Smiling Tree Farm – (Sun 15 May – Mon 23 May)

Couple of wee things before we start:
• We’ve updated the schedule page with all of June’s gigs
• If you click on any of the photos it connects you to a website called Picasa where all our trip photos are saved

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Well, Smiling Tree Farm - what can we say? This was one of the most comfortable and luxurious experiences we could envisage a WWOOFer having on their travels and it sure has set the bar high for all the farms to come!

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

Imagine being the guest of Hugh Fearnley Whitsiface crossed with a well manicured blond Nigella, in a panoramic ‘country living’ house which you would pay hundreds to rent for the weekend, being cooked amazing food each mealtime AND getting washed up for after each sitting!! We are being serious!!

We couldn't have been looked after better by our host Christine, we were given the most lovely food, nothing was too much trouble and she was constantly willing to share all her knowledge and answer our never ending questions, whatever the time of day!

This smallholding is unique in that there are no financial limits on how Christine wants to develop it – she worked very hard for years before buying it and her husband provides a second income. So she willingly admits that this isn’t how most people would be able to run it, and acknowledges that less money would actually make her more resourceful…but if you’ve got dream and the drive then the sky’s the limit.

The main things we loved learning about while we were there were:

• The rare breed pigs and sheep – we can now tell the difference between a Gloucester Old Spot, a Tamworth and a Berkshire – it’s all about the ears!

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

• The renewable energy systems – wind, photo voltaic and ground source heat pumps
• The processes of breeding, rearing and slaughtering animals
• How to set up, edge, and irrigate a vegetable patch

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

The really notable things about this set up were:

• No expense is spared in terms of animal welfare and feed – these are very happy animals
• Christine’s house is not your typical farm house with dogs, cats and mud abounding! There is a shoes off policy at the door and high hygiene standards – Adam particularly liked this approach whereas Rosie kept forgetting to change from her work clothes!
• Compared to life in a community it was very quiet and its vibe was very dependent on the mood of the few people in the house
• Despite being an isolated farm there was a strong sense of neighbours and community

Feel good factors

• Working outdoors everyday made us sleep so well

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

• Being under no pressure – Christine was really flexible and chilled about when we did our work
• Learning, learning, learning – we have come away with pages of detailed notes on how to care for chickens, pigs, sheep and cows – invaluable information that Christine was so willing to share with us

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

• Watching The Good Life series one in the evenings – priceless, very relevant for today and ought to be on the BBC again this year - watch it again if you can!
• Eating guilt free, super happy meat which tasted amazing.

One final, and critical bit of learning for Adam was that you should never challenge a local on their muck shifting techniques, unless you want a muck heap challenge!

From Smiling Tree Farm Photos

Laurieston Hall (Tues 3 May - Wed 11 May)

Hello all,

We have finished the first week of our travels, which was spent at Laurieston Hall in south west Scotland. It’s a relaxed and friendly community of about 30 adults and children living in an old Edwardian mansion and its surrounding cottages/stables etc. It has about 135 acres of land, most of it beautifully mossy, old woods. You can see pictures of Laurieston Hall and read more about it by clicking here.

From Laurieston Hall

We were there on one of their maintenance weeks (these weeks happen 3 times a year). During a maintenance week all the people who live there are joined by visitors like us to have a big old go at some big old jobs that need doing – things like fixing roofs, building walls, major garden work and inside stuff like laying new carpets, sweeping chimneys and painting. Everyone works as a big team and lots of wonderful food is cooked to keep everyone well fed and happy all week long!

From Laurieston Hall

Cooking these meals was part of everyone’s work – we dished up a cracking green thai curry for 45 people, no mean feat!

We were there because we wanted to get a snap shot of what it is like to live at Laurieston and get a sense of the ups and downs of living in a community of this type and size.

The things we really liked about being there were:

• The friendliness and relaxed nature of the people who live there – it was a really good advert for community living
• The honesty with which they told us about the downs as well as the ups of community life
• The fact that we all chose not to watch TV in the evenings, but played lots of games instead
• Being practical, using our hands and feeling a sense of physical tiredness each evening
• Drinking warm milk straight after the cow had been milked (a high for Rosie as Adam thought this was minging!)
• Sleeping well coz it was quiet, we had worked hard and we weren’t having to make any decisions!
• Not having a mobile signal

The new and exciting things we learned there were:

• How to strip and re-slate a roof

From Laurieston Hall

• How to use limewash to sanitise a cow byre

From Laurieston Hall

• How to feed a week old bullock with milk – super cute!
• The very beginnings of bee keeping
• How to rebuild a dry stone wall

From Laurieston Hall

• That there are always people who pull more weight than others and you just have to accept that as part of community living
• The basics of milking a cow
• How to wrap a cheese and store it for maturing

It was a really good week overall, we made lots of friends, did plenty of good work, had heaps of fun and really felt that Laurieston is a place we would like to go back to and get to know on a deeper level in the future.

We are writing this from the beautiful Smiling Tree farm in Shropshire, where we are having a lovely time with the animals! We'll let you know all about it in our next post!

If you haven't already checked out our schedule page at the top of this page have a look to see where we are headed over the next few weeks x

Up up and away

Hello friends,

We have been telling quite a few of you about this blog over the past few weeks and here we are finally putting up our first post.

Countdown to lift off…

So having quit our jobs (deep relief), sold the flat (much sadness [for Rosie!]), said too many drunken goodbyes (rotten hangovers) and bought lots of practical outdoor gear we are now ready to set off on our 8 month eco living trip.

Our journey will take us around the UK and Scandinavia where we will be working on lots of organic farms and visiting a number of eco-communities. We’ve chosen these regions so that we learn about relevant crops and animals (i.e. things we’ll grow and rear in the future) and because Scandinavia has got some great community living and housing cooperative models.

The three main reasons we’re doing this trip are:

1. To learn lots of useful skills to do with farming and building/running our own place in the country – i.e. learning how to be more self sufficient
2. To find somewhere we want to settle down after the trip
3. To discover whether we still like each other when we are living in caravans and smelling of cow poo!

The kinds of things we are going to learn include looking after animals, building polytunnels, bee keeping, cheesemaking, straw bale building, butchery, woodland management…to name but a few…

We will aim to write a post after each place we visit, giving you an update on each of these things, plus funny stories, daft movies and lots of photos to document our slow but inevitable transformation into Tom and Barbara Good.

Keeping up with our shenanigans...

If you want to get an email each time we put something new up just put your email into the box on the top right of this page and Bob’s your uncle.