Easter Sunday Lockdown Blog Resurrection

Well how things have moved on since I returned from Thailand and had to go into self isolation for a few days as I brought a cough back with me. I've actually been in isolation again since then, but whether or not I've had the actual virus is unknown.

Coronavirus has turned the world upside down, but as smallholders we are in a pretty fortunate position compared to many others. We have plenty of outdoor space in which to spend our time and keep busy. In many respects things haven't changed too much for us, except we have a little more time to do what we enjoy doing. We are fairly self sufficient too, although this is traditionally the hungry gap.

One of our chooks struts past 

an early asparagus stem

Unlike much of the country, we have eggs coming out of our ears - hen eggs, duck eggs, turkey eggs, goose eggs. Rhubarb has been on tap for a while now and the first asparagus tips have rocketed from their winter hibernation (necessitating a quick emergency weeding session!)
We still have some vegetables which have stood over winter - plenty of parsnips and leeks though they are past their best.
We haven't yet learned how to grow loo roll!

There have been other benefits - a much quieter road and the cheapest heating oil we've ever seen. In fact coronavirus has given the earth a chance to breath and just maybe lockdown will give people a chance to reflect on their lives and habits. I will write another post about this soon.

The dogs on lockdown

But for now there is no excuse for not getting this blog back up and running again. In many ways the digital world has come to our rescue, so the resurrection of my blog can be my little contribution to that!

I won't try to cover everything we've been up to here since I've been back from Thailand, but lockdown has given us a good chance to keep on top of things without having to work 25/8.
For now, here's a few photos from the last couple of days

These two hives down in the orchard are very strong and active.

Sue has been busy with her bees. We are down to six very strong colonies and they are already making honey. Three colonies did not make it through the winter as numbers had dwindled too far or lost their laying queen. Six hives is more manageable for Sue, though swarm season will be upon us soon. Sue has already found a queen cell in one of the hives.

We have put all the hives up on hive stands which makes for working at a better height and easier lifting as beekeeping can be heavy work.

The fruit trees are coming into blossom now and with fine weather we should hopefully get a good fruit crop this year.

The paddocks have now dried out and the grass has started its spring growth. We are not lambing this year but it is now safe to move the rams back in with the ewes. They were super excited (!!!) to be reunited. Things have settled back down now and the three boys have stopped chasing the girls around.

With a little more time on our hands we have been having a good tidy up. I have adopted a strict no plastic policy, so every shred of plastic I find on the smallholding gets collected. We've gone round and picked up all the old bits of wood and half rotten pallets too and enjoyed a rare bonfire. This is a great chance to burn materials which can't be composted, such as the old raspberry canes which I pruned but prefer to burn to limit disease.

The bonfire kept me warm

on a chillier nicmig night.

This was the night of a Supermoon, 

a term which seems to be used

every time there is a full moon these days.

Although my twitching has been curtailed, like many other birders I have discovered a new form of my hobby. It's called nocmigging (nocturnal migration) and involves sitting out in the dark listening for bird calls. There is the option of simply placing a microphone outside and then reviewing the recording in the morning, but I prefer to hear the birds as they fly over. Conditions for this have been perfect. Nights have been warm and dry and the road and skies devoid of engine noise. It has meant many late nights, but late mornings don't really matter at the moment.

It has been fascinating doing this. Firstly I have added seven new species to the list. What flies over in the day is quite different, it seems, to what you see during the day. It has been good to hear owls on territory too. We now have tawnies firmly established alongside the little and barn owls.

As well as the birds, I hear dogs, cows, sheep and even a donkey.
And on the wildlife front there is the occasional rat, barking roe deer and one night I could hear fox cubs excitedly shrieking when they were brought food.
This is a little worrying as we have already lost one chicken which did not go to bed one night and our brown Muscovy girl has been missing for a week.
The turkeys are laying now and the girls do not go up on the fence every night either.

Growing our own food has continued apace too. This is a very busy time of year raising young plants from seed. There is a conveyor belt of seeds and they are now beginning to go in the ground.

I never thought I'd say this, but we could actually do with some rain!

Sue, Boris and the chickens getting involved.

Here we planted calabrese and rat-tailed radish (grown for edible seed pods).

We left the poached egg plants and red dead-nettles in situ,

but took out more persistent weeds like couch grass, docks and creeping buttercup.

Trays of summer salad ready to be planted out.

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).

From the Himalayas to Shetland

Wondering where I've been for a while?

Here.



Makes a change from The Fens!
It's the third time I've visited this area of Northern India for birdwatching, which was very nice as I'd seen most of the bird species before and was more able to focus on enjoying them rather than chasing new ticks.

But a conversation in the middle of the holiday had me seriously twitchy.
We had just discovered that after four days of no phone data we could hitch a ride on the WiFi of another hotel in the mountain village. With our newfound contact with the outside world, the conversation went something like this:
Rob: There's a Scops Owl on Orkney
Me (after mulling this over for a while): What's a Scops Owl doing in Britain at this time of year? Where is it?
Rob: Bixter
Me: Isn't that on Shetland?
Rob: Oh, it's not a Scops Owl, it's a Tengmalm's
Me: TENGMALM'S ***!!!**???***!!!

This news didn't spoil my holiday, but it did have me thinking about what to do when I got back to the UK. As the days went on I went from deciding not to go at all to looking up flights for the end of the week after I got back. I would need to put a few days of work in first.

We flew back on the Monday, arriving back on the farm at about 9pm, my body clock on 2.30 in the morning.

I went to work on the Tuesday but crumbled and ended up driving to Aberdeen on Tuesday night for an early morning flight onto Shetland.

By Wednesday morning I was watching a Tengmalm's Owl.

The garden where the Tengmalm's Owl eventually settled for a few days.

Highly nocturnal, the owl needed refinding every morning as it changed it's chosen roost tree.

This made it even more important to make the pilgrimage before the twitch tailed off - numbers were needed. 

Spot The Owl - It took some finding in such a large garden

Every now and then a bird arrives which really gets the twitching juices flowing. Hugely rare, a checkered history which meant just about every birder in Britain still needed it, an owl and a fantastic location in Shetland.

What a start to the year.

Santa makes an unwelcome appearance

Tuesday 4th December 2018
Far-reaching calls through the frosty air
The year marches on. In general it has been mild, but today saw quite a heavy frost which sat around all day.
Birds were on the move all day. Two flocks of Whooper Swans flew majestically over the farm calling to announce their return for the winter. There were buntings and pipits around the smallholding too, but most unusual was a flyover of 21 jackdaws. When even a single jackdaw flies across the open fenland landscape it can be heard way before it is visible. 21 had me looking around for a while before I clocked them heading over the fields.

Where the grass is greener.
Most of today's jobs were minor jobs related to looking after the sheep and poultry. I moved the sheep onto fresh grass. There is still just about enough grass for them as long as I keep moving them, but this cold spell may mean that I soon have to start feeding hay as a supplement.


Turkey escape plans thwarted
Every few days I have to mix up the poultry feed too. Using fermented straights (that means bags of neat grain rather than industrially prepared food pellets) is working well. There's not much difference cost-wise and I won't make any wild claims about glossier feathers or tastier eggs, but I do know that all the birds go mad for it. It also makes me feel more involved with my birds, rather than just chucking processed food pellets in their direction a couple of times a day.
I have also been growing wheat fodder for the turkeys, but it is slower to grow in the cold weather and the turkeys don't seem so bothered about eating it. I'll feed them what's left and then leave it till the spring.
Final job for the morning was to mend the turkey netting for the umpteenth time. There is now more baler twine than net! The trouble is that every time a turkey breaks through a hole in the netting, they walk around on top of it trying to work out how to rejoin the others. In so doing, they create many more holes than the original one.

Santa not welcome!
This afternoon saw an unusual visitor on the smallholding. For drunkenly wrapped around one of the electric fence stakes down with the sheep was Santa Claus! To be more precise, the remains of a foil Santa helium balloon. I do wish people wouldn't celebrate in such irresponsible ways.

A few minutes later another balloon came bouncing across the fields and landed in the dyke. This one was a birthday balloon, but it had a manufacturer's address on. I promptly sent of an appropriately angry and sarcastic email. I did actually receive a reply apologising for the inconvenience. But sometimes an apology just doesn't fix anything.

A palette of willows
Another afternoon arrival was more welcome. A batch of basketry willows. I put them into water ready for planting tomorrow.

More on my willow growing plans in a post coming soon.

Medlars saved from the geese!

Thursday 22nd November 2018
A leggy young Moorhen ran nervously ahead of me down the central path leading to the poultry pens and paddocks today. This is only the third time I have seen one of these on the farm. Hopefully this mini run of notable birds will continue.

I saved the medlars from the geese today. Just a week ago the tree was looking amazing in its best autumn finery. The fruits were still hard and not yet ready for picking.
What a contrast today. The tree was bare of all leaves and the geese had plundered any low-hanging fruit. The fruits had softened nicely, presumably helped by a couple of decent frosts.

This process is known as bletting. Medlars are an old-fashioned fruit, not well-known, but they make for a wonderful addition to the orchard and are well-worth growing with a delicious flavour when made into medlar jelly or medlar cheese.

harvested medlars 

(I make no excuses for displaying them

in my first ever independently made basket)

Woodcock Moon

Wednesday 21st November 2018
The dogs flushed a Woodcock from the path today. We only see these magnificent birds about once a year here on the farm. Is it a coincidence that the forthcoming full moon is known as the Woodcock Moon? (I much prefer this to the Beaver Moon, a name which is not exactly based in British tradition). This individual was two days early though.
Woodcocks do breed in this country, but many more Scandinavian birds winter here. It is a disgrace that shooting them is still legal.

I was thrilled to see a Barn Owl alight in the old Ash tree at dusk too - the first I've seen on the farm for quite a while now. And the influx of notable birds was supplemented by a calling Yellowhammer at the back of the turkey pen earlier in the afternoon, again the first of the winter.

Halcyon Days

27th August 2018

Don't spend ages looking for a kingfisher 

- it's not there any more!

I out this dead willow branch by the wildlife pond 

with kingfisher in mind. It worked.

My second new bird species for the farm this year.
After our holiday house sitter saw one perched on a log at the back of our new pond I was green with envy,

Today was a day of harvesting in the veg patch. I had already seen a small group of house martins pass through, a very occasional sight on our farm, but as I was turning the compost heap late afternoon I heard a strange call, clear, loud and harsh. Whatever it was, the local finches and tits were not happy, buzzing and churring, generally scolding angrily. Then it hit me. Surely that was a kingfisher calling repeatedly. And another calling back!
I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse but it didn't take long, for there bang in the middle of the garden right in the open was perched a blue and orange jewel. It was perched right at the top of a dead twisty willow I had planted just for this purpose when I installed the small wildlife pond in the centre of the veg patch. I love it when a plan comes together.
The second bird was somewhere over towards the bean poles but I didn't get time to locate it before both birds took off and whizzed low across the garden, over the hedge and out of sight.

And that was that. The story of how I clocked my 110th bird species for the farm.

Halcyon Blues

More work on the pond
First job on our return was to crack on with the big pond. The overflow boggy area wasn't working as it obviously had a leak and the damp soil was perfect to be invaded by grass. Taking advantage of my renewed vigour and ignoring the heat I set about digging all the soil back out and relining it. It is now basically a second pond which I will plant up with marginal pond plants.

A Kingfisher Missed
All the while I was doing this I couldn't get out of my mind what Sue our farmsitter had told me that morning. Just the previous day a kingfisher had been sat on the log I placed at the back of the pond. We had a kingfisher in our London garden once and only once, but never have I seen one here. I have spotted them on the Main Drain, but only rarely and little did I think that one would visit my new pond.
Let's hope for a repeat performance.
Until then I am gutted that I wasn't here to see it.

Quack Quack! I'm a Duck, Not a Drake

One animal that won't be allowed anywhere near this pond is my ducks. Ducks have already ruined one wildlife pond. Anyway, most of these won't be around for much longer. They have continued to grow at a staggering rate. They are still only eight weeks old. The males are beginning to show their curly tail feathers - it might be in their interests to try to hide these!

But there is another easier way to differentiate males from females. Only the females quack! Again the males may do well to learn to quack PDQ!

A Whopper First Plum Harvest

Other news and the first plums are ready. I've lost the label and am wracking my brains to remember the variety. It may be Opal, which was originally a cross between a plum and a gage. This year they have remained green and not coloured up at all but they have ripened and sweetened nicely in this year's exaggerated sunshine.
Sue couldn't quite reach all the high up fruits, but she still gathered 17.5kg of fruit. That's a lot of plums! We have about half a dozen other plum trees which should come to fruition over the next month or so.

Hedwig comes to town

Friday 9th March 2018
Snowy Owl!
What a great way to end the working week. Straight home on a Friday night, pick up the dogs and off to Norfolk with Sue to see a Snowy Owl - the type to be seen in Harry Potter movies and known as Hedwig.
Now some birds are small, brown and boring. Only an enthusiast like me could ever get excited by them, and to be truthful most of the attraction is in their rarity on these shores rather than their aesthetics.
But a Snowy Owl. That is a very different story. There's nowhere to go wrong really. An Owl. Huge. Attractive. And rare.
This was only the fourth Norfolk record in the last 100 years. Rumour of one in the area earlier in the week remained just that until a couple had walked into Titchwell visitor centre with a photo. But days had passed and this seemed like a missed opportunity for everyone. Until lunchtime today, when the bird was relocated sat on the edge of Scolt Head island, separated from the North Norfolk coast by a muddy channel. Fortunately it was viewable, albeit distantly, from the coastal path at Burnham Deepdale. Better than that, the bird was quite likely to just sit there until the approach of dusk.
We pulled up at the site and it was a short walk out onto the seawall. The owl was quickly picked up in the telescope, perched on the ground on the far side of the muddy channel. It was livelier than I thought, constantly moving its head up and down and looking around. After about quarter of an hour it flew and it was massive. Luckily it landed in view, but the next flight wasn't long and this time it landed half obscured by the coastal scrub.
No photos I'm afraid. I am reliably informed it was just under 1km away!

This was only the third Snowy Owl I had ever seen. With darkness coming upon us and the bird unlikely to show any better, we headed back to the farm. In terms of time away from the farm and jobs missed, this bird was almost a freebie, though I have been managing to dig up and move some of last years cuttings in the evenings this week.

The cutest snow angel

I've just got to show you this from last week's snow.
The harshest element of last week's weather was the bitterly cold and strong easterly wind. It literally blew most of the snow off the smallholding.

There were strange noises going on everywhere with snow sliding and ice creaking. All a bit creepy. But a small thud from the conservatory sounded different. I went to investigate and there, lying on its side in the snow, was a blue tit. It was hardly moving. I guessed the snow must have confused it as until now we've not had any birds fly into the windows.
Then I noticed another one! Just a couple of feet away. This one was face down in the snow and completely motionless.

I gently picked up the first. It just laid in my hand, moving a little but looking none too good. I rolled my jumper up around it. Then for the second. This one I was sure was dead. I carefully pushed my hand into the snow and lifted the tiny bird. Suddenly it came to life and looked much more lively than the first. I put them both into my trapper's hat for a couple of minutes to warm up.

The pattern the second had made in the snow can only be described as a blue tit snow fairy!

Then it was time to release them. There would be absolutely no point holding on to them any longer. The livelier of the two flitted off up into a tree. The other just sat on my hand for several minutes. I tossed it into the air, half expecting it to flop back down into the snow, but it too headed off over the sheep paddock and into the hedge.
Whether each bird survived the cold spell I will never know. If they did, they certainly had a close shave.

Up, Up and Away

Wednesday 24th January 2018
Turkey escape

High winds forecast again so I stayed at home to keep an eye on the place. Good job really, for Boris woke me up barking. He often barks at nothing in particular, but there was meaning in his bark this morning. I threw on some clothes and rushed downstairs just in time to see five turkeys heading past the kitchen window on a mission!

The girls were clucking excitedly.

I herded them back up the land and eventually back into their cage. The heras fencing was jumping around and had gradually jolted the bolt loose on the door. The door had swung open and the turkeys seized their opportunity.
I did my best to secure the fencing but the howling wind made it an uncomfortable task.

Twenty minutes later the turkeys were out again!!! Much as I wanted to retreat inside, I had to make some adjustments to the latch arrangement. I secured everything with baling twine just in case.

Then it was time for a retreat indoors. Arthur agreed.

Up, up and away - the first seeds of the year

I made the most of my incarceration by sowing the first seeds of the year, some rather early tomatoes. Sowing them this early will mean they need a lot of nurturing but if I can get them through they will hopefully be producing tomatoes ahead of the rest and I might get an acceptable harvest before blight strikes. 

On the other hand, the later sown plants might just catch up and overtake. Nothing ventured...

One tray contains seeds scooped straight from Sue's favourite Tesco Picollo tomatoes. Online forums indicate that they are likely to come true.

I've also put some potatoes to chit. These are destined for the polytunnel and should give me a crop at least a month before those which have to brave the big outdoors.

Saturday 27th January 2018
Rainy day filing
Rain all day. I'm not just a fair weather smallholder, but there's no point trudging through the mud doing more damage than good.
So I busied myself sorting the seeds. They are filed by date. For successional sowing, I simply move the envelope to the second sowing date once the first have been sowed.
It's a great system which means that nothing gets forgotten.

It also did my Big Garden Birdwatch, recording every bird that came to the feeders or onto the lawn during the period of an hour. A sharp frost would have made the list more exciting, but I ended up with a fairly representative list of the birds which are regular in the garden.

An Influx of Tree Sparrows and First Bewick's Swans for a few years

Saturday 16th December 2017
An Arrival of Tree Sparrows
Absolutely amazed to see at least 19 Tree Sparrows on the feeders today. Up till now we've had between 1 and 6. I spent most of the day just watching them through the conservatory window, though when I did venture outside there seemed to be more in the hedgerows. Whether they have come from locally or from across the sea is a matter for speculation.
Unfortunately there was a rat under the feeders too - this is always a danger of feeding the birds. I shall be placing a couple of bait boxes in the area. They should keep the birds safe and I am hoping to move away from poison bait. There is a powerful trap hidden inside the boxes.

The compelling view from the conservatory window

Tree Sparrows mixing it with House Sparrows

The feeding station

Tree Sparrows feeding on the ground. But how many can you see?

Sunday 17th December 2017

A Sharp Frost

A very sharp frost. We are in a spell of colder weather which is most welcome.

Shetland sheep are tough cookies

One of the new ponds looking very wintery

I love how the copper beech hedge retains its leaves through the winter

The Tree Sparrows were still on the feeders today, though numbers seem to have dropped a little.



In the back field, swan numbers were up from 26 to 39. They are mostly Mute Swans but recently there have been three Whoopers mixed in with them too. On closer inspection today there were five Whoopers, but more unusually the herd had been joined by three Bewick's Swans.

The swan herd in the fields at the back of the smallholding