Installing Indoor Cat Tree

[Colin and Sian]

I wonder if anyone can help? Col and I are starting to think about getting a smallholding and keeping chickens, pigs and getting a polytunnel and veg patch. We reckon two acres would be about right. We wouldn't move house as would still have to work so would be looking to rent a couple of acres from a local farmer. The problem is that I've searched the web for ages and can't find a ball park figure for how much a couple of acres would be per month - all the ones advertised on dedicated web sites are with houses on. Does anyone have any ideas? We live in Northamptonshire.

 

(I've posted this on a few other web forums but in all honesty this one is by far the busiest and most knowledgable about most things that I've come across.)

 

Thanks

 

Sian

 

PS All this started from getting an eglu and two chickens a couple of months ago!!!

[Lesley]

hhmmmmmm..... well, look where an Eglu and two chickens got us!!!!

 

I don't know the answer to your question but have you tried the It's Not Easy Being Green forum?

 

http://www.itsnoteasybeinggreen.org/forum/

[Colin and Sian]

Thanks for that - I've just registered so will bombard them with questions shortly!!

[Sheilaz]

No idea, but have you tried River Cottage forum? Several members seem to have small holdings or small farms, as well as the urbanites like me. There will of course be a great regional difference, but it may give you more of an idea what to aim for.

Good luck with the project, and please keep us posted on any developments so the rest of us can dream the dream, if not living the dream! I don't know what I'd do without Lesley's Good Life to aspire to!

[Colin and Sian]

What a lovely message - thank you. I'll register with River Cottage and keep you up to date.

 

Thanks

 

Sian

[N&J]

It may be a little far but the BCA run a course 'How to set up a Small holding' we were meant to go in Feb but it got cancelled. It last 6 weeks for a couple of hours on a Wed night.

[Colin and Sian]

Sounds interesting. Who are the BCA?

[Tina C]

Was reading this today - there are some links that might help (haven't looked at them but remembered your post while I was reading the article)

 

Good luck with your search.

 

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article1424140.ece

[N&J]

The BCA are the Berkshire College of Agriculture

 

a couepl fo friends have been there and they run good quality courses

 

http://www.bca.ac.uk/

 

http://www.bca.ac.uk/Parttime/animalcare.htm

 

we are planning to attend the next sitting of the Setting up a small holding course

[Colin and Sian]

Thanks for that. The newspaper article is great - makes me very very jealous.

 

Col and I are having a really hard time getting hold of some land. We've written to every farmer in the yellow pages in the area asking if they have any land they could rent / sell us but none can - the only ones that got back in touch are tennant farmers who can't sublet. It's so frustrating - we live in the country and drive home through country lanes - we keep looking at fields that obviously aren't being used and thinking "if only we could find out who omws them...?" But it's impossible!!!

 

We're going to put an advert in our local magazine that gets delieverd to all the houses in the area and hope that that brings somethin up. After that we're a bit stuck.

 

The only other option is to move - we could JUST afford somewhere in South Lincs but it would be a big financial committment which seems to defeat the object - the dream is that we both go part time when we do it. And we've got jobs and friends here that would be hard to leave - but we can't think about anything else!!!!!

 

It's so hard!!!!!!

 

Any ideas?

 

Will let you know what happens

 

Sian

[Egluntyne]

Best of luck.

[Helly Welly]

Good luck with the search.

 

I wish i had the opportunity to start up a smallholding, if i win the lottery that i don't play, i'm moving to Wales

[N&J]

We have some of the same issues - we can afford a small holding but we would have the same mortgage as we have now. So what we have decided to do is set ourselves a time frame - 2009 and by the end of that year we need to be living the dream.

 

Until then we are learning as much as we can and trying to make more money (ebay), saving and making over payments on the mortgage. Bascially we now sell all our old clothes, furntiure, stuff in the loft etc.

 

So even though we are still on the treadmill we can see the end - so evey extra penny goes in the jar........

 

One thing that we noticed is we reduced out mortage term by 1 year and by doing that (it increased it by £80 a month but compared to the previous mortage year we paid an extra £5,000 of the mortgage.

 

we have used som eof the principles from the 'Pay of your mortage in 2years programme and it seems to be paying off

[Cinnamon]

Interesting - we have a time plan too

 

Our mortgage will be paid off in 8 years (I think!), so we want to sell up & move to somewhere with more land & a means of income (holiday lets maybe) when we are clear of the mortgage.

 

The children will be independant by then we hope, & our house is worth much more than we paid for it - so we are thinking of France as we can get so much more for our money over there.

And its warmer too

 

I have been steadliy selling off anything we no longer need on Ebay for the past few years.It has been really successful

 

To be honest we could do it now,s our mortgage is mall anyhow, but we want to get the childrens education finished here first.

 

Its a lot to think about, isn't it?

[N&J]

We are down to 13 years and likewise being in Henley the proces always seem to be going up. We can't afford anything round here so we will head west or back ooop north to get more for our money.

 

Ebay has been great way of making a few bob - and we stick stuff in the loft for a bit and if we don't need it we sell it.

[chelsea]

its always been a dream of mine to live in the middle of nowhere, have lots of land, I couldnt care less what the house was like, as long has I could have animals and no neighbours so I could have noisey cockrels and lots of chickens, a few pigs, goats, an orchard etc etc.

 

I've lived in Devon all my life, it is SO expensive down here though. To buy even a small house with say 1to 2 acres of land your looking at minimum £450-500,000 pounds . There are so many 2nd and 3rd home/holiday home owners in the region which has really pushed up prices for people like us looking for a house of our dreams.

 

We are considering maybe buying some land and getting a mobile home to live in on it. That would be cheaper.

[ali-s]

Up here is quite reasonably priced at the moment Property and land gets snapped up quickly

 

My nearest town, well it is classed as a city is the fourth fastest growing place in Scotland. Last year house prices went up 24% compared to something silly like 2% for the rest of Scotland.

 

We are still dithering as to move or not I have been desperate to move for 2 years now Last year we were very silly not to go for a particular property in the middle of nowhere. It was a lovely little house with 8 acres, its own water supply and a natural stream running throught the 11/2 acre garden, Goat and chicken sheds included. A snip at £175,000. I could kick myself now and kick OH who put me off

 

A field amd a caravan would suit me fine