My dream life...

... is living on a farm, in an idyllic house in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape with outbuildings that have character, with a huge vegetable garden and orchard buzzing with bees and chickens running around in the garden and ducks and goats and sunshine all day and spring/summer/fall all year and just the right amount of work and no hardship. With a room overlooking the orchard and an old-fashioned typewriter by the window where I can write books whilst my kids play hide & seek outside.

So, what did I do, selfless as I am? I gave my dear British Boy a present for Christmas. A smallholder tasting weekend at Mumbleys Farmhouse. Max, despite his somewhat stiff upper lip posh appearance, has grown up on a farm and knows very well what it entails to run one, to have the smell of goat hovering around ones nostrils 24/7, riding around on a tractor, making hay and doing all this even when it's not a perfect 20 degrees and sunny outside. Well, so I thought he really really really needed to attend this course, which basically gives town folks an introduction to hobby farming... Erm, it was a course for 2, so he was free to chose WHOMEVER he wanted to join him in this endeavour. What a lovely wife I am...

So, the man knows what's good for him and he chose to take me along. Here is what we did last weekend - we drove towards Bristol, found ourselves in a lovely little inn to spend the night and in the morning, under a few pristinely white clouds in a sparkly blue sky, we drove down a rustic lane, flanked by lush green shrubs and trees and birds singing to arrive and see this:

Holy cow, I mean, goat, that is FARM PORN!!!

We spend the day on the farm, being introduced by the very personable, knowledgeable Jules to all her animals and the high level basics of farming. We started off with the goats, then went to hens, ducks, geese, which I found amazing and I definitely want some. Shortly before lunch, we looked at bees. We donned beekeeper suits, opened hives and searched for queens. None of this was news to me, as my dad's a beekeeper, but it was interesting for Max.

 

Lunch was ham from the farm's pigs, quiches (under the cloth arches), potatoes and salads along with freshly baked rolls. Oh, and two puddings. It was delicious!

After having filled our bellies, we put on our wellies and went to see the sheep and the pigs. I definitely want to have pigs to raise and maybe even some sheep. I mean, look at that face:

Bacon in the making..

 

The pigs were amazing and that is the only way to raise them for me to stand behind eating them.

The day was great, whilst I am not walking away feeling like I could start a small holding straight away, it gave me a much needed perspective of what I want to do - definitely not breed sheep; yes to fattening lambs and pigs and maybe even veal; 100% yes to bees, goats, chickens (both meat birds and egg layers) and a big fat resounding YESSIR to growing my own veg. Which we already do now in our garden.

It was a fantastic weekend - and after that whole day of small-holdering, we went to eat at a lovely place. The next post's subject.