Well, we never left, we just stopped updating our story, lets be honest how many people really want to see the same subject matter over and over again, building and pallets. Not only were we less inclined to bore you all senseless but the daily jobs took over and I saw nothing interesting in our day to day life. The endless list of to-dos with the never ending list of stuff needed for said to-do list was overwhelming. So usually a day would start with morning rounds.... start a job... work till it went dark then crash into bed and hope that time would stop still for that night. We have both worked ourselves to exhaustion and have consumed an untold number of painkillers, used pain relieving gels and procured stronger pain relief from untold sources when the good old standard paracetamol just didn't cut it, all perfectly legal I assure you!
Many early mornings I woke hoping that I could somehow prevent dawn, or at least slow it down. The best time of the day was always and still is, the end of the day. Standing on the driveway, after all the poultry have been put away. I could pause outside the gate to the back door. I could look at the sunset knowing that the only thing coming next was a really comfortable bed and sleep. Bliss.
I can't say life is going to get much easier anytime soon, You don't set up a smallholding on the basis that life becomes easy, thinking that everyday will feel like your skipping through the flowers! But, it has been the most rewarding and yet most challenging thing we've ever done, and we are really looking forward to telling you all about it and showing you around.
We moved the horses this year on to fresh grazing giving us some much needed space and freedom to rest the land and re-seed areas, something we didn't get a chance to do thanks to the heat wave cooking the ground this year. Only issue is, they are being so well looked after they might not want to come back.
Oh yeah... then there is the Pigeon. I won't type up her full name, so her nick name will do. I'll explain the nickname later. The resident farmer decided before we moved in that she preferred it if no one lived in this house.... we think she fancied the land, for free. Oh dear... clearly we were not going to be sending Christmas cards to each other and popping in and out for tea despite our best efforts! She has certainly done what she can to put us off living here, and her endless efforts have seen us taking her to court. We are now fast approaching the end of the saga, and i'll talk more about that when it's done, but I'm sure most people can see how that interruption to our lives has taken up a huge amount of 'brain space' as I call it.
So we start this up again, January 2019! Despite the interruptions of that certain someone and then throwing in the odd storm front smashing a few things up, we finally have buildings and we are finally organised outside. That is a big thing for me personally. We've lived a chaotic existence here since moving, and I don't like chaos, It becomes difficult, too difficult sometimes. I am going to show you what we have done, and what has been built and we are really proud of ourselves. The land has changed beyond what I could have hoped for in these 2 1/2 years here. It fills me with great confidence that we are on the right track. We are only this far ahead due to amazing friends and family who have helped us along thus far, you know who you are so big hugs and kisses from us.
We are opening ourselves to running a course this year about smallholding, Hopefully we will have baby goats due in and around that course date, so if you feel like you'd like a place on our first course here please get in touch.
So let me fill you in on the nickname situation, Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is still going to s**t on the board and strut around like it won anyway. Once you know, you'll understand......