Maes Mawr Smallholding
Hi Emma
Just wanted to say a big thank you for the online goat keeping course you organised. We really enjoyed it and learnt so much. The guided tour outside was great as we were able to see how you house your goats, the equipment you need and the milking demo. The booklet you sent is great too - all the information is clearly explained, with good quality photos and diagrams. It will be so useful to refer to when we get goats of our own. Having the time to read through the booklet and then meet again online to answer my many questions was also very useful. You explained things clearly and we really liked your relaxed and friendly approach.
We are so looking forward to getting goats of our own and the course has certainly helped us understand what we need to do to look after them and give them a happy life! Thanks again.
Hi Emma & Steve
I hope you’re both well , and all the animals are healthy, especially Cathy :)
Sorry it’s taken us a while to feed back on our time with you, work/life routines take over as soon as the holiday ends.
We’ve both been thinking about our time with you a lot , I would say I think about some element of it every day, and we just want to thank you again.
For us it was the perfect smallholding experience. It was more than ‘ a course’, as you adapted the content of the booklet you gave us to what we wanted and it felt a very organic process. All the invaluable information you gave us flowed naturally as part of the conversation. It made perfect sense as you discussed it while we were doing practical elements so we felt really engaged and soaked it all up.
Having our time with you spread over the week was great too. There was a lot to take in and although we didn’t realise at the time we did need a bit of time away to digest and reflect. This allowed us to explore the beautiful area you live in and come back raring to go and having had time to think about what we wanted to ask next.
You both really went above and beyond what we expected and were so welcoming, helpful and we just felt like you shared your lives with us, which was so generous. I think it’s as close as we will get to understanding what life on a smallholding can be like before actually doing it ourselves ( other than being there in the dead of winter up to our armpits in mud!)
You have certainly helped clarify for us that having a home in Wales, with some land and livestock ( preferably including Goats) is definitely what we want to do.
The only negative is it has made work/life routine at the moment feel mundane. But we are using the time to get plans in place, learn more ( starting with a Welsh phrase book) and get all excited over properties on Rightmove. Although our hopes that prices might drop before we want to move might have been dashed by the area being added to the UNESCO world heritage list.
So thank you so much , it was amazing and we really hope we may be neighbours at some point in the not too distant future
PS. I love the soap and will be buying some as a birthday gift v soon
Janis & Jamie xx
I just wanted to say thank you for opening up your lives to us so that we could learn from your well earned wisdom.
We are still mentally processing a lot of what you said and wrote. We've done the walking of our property and planning many times over already 😊. We've added to our chicken collection. We already had a Black tail, a speckledy and 2 ISA browns. We've added 2 Cheshire Blues and a Black Rock and are on the look out for a Copper Comet.
We've settled on getting a few sheep for the paddock we already have ready, and a couple of pigs for the land across the road that needs some attention. But I imagine we will need to wait until the spring for these to make most sense in terms of investment.
In the meantime, we are getting our fencing situation sorted out - fencing to keep the dogs in an area outside and then fencing for the pigs. The sheep paddock is already well fenced.
We've already needed that first aid kit, with a chicken getting a deep wound. We hurried in getting some things, because we hadn't prepared!! 🤦 But thankfully Posh spice survived and seems happy and well back with her friends. I did have to phone a friend on that occasion (who has her own chickens) for some swift advice though! Salt water became our friend. 😊
Anyway... We are pulling together a kit now for any issues and are keeping it in the straw and food store as you suggested.
All that to say, we are slowly moving forward but all the better equipped thanks to you both and we're looking forward to being close to what you have created sometime in the next 5 years!
Thank you for your time, which I know is precious.
Helen.