This morning saw the arrival of the solicitor's letter headed, 'We are pleased now to confirm conclusion of a bargain on your behalf', along with the receipt for all funds transferred to pay for the house. As soon as the funds clear, we can collect the keys and begin work on turning the house into our home, at which point, our very own microholding project will begin.
This is what we have to convert into a self-sustainable, eco-friendly, self-sufficientish garden.
Looking down the garden from what will, one day soon, become our patio, you can just make out the trees at the bottom, where the steam runs through and where the feathered friends will take up residence.
This is what we have to convert into a self-sustainable, eco-friendly, self-sufficientish garden.Here, we see the bottom of the garden. This is where the hens and ducks will soon be going to live. It's a fair sized area to fence off for them, probably measuring about 8m x 10m - plenty of space for our micro-flock.
Between there and the main garden, there's a stream, so there's plenty of scope for keeping a duck pond filled with fresh water, not to mention watering the furthest corners of the garden.
The far end of the garden meets the main garden by way of the small, concrete bridge over the stream. Perhaps, one day in the future, we'll have a more ornamental water crossing but, for now, this will do us just fine.
Once across the bridge, we arrive at the bottom of the main garden. It's over 90m long and about 10m wide, so plenty of space for developing our great outdoors.
Looking down the garden from what will, one day soon, become our patio, you can just make out the trees at the bottom, where the steam runs through and where the feathered friends will take up residence.It's all very exciting, but also a huge task, as the place hasn't been touched in two years. Apart from that, we still need to get the house reasonably fixed up this summer. There's no building work to do, thankfully, just major cosmetics and upgrading of services & utilities before we can safely move in; with luck and a great deal of determination, we're planning on being there sooner, rather than later.
Apart from that, I need all my fruit trees and bushes planted so I can see what the space looks like once the bottom of the garden has been turned over to the feathered friends. The fruit trees will be transplanted to form the mini-orchard.
Progress will be mapped here and in the forums, but you'll find all the relevant links at http://www.microholding.co.uk/ just as soon as we make a start.
What exciting plans! The back garden area has so much potential.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to follow your progress. x
I hope everything turns out as you want it to. It must be really exciting, not to mention terrifying! I'm going to be following all your progress with great interest and I'm sure I'll learn lots!
ReplyDeleteA fantastic blank canvas. One with much work to do...but it's yours to do with as you choose, how exciting.
ReplyDeleteCan you put a caravan on site so you can live there while you bring the house up to scratch. This would save you a fortune in rent, and caravans can be purchased SO cheaply secondhand.
It would be like a long Summer holiday , although one of very hard work!!
looks fab , i can just see a deconstructed pallet bridge over the stream :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. :)
ReplyDeleteWe can't put a caravan out the back - that would have been brilliant - as it's a terraced house with no vehicular access to the rear. There's space for a tent, though, and lovely friend is lending me hers, along with some other bits and pieces, so we aren't stuck for cooking etc.
The stream will take a bit of planning to fence, as it's quite fast flowing and the banks are very overgrown. Ducks will love it but, in spate, it's more likely to wash them away. LOL
We're delighted at having got the place, it's amazing how fate can always lend a hand. We wouldn't have found the place had we not been served notice to quit our rental.
I know I joked about moving closer to a town, but fate mocked me on that one - this place is almost 20 miles from the town. It's about 3 miles from the village of Port William, so we'll have a local shop, post office, bank and garage. There's even a great little community/charity shop.