Our Little Farm
Nine Acres of Heaven
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We grew up in the country, but our careers took us to the city. To London and L.A. Each time we moved house it was one step further away from London until we were north of Watford and finally we made it to the remote and beautiful mountains of North Wales.
It has been hard work but we have loved every minute of it and can now call this part of Wales home. Would we move back to England and our old 9 - 5? Not on your life!
The farm is situated in a glaciated valley above Llyn Tegid. The land is mostly steep with shallow soil and underlying clay. In summer it is a mass of wild flowers, but we do get a lot of rainfall, so have to manage the fields carefully, so that it doesn’t turn into a mud bath in the autumn and winter. To compound this problem, springs open up everywhere as the land becomes saturated and the water just wants to get away to the river at the bottom of our hill.
As a result we have never suffered a water shortage in all the time that we have lived here. When the South of England is facing hose pipe bans, we have ample water to spare and a lot of it is sent down the River Dee to the sea. It makes me wonder why planners didn’t build a pipe line under the motorway network to pipe the surplus water from North Wales to the drought hit areas in the south of the country!
We stock the farm carefully so as not to exhaust our grazing. We have a small flock of Welsh Mountain sheep, three horses, a pig and some chickens. The acreage is too small and too steep to make our own hay, so we buy this in from a local organic farm.
We have replanted four of the fields with an organic grass ley and in the summer have ample grass for our needs. We strip graze the horses on an electric fence and rotate all the animals round to minimize pest build up. We pick up as much dung as possible and add this to the muck heap. We harrow and roll in the Spring and try to harrow regularly throughout the summer making sure the fields stay fresh and healthy.
The cottage garden keeps us supplied with fresh vegetables and salad which is lovely picked fresh, from plot to pot. We have had a superb strawberry and raspberry season this year and have a good stock in the freezer to brighten our winter breakfasts.
We produce our own meat for the freezer and the sheep and the pigs do us proud.
This really is the good life and we are very lucky to live it!
When people come to stay with us on the farm they tell us how beautiful it is here. They handle the solitude and compost loo with a good heart, but they cannot imagine living here through the winter months and eventually are pleased to go home. We on the other hand love it here and enjoy the changing seasons and the flowers and wild life that abound in the hills hereabouts. When we are away visiting friends and family or just going up to the coast to see a show, we are always pleased to get back to the holding and to our animals. For many it is a big step to leave the city behind completely, but we wouldn’t trade our windswept mountain for all the tea in China.
Enjoying the Good Life
