Our most recent video is on "Homestead Guilt". Another YouTuber raised it and it's all too real. The dream seems wonderful - the reality is unpulled wees, unpainted walls and hedges that need cutting
Homestead Failure
- Thread starter British Red
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Great video as always.
There are only so many hours in the day and I think we can all be guilty of letting the task list get us down
There are only so many hours in the day and I think we can all be guilty of letting the task list get us down
Slightly OT but I work in London and the amount of friends and colleagues who dream of buying an old cottage and growing their own food etc is staggering.
Most of them haven’t owned a house let alone a garden never mind the stress of failed/spoiled crops or poorly animals.
Most of them haven’t owned a house let alone a garden never mind the stress of failed/spoiled crops or poorly animals.
The concept of controlling nature is faintly ridiculous, the ideal of perfectly manicured lawns or is for city folk. Accept what you can and can’t achieve but you’re right when you say it isn’t an easy life. We used to vlog but found people got obsessed and became increasingly intrusive.
To say nothing of the many skills needed, yesterday, I was stripping the bark off tree trunks to make post and rail fencing. Without the proper tools it's not that easy, and tools are not cheap. It saves a lot of money, in the long run, but takes time instead.
To people used to a good wage and being able to buy what they want , when they want it, the concept of making stuff from scratch is one towny transplants struggle with quite often. Everything Hugh and Fiona says is so true.
But its a satisfying thing to do when things go right. Heatwrenching and frustrating when you have failures. (Burnt chutney comes to mind!)
Yesterday, we also discovered rats had got into the netted raised beds and dug up and eaten all the dwarf beans we lovingly planted last week!
The pop pop bang bang will have to come out and play. Not a favourite job, but part of this sort of life.
To people used to a good wage and being able to buy what they want , when they want it, the concept of making stuff from scratch is one towny transplants struggle with quite often. Everything Hugh and Fiona says is so true.
But its a satisfying thing to do when things go right. Heatwrenching and frustrating when you have failures. (Burnt chutney comes to mind!)
Yesterday, we also discovered rats had got into the netted raised beds and dug up and eaten all the dwarf beans we lovingly planted last week!
The pop pop bang bang will have to come out and play. Not a favourite job, but part of this sort of life.
I think for a couple or family with little kids needing to go to school there is a crazy amount of work to be done by whoever is the stay at home, that's why when it was a more common way of life in the past, lots of children to help out with the chores and leaving school after junior school or only a few years of secondary education were common. They were needed on the farm. It was their lot, and way of life. Nowadays, so much more is expected of our offspring, or seeing the wider world, and an easier life, they leave for the city's bright lights.
Never to return. Leaving the elders to struggle on, and eventualy give up.
It's not the easy life of the TV series the good life would have you believe.
But I love it.
Had to watch the video to understand what unpulled wees are 
Social media has a lot to answer for in making the life appear like a dream. We’re up at 5am every day rain or shine and are dead on our feet by 21.00hrs each night. Wouldn’t have it any other way though. My main problem is self expectation. I never ever get done everything I want to do each day but as you highlighted you need to celebrate the completed tasks and not lament the things not done.
Downtime is also important for the self but also as as couple. I stopped scything this morning and just went and played with the children in our large pond - sometimes the memories made are more important than the grass cut.
Keep the videos coming we love watching them.
Social media has a lot to answer for in making the life appear like a dream. We’re up at 5am every day rain or shine and are dead on our feet by 21.00hrs each night. Wouldn’t have it any other way though. My main problem is self expectation. I never ever get done everything I want to do each day but as you highlighted you need to celebrate the completed tasks and not lament the things not done. Downtime is also important for the self but also as as couple. I stopped scything this morning and just went and played with the children in our large pond - sometimes the memories made are more important than the grass cut.
Keep the videos coming we love watching them.
We always used to use a border spade to strip fresh felled logs before we could afford the proper gear, it worked especially well on pine. As for your little ratty friends, a Fenn number 4 in a wooden tunnel will curb their appetites without eating into your time too much. We have similar issues with field voles but the cat can deal with them since they’re much smaller and apparently quite tasty.
I read a survey that said most people in the UK would prefer a simple country life. Which begs a question...
That too is a part of it - our latest fruit cage is 19g weld mesh steel to prevent critters getting in
Our neighbours have 3 children they have all gone on to buy rural places with land because they loved their childhood on such a place.
I can't think of better praise for a parent
We have experience an influx of such people over the last couple of years to the extent that the village shop now sells olives and latté In disposable cups. The act of moving to the countryside changes the countryside, especially as small developments of modern houses start popping up on what was farmland.
That’s not the fault of the people moving though, you could argue that’s the local shop cashing in/adding a revenue stream (depending how you look at it)
I think a lot of people see the countryside on holiday or on TV and see it like one of those drawings in a ladybird book, bit of light gardening, baking bread maybe some fishing.
BR you probably work harder and longer than us with a full time job
I know that I work longer hours than I did when employed. But if you love it, is it really work? Today is our notional "day off". I've made a beer kit, racked off some wine, spoken to a friend, candled some eggs, let two broody hens with chicks hatched 48 hours ago out to free range, I've just made an enriched dough to bake some Chelsea buns.
Is that really work?
The best village shop we ever saw was in a wooden shed in Goostrey, Cheshire. It started selling basic provisions.
There was a demand for better bread than white sliced.
They bought a bread oven & made nice bread
The bread sold out by 10am.
They made more bread.
A local pub came and bought all their bread.
They bought another oven.
They figured out that their ovens worked hard over night & then were idle.
They started putting them on again to make sausage rolls, pies & pasties.
Farm workers queued out the door at lunch time.
They realised that between 3 & 10pm the ovens were idle.
They made pizza.
They delivered the pizza (in a Land rover - rural area)
We asked " can you also add wine"?
They did
Eventually, anything you wanted, any time (subject to a minimum order) was delivered locally, free.
Mum, Dad, both sets of grandparents, all the kids worked full time in that village shop.
For us rurals to survive, we need to think like them!
That’s the sort of day people imagine having living in the country.
