Category: The Journey

NOT SO CLOSE!

18/8/2016

We are getting there, not close, but getting there - we can both feel it, the change is afoot. We had a "cupboard" dinner tonight consisting of spaghetti and tinned sweetcorn in an attempt to eat up our food stocks before we leave. There is still a looming question of what will we do with the corn snake, six chickens and all the fruit bushes we've acquired over the years. I will need to sell my scooter back to the dealer, or maybe take it with us - hoping that's going to go smoothly. Don't fancy any hiccups this end before we get to the island. It is so close, we can feel the sand on our feet and wind in our hair! Our lives are about to change forever! It is all happening soon and we can't wait for the journey to begin!

What clothes are we taking? What goes into storage and what is essential?

Anyway, as we are making lists of things to leave, things to take, things to donate, we realise the inevitable sadness we feel for leaving our current home. Excited about the future, yet also sad about all the things we'll be leaving behind. Colleagues. Our garden. . . .

Our dream is that of a warm home with welcoming fire and mead, sheepskins and family photos. It will be a long journey between these points but we are full of enthusiasm which, I am sure, will fuel us until we reach our destination.

First step is close. We can feel it.

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living the good life

11/8/2016

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Dee was new to the country, recently landed and this meant that she had never seen the classic yet heavily repeated British TV programmes.

Living in a small bedsit in Studentsville, and not having too much surplus cash, we had many long evenings to fill. Dangling a metal coat hanger attached to an aerial cable out of the window, we were able to pick up quite a few TV channels.

Even in the cold of winter we would do this to binge watch the classic British shows like Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers. With the lack of heating (Central heating was not usually installed for students!) and open window, the curtains would often freeze solid and stick to the single paned windows.

One of the shows that we watched - a classic, was BBC's show The Good Life, about a middle aged couple who have a flash of inspiration and discovers a need to break the chains and attempt to become self sufficient from the rest of the world, thus turning their suburban home into a self sufficient homestead.

After watching that programme, we started to question the feasibility of being self sufficient and not relying on supermarkets for food, nor energy companies to provide our own power. Fast forward a few years, we managed to secure ourselves a couple of allotments to grow our own fruit and vegetables, have chickens in our back garden and are very conscious about our consumerism.

Give us a few more months and we'll be 100% self sufficient all thanks to the inspiration gained all those years ago.

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WE LOVE OUR NANS

11/8/2016

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When we were both young, we were heavily influenced by our grandparents, especially our grandmothers. We spent a fair amount of time with them, learning of ways of yesteryear and the methods that they used for simple everyday tasks. These ladies showed us how to live without the intervention of modern technology, quick fixes and they had a clear skill set that that the current generation seems to be forgetting.

By today's standards, their lives were hard. Washing garments by hand instead of throwing clothes into the washing machine, preparing a wholesome meal from raw ingredients and not phoning for a pizza take away.

Our nans would ne’er waste a thing, no food would ever go into the bin - they simply had too many mouths to feed, scraps of food would always be given to the chickens or the compost heap instead of heading to the landfill. Old clothes would be darned, patched up, repaired, handed down to the next generation before being finally turned into dusters or a rag rug. The generation of old were the ultimate recyclers long before governments pushed us to recycle and made it fashionable.

In essence, our grandparents planted the seeds of our lifestyle long before we had considered living an ecological, simpler and pre-1900 lifestyle! We want to take the lessons that our elders taught us and put them into practice.

As Confucius once said, “Study the past if you would define the future".

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Homestead or Smallholding?

10/8/2016

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Homestead or Smallholding?

As we are launching ourselves into a new way of life, we have been using google a lot to gather information that will help us along our journey. Although we are not ones for nestling into labels, knowing the keywords to enter into a search engine to gain the information is pretty important.

There are two terms that I feel are relevant to us, one term is British and the other is American. Normally, I would always use the British version (It’s a tap, what the heck is a faucet?) Homestead or Smallholding - which is most accurate?

The homestead

A homestead is the American version of a smallholding, but to me, a homestead embraces much more than using land to grow your own produce. A homestead is more about the home, the old crafts that are carried out within.

With American homesteading, there seems to be a large amount of time and effort dedicated to making, cooking, preserving, canning, sewing and self sufficiency based around all of the homely skills. By definition, the term homestead is “A home, especially a farmhouse.”

The smallholding

A smallholding in Britain seems to have quite an ambiguous meaning, and is defined as “an agricultural holding smaller than a farm”. How big is a small farm, and where do we draw the line between a vegetable garden and a small holding.

The feel I have towards a smallholding is that of the land and not the home, it is about the range of goats, pigs and sheep that you rear and not about the meals you cook from them nor the wool you spin and the hides you tan from the animals.

Our conclusion

My view is we are better looking, searching for smallholdings for the things we do with our crops, garden, fur and feather, simply because our breeds of animal; and our climate is far different from our friends across the pond.

Yet, for all things internal I have found that searching for homestead gives us far better results for the information that we want.

My overall view is that we are a homestead with a smallholding!

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Blaand, a pre 1900 Scottish drink

8/8/2016

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As part of our experiment / project of living in the 1800's, we thought that we had better learn how a Scottish mill worker would have eaten and drunk. Food seems relatively straightforward, and not too different from the style of cooking that I currently do. However, the drinks that people would have made are different from my usual beer and wine making.

One of the drinks that jumped out at me is Blaand - a traditional Scottish drink that is made by fermenting the leftover whey after farm workers made cheese. Over the past few month I have been experimenting with Blaand, trying different types of milk and sugar ratios.

As people started to reduce the amount of cheese that they made at home, they also reduced the amount of Blaand that they made and drunk. Finding a recipe for Blaand on the internet is near impossible. You can find the recipe and method that I used on my Peapod wine blog If you do make your own cheese, or are interested in brewing unusual drinks, than Blaand will be a real treat for you!

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NOT SO CLOSE!

living the good life

WE LOVE OUR NANS

Homestead or Smallholding?

Homestead or Smallholding?

The homestead

The smallholding

Our conclusion

Blaand, a pre 1900 Scottish drink

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Support Happy Homestead

NOT SO CLOSE!

living the good life

WE LOVE OUR NANS

Homestead or Smallholding?

​Homestead or Smallholding?

The homestead

The smallholding​

Our conclusion

Blaand, a pre 1900 Scottish drink

SUBSCRIBE to our newsletter!

Categories

Subscribe to a Happy Newsletter!

Support Happy Homestead

Homestead or Smallholding?

The smallholding