Making money

Money

Over the last few weeks we have been putting together our ideas about making money from our future smallholding. Half way through our tour we are very definite that we do want a smallholding!

Making a living from a smallholding seems incredibly difficult. Diversification is the key, and adding value to your harvest, be it vegetable, meat or wood.

Also having a good outlet for your product. At Easterwood they were trying selling their charcoal, honey, pine candles and hand-carved spoons at a car boot sale. The pine candles sold quite a few, but cheaply whilst they increased the price of the honey as people went for their cash before being told the price.

Whilst helping at The Wealden Times Midsummer Fair we saw how you could have a massive markup on a product if you had the correct setting for it. If you had a pretty stall, and your product looked nice, you could make a good price on your products.

If you are selling at a craft fair you need a good range of products. I was discussing with a greenwood carver how you need high value products to make your money, so you don't need many sales and have the right product to work on and chat to potential customers at the same time. Jamie made the very good point that if you have something for two or three pounds you should be able to sell something to everyone who stops at your stall. His take is that very few people will pay even fifteen pounds for a hand carved ladle or serving spoon, which may take one or two hours to produce, but most people would part with two pounds for something pretty that takes five or ten minutes to make.

I don't think I will ever be able to sell the eating spoons I make, as the quickest one I have done still took over an hour. I don't think anyone would pay eight pounds or more for one of my spoons! And after so much effort I would like a reasonable return for my work.

Variants on my jar spoon design, the top one snapped during carving.

I probably need a very simple design for a sugar/stirring spoon to be carved from a small branch. Something I can do whilst the children play before getting upset with each other. Ten minutes might be possible!

More inspiration

We have found a family doing almost exactly what we think we want to do!  Dave and Rosie were able to buy their land five years ago and now have sheep, a few cows, hens, woodland, a polytunnel, orchard, are building their own house, and have horses that stay out all year round.

They have three children, one of whom I lost.  I forgot Rosie had gone to the other end of the farm and told the four year old to "find mummy" whilst I was trying to get K to go back to the tent for bed.  They were amazingly forgiving.  I know I would have been quite angry if it had been K or J being sent to look for me such a long way away.

We had a great time with them, despite that.  We made compost heaps using a square former, built wooden walls on their small barn.  Dave has a mobile saw mill and used to be a forester, so seasons and cuts his own boards.  We used a sickle for clearing weeds, which is actually just as quick and easy as using a strimmer.  We also learnt a lot about having a small-holding and having reasons for living on your land.  The polytunnel grows herbs and salad for sale, and needs constant attention, as do the horses that Rosie looks after as part of the business.  Dave runs a portable compost toilet company, making Thunderboxes from old chemical containers and wood from his woodland.  They are going to provide a terrace of ten toilets to Glastonbury this year.  Rosie was telling us they need something like 80,000 toilets for the festival!

They home educated their children until they had to put so much time into running the farm.  This has shown us that we will need to make a similar decision about our girls.  They are lucky enough to live on the outskirts of a hamlet that is close enough to a medium size town to provide jobs for locals who do not work in agriculture so there is a real village community.  Very nice.

After ten days in mid-Devon we have had a week off.  A weekend at the Bodgers Ball, a brilliant greenwood working festival that really inspired V and myself to learn wood turning as well as hand carving.

I also saw a scything demonstration which amazed me as to how easy and efficiently you can cut grass, and weeds, by hand.  I like power tools, but some things can be done just as well with human power and skill.  I won't be selling my chainsaw in a hurry though.  V and I did a timed log saw together, and took three minutes and forty nine seconds to cut through a 12 inch log.  Really hard work as well!

Unfortunately we can't fit a pole-lathe into our van so we have started dreaming about a caravan so we can have a lathe and shave horse with us for turning bowls.

Big plans for the future :)

high expectations

Our travels are going very well so far.  We are leaving our third hosts on Monday and again we have learnt an amazing amount about a wide variety of things.

Each place we go to has so much to give and quite often we feel that we are not able to repay the gift of their knowledge, time and inspiration by the work that we are able to do.

Last week I learnt to use a hedge trimmer and a grass strimmer and felled a 25 foot tree, amongst other things.  But the time talking to John was priceless.  We also learnt that Devon isn’t as warm as you might think.   We were in a frost pocket and had three morning frosts!   Neither is Cornwall, as tonight we nearly took the stove out but it is bitterly cold, so this post will be even shorter than planned.

This week V and I built a wood store and water collector.  I am also getting the hang of splitting wood rounds for firewood after several hours practice.

Splitting wood at Kennal Vale Farm

Natasha has a young Forest Garden and has already learnt so much and was making us aware of things which work and don’t work.  Their two children are also Home Ed and now receive some lessons at home.  This works very well for them and is now something I would consider for the girls, having seen the benefits.

Our first week at Lower Shaw Farm was different to anything I could have imagined.  The feeling of belonging to a family was nearly instantaneous and something we will never forget.

Lunch at Lower Shaw Farm

We now move to Tiverton in Devon, to a very low impact farm.  They say “leave all your expectations behind”.  All I expect is something new and again move on with an open mind.

It Begins

Vikki has had a great few days on her Spoon Carving course with Robin Wood.  On the first day she made some very nice tent pegs which did a good job with the strong winds we had.  I was sent out during the night to check things were in place after a couple of pegs were pulled forward and rain was blown in during the first night of strong winds.  The tent held up, despite our worries.  It really is not nice watching the pole and the chimney move around so much and hearing them creaking so loudly!

Her spoons and spatulas are very nice indeed, and she did different styles to those that I have made.

We did need a trip back to Huddersfield to pick up some things we forgot.  That was one of the reasons for starting at the Edale course, so if we forgot things it was a relatively short journey to get them.

I also forced my parents to come and visit on my dad’s birthday.  They had a terrible trip down, but had good fun with their grandchildren J

Our holiday finishes tomorrow though.  A visit to a play park and then Bletchley Park before going to our first WWOOF host, Lower Shaw farm.

Vikki and I are really looking forward to it now.  It has been so long in the planning and now it starts.  To quote my sister “Cool”!