a year makes

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:

The Cattle Shed before

The Cattle shed after

Tidying up windows

Tidying up corners

Ready for planting bulbs

Re-building walls

Quarry path when we had just gained access...

...and quarry path now

Back of our home before we fully dug it out

Dug-out and re-built wall of what will be our dining room

Silage clamp walls before

and mid excavation!

Flood proofing the stream with the dumper...

...and flood proofing the stream with the tractor!

Planning application update

First of all congratulations and thank you to all of you who were baited by this most boring of post titles! I really have surpassed myself with this one.

This is just a very quick (and to be honest not particularly interesting) update on what I am quickly learning is an unapologetically slow process. We now have a validated planning application. We thought we had when I wrote my last post but it seemed there was still a map which was to the wrong scale, although how it has taken three months to realise this is anyone's guess. As a result our planning notice is now displayed for all to see on our gate:

This may not sound like much but it really does mean that we know when a planning decision will be made (it's the 30th September if you are interested but don't feel bad if this little foray into planning bureaucracy makes you want to rip your teeth out; I feel your pain). So in little under 8 weeks we should know if we can turn
this:

Barn

into this:

Initial Drawings

Now we have to wait and see what comments are made on the application and keep everything crossed that we don't come up against too much negativity.

Meanwhile we are clearing the yard of rubble and making some paths in the quarry to give what is essentially a glade some shape and structure. Last weekend we had our first camp on the land which has given us lots of ideas for how to shape the space and where to focus our energies whilst we wait for our planning decision.

Anyone wishing to comment on our application can do so at mendip.gov.uk

6 Months In: 6 Things We Have Learnt

As we hold our breath and keep everything crossed for a positive response to our planning application, the result of which is due any week now, I realised that it has been six months since we moved into a caravan in a former farm yard in deepest somerset. Whilst we are still very much at the start of Project Farm we have learnt loads in the last six months. I can now start a generator every time and my fire-lighting skills have come on leaps and bounds whilst Big G has learnt that it is impossible to build a farm single handedly with two children in tow as well as the not entirely unrelated skill of getting out into the yard and onto the digger before the digger obsessed toddler awakes. This does of course mean that someone else has to deal with the ensuing tantrums but it is amazing what an IKEA breakfast can do to soothe the mind of a distraught three year old.

Here are the six slightly more useful thing that we have learnt so far. These are the first things I would tell anyone about to take on a project like ours:

1.Assume you have a rat problem, before you even move in 

I realise that this is not a great start but I am being deadly serious. Our barns had been uninhabited for at least twenty years so all the flora and fauna had free reign to grow and do and they pleased. Enter us, with our rubbish and our food waste, add some springtime ratty breeding and BINGO we were infested. When I say infested I really mean it...after catching two of the little darlings in my car we realised that thanks to some half eaten strawberries (toddler) and an open window (me) we had had rats TRAPPED IN MY CAR for two weeks. TWO WEEKS*! I practically refused to drive my car for weeks afterwards and Big G had to reconcile himself to the idea of killing other animals. For a life-long vegetarian this was a stretch until talking to some friends who live in a beautiful Comer down in Devon. They had a similar problem but eventually realised that it doesn't matter how many animal rights protests you have been on, we are animals too and we have rights that the rats don't give two hoots about!

The other mistake we made was not to unpack all of our kitchen boxes when we first moved - in one crate in the barn was one opened packed of lasagne sheets...which they rats absolutely destroyed, along with some nearby clothing. It is certainly a good lesson in letting go of your belongings but it would have been cheaper and more hygienic to make sure there was no food for them to feed on in the first place. Lesson well and truly learnt.

A trap, some poison, a full car valet and the fastidious removal of all possible food later and we seem to have sorted the problem (crosses everything and tries really hard to forget that this ever happened).

2.Don't pay a planning consultant until you have joined the NFU 

It turns out that even in rural Somerset, where there is little doubt that your planning application relates to redundant farm buildings, the advice given by a local planning consultant may not include useful things like, 'a lot of what you want to do is probably permitted development so will entail far less paper work and far far less in planning application fees to the council.'

JOIN THE NFU ON DAY ONE! It cost us less that £100 for the land that we have and in 30 minutes on their website we learnt more about what we are permitted and not permitted to do without planning consent even being needed than in the three months of 'consultation' with our 'advisor'. As a sub point the planning department are also not willing or able to give advice which might save you (denude them of) funds. It got to the point where the council wanted five planning fees to convert one shed into five units...which it now appears probably falls under permitted development for that type of farm building we are talking about. We should get an answer on this in the next few weeks also but so far it is looking good. 

The other advantage to joining the NFU is that they have tonnes of advice on hand for all sorts of things including feed in energy tariffs. This is useful if, like us, you want to generate as much clean energy as possible.

3.Get the more terrier-like/less busy one of you to be in charge of chasing people for reports 

Because it turns out that everything takes for ever. You know that bit of buying a house when your waiting for a piece of paper to go from one solicitors desk to another's? You know, the bit that seems to take weeks and makes you want to the solicitors yourself and delivering said document in person? Well engineers, consultants and councils all seem to work at that pace all the time! Get on the phone and badger these people politely rather than assuming, like we did, that things just have to take a long time. 

4.Move in in the winter - it will make the summer seem that much more magical when it arrives

I cannot over emphasise how wonderful it is to watch the land awake and grow after the winter. 

Summer flowers

Common Vetch gone mad

5.The word 'Need' takes on an entirely different meaning when it comes to boys and their toys! 

That is slightly unfair - Big G's speciality is buying and selling vehicles so when he says that he can buy a digger and sell it for a profit once we are done with it I am inclined to believe him. However when he decided to buy a second dumper truck because "we need a bigger one to move that pile of rocks over there faster" I did raise and eyebrow. On the plus side the machinery obsessed boys in this household are in seventh heaven with a digger, tipper, tractor and two dumpers to play, sorry work, with.

6.DO IT! You are more resilient and it will be more brilliant than you think!

I was honestly unsure of how I would cope with life in our caravan and Big G was certainly a little nervous when I pushed for us to be in before Christmas when there was no hope of water let along hot water at that stage. However, we get to wake up every morning and listen to the birds, to walk out and drink our morning coffee in a farmyard and picnic in a beautiful glade where once there was a quarry, all without leaving home which is quite frankly, perfect.

* I would like to officially apologise for my over use of capitals and exclamation marks in this post but, I mean, RATS!!