Smallholdings..reality check..

[Tiredbutstanding]

Just wondered .....how many people have gone down the smallholding route and how you are finding it (honestly)?

We bought one around 3 years ago, when the dc were 4 and 6...We did up the property and have had ponies, chickens, sheep, etc on the land, vegetable patches galore- bought the T shirt etc and so far, so................. utterly, utterly exhausted!

But.... I've now fallen out of love with it...My dh is constantly away - leaving me to manage it all 24/7 during the week ..I work (freelance from home - which means I'm on my own all day). I would love to work outside the home but can't due to the feeding schedule each morning, poo picking, topping up water etc getting kids to school etc, and as I can't leave the dog for more than 4-5 hours..We live in the middle of nowhere and there is no community as such.

So the reality is that I am very isolated and unfortunately, as a family we can NEVER go away (eg to pop to a friends for the weekend, or do any UK tourism stuff). And to actually have holiday for a week would mean paying for someone to come in and stay...which is unfeasible...

Weekends are spent completing HOURS of land management basics -mending fences, harrowing, pruning, weeding etc and the kids just don't seem too interested in the outdoor lifestyle any more ........so believe it or not they are INSIDE while we are OUTSIDE for most of the year (apart from high summer when they'll be playing outside).

Dh understands my isolation and the fact that I'm finding it too much ...anyone else find it hard or am I just utterly useless all round?
Very strongly tempted to move, get myself a job outside the home (arrange doggie daycare somehow!) and feel my age -only 40- instead of retired!!!!

Hope this isn't depressing reading for anyone considering a smallholding!

I haven't, and reading your post just cements the difference between the dream and the reality. I love the idea of the rural idyll, but in relaity I want to be able to have lie ins, go on holiday and have more choices. Are you seriously thinking of jacking it in?

Thank you for this. It is a timely reality check for me, as we have recently been considering doing this.

I can't even keep up with my veg patch, personally, so god only knows how I was thinking I could handle a smallholding.

I would love a small holding, but when I retire (early hopefully). I've never lived on a farm but have kept various animals etc and know that I personally wouldn't be able to juggle a young family and work and the rest.

I'm itching to buy horses again, but I just don't have the time.

If its making you unhappy then perhaps you should look to sell, I know from experience when you fall out of love with something you begin to resent it.

Keeping land and animals is 99% work IMO, and if you get pleasure from that work - great, but if not - its one long drudge.

And rural life is isolated - if you like your own company great, if you need some stimulation and have children to ferry around socialise then it makes life harder.

Thanks for your messages - yes, CHNL we are seriously considering selling up...a lie in ...what is this?...holiday?..nope, gone blank here...!

You are right - a lifestyle has to work for the whole family and yes, resentment can set in if communication is not kept alive or if one person clings to a situation which is just too much for the other. Fortunately my dh realises the strain on me - and is supportive of changing the lifestyle. (He'd be in rather hot water if he objected, seeing as his job takes him to five star hotels, Champagne and lots of great fun events - he's in PR..so yes, it is rather lovely for him to come home to a rural idyll....but he knows I'm going stir crazy so something has to give....

Rhubarb - don't let me put you off! You may well really enjoy it - I don't know your situation, and you may be my age also with kids... so again it could be too full on for you also....but if you were nearer to retirement age ..... I know many who are very happy looking after their animals and just 'being' on the land as they don't feel they need a corporate life/buzzy social life any more....or their friends come to them and stay (even MORE exhausting for me sorry...!)..

I do have a friend who had an allotment last year and, asking her how it was going, she looked a bit sheepish and said it had been too much work so she'd packed it in before Christmas (and not mentioned it in ALL this time!)..so I felt a bit better!

Oreo - you are correct that trying to run a small holding whilst working, raising children and if alone most of the time is not ideal...it is nice to hear I'm not being unreasonable or lazy (which I had thought for a long time).

I'll be very sad to leave, particularly having made it (just) through another fairly harsh winter (less snow - hurrah!) however I will not miss treking up hills to break through ice at watering troughs three times a day...

Probably a bad time to make a decision as you have just come through the Winter, always a bad time. I have a small farm and find it OK. The horses are hard work but they are my life so I dont mind. The cattle are no trouble 95% of the time, they only take a few minutes in the morning just to check they have 4 legs and chuck them some hay..TB testing or treating lameness not fun though..the chickens are more hassle as stuff always wants to eat them but if I am going out for the day I will just leave them in their ark with plenty of food and water. Dogs are a tie true but there is usually someone who will dog sit. If I go on holiday I get a friend to house sit the small animals and pay a groom to do the horses. I am used to this lifestyle though and I also work FT so get some normal life too :-)

Oh and I do get lie ins- I get up, do the animals then go back to bed!

Perhaps it is just me - I find the combination of youngish children, hubby away most of the time, and working from home instead of externally amongst others, could be the straws breaking the proverbial back....

You are right though Pony, making a decision, post winter, is possibly hasty...On the ponies front - I have a 14H Cob who is great, and one of my daughters has a 13.2hh on loan- the other just gave up riding as she'd outgrown the Shetland and didn't want to continue.

Keeping the smallholding just to keep the ponies is tempting but deep down I know that reality is that I have to ride alone all the time as no-one seems to ride out round here (they are mostly into dressage/SJ) and the riding is sadly pretty awful- mainly on road. I have advertised, asked around and visited local liveries (who only seem to ride out together I guess as it is easy to organise). Hence I thought if we sell up, I could move my Cob to a livery yard near to a common and hopefully find others who might ride out too?

Also my 9 year old daughter is really nervous - she will only ride happily in a friend's sandschool instead of hacking out (riding school for 6 months but they NEVER hacked them out in the local woods?? Is this due to insurance?).

So she won't hack out with me even if I lead from my Cob. The fact that she doesn't voluntarily help much with the pony (sorry, really moaning on here!!) means that yes it will be painful to find him a new family... BUT I could move her to a riding school where she could help out with the other kids and not find riding a lonely experience....and hopefully start to ride out with other kids? So lots of issues at stake.

I've also been exploring how I could work outside the home..but we are fairly remote and neighbours won't have the dog on a regular basis (have offered to have theirs of course!) and friends live too far away. So need a doggie daycare solution - but after doing animals, dropping kids at school I'd then need to drive on to doggie place ..I'm not sure I'd make a 9am start anywhere due to our distance from a local town..

It probably seems I'm seeing only the negative - just trying to find solutions..There's going to be a positive way to sort it out ..just evaluating options..

Before you give it all up what about selling in the bigger animals, keeping the horses and dogs and advertising for a groom or a local teenager who will do the horse work in return for riding out? If possible see could they take the dogs for a walk during the day for a few quid?

I grew up on a beef farm so I know how tying it is, we do DIY livery now and even that is tying, especially since we don't live on site and run it on my parents behalf. It's bloody hard work. Best of luck sorting it out.

Been there, done that. I was a little younger than you and single - got fed up with being. "On duty", 45 minute round trip for milk, never being able to leave or work late, or, or.

Sold up in 2008 and now have my horse in full livery (sold second horse) and own a 3 bed house (with wee garden) within walking distance to shops and station.

Perhaps in the future I'd go back and live in similar, but not unless both parties are at home/retired.

Oh and can I throw in the words "money pit" for good measure?

Money pit is very true. We've spent 5k plus just defending the whole lot and paddock. Not that out renters are happy, they never bloody are. We have re roofed it too and re wired. Still they moan, this weeks whinge is that the fields are muddy. [weeps]

On second thought, sell the bloody lot and I back and be employed by someone else.

I think its ok to go which ever way you feel you need to. Excellent point about waiting untill winter is not so fresh on the mind - to be honest when I think of buying horses the first thing that comes to mind is the cold, wet mud, and the toil of just looking after them, rather than the good times.

Could you afford someone to help? Do you have an outbuilding/annex that could be turned into accomodation and get a farm hand to live on site and do a lot of the work?

I feel for you about not having anyone to ride out with. I had that problem, and didn't find an answer. There were girls at a yard on the coast who I could go and ride with but use their horses as it was too much of a faff to load mine up and take for a couple of hours hack.

Do you do livery at your yard? Could you without stepping on other places toes? Might be a way to get some nice girls up there and to ride out. And have someone to phone to turn your horses out/in etc if something comes up That was my job when I had horses, I seemed to be everyones run arround. One day when the dentist was coming I had my 2, plus 5 other horses to sort out as everyone got held up .

I ran a smallholding (croft) for several years before I met dh plus worked as a freelance gardener.

The only way I could get into a routine was to get up stupidly very early, feed everything, check what needed mending, etc.
the smallholding was enough to supply my 2 dcs and I with food plus eggs and the gardening brought in some extra income. You would never make a fortune but do cut down on food bills.

I would dispel the rural idyll myth. It is hard work, long hours, weather influenced, dirty work and low income. No holidays and a total commitment. Remote and often snowed in or reliant on a working car.
Everything which needed doing had to be pounced on straight away as there was no money to get someone in to do it.

On the plus side plenty fresh air, good food, safe enough for children and you work with the seasons. there may be more plusses but I cannot think of them just now.

Good earners for you OP would be turkeys, three years for Christmas trees or a petting farm (although lots of H&S rules to consider).

I often think people get carried away by the rose tinted specs idea of a small holding but the reality is very different especially if you are on your own.

Some friends of my parents got a smallholding in the early 70s and still love it. However their big interest is rare breeds and I think that is what drives them on - it wasn't just about the life, it was also about having an over-riding sense of purpose and feeling that all the hard work was achieving something greater than them.

Tired I am at precisely the wrong point in my life to be considering it. I have a toddler and another on the way. We recently fell in love with a house that had land and outbuildings and all my long-held fantasies of animal ownership loomed large. In the end though we decided not to bid for several reasons - I had a whole long anguished thread on here on it! Right now we need village/town facilities and low maintenance animals/garden. The crazy thing is, even reading this thread with all the downsides crystal clear, I still find myself hankering after the rural idyll. Maybe one day. -or perhaps I could just come and help with your horses--

I've just done a smallholding course. Well, it was a two dayer on the couple's farm. My objective was to really see what it was like in horrible weather and get a feel for her day to day schedule. I have to say she didn't seem terribly knocked out by it all which I found curious. OP: I really think what you describe is what a lot of people may experience. But she sounded more like pony.

THe course felt a bit like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall live. I'm not sure I'm better informed as to how it would be for me. I'm not sure having an allotment or a veg garden necessarily compares in terms of whether you have apetitude/enough interest. I think if you'd went youd have to embrace it all- you'd be forced to most likely. Whereas that allotment is out of sight out of mind or would be for me.

Also you never know how much cash these people have stored up before they do it, if they are not retirement age. I got the disinct feeling she was independently wealthy - and I think knowing that was 'there' for you would make a big difference to how trapped you felt on the cold, dark, and miserable days!!!

Would love for this thread to re-engage...

tiredbut- you sound very sad, but it does sound as though your expectations were far removed from reality.
I have often considered doing this, but the sheer slog of constant upkeep has always put me off- it is such a huge commitment. Everything I try to grow in our garden dies- simply because we do not have the time to keep it maintained. (hell- even my houseplants die tbh) [not proud of this]

We don't have a small holding but do have land - 13 acres. yes we are retired BUT we were determined not to make a chore of it. So we have a small veg pach, a dozen fruit trees, large garden area and 'play field' which is always cut, haslow maintenance shrubs just plonked around AND THE REST (about 11 acres) JUSTMCUT FOR HAY ONCE A YEAR in a contra deal with a contractor. They cut and bale, keep the hay and take it away at no cost to us. We found a young couple who,live in a pokey flat in town 15 mins away who LOVE dog and chicken sitting for us so we can get away. Perhaps you could rearrange what you have and with some compromise have the best of all worlds.

We have a small holding & only have a small flock of sheep. We're renovating the place and I can;t wait to move there. Its been in DH's family for about 100 yrs. Its got lovely views, 6 acres & is in a small village but the last house as you exit. Only 2 miles from where we live now so we know the area very well.

Chickens are on the "to do" list!

yankee that sounds amazing...

Aylsham how did you find your place?

LadyHarriet - its a wonderful place. Kids aren't amused (why would the be!?) but its our "forever" - cost a bloody fortune to do it up so it better be the forever house! Its coming to an end & I hope to be in there within 4 weeks! Its the kind of village on a hillside where it can snow - but drive 2 miles down the road not a flake can be on the ground (when I found out 2 yrs ago and got stuck in it).

Gorgeous views of the Irish Sea & the Snowdonia hills behind me. Bliss.

I grew up on a smallholding. I now refuse to have even a single pet. We could never go on holiday and my parents were constantly dealing with goats or chickens or making cheese or nettle wine and so never had time for us. And the chores! All that shit to shovel! No thanks.

I live on a farm and its far from idilic! We used to farm it and at first thought it was fantastic, then relaility clicked in, spending time on my own, looking after a newborn baby and feeding animals, having no lazy family time long wet days, grubby finger nails, money slipping through our fingers, debt, cancelling friends as too much going on....endless. At the same time we ran two other business one of which we continue to run - in construction. We also renovating Grade II farmhouse. We now rent the land out on tack. Much easier but always busy here.

A small holding isnt cost effective as the animals need feed, vets etc its a drain.

Its a tough & expensive life - can be lonely too! I totally understand you want to pack it all in.

Lady H - we were looking for two years, it's in Cornwall and we moved here from the midlands after we'd retired. But we were lucky to have a good budget - baby boomers that the rest of you are paying for now, sadly!

This was interesting to read - I think about land in the future.

For now we are taking on a derelict garden to see if I can manage that and the house, a doctorate and a child with SN. The house we have bought is opposite a small allotments area which has a 3-4 yr waiting list. So if i can cope with the garden, then the allotment, I might consider the smallholding. But with DH utterly disinterested in growing things then it really only me so might be impossible

I'd say you need a good wedge of money or a continual trickle of decent money. In general the properties need maintenance, driveways, fencing etc and unless you have a rural/construction skill then you'll be paying through the nose for everything. Animals need feeding and the costs have soared plus meds are extremely high. On the subject of growing/raising your own I would say it would cost you more than buying. Raising animals for the freezer is an expensive hobby, trips to the not so local aborttior finding a decent butcher, collection again and paperwork. Growing again is labour intensive and the gluts. We are planning an orchard and will be growing some of our own however we will be employing a gardener and currently I have a cleaner once a week (not enough really!). You have the risks with diseases/aliments/vets fees/worming/injury. One of you needs to be extremely strong and have stamina as animals are strong and will drag you around and can be very dangerous - dont under estimate the damage a sheep can do. Chickens are easy and are excellent to keep, providing you with exceptional eggs however they eat and will plough throw grain (find a local grain producer dont buy retail). I dont own horses however, we have a livery yard. Pigs are great too.

I would love to have geese again and other animals but hubby is right that its all additional hassle at the end of a tough day.

Leaving the place is always a worry not just the odd animal but security, we had a raid a while ago and its left me nervous.

Very machinery intensive, and good machinery costs, the maintenace and parts are extreme, much of it only used for a few months of the year.