Bit of a nothing day....

Bit of a boring day spent tidying and during that process, finding paperwork out  that needs dealing with.  I really need to get on top of my DEFRA farm books. Everytime we move an animal or bring one in, be it alive, dead or going to slaughter it all needs documenting and then a copy of that paperwork has to go into DEFRA. I believe if your a proper farmer and get caught being silly, trying to pull the wool over there eyes you can actually be fined thousands.,(which is what happened to a local farmer he was fined £6000) On the last DEFRA inspection I had a few errors in paper work but the two young ladys that visited  were lovely and helpful  but  never the less it still was nerve racking. I believe they visit yearly.

Well I might as well tell you a little bit about our unusual life style, brace yourselves...lol 

We bought a static caravan in 2008 for £500 delivered. It arrived the day before Christmas eve. We had a lovely family time roasting one of our ducks with all the trimmings. 

We have no running water on site and have to carry in every drop. Which is not a big deal i know many people who's water either freezes up in winter or there wells run dry in sommer.. so no big deadl they all cope with it in there civilised life.
I harvest rain water everywhere that I can. We have a watering can for a shower, one saucepan of boiling water topped up with rain water. I have been known during summer storms to stand under the pouring water that comes of the roof of the caravan starkers and have an invigorating cold shower.... Ducking everytime a van went past on the road. Cars were fine as the hedge covers them but vans are taller. One lad delivering something last year had a  bit of a shock...

Washing machine????

For a long time I used an old caravan travel washing machine which was basically a glorified bucket with a turning mechanism, this was great, but time consuming and a family of 5, generates a lot of washing! So one day last year I had a brain wave, my automatic washing mashine was stood outside which I started to use for spinning out the hand washed clothes then,  realised i could actually use it to rinse, I carefully, with my beloved watering can,  fed  water into the draw. I found that it only starts to work when its full enough so you cant harm it.(Well it only cost £40 from the newspaper so its not like i paid hundreds for it.) Then  thought as that had worked so well why not try a coloured wash, it worked!! Wow technology. You cant believe how much this transformed my life, I felt so proud of my self. Lateral thinking. I've now found after months of doing this that the best way to do it, is sort the washing into piles of dirtyness ' firstly  washing the cleanest, spin it then remove it, next  put in the next dirty, and so on I save all the water that comes out the other end and reuse on every load. After that I start with the rinses in a similar way until all the washing comes clean and it does, its spotless,  the water is never thrown out, next we use all the dirty water to wash down the decking outside the caravan, well I say decking its actually the bottom of a lorrys back I think its oak its very sturdy and stops the mud. Then clean down all the patio, this came from Shrewsbury freegle a couple of hundred slabs, it took a good days hard work. I made sure that it had good foundation of shaie then laid it, the patio juts up to a portacabin this came from a friend, he runs a skip business and thought of us.

Our little shop!! (The portacabin.)

This is where we keep all our foods we call it our little shop, when we go shopping I do three months worth at a time. I laugh to my self and think the great unwashed are coming down from the hills... picturing up the old American ranchers coming down to the towns to get in there provisions. 

I buy 25 kilos of sugar in a sack, 10 kilos of rice, sacks of potatoes and flour, it has shop shelving inside and there's where we store all the other things like tins, bottles, soft drinks and all the soaps etc that a family would ever need. The huge freezer is sited here too. Inside we have a whole Dexter beef  steer,  a pigs worth of ham, gammon, bacon, another of sausage and yet another of pork.
On top of all that I buy up whatever is reduced in the super markets. So I will clear the shelves of whatever is a good deal, its amaizing what freezes, 20 bottles of milk, packs of butter, cheese, all sorts. I also have a back up freezer, a gorgeous American side by side fridge freezer. We always wanted one but could never afford one, then a friend needed some help for a few days moving house and gave it to us for our troubles, its as good as new. 

We have a motto all comes to us who wait,

it's amaizing what you find in the skips, rubbish bins and in charity shops, I wont let my self buy new I just store up what I want and then find it... oh I do draw the line at second hand knickers...lol childrens shoes also come from Clarks. 

Its a good lifestyle, it only gets me down when others judge, or say I dont know how you manage.. We did try out living normally for a while in a council house and amaizingly lasted 1 year. Everyone thought we were mad leaving there but my mental health couldn't cope with it. The council, I think were very happy when we left as we constantly got into trouble, having chickens in the back garden, poorly piglets in the utility room  and incubators. Carrying in home killed whole pigs in from the car under the cover of darkness. The neighbours would have gone mad..lol 

So we ended up back on our land, living in a backwards old time sort of a way. aqs much as we were, it saves you a fortune, less impulse buys, crisps, biscuits, cho'colates, good for your figure I've lost nearly a stone now. Even better it's good for your carbon footprint. Saving on fuel, got to be good. 

E Numbers...

As I said before my children are allergic to all bad additives so we have chosen not to consume any type of pre made food, i.e. pizzas, bread, ready meals etc. With our  bread machine, which is my best friend and a Kenwood chef I make everything from scratch, it's not that time consuming really and tastes a million times better. Lots of people think, only I could cope with this life style  Jim  (my adopted suger daddy) say "you put up with a lot" he also says (he doesnt know of any other women that would put up with it."  Jim 's a great friend to us all in his late 60's and a normal farmer with 100 odd acres and provided well for his family, he seems to think its all Joes fault we live like we do and that I'm being dragged into this lifestyle. That couldnt' be further from the truth I'm really happy and yes I do moan some times but i've chosen to live like this so thats that!

Jim the sugar Daddy!  lol

I met Jim at Welshpool market looking for some one to supply us with hay, he was the first person I bumped into and turned out to be a hay merchant, we developed a great friendship, his wife ran off and left him 2 years ago. (He's sure to have worked too much he thinks nothing of working all night muck spreading..lol) Any how I took him under my wing, cooking extra dishes and pudding freezing them and giving him insruction what to do with them. We reagularly go out together, he borrows me he laughingly says. He says that going threw the divorce without me would have been hard. The worries of loosing half his farm and the lonelyness. He's a very generous man spending a fortune on the kids and us, last year he bough  me a lovely digital camera. This year hes taking me off to spend £100 at least he said.. I couldn't think what I  would need to spend that much on. then Ive decided to have a young Dexter calf, were going to collect her soon. She will be our house cow. All the kids love him he reagulary visits us we have a huge family feast, which always goes down well and he brings us free hay, he never takes money off us. Every small holder should have a Jim..lol The children see him as a grand pa and he's happy to be there for them. Andre regularly goes to his farm helping him with the sheep and both of them get to drive his brand new tractor and quad. He enjoys teaching them his craft.

 Home butchery..

I kill and butcher most of the livestock for our food and it becomes a family event, the children can draw anotomically correct drawing of the insides of the animals, they appreciate and respect the animals and the value of there life that we have chosen to take from them. 

Lots judge me and say that this is wrong but they are happy with it and have never been upset by any of the home killing processes that go on here, 

We use a humane killer that releases a captive bolt, they are humanely and instantly dispatched.We all muck in helping scrape off the pigs bristles or skin the sheep whatever the animal , even little Lily. Judge me if you want but this is nothing different to what our grand parents or great grandparents did. 

In Spain the other year I witnessed something similar and in Hungary it's still a family day and feast. Its just us over here that have moved in to the different lifestyle. 

We as a family choose to be responsible for the meat we eat we know exactly what its been fed on, any medication it may have needed or had, how old it was before we ate it, which breed, etc, it's a stress free process and they never know what is coming. I feel we are responsible and not condoning the awful life and stresses that commercial meats sometimes go through in order to provide the consumer with cheap poor quality "alledged" meat products. We eat like kings so there!!!!