A grumpy look back at the festive period

There was an almost total lack of Christmas in our house this year.
Anyone who knows me will know quite how grumpy I get at this festive time of year!

It wasn't helped by the boiler breaking down three days before Christmas day, the same day that one of my tooth crowns came out embedded in a wine gum. Unfortunately my life doesn't stop for Christmas, though everybody else's seems to.
Fortunately we managed to get somebody out to fix the boiler (the tooth has to wait till 2020 but at least it's not hurting). On the negative side, the boiler went wrong again on Christmas Eve.
So we spent Christmas huddled in one room, thankfully with woodburner keeping us toasty warm.

Lots of snuggles and the woodburner kept us warm and cosy for Christmas

Christmas Day itself gave us gorgeous weather. We spent a good couple of hours clearing out some of the veg beds as I put my slowly recovering back to the test. Then it was a short drive to take the dogs for a walk along the River Welland in Crowland while the rest of Britain tucked into a gluttony of turkey and listened to the Queen's Speech.

This meant that we didn't encounter a single other human being while we were out, which was just perfect.

My faith in the human race (well, at least one of them) has since been slightly restored as the boiler man came out the day after boxing day and spent a good couple of hours getting the boiler up and running again and didn't even charge us.


I have been starting to sort my seeds for next year and planning the next rotation of the veg beds. We have a week of dry weather ahead of us which will hopefully sort the ground out a bit too, as Arthur doesn't like walking on the mud or getting his belly wet wading through puddles.

Two days after boxing day I braved the shops - alien territory for me. I have a trip coming up in February and the only clothes I have are old clothes for outdoor work, certainly not suitable for where I am going.
It was all too much for me and we managed to do a whole retail outlet in under an hour. Nothing purchased though.

The penultimate day of the year saw me down in London to have a camera down my throat, part of ongoing surveillance for a genetic condition.
Fortunately they gave me lots of sedation so I don't remember a thing, though the results weren't great and I have to go back again soon. A final kick in the teeth from 2019, which has not been one of my better years. Let's look forward to 2020 and hope that things go a little better.

The final day of 2019 was spent shopping again, this time in Peterborough which has a lot more to offer than Spalding.
Everything went well and I bought everything that I needed, which is fantastic as it means I probably won't need to go back to the shops until late 2020 at the earliest!

High levels of Ractivity

I do my very, very best to work hand  in hand with nature, but just sometimes our human activities tip the scales and create an imbalance.

There is an all too common belief amongst a vast majority of Britain's landowners - by which I mean primarily farmers, but also gamekeepers and, to be fair, smallholders and gardeners - that anything which comes onto our land without being invited is to be killed.

Be it rare birds on grouse moorland, foxes, hares, moles or deer, birds or beetles, there seems to be an uncontrollable urge to get rid.

I am no idealist. I realise that the countryside is managed for our needs. But there is a balance to be struck, for Britain's wonderful wildlife was in most cases here before we were and deserves a place to live and thrive.

But some creatures are, in certain circumstances, without a doubt intolerable and have to be treated as pests.
Slugs for one! They are an important part of our British fauna, but in the context of a vegetable plot, a manufactured environment, their population can cascade out of control. I don't use slug pellets but rely on night time forays and the day time duck squad to control numbers.

The pest I want to focus on today is RATS.

I did once sit and watch a colony of rats in a woodland setting and they were quite charming, but in the context of a smallholding they are not quite so desirable.
They are not helped by their long, bare skin tails and their protruding incisors which make them look, well, ratty.

When we moved onto the farm there was a huge rodent problem. The previous incumbents had done just about everything they could to make the place as welcoming to rats as possible.
It didn't take us long to get the situation under control. For most of the problem can be sorted by limiting food sources, clearing debris so rats have to cross open spaces and casuing lots of disturbance as rats are neophobic (they hate anything new).

But living amongst arable fields which are usually wheat and keeping poultry, we are always going to have to be on our guard against rats moving in. Why don't we want them?
For starters, they carry some very nasty diseases. They are destructive too, gnawing their way through anything if there is food on the other side. Worse than this, they will take young poultry and will actually eat young birds alive as they roost at night. We lost several ducklings this year which were in an enclosed stable as a rat managed to squeeze under the gap in the door.
The rats can be a pest in the veg garden too. If they get to the sweetcorn before it ripens they can take out the whole crop in a couple of nights. This happened this year.

For quite a few years we relied on the targeted use of poisons. Whenever we saw evidence of rat activity (I call it ractivity) we would fill up bait boxes and within a week the problem would usually disappear.

This year we had an excellent talk on pest control at the Fenland Smallholders Club. What struck me most was the move away from a reliance on poisons to a more traditional approach of trapping alongside good practice as discussed above.
So I invested in five Fenn traps and made boxes to house them to protect against catching non-target species such as hedgehogs.

The fen traps do their job very well. 

I don't like killing any animals, but this is necessary.

Unfortunately our switch in approach has coincided with an unusually bad year for rats. It's not because of the change in approach though, for this increase in the rat population is being reported by all the other smallhodlers I know. It is far more likely down to an exceptionally mild winter last year.

The traps are working, but the rats are clever.
They were avoiding passing through the wooden tunnels (with trap hidden inside) when I placed them in their runs, so now I am placing bait on the traps too. I am just using the same food I feed the chickens, a mix of grains and pulses. I make sure there is no chicken food left at night, which forces the rats to risk that which is in the traps.

As you can see the rats often manage to get the food without treading on the traps!

But we are catching enough.

I am catching on average one rat every day or so, but they have learnt to get at the food without treading on the trap. Instead they burrow underneath so that the food drops through. Clever little rascals.

A couple of dead rats placed out for 

the crows and owls

When I do catch a rat, I leave it on a gate post and it mysteriously vanishes.  I think the crows and the barn owls take them.
This is the good thing about not using poisons, I don't have to worry about harming other wildlife.

I think the current very, very wet ground will cut the population down and a nice cold winter would not go amiss. In the meantime, we are keeping abreast of the problem and I am sure we will see a return to lower levels of ractivity soon enough.

Puddles provide birding bonanza

We have plenty of surface water this year, or as I like to call it, our seasonal lake.

Sunshine has been a rare commodity during 2019. Things were looking great up till June, but then everything went rapidly downhill. Rain, on the other hand, has not been an issue.
This resulted in a poor growing season. Not only did crops not ripen, but beans and squashes didn't get enough sunshine to dry and store properly. Blight did its worst on the spuds and tomatoes too.

Autumn and early winter have been wetter than ever and without warm winds the water takes an age to drain away. We are not too muddy quite yet, but underfoot is slippy and entrances to gateways are getting a little sludgy. Grass growth for the sheep has been poor too and we are already giving them hay and moving them frequently to protect the ground.

Sue moves the sheep on a particularly dreary day

At this time of year and in these conditions, cold and crisp weather from the East is much more welcome than wet and windy from the West.

There has, however been one big benefit of bepuddled farmland. The fields around the farm have been heaving with wild birds. Gulls and corvids (the crow family) have been around in far greater numbers than usual, as have waders such as lapwings and golden plovers. Wild swans have been finding it to their liking too.

Whooper Swans on the flooded stubble by South Holland Main Drain

All this has resulted in some excellent birdwatching to keep me busy while my back has stopped me doing anything on the smallholding.
In just a few weeks I have enjoyed three new species for the farm list and a run of excellent records.

A Green Sandpiper, just the second record in 9 years, 

stayed a few days in the dyke.

Following on from a brief dusk fly-through, a Tawny Owl was heard hunting in the new copse I have planted. A few nights later I heard the familiar hooting from across the fields. Then early in November came a Rough-legged Buzzard hovering by South Holland Drain. Unfortunately it disappeared as quickly as it appeared but it was a very welcome first record for the farm.

Then a strange owl call one evening from the old ash trees just outside the farmhouse. I eventually matched it to a call described as the xylophone trill of courting Tawny Owls. Excellent stuff, the first time I had ever heard this call.

Next late one afternoon  at the back end of November I could hear wild swans calling to each other while I tried to round up a sheep that had barged through the electric fence. Light was fading before I could make my way over to the flooded fields by the South Holland Drain, but there were an unprecedented 190 wild swans. The biggest flock here previously was about 50. A distant egret looked quite tall for a Little Egret, which are now regular in the winter, but light was fading way too fast to make out anything more.

This Great White Egret hung around for 4 days.

First thing in the morning the swans and the egret were predictably all gone. Several groups of wild swans flew through during the morning, but better was to come. Late morning the egret re-appeared along one of the dykes. My initial suspicions proved correct as there stood a magnificent Great White Egret.
This bird is following in the footsteps of Little Egret, establishing a breeding toehold in the country and becoming much less rare over winter. But I was still very, very happy that one should choose to spend a few day in the neighbourhood of the farm.

Within a week there was another new bird, but frustratingly the Mediterranean Gull which called loud and clear as it flew over the smallholding could not be seen in the thick fog which enveloped us all day!

Rough-legged Buzzard, Great White Egret and Mediterranean Gull are all scarce birds which I half expected to eventually see here.
But the next new bird for the farm was altogether less expected.
All through November the pools and wet fields have been frequented by wild swans. These have the potential to attract wild geese too. The previous two records of White-fronted Goose have both been in with the swans. There was once an exotic Black Swan too.
On 2nd December there were good numbers of swans over by South Holland Drain so I took the dogs for a late afternoon stroll. I took my binoculars with me so I could scan through the swans and work out how many of the more diminutive Bewick's Swans were in amongst the Whooper Swans. I noticed two small grey geese lurking at the back of the flock. I could just see their heads and necks poking above the stubble.
But with the light fading and no telescope, I couldn't quite work out what they were. It did cross my mind that two Tundra Bean Geese had been with wild swans in Crowland the day before. South Holland Drain continues all the way to Crowland.
I ran back to the farm and opted to drive round to where the geese were. It took an age to relocate them as they had dipped down into a dyke, but I managed to get them in the telescope and they seemed to indeed be Bean Geese. But just at that moment they were disturbed by hare coursers (sadly not that unusual in the fields round here).
I was left frustratingly lacking definitive views, but I was pretty sure what the geese were.

The next morning there was much disturbance in the area from shooters. I left it till mid morning to search for the geese again and was relieved to find them in almost the same spot as yesterday. I was now sure they were Bean Geese, but needed better views. Over the course of the next hour I skirted round the fields and gently approached along a dyke. The geese were hidden from me by reeds, but this gave me the opportunity to sneak up on them. Every few yards I raised my binoculars hoping to see them before they saw me.

Tundra Bean Geese

In the end I managed to get them. There, just 50 yards away, were two Tundra Bean Geese. It had been hard work securing good enough views to really clinch the identity. This was one goose species which I thought I would never see in the area. At any one time in winter there are usually only a handful of birds in England.



Frustratingly the geese were not viewable from the farm though. The heads of the taller Whooper Swans could just be seen over the banks of South Holland Drain, but no chance of the geese for the farm list.

Mid afternoon I decided to give it an hour or so viewing from the end of our land. This was more in desperate hope than anything else. If the geese flew I would surely see them, but this was very unlikely.
Then a miracle happened. After a few minutes I noticed a couple of blokes in high vis jackets walking along a nearby footpath. This footpath is regularly used by dog walkers and it seemed unlikely the geese would be disturbed enough to fly. Then I noticed these two were carrying shovels. Remarkably they headed along the dyke which led straight to where the geese were. Apart from hare coursers, I had never seen anybody walk along here before.
The tension rose. Would the geese fly? Would I be able to see them? The swans all took flight and then, above them, two grey geese! Unbelievably the two Tundra Bean Geese led the swan flock right towards me, giving an amazing view. I could make out all of the plumage details to identify them in flight. They even called their distinctive call as they flew right over the farm
I watched them head eastwards with the swans until they were dots. What a result!

There have been no more new birds for the farm since, but just to be able to watch large flocks of lapwings and golden plovers is a joy. This is what the fens might have been like before they became intensive farmland.

Lapwings and Golden Plovers

There is a chance of other waders taking advantage of the standing water too. I have already seen a flock of 6 Snipe and an unprecedented flock of 20 Redshanks (previously only two records of single birds).

Back On Course

At the end of August I developed a bad back. As a gardener, I am no stranger to the occasional back twinge, but this was different. It was disabling and just would not get better.

Eventually I made a rare trip to the doctor which resulted in me being sent a series of physiotherapy exercises to perform daily. Progress has been slow and it has led to me becoming quite depressed. Working outdoors is my joy in life, so not being able to get anything done outside has been a bit of a nightmare.
After the worst growing season we've experienced here on the smallholding, it has not been a good latter part of the year. The only consolation is that the timing of my bad back could have been far worse. I missed some harvesting and didn't get any winter crops in, I wasn't able to clear old beds and sow oats as ground cover, but overall it won't take too much to get back on track.

Finally in the last couple of days I have been able to think forward. I have been clearing canes, cutting back old growth, covering beds with cardboard and even moving a little compost onto some of the beds. And with this comes renewed hope. 2019 is almost behind us and in some ways is best forgotten, but 2020 is a clean slate.

Clearance begins and beds are being covered and protected ready for the 2020 growing season. 

As you can see, it's all a bit wet at the moment.

But 2019 wasn't a total loss. I have learned a lot from my experiments with no-dig growing and from using volunteers on the farm. The enforced break was hard and I was beginning to lose heart, but a couple of days of gentle work outside have left me feeling enthused again and my back seems to be holding up as long as I am careful with what I do.

It's that time of year when plans and preparations are made for the coming growing season. On this day last year I planted garlic cloves.
As you can see from the puddles, that task will have to wait a while this year.

It's been very wet lately. So when we get prolonged rain there is quite simply nowhere for it to go.

It doesn't stay like this for long though. It will gradually seep down through the ground.

The Booby Prize - persistence rewarded

It's been a while since my twitching obsession disrupted my life quite as much as it did last week.

We'll get the sniggers out of the way before we go any further.
The bird in question is called a BROWN BOOBY

😏😂😂😂

You should know by now not to come to my blog for bird photos. There are none unless I shamelessly steal them from someone's twitter or Facebook account. If you want to know what a Brown Booby looks like, you'll have to Google it!
I'll cut the story short, a week last Sunday a photo appeared, taken in Kent of what appeared to be a Brown Booby flying along the Kent coastline some 6 days previous. This seemed unlikely, as there has never been one in this country before and Brown Booby is a tropical species.
Having said that, the photo looked quite good, despite being a bit blurry, but a look-alike gannet could not be ruled out with the 100% confidence that would be needed for such a bold claim.

Then intriguingly last Monday a possible Brown Booby was reported fishing off a beach in Cornwall, seen by a good birder but without binoculars as he was at the beach for the day with his family. Oftentimes when there is a possible sighting of an outrageously rare bird, there is a flurry of further possible sightings, all fed by subliminal suggestion! But this was a good birder and one not with a tendency to get over-excited.
Furthermore, there were mysterious unconfirmed reports of two further sightings at the same beach earlier in the day.

This still wasn't enough to have us heading all the way down to Cornwall (400 miles each way) on a blind goose chase. There was no sign of the bird for the rest of the day.

But what happened the next morning changed everything. Undeniable photos of a Brown Booby feeding just off the beach at St Ives, Cornwall, just a couple of hundred yards from the previous day's sighting.
News came through early enough to jump in the car and head straight to Cornwall (I actually waited a while for my mate Neil to make his way over to me from Norfolk).

Brown Boobies have a habit of hanging out on offshore rocks or even on boats in harbours. There had to be a chance of connecting with this bird today.

The drive down to Cornwall was a relatively smooth one. There was no further news on the bird, except a couple of claims of distant flybys several hours after the initial report to keep our hopes up.

St Ives is a lovely coastal tourist destination, but parking is an absolute nightmare. We ended up parking on the outskirts of town and yomping for half an hour down to St Ives Island, where a myriad of birders were already congregated.
It was a good social occasion, but essentially we spent four hours just staring at the sea, acquainting ourselves with the variable plumages of young gannets, the closest look-alikes for a Brown Booby.
Meanwhile, analysis of photos was indicating that this bird was probably not the same as the bird a week beforehand in Kent. Astonishing.

By sunset we had decided to stay the next day. The Booby Prize would be worth the effort. We found some digs near Helston and suffered the worst curry I have ever had. Beware curries in Helston!

Last knockings and still no sign 😟

Early next morning saw a crowd assembled back at the small Chapel on St Ives Island. (Good to see the chapel still being used for a form of religion - twitching!) This point gave us quick access to both the beaches where the bird had previously been seen. It also gave sweeping views over Carbis Bay, about 6 miles across. The most likely place for the bird to roost and perch up during the day seemed to be Godrevy island at the far end of the bay with its rocky stacks and lighthouse, but it had been checked as thoroughly as possible without success.

Looking west from St Ives Island. The bird was initially spotted feeding just offshore here, but not while we were there!

Today's weather was squally. Every time the rain came in, visibility across the bay worsened. The only good thing was that it brought the seabirds, including streams of shearwaters, close into shore. St Ives used to be the prime seawatching site in Britain until parking became such a nightmare and drove observers elsewhere.

By 10am the mood was damp. Even the most optimistic of us were starting to think that this was not going to happen.
Then a call went up. What was maybe, possibly, probably the bird was feeding with gannets off the beach. 3.5km away!
We could see the bird in question all the way across the bay but the weather came in again. I was on it for 5 minutes, but never gained conclusive views. It was almost certainly the Booby, but this situation was not ideal. A few had better glimpses and were convinced. Many were unconvinced and some were adamant the bird was just a young gannet. It is entirely possible that many never actually got onto the right bird, for what I saw was pretty convincing, just not cast iron.

Still, this was positive. Surely the bird in question would come back at some point in the day and some people were heading over in that direction to confirm the sighting if it came back.

But no. Not another sniff. All day. Not a dicky bird.
We stood there all day and just got wet.
Debate raged. Had people seen the Booby? Had people let their desire to see the Booby cloud their judgement? On the whole I thought I had almost certainly seen the right bird, but after much wavering I decided I couldn't justify ticking it on my list.

The drive back to Fenland was a slightly dejected one. We wanted to stay another night really, but both had things to do back home and there had been no confirmed sightings for a day and a half.

Next morning I awoke and was relieved to see that there was still no sign of the Booby. We had made the right decision to drive back. I rolled over, only for the phone to instantly announce the bird was fishing just offshore in the same place as whatever we had seen yesterday.
I won't repeat the words that came out of my mouth.

Neil and I resolved to do what we needed to do at home and then head back down to Cornwall overnight. The bird was not seen for the rest of the day, but a possible pattern of morning sightings was emerging. Fortunately for me it was Neil's turn to drive.

This time we headed for the beach car park in the bay where the bird had been seen. We arrived back at Gwithian Beach at 2am and attempted to get a few hours sleep. By first light there were maybe 80 others with the same plan, many with a similar story to ours.
We set up telescopes in the dunes and stared at the sea. We watched the tide go out and in again. We watched the surfers descend on the beach and leave again. Apart from a brief visit into town to get Pasties, cash and petrol, we sat there all day. Nothing.

Even worse, a Brown Booby had turned up in NW France, just 250km as the Booby flies. Brown Boobies are not exactly common on this side of The Atlantic and there was a distinct probability that we had been searching all day for a bird which was now in France.
Being stubborn / persistent / stupid, we decided to stay overnight and try again in the morning. Our chances of seeing the bird had slipped from an optimistic estimate of about 80% in the morning to somewhere in single figures.

An excellent fish and chip supper in the evening lifted our spirits slightly, as did news that the French bird was a full adult and not our bird. We clung onto the hope that one possible sighting by one single observer today may mean that the bird had not actually departed and that we had just got very unlucky.

Brown Booby Day Four
Day 4 went pretty much as Day 3, except we had more squally showers to deal with just to dampen the spirits further. I had set a deadline of 10am (though this would undoubtedly be stretched).
By 9.30 I was at a pretty low ebb. There were only about six of us left outside searching. Most others were taking shelter in their cars.

This was the most effort I had ever put into seeing a bird. At times like this we wonder why we do it.

A few minutes later, the answer came! Andy sat next to me. "Hang on! Surely this is it!" he exclaimed. Fortunately for me the bird was right under Godrevy lighthouse so I got straight onto it. I tried to give myself reasons why it was just a gannet, but no, this was it, THE BOOBY, no question.
We shouted and gestured wildly for everybody else to come out of their cars. I didn't dare take my eyes off the bird as I called directions, but I really wanted to look behind me to see the complete commotion.
That feeling, after four days of persistence, to finally see the bird was amazing. Resilience and perseverance can be in short supply these days but they bring rewards in the world of twitching.

The Brown Booby was flying about and diving in amongst the gannets, though still distant. After a while, and with everyone now on the bird, it sat on the water and drifted awhile before again taking off and flying straight across the bay and straight towards us. It then gave amazing views as it fished just offshore before continuing along the coast, eventually heading out of view past St Ives Island where we had been viewing from a few days before.

There was a real buzz of excitement around the place. I see these people maybe just a few times a year, I never know when or where it will be, but we all meet up with a single purpose.

Neil and I decided to head down to the very tip of Cornwall to see another bird which I had only seen a couple of before, a Western Bonelli's Warbler. A little pale warbler, this could not be more different from the Brown Booby. It called loudly but was a little bugger to see well. Just as we were leaving this bird and contemplating the long drive home, more news on the Booby. For the first time in six days it had perched up on a rock - a rock that we had spent several hours staring at a few days before. 
We headed back through heavy traffic towards St Ives, but before we got too close the bird flew off and disappeared.

Time to go home.

Broad-leaved Everlasting Peas - home to Long-tailed Blue butterfly

There was just time to pop in and see a rare Long-tailed Blue Butterfly on the way home. We finally rolled back onto the farm just after 9pm, half way through Sue's party to celebrate 30 years of teaching. I had a swift couple of beers to celebrate.

After the event
The Booby was later seen passing a seawatching point to the south-west, the first time as far as anybody knew that it had headed this way. Despite this, the immense rarity of a Brown Booby still lured people down to Cornwall the next day, but they were to be disappointed.
Many though had learned their lesson and did not give up. A week after the second Brown Booby for Britain had turned up, they stayed overnight only to again be disappointed in the morning...

until, that is, on the south coast of Cornwall, Britain's third ever Brown Booby was discovered sitting on a rock.

Remarkable stuff. It seems that Brown Boobies come in threes. With the bird in France (their first ever) demonstrably different to our three, it would seem there has been an unprecedented influx of this tropical seabird into North Eastern Atlantic waters.

Who's to say there won't be more in the coming days.

What a hobby!

Unexpected Windfalls

Red Admirals are appreciating the fruity windfall too

So far this year we have had a winter with virtually no frost, we had about a foot of rain in 3 days and we had temperatures touching on 100F.

Every year has its variables but these weather extremes seem to be more and more frequent and each comes with its own challenges for growing food.

On this occasion it was strong winds that did the damage. Many plums and apples fell from the trees, but worse still was the damage to several of my plum trees. Our recent weather seems to be encouraging rapid, soft growth of new wood which does not stand up to the strong winds which often come in August when the trees are fully laden with leaves and fruits.
The trees which sustained the most damage were actually those which were not overburdened with fruit.

The damage did me one favour though. One of my plum trees went severely off piste a few years back. Basically the rootstock outgrew the grafted tree and we ended up with a huge tree which bore very little fruit. It looked good, but was growing fast and taking too much from the surrounding fruit trees.

Last week's winds literally split the trunk into four, so it was time to 'lightly prune'. Fortunately plum leaves and bark are a favourite for the Shetland sheep.

Fungal disaster avoided
Wet and warm weather is leading to more problems arising from fungal diseases. One of the plum trees in the chicken pen was absolutely dripping with fruits and I hadn't got round to thinning them adequately. Just as they were turning ripe, brown rot set in. Every fruit was rotting on the tree just as it was ripening. It looked as if we would lose the whole crop, as well as potentially infecting all the other plum trees.
I carefully picked every plum that was showing any signs of rot, often precariously balanced a the top of a step ladder, and removed every single trace of fruit from the ground. These weren't wasted, as the sheep very much appreciated them.
I have continued to remove any infected fruits and any that have dropped to the ground and disaster seems to have been averted.
Over the last few days Sue has picked a thousand plums off just one tree. It is still not empty.

Self-thinning Apple trees
We missed the June drop this year - this is when fruit trees often drop much of their fruit. in response to environmental stress. I didn't really keep on top of manually thinning the fruits either. This should really be done for several reasons. The branches can split under the strain of too much fruit; fewer large fruits are generally better than multiple dwarf fruits; thinning the fruit allows for improved air circulation.
The recent winds fixed the problem of not thinning though! Many apples came off, to the delight of the geese and sheep.

Helping Hands

Here on the farm we can grow more food than we can eat, but it takes all of our time to keep on top of things. So it occurs to me that the farm would be better suited to supporting more people.

With this in mind, we have taken a few volunteers this year. The deal is that they are accommodated in a caravan and help for about 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. In return they get three meals a day and a jolly good experience.

Guest accommodation

Some people say this sounds like cheap labour, but it is more complex than that.  It is a cultural and learning exchange too. The balance of this equation is a fine one and has not always worked in our favour. It is not for everyone, but if I had time to travel I would certainly be happy to be on the other end of the deal. For the volunteers it offers a totally different travel experience to the usual treadmill of visiting famous landmarks.
For anyone wishing to have some time to reflect, to do some good honest work and to learn about self-sustainability, smallholding and permaculture, the swap is a very good one indeed.

Volunteers viewing our new ducklings - Arthur is helping out

The paddock team

From a professional carpenter who taught me loads to others who were trying out completely new skills

This is what volunteering schemes are all about

Let's look at the potential benefits if you get the right people and the right people management.

Knowledge Sharing

The post driver is a great

introduction to how satisfying

hard work can be!

As well as learning about each others' backgrounds and lives, we have been able to teach people all about our system of self-sustainable growing. We have taught practical skills too, from using tools such as hoes, hammers and drills to keeping sheep, poultry and bee-keeping.
We have learned from our volunteers too. One in particular had a wealth of knowledge about bee-keeping and taught Sue loads. The same person helped me out with my hopeless ineptitude when it comes to understanding how machines work.  
I have learned new construction skills too, even simple things like how to use my drill more effectively. 

Many Hands Make Light Work

Too many cooks spoil the broth, but many hands make light work.
It's all about choosing the right task. There were some tasks where all my time would be spent trying to supervise when I could have achieved the job in much less time on my own.
But there were other jobs where three people got far more than three times the amount of work done. These jobs fell into two categories.

Firstly, jobs which seem so daunting when you are on your own and would take days or leave you exhausted. With several people, these jobs became not only achievable but fun. So in no time at all we pulled thousands of thistles, weeded the whole raspberry patch and erected a hundred yards of fence. The last of these is a great example of using volunteers. On my own I can maybe drive in three or four fence posts before needing to take a break. The breaks become longer and more frequent the more the job goes on. Not only that, but the quality of the work goes down as I get tired and the risk of  injury goes up. But with three of us, each person did one or two posts and then handed over. In between we could even pick thistles. In no time whatsoever we had driven in about 40 posts. Nobody was tired or fed up and after a couple of hours we had a finished fence to admire. Very satisfying.

From preparing the ground to erecting a log cabin, 

this job would have taken me months on my own 

rather than just a few days with a little help.

Secondly, construction jobs. Jobs where I was able to gain greatly by other people's knowledge and skills. There are times too when you just need somebody else at the other end of a plank!

The new compost loo 

taking shape

The sheep testing out the facilities in their new paddock

 

The newly constructed paddock with volunteer accommodation in the background.

Not a long journey to work!

Time for other things
The main drawback to having all this help is the requirement to prepare three meals a day. Breakfast is easy, but a proper cooked lunch and dinner every day takes up a lot of time.
However, Sue and I really enjoy cooking, especially when we are using our own produce picked fresh from the plot, and we don't get nearly enough time to eat as we would like.
But with the volunteers, especially the ones who appear ready for breakfast and work at a reasonable time, we can get all the smallholding jobs done before lunch leaving the afternoon and evening free for all those things we would like to do more of but never seem to have time.
Cooking, baking, crafts, reading... even a little rest sometimes.



In Conclusion
Taking volunteers is a two way street and a big commitment. We have learned to choose carefully who we accept.
Plus points are: Over 40. Own transport. Skills to offer. A very good command of English.
Seeing through people's profiles is a skill we are developing.
Here are some translations:
We enjoy hard work =  we don't know what hard work looks like.
Enjoys caring for animals =  has very few practical skills and thinks they are coming to a pet zoo
Stronger than I look = not strong
Flexible = warning, this flexibility often extends only one way!

Do we plan to take more volunteers next year? Yes. Definitely.
If we can get it right the scheme is fantastic. We love to share what we do and what we produce and it is marvellous to work alongside other people and to meet people from all across the world.

One thing we need to work on is what to do on wet days. There have been plenty this year!
Hopefully the new log cabin and the undercover shelter will both be finished by the end of this summer which will give us much better areas for craft activities.

The scheme we have used so far is called Workaway. We plan to try WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunties on Organic Farms) as well next year, as this should provide a more targeted choice of volunteers.

To summarise, in all honesty at its worst we have found ourselves dealing with stroppy spoilt teenager attitudes! People who could not drag themselves out of bed, questioned everything and were very choosy about which tasks they wanted to do.

Besides the ones who didn't turn up, we have had our fair share of spoilt rich kids who in their mid twenties still seem to be spending a few years out exploring what they want to do with their lives. They get what we are doing here but their idealistic views of sustainable living have not always been matched by a willingness to get on and do what needs doing.

In particular, a pre 10am start seemed to be a challenge, even though Sue and I religiously got up early to have breakfast ready way before that time. We tried to adapt to this work ethic, but on days when rain was forecast for late morning and all afternoon, a late start seemed rather inconvenient and frustrating. And on days when afternoon temperatures soared, it would have been a lot more sensible to have made an early start.

The flip side of this coin is that we have had some of the most productive and enjoyable days ever on the smallholding. We have been able to undertake some big projects and it has been fantastic to be working as a team with such a range of people. I have learned loads and I think our volunteers have really had their eyes opened towards the possibilities of our style of sustainable living. 

We have met people we would never have met before and we have been able to share what we do and what we produce here.

So that's my honest, warts and all view of taking volunteers.

If you're a smallholder I would say it is definitely worth considering.

If you're looking to spend some time on a smallholding and haven't been put off by everything you've read here, please feel free to contact me. We have one caravan for short-term volunteers (up to 4 weeks) and one for somebody to stay longer term.