Didn't We .......

Didn't we have a lovely time the day we to Builth Wells,

We did have a lovely day off,

Before I show and tell many thanks for all he comments regarding Sol and his neck, at the moment he is fine again, 2 days on the pills and yesterday he was all fixed again and fit enough to come with us.

I will be looking into some of the suggestions so again thank you.

It may have been a damp start to day but that wasn't going to stop us, we planned to be out all day, once everyone was fed watered hay and in the proper grazing place it was bank up the Rayburn, change of clothes pack a day bag for Sol and off we went.

I didn't take photos of the event itself if you look back through my blog on days out there are photos from last year.

The Community food group were giving away onion sets and potatoes for people to grow

 You could just help yourself and fill as many bags as you wanted, I picked a small handful of red onions

 and picked up another 10 potatoes, these will be popped into the new poly tunnel as I have a bit of space, more on the poly tunnel in my next post. People were very reserved and polite with the freebies, no mass onslaught pushing and shoving, there was a selection of 10 different potatoes, I cannot for the life of me remember what the ones I picked were called I know I hadn't come across them before and sure they had Ulster in the name , there was a good choice of onions I went for red ones as I didn't have any growing this year. They had other veg and herbs there too, I think it was all surplus from growers.

 I popped along to see Ruth and Paul at the Home Farmer magazine stand, I have supported Home Farmer since issue 1, I have got to know Ruth and Paul fairly well and they always ask for updates on the small holding and what we re doing now, after chatting for about 20 mins Paul gave me a goody bag of magazines, I hadn't re-newed my subscription this year as I still had a lot of last years magazines to read so decided to take a year off, Ruth also asked if I would like to do some articles for the magazine, I will give it some thought and it wouldn't be until winter as there would be more time available, we shall see.

 I bought some Light Sussex eggs for hatching after last years ones turned out not to be light sussex well only one was and that was a cockerel so we ate him.

These are now set in the incubator with 4 of our eggs, no broodies this time, I will hatch out and rear with the aid of a hen.

One of the reasons for our trip to the show this year was to buy some new garden furniture, we looked last year and picked out some we liked, the supplier was there and we placed an order, The furniture is all wood and made in Wales, its made to order and will be with us in about 4 weeks.

Before leaving I popped back to the Home Farmer stand to purchase this book they were launching.

 Its written by a couple who have a small holding in Wales, they have been living the lifestyle since there university days, its now about them and there life its more of reference book,

It is a big book packed with lots of information, something that caught my eye when flicking through it was the meaning of viable self sufficiency 

If you buy a chicken house for £400 and then spend £200 of chickens, feeders accessories bedding food etc the set up has cost you £600, your chickens lay 6 eggs are you self sufficient in eggs, no those eggs have cost you £100 each you don't become self sufficient in eggs until you have re-couped the costs and the chickens are paying there way, that is a lot of eggs and it will take some time to re-coup the costs.

The book is about viable self sufficiency not how to grow what to grow but how it make it all viable.

On that note I am off to plant some onions catch you all later.