Jobs nearly done...lol

We are just a little tired.... we've managed to fence most of the chicken field, the ground is so hard and stoney that we had to fill the digger front bucket with huge stones, then carefully use the diggers weight to push the posts into the ground, even with all that weight, some refused to go in as far as they should... putting in the big fat posts, that have the triangulation post on for straining against was a very long job even with a really sharp point on they didnt want to go in... We've put in one gate way and are recycling some timbers from the floor of an old static caravan to fence by the side of the gateway, now what else happened.....???

We had a visitor , on preloved I have advertised on old stock trailer so a man whos been following my blog, came to meet the funny farm and to take a look at the trailer hes unsure if he will have it, I dont mind either way, its so useful but does need a little love on it soon.. I took him down to see the very muddy pigs, they seem to eat there bedding up very quickly, and make huge mud pits... never mind soon I will be putting in planning for the pig sheds, he liked looking at the piglets. We talked pigs and he left, nice man, another self sufficient nutter I think...lol

I cant wait to get the chucks confined in there field. the fence does look good. I think Joe wishes we had just thrown it up but I want it to last... I'm off to bed now I need to get up early, I'm going to put on some extra plastic netting to stop the younger chicks escaping through the pig netting..then there will be no escaping and just to make double sure i'll be clipping there wing feathers so they get used to staying on that side of the fence, now just for reference... you clip the primary feathers on one side so, on there wings that is, so when they try to fly they are lo sided, if you were to clip bothe side they would be balanced and would manage to fly, some think its a cruel practise, it may cause wilder chucks a stress whilst being cought , but ours all enjoy cudles so wont mind being caught, there is no pain because your cutting feathers well away from any skin and I feel they will be safer away from fox confined in there own area and in the future we will be getting a gaurd Alpaca for them to make sure Mr. Fox stays away..

Home produced breakfast....

Is'nt it lovely being self sufficient..... home reared bacon, free range fresh eggs, on home made bread, if only we could produce our own flour, well maybe next year I will grow an experimental bed and try some grains not a huge amount just enough to grind up for a couple of loaves. Maybe a 10 ft square patch as we have plenty of growing space.

Todays job....

Andre has to go to the docs for an asthma check, whilst we are in Llanfyllin we are going to sort out the sugar daddys trailer.(Jim) A few months ago he put  a huge load of muck on his trailer for our veg patch, but he only got half way and the over loaded trailer's tyre gave up, so we are going to go and try and get the wheel off and change it so it can hopefully comlete the journey and dump the lovely goodness the muck has for our ground.... It is much needed, our veg patch hasn't done very well it is crying out for humus...The plan is to put maybe 10 loads on the field, dig it in ruffly with our digger then put the pigs on over winter, then start again next year, hopefully then we will enjoy the heritage veg we had hoped to grow this year...

Right i'm nicley stuffed now so better go and see how much we can get done!!!

So today I carry on as if nothing happened last night,

We have decided to fence off our new grass field making it chicken proof so the 30 odd chucks can concentrate there scratching and picking skills on helping me cut and eat the grass down, not dig and scratch my flower beds, and poop all over my path especially the entrance to the caravan on my wooden decking, or attack all of the stacked boxes of veg we bring home for the pigs, and there favoutite occupation will also be stopped which is.... pooping all over our tools in our tool shed.... 

We have managed to get the posts all in and tomorrow we will get the wire up, Joe and I had our usual mild altications... I want things done in straight tidy lines with posts all at the same level etc and Joe just wants to go go go!! Throw things in and move onto the next job, but as usual I won and yes it may not be finished today but its looking smart and is sure to last a good while as long as none of my lovely neighbours kick it down in the night....
I also popped out to buy some pond plants, I saw an add put in the local Morrisons for water lilys plus 5 other pond plants for £15, so phone calls later and off I went....well what a lovely man, he showed us around his garden, introduced me to his 2 colonees of bees, which I stood about a foot from taking pictures of there loaded up little bodies with pollens sticking to there legs, he told me how there were gaurd bees on duty around the hive entrance and explained that the wasps who go and raid them, of there golden honey have to get past the gaurds .. as I watced them 2 wasps tried to gain entrance and they were attacked having there wings damaged by the bees and then they killed them, amaiazing. They were so interesting to watch,  I vow to keep bees next year and he has agreed to mentor me!! Then he took us up the garden path and showed me a lovely little den he'd constructed, the garden had 30 years of his love and attention, as we talked he realised he knew me, when I was a designer many years ago, I used to buy yarn from him and his wife in Welshpool, isn't it a small world, he spoke of  how he'd lost his wife 2 years ago and had lost heart in the garden, but what a lovely paradise he had created, he gave me loads of tips and samples of his veg etc. 
Whilst we were in his garage I spotted a jam kettle for cooking up jam, his wife used to make the most lovely jams, but now he said all the fruit on the loaded trees was going to waste, so I offered him a deal, if we come and pick the plums, pears, apples etc I will give him some of our meat produce... he like that and we shook hands on the deal, he found me some lovely plants, 2 water lilys, Iris, variuos bog and pond plants well so many that my boot was full and the inside of my estate car... I began to get a little concerned about how much I'd just spent...I was begining to think maybe £100.... he said £20 would do, what a deal, I had a lovely afternoon , found a new friend, done good deals, and learnt some great tips... lovely or even Perfik as Pop Larkin would say.... Any how when I got back  Chef Andre took the job of cooking a lovely dinner, slow roast pork leg, luxury mash, yorky puds, lovely thick gravy with my home made apple jelly. whilst Joe and I put in posts for chicken enclosure, the new grass field will be theres any how, I now need to go out as its getting dark and the dogs are going mad some one is about.... will add pictures of the gardens that I visited today...

So the threats start again!!!

My heart is pounding in my chest, i'm terified, I'm shaking and I got a terible migraine, some ones just driven up and down slowly then set off some huge bang like a bomb at the top gate by our caravan, I went out in the car and found some pipe they used which was still smoking they had used a long fuse to set it and obviously wanted to frighten us, I'm awaiting the police...

Police have now rung, could do nothing, they said the fiiring tube was no use as evidence and i'm to ring if anything else happens on the non emerancy number which took 20mins to get through on ....no comment....Why wont people leave us be... I said today to Joe how happy, settled and safe I'm feeling here at the farm.... it could have been nasty if we had been near that when it fired or the dogs or cats..... oh well I need some thing for my head..

I will not be frightened off by bully boy tactics, I have a shot gun and 2 gaurd dogs, one of which is viscous and would attack, I also have very well hidden security cameras so everypoint of my farm is filmed, so far I have caught neighbours kicking down fences , driving into gates, and willfully damaging my property, Switching off my mains electric whilst I was away in Hungary, so three pigs worth of meat rotted away in my freezers and all my beautiful tropical fish were murdered, we have had our drinking water contaminated, Joe has been threatened, Andre and Joe, Andre being 8 at the time, they were both verbally attacked by a neighbour, and there lives threatened in no uncertain terms, due to them being non British!! We've had death threats, and papercut threats through our post, we have had our animals let out contsatly, onto our veg gardens... also calls to the R.S.P.C.A saying we had gone abroad and left all our animals to starve, the officer was most suprised to find us in the country, let alone home tending our animals... all the animals were healthy happy and well fed, he later rang me the following week saying some one really had it in for us as he had another annomuns letter sent to his office full of lies.... So they have tried everything over the years to get us out.... Oh also they bombarded the council planning department with complaints against us, even getting lies sent in in letters which are on my planning file, I must say they have never hurt an animal or endangered them, (except my fish, which they wouldnt have known would have been there..) but now with our dogs that we have on site they wouldnt be safe coming on our land nowadays.... Its sad that people cant live and let live, any how i'm feeling calmer now and know that all the eveidence I'm collecting and the film footage will soon add up and some one will pay soon...Even the police said that with all the evidence they have, when they find some one in the act they will have the book thrown at them!! Good thats what I think.....GOOD...

Right my rant is over I'm off to bed with one eye open to catch these idiots that are about..xx

A rainy day....

 Woke up early today, to the lovely sound of rain hammering on the caravan roof, me thinks its an ideal wash day, plenty of rain water has collected in our butts, there is so much to do, but even I'm not mad enough to work on the farm in this awful rain we are having,

At least its good for the grass.....I used to suffer from grass envy, as our place was always a mud pit but now I have grass stress or even grass sickness!! It just wont stop growing.... I keep cutting it with my lawn mower as I'm worried about it, as it so young I believe you have to keep it short, well I just cant wait for the sheep to come and take over from me...We need to put a fence all round that field and keep the chickens free ranging in there, as at the moment they are running all over the place we have to watched Sheba the German Shepherd like a hawk as she has some sort of 6th sence as to where the chickens are laying, we must ave 30 laying hens, but I seem to never get to the eggs, the dogs have lovely shiny coats though!!!!

Chicken love..

We love there greetings in the morning we are ambushed by all of the chucks wanting there breakfast, Louis has a pet Rhode Isle cockeral who follows him everywhere and sits on his head...but if we manage to keep them on the grass they should benifit from that and we should have a good chance of getting to the eggs before the dogs, also they will add nitrogen to the grass and make it grow even faster!!! Grown...

Andre has struck a deal with a local Buff Orpington breeder, we found out that at a few weeks old she necks all the cockerals we felt it was a terrible waste and what if she was making mistake I have no idea how she can be sure at that age!! So every few weeks she calls Andre and we pick up another batch of upto 20 young chicks, he has a very good  rate most of them live, we have found that the blacks and the lavenders are slower and not so strong, if any die it is of these colours... we give her some of our produce every now and then. as  a thankyou....

      The cats are in hiding they hate this weather... We have a lovely Snow Marble male kitten he must be 13 weeks old by now hes been advertised on Preloved website for £150 and no ones jumped yet, most suprising, surely the recesion hasnt got to cat owners...

We have a had huge delivery of animal feed from Banwy feeds, just down the road I like to keep plenty in....Andre is outside feeding all the animals this morning, hes a very good boy...Ho hum the rain continues, shall I go and get a watering can full for a shower or shall I go down the health club for a swim, and shower first of course!!

 We are off to Hungary again for a week in october..In Hungary this is our local Tesco hyper market!!! Its all a bit different life out there. At a slower pace with unusual sites all over the place...It like stepping back in time, untill you bump into Tesco...lol.... This is in Kalocsa which is 10 mins away from the village we stay in heres a view out of our window... the neighbours... Self sufficiency is the norm there...

 This is the neighbour, they sell un pasturised milk for all the local kids, you see all the moms peddling up on there bikes to collect some milk for there babies and kids, most worrying... here the neighbour is cooking over an open fire they had just killed a pig and she is boiling up lumps of fat, she will keep the lard for cooking and sprinke the cooked lumps with seasoning and eat them like pork scratching, really tasty but not too ood for cholesteral...The local council workers bring her all the lawn and grass cutting all day long in there little pick ups and tip it out for her to feed th cattle, they are all teathered, i got up one morning to see if i could still milk a cow... and I could, they milk all there cattle by hand and leave a milk churn at the end of the road for the tanker to pick up,  i have also seen another neighbour boiling up her washing in a similar fashion.... even more hard work than my style!!!



The Health club..

 Thats my one little luxury, as we home educate the children and  we thought they may miss out on sports acticitys, so we joined Rowton Castle Country club, its got 3 swimming pools, sauna, steam rooms, jacuzzi, tennis courts, table tennis, childrens activity groups and clubs including achery, the children all swim beautifully now, and we enjoy the gym too, even the kids have a gym club with full supervision, I know its a big luxury at £100 per month for our family of 5 but its lovely having a hot shower and a relax after the hard work here, its good for the kids they are developing friendships, the staff are lovely and friendly, its a bit on the well worn and tired side and there are posher places but its good value and just perfect for us, I've been struggling with my back a lot lately and have also taken up, yoga, pilates, and even belly dancing. With in 6 weeks I felt a huge difference, stronger toned up and buzzing with energy, well worht it!!!

This is me!!!! the mad woman who runs the funny farm..

The 6 weeks wait is over... Decision ...

Well it came a little bit earlier than they said,, I suppose you would like to hear the answer.......

We WON!!!!!!!

 
The inspector totally got what we were up to, he understood us, he pointed out that we needed time to finish our work and that if we were thrown out like the council wanted within the 6 month period that would mean we aould be out in mid winter, how would we care for our animals etc... Well what a nice man!!!!

WE ARE OFFICIALLY GYPSIES!!!!

According to council policy and guidelines we are officially recognised as Gypsies, we are following a gypsiy life, we fullfill all the criterium in there paper work.... you dont have to be ethnically a gypsy but to fall into line with there official guidelines...

We are given 20 months stay!!!

He gave us until May the 1st 2012 he pointed out that this was good time for us with the summer in fromt of us for travels....

 Once again he showed that he totally understood us, he also, at the hearing said you will be putting in for planning and you will be appealing if they turn you down??? I feel he was telling us something there... So after getting very excited and hyper ventilating a lot, I rang Les Stephan Planning Associates to give them the good news, they were so pleased for us and said the Gypsy status is very important, we have decided together to put in for planning straight away whilst the council has the words ringing in there ears ....

Oversion to living with in bricks and mortar!!!

3 times the Inspector refered to my oversion of normal life and houses made of bricks and mortar.... Well I just want to live on my own land with my lovely family and enjoy self sufficiency..

So a new chapter open in our lives...

We are now feeling settled for the first time in our married life, we have a home, we are doing this for us!!

We are planning now our futures  on our holding, our veg patch has to be huge next year, we have to have a house cow, making butter, cheese and enjoying our own milk, we need to keep bees, we soon have our sheep arrive to eat our fresh grass that is now growing too much..


We have a batch of pigs ready to go to the butchers and to sell our meaty products we also have a Dexter beef animal ready to kill too, we are producing all our own eggs now, and about to kill some of our home bred and reared meat cockerals.

Iron age pigs .....

We are now looking into wild boar x Tamworths, this is the direction we are going into, our neighbour is homing our, large white pair to help with there veg patch digging, We have been given our first Iron age boar and have arranged to have some Tamworth wives too.... our Middle White x Oxford and Sandy Black had 8 healthy piglets and all are doing well...

A  Very Sad day!

Sadly Babe my Belgium blue sow, deserted her lovely maternity quarters in the middle of the night during a horific storm and gave birth to 13 piglets which she sadly drowned in her mud patch she had created, most sad, we now know that next time she has to be locked in her straw bed kit and not allowed to follow her miss guided instincts,

She was broken hearted, I had to fish out all the little ones and leave them in a line for her to see dead, as she kept looking for them all and got very upset, rubbing up to me her sadness was very clear to see, but once she saw them all she stopped and allowed me to dispose of there bodies, her milk quickly dried up. A very sad day..

So I really must get into the habit of blogging now we really are going all out for self sufficency.. we are having a weeks hol and animal sitters are moving in then we move forward, no more dreams all has to work, we are going to look into a new home firstly...

Our new home an ARTIC FRIDGE LORRY BACK...

Yes we have decided living in the caravan is far too costly during the winter, we need a well insulated home, we will be installing recycled double glazed white windows and patio doors, we need to look into some way of digging our own boar hole and getting frsh water, at the moment our well is full of stinking brown surface water...

Log burners a necessity, all that wood laying around here, we need to heat oursleves and be able to have showers.. I have been skip diving and found a shower, I just need a better water supply, but i'm not ready to ditch the watering can yet!!!

The roof of our building must go on so we can store our impliments in the dry.


Poly tunnel...

Well sometimes we are so lucky, a lady emailed me and offered me a huge 12.5m x 8.5m poly tunnel well its actually a swimming pool enclosure and cost over £12k its just had a new cover and was all our dreams come true.... we borrowed our friends lorry he runs his own removal business Kynastons Relocations and is based in Guilsfield hes a good friend and we appreciated his hel,. we drove off and slept in a heap on a pile of blankets in the back, one day of work later and our polytunnel was loaded , it was a very pleasent drive to Cambridgeshire, we will be putting it up very soon, and moving the old one onto our veg patch..The diesel came to £100 and we gave John £50 to say thanks... it was a great adventure...

We will also be looking into Diesel production from veg oil..
Also researching some sort of heat safe or store for our new poly tunnel, we want to heat it all year to supply us with all year round veggies..
We went to a strawberry farm just past Aberystwyth who grows them off the ground in polystyriene pots so we will be collecting poly boxes and having strawberry tunnels, we have been down to Coed y Dinas our local super store country store type thing that had a huge sale strawberry plants for 50p and they even had loads of runners on them ... yes.. free plants....


So let me know... how many of you are there out there reading this, is it interesting?? what else do you want to know??? Should I write a book about our adventures?? as I think they are about to really begin!!!

The Hearing RESULTS!!

Well I know its taken me long enough to post the results.

 Let me tell you all how it went...

Well from the beging the inspector seemed really nice and extremely fair, straight away he pointed out many errors in the councils paper work, he told them off for racist behaviour towards us, he told them that they were being unreasonable, we went down the road of gypsy status to help us with our planning, he told them off for lack of preperation and not providing him with the information which was needed by him to make his decision.
He asked us lots of questions, but told us from the begining due to us not paying the full fees he could only determine the length of time we would be allowed to stay on our land and not the possibility of giving us planning permision
The council said 6 months was the max that we needed to stay her and we were asking for him to consider 2 years...

My man who kindly represented me for nothing, told them quite clearly that if it had been heard on all aspects he would have wiped the floor with the council and we would have easily been able to prove that permision should have been granted... mmm I wished i'd been able to find all the moneys but it was impossible for us... £700 is alot for us... well the enforcement officer brought legal representation, which the Inspector said was un reasonable behaviour in the hearing, as it was supposed to be informal chats not a court of law, Nick Morgan was the inforcement officer, hes nice enough chap to talk to but is young and full of the power his position gives him or well he thinks it gives him.it felt like he flexed his muscles bringing it to the appeal and then sat back expecting the inspector to do the dead, he hardly spoke and looked very uncomfortable throughout.

The inspector questioned us to determine our lifestyle, Jo's ethnicity, and basically what we were up to.. the councils solicitor argued that we were not Gypsies and accused us of lying, where they got told off agian, we were very truthful and tried to explain about our lifestyle, the children behaved perfectly throughout. after a couple of hours the inspector adjurned to site..

They wanted to inspect the contents of my freezer!!!!

So on site the inspector walked up and down asking the enforcement officer if he had a problem here, here and here, that was in 3 different location each time he responded no!! mmm
we went down the bottom of the land and showed him the pigs, one of which was looking like she was ready to pop... the inspector said that at any time I needed to go to her to help her I could leave the meeting.

We showed him all the chickens on our newly laid grass in there individual breading pens, Buff Orpingtons, Blue Jeursey Giants, Rhodes, Light Sussex, various young chicks we had bred, Mr. Morgan (the enforcement officer) rather stupidly admitted in the hearing in the village hall that he hadn't been on site for months not even driven past so scoffed and said what a mess it was, and that not even a blade of grass could be sustained on our land, well he lived to regret that..he had even put that in writting...

We have a large veg patch growing, garlic, onions, peas, various beans, sunflowers, grape vines, maize, potatoes, strawberrys, herbs, etc etc... he face was a picture he didnt know we had a huge field of grass now, he said" Wheres all the mud gone?" I explained to him that the pigs had done there work on that patch and now had moved on to another... we had a good 12" of grass growing.... on returning to the top of site where the caravan is the inspector finally asked well where do you have a problem?? He explained that he didnt like our caravan and our porta cabin.... so we argued that the cabin was ansillary to the farm we have freezers in there for the meats for sale and the farm records, medications and some tools kept in there, Mr. Morgan begged to differ he thought it was all nonsence and that is was primary use was for personal things, this is when he asked to be shown in, after looking and standing back outside they still said they felt the majority of the space was used for domestic use, I argued that the huge freezers contained meat for sale and the american fridge freezer that stood empty was for my hams etc when curing, he then asked to see the contents of my deep freeze, I laughed and thought he was joking but no... my freezer was inspected, it only had meat for sale in, with a very small amount of frozen milk.. I felt humiliated, it was left to the inspector to later decide on the final use of said cabin...

The inspector noted we had our American caravan here to do up ready for our travels, he pointed out that the council couldnt touch us on that, also that they could say nothing about the building materials on site or our cars, we chatted over a few things and felt quite hopeful but no desision was given on this day, but all that witnessed it said that it seemed very fair and that the coucil came over in quite a bad light, suggesting that it was a waste of tax payers moneys...We said our good byes and declarred a stay cation, we were told that the decission would be with us within 6 weeks.... we had 2 weeks of doing nothing other that feeding our animals, the kids loved it, but I soon got fed up of doing nothing...