Ponds, Ponies, Pumpkins and Fun at Frugaldom

October 2017

Frugaldom is a magical place for creating memories so that's what we plan to do forever more. We have started plotting and planning for the yard area as it's no longer muddy, it's now nicely sheltered and the hedge along the back of it has started to grow, encouraging the wildlife to venture closer.

Now that I have 4 grandchildren, there's usually no shortage of little people to have about the place. I have to admit that the 'terrible twos' don't seem to show half as much outdoors as they do indoors.  At Frugaldom, the biggest problem is when it's time to try and get the 2-year-old to go home! He doesn't seem in the least concerned at visiting on his own while the older ones are at school and the littlest is still too small to do much out here.

Yard work is fun

Right from the outset, I knew what would be put at the top of Santa's list for this particular toddler - he loves barrowing anything anywhere! You can never lose sight of a little kid with a big wheelbarrow, that's for sure. It's like having my own mini research team on site when the children come to visit because they show me all the things that are most important to them and what entertains them most. This gives great insight into potential future developments as we launch our frugal holidays, plan more themed breaks and prepare for various child-friendly events at Frugaldom during 2018.

"I love Pippin"

Pippin the pony is always a hot favourite. His name, as far as grandson is concerned is, 'My Pippin' or 'Wanton Pippin' and the pony seems to tolerate absolutely anything said child does... much to the detriment of my ragged, gran nerves!

"I love muddy wellies"

Our first themed short breaks were introduced and aptly named 'Muddy Wellies Weekends' for one good reason - all kids seem to love muddy wellies and so, too, do some adults! :)

"I love playing in water"

Exploring in nature is fabulous fun and the mini-pond gets checked regularly in the hope that the frogspawn and resulting tadpoles return. Of course, it's even better fun if you get to forage in the garden for your own dinner before going exploring. This is one little boy who loves his soup and knows where it grows... in the soup garden, of course!

"I love cleaning my wellies"

Biosecurity is of the utmost importance and should be taught as soon as possible. It's another of the fun things toddlers seem to love and is also something that didn't take long to sink in... washing one's wellies both on arrival and on departure is important so as not to take germs into the barn or near the plants, poultry or ponies.

Back on the frugal bandwagon of bargain hunters - I managed to find a bulk lot of these interconnecting grids that are used for shed bases and parking spaces. We aren't anywhere near ready to use them yet but the prospect of saving over £50 just couldn't be missed, especially when the seller was fairly local and offered to deliver them to us. There are enough here to do the base for a garden room.

This was another of the bargain buys of October - a lovely little futon (double bed size) that will be utilised in the on-going improvements while trying to create extra space for extra guests in the various accommodations we are attempting to provide.

The ecoarts project will soon be launched fulltime, as 2018 sees the start of the creation of the designated trail at Frugaldom. It's a really exciting time despite also being a time of reminiscing. It's still hard to believe that my dad isn't here to see that we really did manage to succeed in finding and affording a piece of land to try and do everything I always spoke about doing. I'm sure he'd have approved! (Mum planted this oak tree and 'Mr Ecoarts' made the wild wood bird for displaying the dedication plaque.)

October was a month of growing - everything continued to grow, with the willows, Rowans, Hawthorn, Buddleia and Blueberries doing exceptionally well but it was all closely followed by the later sprouting Holly. Many more of the same will be planted in the future, now that we know they like it here.

Lyn's bridge got a coat of paint and work began on clearing the path at the other side, which will eventually run almost to the river, flanked on either side by native woodland species, such as willow, hazel, alder and birch.

We can't forget about the picking and preserving. We weren't able to grow any beetroot at Frgaldom but we did receive some, traded for fresh eggs and apples, so it all got boiled and pickled.

The apples just kept on coming, so I think most of our friends and neighbours at the holiday park were eating either stewed apples, apple sauce, apple tart or apple crumble. I have enough frozen apples to last a while longer and the cold-stored ones still need to be stewed but are being used as required.

The chickens are doing well, even if number 3 grandchild is still finding it difficult to keep up with them or catch them. On this particular day, the children were using the lean-to / potting shed as an art studio and had been out looking for things to make into pictures. Feathers are fun but the chickens kept following the kids into the shed! 

This was grandson taking his fnished nature art picture to show his mum, He did have a little bit of help making things stick to the bit board (we recycled a cardboard box) but he collected all nthe bits and pieces by himself - yes, he even picked some of the Oxeye Daisies because he thought they were 'pretty flowers'.

This is the lean-to potting shed. It's just leaning up against the side of the barn at the minute but we hope to make it a substantial, permanent structure that will double up as a learning room for the children. It isn't a full height sed but it it high enough for short people (like me) to walk about and the children love it. I want to make a proper panelled wall where it meets the barn and turn it into a chalk board on one side and a pin board on the other. It will then make a great space for displaying all the nature leaflets, posters and childrens's artwork.

Goldcrests everywhere this month! It hardly seems any time since they were here las year but here we are, picking them up from the barn where they have arrived, exhausted after their long flights from, I think, Scandinavia.

The new ponds finally settled and we got a bit more of the track around the edge laid, thanks to the help of our lovely volunteers. I am now 99.9% sure that this part of the project will see the arrival of its first amphibian visitors in spring, as we already have an assortment of birds and insects visiting. I plan on planting a row of willows around the edge just as soon as I have got them all cut.

Willow cuttings

The forst of the willows got cut but all of these were planted along the side of the newly cleared path beyond Lyn's bridge.

More tomatoes

We weren't the only ones with late tomatoes - these were all handed in as surplus to requirement, so they got made into pasta sauce, curry and chutney.

99p pumpkins are amazing!

As October came to an end, we had visitors arriving for the Hallowe'en paty at the holiday park, so we bought some pumpkins. We had tried growing our own but the wet weather just didn't give them a chance. So here's what I got made with the shop-bought variety.

Happy Halloween

Pumpkin carving at Halloween

As the month ended, we started looking towards the final events of the year - Bonfire night, tree planting, winter solstice and Christmas. I also had a couple of volunteers arriving to help during November, so that was an extra bonus and something to look forward to, with the arrival of Marnie, from France.

The Wildwood Fairy

This is one of the latest sculptures made by Mr Ecoarts - it was made for daughter and son-in-law, who recently moved house, but I couldn't really post it here before Christmas - even although she did see it before then. 😊 Being this size, it was kind of difficult to hide at the caravan or at Frugaldom, where the children explore.

'Mr Darcy'

 The horse sculpture was commissioned to go on display at a very special project in central Scotland. 'Mr Darcy', as we nicknamed him, was modelled on a real horse and the sculpture is now on display at Darcy's Equine Assisted Learning Centre near Strathaven in Lanarkshire.

I think that's enough for October but I did say it was a very busy month. Onwards and upwards... to the penultimate month of the year. I'll be back soon with some more updates.

Frugal living and working through July 2017

Frugal Living has plenty of perks!

Summer work, rest and play a Frugaldom

Our visiting students all had archery lessons

 Throughout the past year we have hosted numerous students and volunteers at Frugaldom, each here to experience frugal living, life in the country and, in most cases, practice their conversational English, albeit with a certain Scottishness. It has been great seeing the progress made during their stays here, even if the good old Scottish summer weather was as unpredictable and unreliable as ever. We still managed to fit in fun between bouts of work.

The cuckoo corral orchard

 After receiving an unscheduled pruning session by the visiting escapee sheep that were with us for several weeks, the newest fruit trees in the cuckoo corral decided to start growing again. The dog roses also took a severe pruning when the ponies managed to push down one of the fence rails and stretch their necks through far enough to reach them! No rose hips this summer!

Caroline (France), Olivia (USA) and Anne (Germany)

Our 3 students shared a caravan while here and seemed to gel well, despite the fact that the French lass spoke no German, the German lass no French and the American lass no German or French... we all managed perfecly well with Scottish English. 👌😊

We finally managed to hire in a mini digger and driver

The digger and driver were here for just a few days, as the cost was slightly prohibitive at almost £250 per day! However, in that time, the 2 main drainage ditches leading away from the central project got cleared, a big straining post dug back into the ground and the 2 ponds dug - one for ponies accessing the running water and the second, larger one, for planting around to form a new wildlife habitat. At the point the ponds were dug, we had a drought, so the entire area was almost dry and scraped down to the clay base, where old stone, possibly from previous drainage, was found.

Strawberries growing in the recycled milk caron 'Mishy Pods'

 A few new strawberry plants plus many runners from existing ones were potted up into the milk cartons, so plans are now afoot to build new strawberry beds.

Nick (Bulgaria) is our regular hoof trimmer

 The ponies have been having their hooves trimmed every 5 or 6 weeks, when Nick stops for an overnight. Learning about keeping and working ponies barefoot has been a real revelation for many of our students and visitors - it's quite shocking how many people think that the poor animals need to have metal nailed to their feet before they can do anything! Here a Frugaldm, we strongly support the theory that 'you are what you eat, right down to your feet' and that can be said for equine species, too. The Frugaldom ponies will never have shoes on their feet as long as they are with us - nor will they ever have bits (more metal) in their mouths. We have metal-free mud monsters, who live out all year round without rugs, stables, fancy feeds or 'posh' saddlery. Hay and herbs serve them well and everything else is from whatever they browse around the edges of the project - mostly marsh and moor grasses.

Blistering sunshine for bringing in the hay

Having ponies that don't get let loose on lush, green, monoculture grass means we need a plentiful supply of meadow hay and that isn't always easy to find. We want freedom from chemicals and a good mix of grasses and herbs, so it serves us well that we have friendly neighbours who believe likewise. But boy! Is it hard work bringing in several hundred small bales of hay against the clock within what little sunshine we get here! In this game you really do have to make hay while the sun shines, but I think the girls enjoyed their tractor driving lessons and their ice lolly breaks.

All our students learned to drive the tractor with baler

 The last bales were stacked in the barn at around 10pm, after another brief stop for chips! It was like carb and fat-fest for energy replenishing!

After a long day bringing in hay - about 600 bales

After our brief call to action for doing the hay it was back to the Frugaldom work. One of our regular volunteers who builds the benches from the surplus fencing wood single-handedly built us a new foot bridge so we could get across the newly cleared drainage ditch! She's a whizz with offcuts, that's for sure!

Celebrating near completion of footbridge over the newly cleared drainage ditch

Wheelbarrows and stone are the most common features at Frugaldom nowadays. Drainage is a top priority but we don't have the necessary funds to bring in contractors so it's all down to hand digging, laying in pipes where necessary and backfilling with an assortment of stone. From all this work comes the benefit of better toned muscles and a deeper appreciation for the morning swim in the pool at the caravan site - that definitely starts your summer days off in fine style.

Barrowing stone for the drainage is an endless task at Frugaldom

 After trying to fit as much work as possible into the dry weather slot, it took only 3 days for the new ponds to fill up completely and from that day to now, we haven't had a solid week of dry weather! It's been wellies every single day.

Olivia, Caroline and Anne by the newly dug pond

 Both ponds almost filled to capacity. They are interlinked so the small one runs into the larger one and then it can overflow into the drainage ditch that carries it off though the field via Anna's ditch.

The new ponds at Frugaldom - wildlife and drainage areas

The hens at Frugaldom are well settled into their new 'chicken shack'. We lost a few to a mink attack and then gained a few more, when we had 4 given to us and 8 chicks hatched in the incubator at home. At the moment we have 7 of the hens and a cockerel at Frugaldom and the rest at Thrift Cottage.

We have a hen laying pink eggs!

 The 2017 hatch of chicks were all pure bred Araucanas and 2 of the donated ones are x Araucana, so we do get blue eggs. However, we don't know what types the brown hens are, so when one started laying pink eggs, it was a complete surprise.

The ponies began their training to work barefoot, bareback and bitless

 Thanks to 'Auntie Anita', we now have a lovely bitless bridle for the ponies. Until this was given to us we were simply using rope lead reins and headcollars but this is so much 'posher' looking. This is Willow, our medicine hat 'spirit' pony, modelling it.

Leeks and courgettes were plentiful

The small vegetable plot behind the barn produced plenty of leeks and courgettes but this area will now be turned over to garlic and herbs, as there just wasn't really enough sunshine reached this area to make it worthwhile expanding it.

While here, the students learned a bit about wild flowers and herbs, so we have been drinking plenty of rhubarb fizz and our first ever batch of pineapple plant cordial!

At the caravans, we decided to use the 3-bedroom one for our Frugaldom work exchange students and rent out the 2-bedroom one for visitors looking for an affordable way to take a countryside break. This brought about the official launch of Frugal Breaks on Facebook and our new online booking platform. It's been an exciting year, so far!

Our fundraising is being done via www.gofundme.com/Frugaldom where you can get dedication discs for our posts and trees, sponsorships and holiday home accommodation to come and visit us in 2018. We've also had several wildcampers at Frugaldom but without any services on site, you need to cart your own water. I'm now investigating portaloos, composting toilets and filter systems for river water.

This about sums up July, other than one surprise that came along the way... a telephone call that resulted in us buying another house, this one only 7 miles from Frugaldom!

As always, I love to hear from anyone with any questions or comments and please let me know of any typing errors, as I'm attempting to blog on tablet or Kindle in an effort to use mobile internet at the caravan. all going well, we should soon have mobile internet at Frugaldom, but it's all dependent on availability of signal and Pay As You Go sim cards. Vodafone is looking like the most promising for there but Three is definitely the best for caravan park.

Back soon with the August whistlestop tour! 

Back on the Trail of the Frugal Microholding (Part I)

Too Small for Smallholding? Try Microholding!

Part 1 of 3

 

It's been two years since we moved into our fixy-up. That's another two years of scrimping and saving, trying to get an eco-renovation done on a very tight budget and trying to create a semblance of normality in the wilderness that was the garden before the property lay empty for a couple of years. I'm pleased to say that we do now have water running from the taps rather than all over the house and through the roof, mains electricity reinstated, a phone line with broadband, a flushing toilet, an electric shower and a stand along multi-fuel stove (although this still needs some work done to complete the installation properly). We have some floors, even managing to uncover and salvage the original stone tiles that make up the hallway, but everything else is taking far more time and money than anticipated. But we can see the path we're taking, so that has to be good.

 

Garden progress is even slower! Weeds grow very fast, almost as fast as the dreaded slugs and snails munch through my plants! And this year's exceptionally long winter with several feet of snow certainly haven't helped matters. Regardless, the 90m x 10m strip of wilderness is slowly taking shape on what little budget we afford it.

 

OK, so it's painstakingly slow, despite trying to get it to a stage that it will produce food for us as quickly as possible. I've been trying my best to do as much as possible with as little as possible, salvaging useable 'stuff' in an effort to try and follow a frugal version of permaculture. As you can see, the Foxgloves are in full agreement with this strategy.

 

The bottom of the garden remains untouched barring what the hens have managed to achieve for us by way of clearing the ground. Moving from the hen run we have the burn, which has flooded once during the severe rains we had last year. Next to this is the wild bird corner, seen above, which is surrounded by Foxgloves and a selection of shrubs donated by friends or traded for through our LETS (Local Exchange Trading Scheme) group.

 

 

It's a very pretty corner of the garden and one where we were happy to see Blue tits nesting this year in the first of the boxes we'd hung in the old plum tree. What with that and the ducks having the run of this part of the garden, it makes for an ideal shady retreat - if the old wooden bench remains with us long enough to enjoy using it. All around the edges, I have planted raspberry canes but these have taken on a life of their own and will need sorting out later this year so we can train them into neat productivity in future years.

 

About halfway down the garden, we dug a pond and linked it to the stream, hoping this would help siphon off any excess surface water during floods. There's another wooden bench beside the pond but you tend to get soaked when sitting there if the ducks decide it's more fun to bathe in the pond than swim in it. They do love their pond but, like everything else about here, the pond project hasn't been completed yet.

 

 

The willow whips have sprouted and had to be cut back this year, the reeds have rooted and are growing well and the little fruit trees that had to be rudely transplanted from the previous garden at a less than suitable time of year seem to be recovering from the upheaval, some even beginning to produce fruit. (Only apples and cherries, the pear and plum trees are much slower) but that's as far as the central garden project - the micro orchard - has reached, so far. But the ducks love it!

 

In true permaculture fashion and in support of several pleas to leave parts of the garden uncut to attract and benefit bees and other insects, I have banned the mowing of the daisies and buttercups that grow among the fruit trees, barring a path through them to get to the bottom of the garden and reach the hens.

 

In this mid section, we also have the duck housing and two compost bins but I have to say they will never produce sufficient compost to sort out the entire garden, so I have had to invest in pre-packed bags for starting off seeds and getting the vegetables going. The hedgerow is slowly becoming edible, as I have all the raspberries, crab apples, blackcurrants and elder. We'll see how things go with those before embarking on any further developments in that department.

 

Apologies if these posts seem to be rather image heavy, but it's the easiest way of recording progress so I may look back this time next year and see what progress has been made.

 

Frugaldom

 

www.microholding.co.uk

Solving the problem of holes in concrete

A FRUGAL PATIO GARDEN

The area we have designated as our patio had one glaring problem - a massive, hideous gap in the concrete that flooded during heavy rain. Solving the flooding problem was a must, but digging up the concrete to install a new drain of some description wasn't an option I was prepared to even consider incorporating into the frugal budget, so here's what I did.


The day we moved into the cottage



This is what I refer to, very loosely, as our patio. It's a concreted area outside the back door that stretches for about 10 metres. It's ideal for parking planters, junk, log store, bins and coal bunkers, but it had the problem of a huge gap in the middle, which I quickly filled with gravel in an effort to make it less hideous.

It didn't take too long to clear out all the junk, most of which was recycleable in some way, shape or form, so we have had the use of this patio area for sitting out during dry weather. On numerous occasions, we've eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner out there, as it's often warmer outside than in, especially during the sunny winter and spring days. It's an absolute suntrap, so all the tubs and fishboxes got moved along the south facing wall and used for sowing seeds. But the problem remained - a muckle great hole that was both unsightly and a bit of a 'tripping-up' point when carrying stuff about the place.

This is the ghastly 'hole' filled with gravel raked from elsewhere to prevent anyone falling into it. At its widest and longest points, it's about a metre wide and about 3 metres long.

Last month, I began raking out the stones in the hope of finding concrete beneath it but, instead, found rocky soil! Instant appeal, as I'd just found myself another little patch of potentially productive growing space! Cue hand tools - a spade was useless as it was too rocky.

The soil I found underneath wasn't too bad, it certainly wasn't worth ignoring or covering in concrete - we can't eat concrete and no comments, please, about my rock buns! :)

Raking about in the ever-increasing heap of junk that was being piled high in the garden, I found a length of plastic, possibly off an old waterpipe. That fitted nicely around the far end of the 'hole' and gave me a template from which to work. I'd to wedge it with rocks to stop it springing back out but it eventually stayed in place and allowed me to follow the line with my incessant digging.

There were some pretty big rocks got dug out from here, I can tell you. Some were more like boulders, fit to be built into the dry stone wall that borders our garden.

It took a full day of raking and digging to empty concrete canyon, but I saved the best of the soil for later use.

Next stage was a simple progression, as I couldn't see any of the bird tables from the kitchen window. I movedone and placed in the middle ofthis new 'patio garden, separating my hole in the ground into two holes in the ground.

Among all the rubbish that was here, we had salvaged several lengths of drain pipe, so a piece of that was incorporated along the edge in the hope that surplus surface water would be channeled off further from the seating area. The other reason, of course, was to provide some sheltered hiding place for the lizards, toads and frogs that frequent the back garden - this might tempt them out of the woodpile, for a start!

We got plenty of rain for the next few days, so the pipe theory of sending the water away proved to be very effective. Keeping everything in place was a simple matter of strategically positioning the rocks that had been dug out of there.

Next was what to plant. I had been reading about herb spirals on some of the permaculture newsletters and these sounded very interesting, although completely impractical, being 2 metres across when I had only a 1 metre near-circle, but I couldn't see any reason why I couldn't adapt the design to use up more of the rocks. So, my first spiral, or circulal, garden was born.

I built it up in the middle by making a smaller circle with log slices, filled it with the recently removed soil then began transplanting some of last year's strawberry cuttings, along with some thyme and some lupins that needed splitting. I even treated the new garden to a sprinkling of compost! This is at the far end of the patio, so any surplus rain water shouldn't lie, it should, hopefully, keep these strawberries watered.

Now for what to do with the other side, which flooded. It seemed simple to me... dig out a mini-pond! It would need to be ultra-frugal, as I had no pond liner and only what was lying about the place as materials, so more digging got done. I then laid some old fleece (previously used as curtain linings) along the bottom, taking the rough edges off the remaining rocks and stones.

On top of the fleece, I laid several feed bags, from the poultry grain. Over the top of that, I laid a layer of bubblewrap (we NEVER through out bubblewrap) and then a large polythene bag that had been saved from the sheepwool insulation... this seemed to do the trick and looked water tight, so now it was time to try filling it up with water.

I laid the drainpipe right to the edge of the mini-pond, so the rain water that pooled in that area could easily overflow the pond and run down into the circle garden. It took a variety of materials to hold down the plastic and I had the straight edge stepped up a little using a length of discarded wood. The ledge would hopefully help any critturs to safety if they inadvertently landed in the water.

The little patio garden was coming along nicely, multi-tasking as a wildlife 'playpark', bird feeding station and some extra growing space.

I kept adding bits and pieces that I found around the garden, surrounding it all in rocks, which we have plenty of here. I even transplanted several weeds from the side of the stream and sat the pots into the water on rocks. A square of plastic mesh got placed along the shallow end, allowing anything that climbs in the ability to climb back out again. Finally, a length of log, a baton of wood and two old steel hoops, possibly from a long forgotten cloche, were secured in place to hold the makeshift pondliner.

The final result looks very effective, considering it had cost absolutely nothing to construct. However, the first time Floppity rabbit saw it, she spent most of her time munching on the strawberry plants, so a remedy had to be found for that!

A quick search for 'companion planting' brought me to the conclusion that I needed something leafy, hardy and bunny friendly, so I have sown perpetual spinach around the outer edge of my circle.

The area is currently out of bounds to rabbits until the spinach grows big enough to distract her from the strawberries! I hope it works!

Since building this, I have now spent a hefty £8.29 on a solar fountain and we have been lucky enough to have had plenty of sun to keep it flowing.

Within the space of a couple of weeks, the strawberries are flowering and the spinach has begun to sprout. There are now also radish seeds sown and I raked up some old pine needles and moss to mulch the plants to try to protect them from the frosts we are still getting.

NYK Media

Frugaldom