New

Today is the first day.  I love this day more than the night that precedes it.  Hogmanay can be built up, and sometimes the need to feel you are having a great time and making the most of the last moments has a slightly desperate tinge to it, but that's just me.

We had no plans, save playing a board game with the Smalls, but had the pleasantly squishy experience of a caravan full of impromptu guests last night, which was the best and most perfect way to see in the New Year, surrounded by the friends and neighbours who have helped us so much in the past six months.

After so much merry making, we decided to have a slow day spent being together, doing what small jobs were needed and resting.

It has given me space to walk the land, and dream a little more, plan a little more, see a little more.

We know where the house is going to be sited.  It isn't exactly where we would have liked, but councils don't like little houses being built on a visable hilltop, even if there is no one else to see it, and there is the practicality of being a pensioner, climbing a hill with bags of shopping.  So, the house is to be nestled into the side of the hill, not so far from the track.

With this certainty we've been able to start marking out other things.  A pond, a line of stock fencing, a barn and a woodland.  It feels good to have a solid plan after many months of switching things about.  I feel we've been flexible enough and now, armed with a little more knowledge of where the sun sets and rises in the darkest months, we are able to stick to a plan.

So, weather permitting, foundations will be put in for the house in March, and the frame will follow from that. We may have a shell in time for my middle boys birthday.  Just six short months away.

For now I am enjoying the feeling of new. New hopes, dreams and plans.

Yarn-along

I've never done a yarnalong before.

Mainly because it has taken me years to learn how to knit and purl, and I'm still at the very start of following patterns.

But I have decided that this year will be the year of KNIT and a weekly check in is a good way to keep the momentum going.

The project is a set of fingerless gloves for my nephew.  I am currently basking in knitted glory (auto text changed that sentence to "basking in kittens" which would also be nice.)

I made a rushed pair of rainbow gloves for my own littlest and his cousin came to stay.  He much admired those rainbow mitts, and before he had left he picked out some colours for his own set.  I have four days to finish them, and as he wants three colours together they're knitting up pretty fast.

After this I'm crocheting my daughter some headbands for an upcoming skiing trip.  

And reading...I can't believe I've missed out on this book as a young woman.  It's blowing my mind.  I was a wild child growing up, but somewhere along the way of becoming a young woman I lost that part of me.  I can remember being fifteen and having friends tell me that I needed to stop climbing trees and riding horses and pay more attention to boys and clothes.  I only half listened to them, but I did listen.

Since living here, and living so close to the seasons, I feel I'm back in touch with that girl, but it's better now, because I'm a woman.  And I have a confidence that I lacked in my twenties.  I hope I can convey this to my daughter, I hope she never loses her wildness within.

Sunrise

8:35 a.m. This morning.

Winter walking

We've been sitting inside for several days now, and whilst I've enjoyed playing with the Christmas presents and eating all the food.

Today I needed to blow off the cobwebs and burn a few calories, and so we went for a walk in the woods next door.

Temperatures have struggled to get above freezing for serval days now, which means we have plenty of ice to play with, and comedy chickens that flap as they slippy slide their way around.  After a quick venture out they tire of the slipping and flapping and go back in their coop where the ground is sturdier and the air is warmer.

These days

Various pictures I found on my phone from the past few days.

A robin that has taken to popping up whenever we feed the chickens.  We throw him a little seed too now.

The Mr starting his latest project, a waterwheel for electricity generation.

This rather sad specimen is our outside tree.  It was a sapling growing under two other bigger trees, and so we decided to let it have it's glory moment with lights and sparkle.

My daughter on her newest herd member.  She's eye catching, and she knows it!

The stove, with bread baking on the top.  It made a respectable baton loaf, but it didn't rise particularly well, but tastes ok.

Living temporarily

Nothing is permanent.

Nothing stays the same.

We all know this, and yet days can pass and they can feel similar, so that you don't notice the changes because they are so small, and then you do notice and perhaps you wished you'd paid more attention. 

This is how I am finding our temporary living.  I hope that we won't be living another year in this little space, but at the same time I don't want to wish it away too fast.

A few big things have happened in here . My youngest lost a baby tooth, we had our first ever game of monopoly where everyone played independently.  We got creative with Christmas decorations, making the most of limited space and decorating vertically and outside more.  

I love that I can stand and cook in the *kitchen and be involved in the conversations in the living space.  I don't always love that I can be in the living space and have a conversation with children who are in their beds and not supposed to be listening.  I know that this will change, and that one day my husband and I will be able to hold private conversations within a building, instead of opting to walk outside in order to not be heard!  This is how most of our Christmas gifting decisions have been made as the walls quite literally have ears.

In a surprising twist, having started this post about how things change, the architect drawings arrived today.  Although we are building our own home, we needed the expertise of an architect to get Planning off our back and our detailed application to be approved.  This seems to be an expense worth paying out for, because the council have left us alone and are satisfied that the architects have it all in hand.

So, with the arrival of the drawings, I am reminded once again that our current living arrangements are not permanent, and that with the arrival of Spring we will see another change, and this makes me happy and keen to embrace what will be an unusual and unforgettable festive season in our wee caravan.

*the kitchen is really nothing more than a corridor joining all the rooms together, but I'm making the space work.  Some days it works better than others.

This picture has nothing to with the post subject, but my dearest drew it on my favourite chipped coffee cup, and it made me smile, not just for the comedy face but for the effort he put in to draw it in secret.  It has washed off now.  Which proves my nothing is permanent statement, so maybe it is related...

(Honestly, these blog posts are really not very well thought out, so please give me some credit for managing to get that creative link in there.)

Winter

The snow arrived last night.  It was the most very delicate smattering.  Enough for fun, not enough to cause major disruption for us.

I know friends on the Western Isles have had a very different experience, and BBC Radio Scotland had a special report about the lightening strikes causing power cuts.  Lightening, high winds and snow?

I think you have to be a special kind of tough/ crazy to live up here.

Slow

Off grid living should be re-named Patient Living, as you spend a great deal of time waiting.  You can be frustrated by this (I regularly am) or you can accept it and develop the fine art of waiting.

Waiting for the hot water to boil on the stove so we can wash, waiting for the batteries to charge up so we can watch an episode of Doctor Who, or just waiting for the weather to improve so you can leave the caravan without getting soaked to the skin and covered in mud.

If you're clever, you can fill these waiting gaps with other actviites.  Whilst you wait for the bath water to warm, you can clean the bathroom walls and floors and light a candle so that the bath feels extra nice.  

If you are waiting for the solar powers to charge up the batteries you can go outside and chop wood, walk a dog or four, draw a nice doctor who inspired picture or haul water if the tank is low.

Impatience is most likely to strike the younger members of our family, but it does strike me from time to time, and so I fill it with a sneaky bit of knitting or crochet, and then the waiting seems more bareable.

Sometimes you get so involved in the waiting that you forget that you're waiting...

When winter comes to visit

A blurry photo taken by me on behalf of my eldest, she really wanted me to capture the colours but we were moving at speed.  Still, I like it, it depicts the cold.

Yesterday we had our first real frost.

I knew it was cold before I even opened my eyes as my face was numb.  I hadn't banked the fire up properly and I think it must have gone out in the early hours, and being a simple metal shell, the static just got icy cold.

It was so still outside.  The grass in the fields was stiff and crunched appealingly under foot.

But at the time I didn't really take very long to appreciate it, because the gas ha stopped working (no cooking) and the flue and burner had got so cold it too was refusing to light without coercion.

We got there in the end, but by the time we were warm and fed, the ice had started to melt.  The kids did get to enjoy it though, and there was the usual excitement that frozen water brings.  

Kindly neighbours stopped in to make sure we were safe, and to discuss why the gas had stopped working.  The Mr came up with a theory involving a frozen valve, and we've taken precautions to stop this happening again by putting some protection where needed.

We've also been thinking about the batteries that are currently off the ground but under the static.  Too many hard frosts will upset them, so thoughts are turning to protecting them from the cold as well.

When we installed the wood burner we gave ourselves a pat on the back.  I was heard to say that an indoor loo and a woodburner were all we needed to face the winter, and I'm starting to realise that this is naive of me.

We are at risk of getting caught out.  Although the image of chopping wood with an axe from the woodland is charming, it takes too long and we are currently very time poor.  So, as an early Christmas present, the Mr has bought himself a chainsaw.  This is hardly the Eco dream, but it will last twenty five years, and will give us time to do other jobs.

And there are plenty of those!

When is an Eco house not an Eco house?

I had big dreams when we got this place.

Actually, I had big dreams before we got this place.  I wanted to live gently on this planet of ours, in a Zero waste, carbon neutral bubble of happiness.  It would be a house made from recycled everything and we would be pioneers in this buynowpaywithtearslater world that we currently live in.

But I am coming round to Kermits way of thinking.  It is most certainly not easy being green.

Put aside that most everyone thinks we are bonkers for giving up a normal life to live in a field, and so therefore greet everything with a certain amount of prejudice/ trepidation, there is also that delightful inner voice to contend with.

Take grey water for instance.  You would think that wanting to dispose of waste water in an environmentally sound manner would be welcomed but the architect we are working with explained to me - very patiently - that, actually, councils like expensive chemical treatment solutions that nearly clean your waste completely and then pump it into a nearby water source.  It was the "chemical" and "nearly" that put me off.  

When I - equally as patiently - explained that we will have an indoor composting loo, I was asked to provide design details.  Apparently saying the shit goes down the back and the pee section is at the front is not good enough.  I need to draw a diagram.  I kid you not. 

Now, I like our architect.  I didn't actually want an architect but the council pushed us and so we had to seek advice.  They are on good terms with the authorities and know their stuff in terms of legalities, so in this respect I feel we are in good hands. They are also experienced in offgrid houses, although I suspect they apply this term to houses supplying their own electrics and water, not to the extremes that we are trying to do.

We spent an evening designing the house we would like.  It isn't a grand design by any stretch, but it is practical, sympathetic with the landscape and ecologically sound, but it might be out of our budget and experience comfort zone.

So we are at a crossroads, where budgets bad ethics meet.

I realise that this is my second moany post in a row, so I better sort myself out.

Things aren't always great when it rains

I hate prolonged rain.  I hate it because it produces mud, and even with twenty tonnes of hardcore laid out, we still get mud.

It makes crossing from Big Field to Middle Field a slippy, slidey affair.  There is always a good chance that you will lose your footing, and jar your spine or end up sitting on the floor.  And it isn't a nice floor, it's a squelching floor with the added sensory experience of smelling of cow crap...because let's not forget that a few months ago cattle grazed here, and each time it rains a little more of their excrement gets washed down the hill.

Mud makes getting in and out of the caravan annoying.  You have to take muddy wellies off, and most likely, you have to use your hands to pull them off, and, most likely, that mud will end up on your hands.  If you're a Small, you will solve this predicament by wiping your hands down the sides of the wall, or on someone else's coat.  

Rain is good for filling waterbuts and keeping the green, green but oh...I hate mud.

Every time there is a rainstorm, I make a note of somewhere else we need to lay a path, and then I wonder if really what I should have bought was a level Tarmac car park rather than a squelchy hillside with added poop.

So, although I am sunshine and rainbows most of the time, when it has rained for more than two days I'm afraid I become the foreteller of doom, and a teeny tiny voice in my head whispers that I am

Not cut out for this offgrid life, and I should just scuttle off back to normality.  I mean, if a bit of rain can knock me down....what will a whiner like me do when it snows??

Where we live

This is the view from further up the lane, looking back at our static, and home.

I've taken the picture from this angle because it hides the mess and tat that is very visible close up.

It's not much, but it's home.

North wind

Or to more accurate, West North West Wind.

We had a weather warning issued, so we spent most of yesterday running around making sure everything that could be secured, was.

The storm arrived in the early hours of this morning, and is the most bizarre weather event I can remember.  This storm bounces from sunny sky with brisk breezes to dark menacing skies and gales that threaten to rip off the field shelter roof.

We've been yoyo-ing back and fourth with every change, but we are a bit bored of that now, so I'm only going out if I hear a really Big Bang or ripping sound.

I am just really pleased that we have an indoor loo now.  No more midnight treks to the outdoor one.  It was installed just in time.

This picture was taken a few days ago, from the dip by the Wee Burn.

How you know it's autumn

There are the obvious things, like beautiful leaves in glorious shades of red, gold and orange.

There are mushrooms and fungi springing up overnight on old wood.

And there are rain clouds that burst unexpectedly and without warning, that empty out over a few days, and flow with serious intent over the banks of the Wee Burn, meaning you wake up one day to find your path has gone, and your waterhole has been filled to the brim with rocks and stones.

Even the pup looks confused about the geographical changes that occured overnight.

So now we are left to scratch our heads and work out exactly how to source our water.

The upside to the rainstorm was a replenishing of the waterbuts.  So whilst stream water is currently out of bounds due to the sheer viciousness of the torrent and no safe access point, we do have an alternative supply to see us through.

I also have the bonus of more beautiful rocks and stones to play with.  I'm

Thinking of a spiral mosaic.  I just need to make sure I create it higher up so it doesn't get washed away in the next storm.

Beginning :: A Loo

Right.

I've very much skirted around this issue because I didn't want lower the tone of the blog...but poop and pee is a way of life, like it or not.

Every off grid book and blog I have ever read has made me wonder about where they do their business.  Without being rude, taking care of your crap is a big issue when you can't simply poop and flush and move on with your life.

Initially, we were using a patch of long grass down the side of a slope in one of the fields.  This was not ideal and was most certainly not a long term plan.  The morning that my daughter was startled from her ablutions by a large red deer was a turning point.  We had also had some rain, and I can tell you that peeing on wet grass whilst being soaked by heavy rain is not fun.  Not in any way shape or form.

I did not find the joy in that moment, and so I had a little tantrum and insisted that we HAD TO HAVE A LOO.

So, as we had already earmarked a place for a composting loo, we decided to get to it and start the build.  I had recently scavanged a load of pallets and we decided that these would be a good starting point.  We used some fence posts and some wood off cuts and some roofing left over from the shelter project and came up with a rustic, yet fit for purpose loo.

At this point can we discuss the appropriate angle for a funnel?  As we were composting, we decided to go for a seperator model, which basically means your pee and your poo are kept seperate.  The poo goes into a large compost bin (again built with pallets and lined with black plastic) and the pee was directed into a large container which would be emptied onto an exploded haybale that I'd gathered up in wheelbarrows and piled up in a heap across the field.  I can report back that there is no smell from either area.

Anyway...back to the funnel.

So, as I am a Lady...it was decided that I should have quite a lot of say in where the funnel to catch the pee was positioned.  Apparently males have a bit better aim - or at least, better equipment with which to aim, whereas girls squat and hope for the best...at least this is my own personal experience.  Getting that funnel at the correct angle was the most challenging thing we had done so far.

I am not kidding. 

And here after the toilet talk, is a picture of thousands of tiny flying bugs that danced in the sun today, looking exactly like fairies.

Little bitey fairies.

in the garden

Did I just call it a garden?

As you can see from the pictures,  It is more a wildflower and weed haven.

I have made some developments here and there.  We dug out a pond where the stream over flows and I've planted around 500 bulbs, mostly daffodils, tulips and crocus but with a few pricey alliums thrown in.  The result will be eye watering.  I didn't go for muted tones or even a specific colour palette.  I just got them all in the ground.  My theory is that there is so much green, any colour variations would be welcome.

I've dug over five beds and put cabbage - red and spring, Kale - red and green as well as purple sprouting broccoli and strawberry plants in them.  I was getting worried as I dug because the topsoil was so thin.  If I dug down three inches, I was met with a clay subsoil.  After consulting with neighbours, I found out that the previous owner had had the field flattened and scraped, and that most of the topsoil from this field was dumped on the banks of a nearby stream.

This revelation has completely changed our plans around.  Subsoil is apparently what you need for a good wildflower meadow.  So, where the vegetable garden was going to be would be the ideal place for wildflowers, bee hives and some fruit trees.  I initially found this hard to accept, as it didn't fit in with my plans.  I am learning - slowly - that working with what we have is far easier than trying to force my will.  So, for this Winter I will leave the brassicas where they are, and feed them as best I can, but next Spring I will not be planting out in this field.

I've done some exploratory digging over in the big field - the one we planned to leave for a hay crop - and found this to be much better soil.  It crumbles if you fork it - whereas the other soil lay in sad sodden clumps, a coppery shimmery line of clay displayed in each one.

We have just slipped past the Autumn Equinox, and it in an almost text book fashion, the weather has changed - there is now a noticeable chill on what was a warm wind, and we can watch the leaves fall in their hundreds from the trees that line the track.  Most of the trees here are Alder, Beech, Rowan and Hazel.  A useful mix that we will make good use of over the years.

The Alder is very much a weed.  They are springing up in the fields now that they are not being munched down by cattle, and I am determined to rescue as many as possible, and have started a small nursery of saplings in pots whilst I work out where I want to put them,

I'm also eyeing up the Beech saplings I've seen in the boundary ditch, but some of these are over six feet in height, and I'm not sure what is the best way to move them without damaging them.  I do know that over Winter is the best time to move them as they are dormant.  Maybe I should start with one and see how it fares.  Then next year I can move the rest.

So, for now I am very much back to the drawing board.  Trying to work out how much of this land I should turnover to a garden, and what I would like this garden to look like.

I've been watching the '80 Gardens Around the World' as inspiration - and so far I've decided I like the look of Mediterranean gardens...which is northern Scotland is as unlikely as you could get!  A girl can dream...

Beginning :: the tourer

I posted a while back about the universe providing us with temporary accommodation.  Well, the universe did, but only after we had been on a not-so-merry dance.

To cut a long and rather depressing story short, we couldn't get the original static because it was wedged so close to the previous owners house that the removals people couldn't remove it without bashing the life out of it and the house.  So, heartbreaking as it was, we had to walk away from what would have been a perfectly good temporary home, knowing it was probably going to be chopped up and scrapped.

After this we could not get a static no matter how hard we tried.  We searched all of the obvious places...Ebay, Gumtree and the local free ads.  Nothing.  These statics were in hot demand and were therefor going for drastically inflated prices.

In the meantime a local farmer was selling his old touring caravan.  For the princely sum of £100 we could have a solid structure over our heads.  A night spent watching lightening zig-zag in the sky through the tent canvas was enough to convince us all that it would be £100 well spent.

So, the following weekend the purchase was made and we became the owners of The Cavalier.  Solid, dependable and - most importantly - dry on the inside.  We had the makings of a home.  It was small but had two sets of bunk beds as well as a double bed, and came with an awning so we had extra storage.

Amazingly, despite being thirty five years old, The Cavalier was in excellent working order, and now I could add Grill to my means of cooking.  Two hobs and a Grill...I felt like I had arrived.

The following week it poured and we all grinned at each other, smug and snug in our new caravan we looked out at the grey sky and cosied up with books and board games.  

We even had electric as we'd purchased a couple of car batteries from a scrap yard and had charged these on the generator. Although the lights were rarely used due it being midSummer and so barely getting dark, it was nice to occasionally have the radio on. 

The biggest difference was sleeping.  To be out of tents and raised up off the floor.  That first night I slept solidly for eight hours.  Not once did I wake with aching limbs or a sore back as I so often did in the tent.

Now I knew we would be able to cope come what may.  We were warm and very dry, if a little cramped at times.

ask the universe

So.

A couple of days I wrote here that we were struggling with finding a suitable static for temporary accomodation.

My final sentence was "hoping patience pays off here too."

I sat and visualised what we would need to keep us all warm and dry.  Nothing fancy, nothing earth shattering just simple and clean.

I placed an advert on Gumtree.  After my homebrew luck, you never know.

Four days went by and I got the little email sent by Gumtree reminding me that no one had replied to my ad, and perhaps I should pay a little bit of cash to make it more promienent.  I could see how this would work if you were trying to sell a car, but not for my particular situation.

Then, late one night I got a text message. I will forever read that text message both aloud and in my head with a booming God-like voice.  It was simple enough, just asking me if I had thought to check the freebies section on Gumtree.

It hadn't occured to me at all....can you see where this post is going?

Turns out that somone a couple of hours north of us was giving away a static that would suit us perfectly, and so after a few back and fourth emails we are the thrilled new owners of a static, which has only cost me a transportation fee.

I tell you with absolute certaintanty.  If you want something and your reasons are good and pure, then the Universe listens, and makes it happen.

I am learning now that the frustratons of past endeavours in to land buying were all part of the learning process.  It was a test to see how much we really wanted this, to see if we would keep on and on.

Our long term vision for this little place is to open it up and share it with people, and with this sharing  ethos at the centre of what we want to do...I firmly believe that the universe is listening.  And helping.

the heat arrives and more thoughts on camping

**I found this saved in drafts - we aren't camping now but I don't know why I didn't publish it as it sums up exactly how we were living**

We are still camping.

This is OK mainly because the weather is good.  In fact it is so hot we can barely move.

Keeping cool has become the main preoccupation of nearly everyone.

The tents are boiling hot all day.  All vents are opened in an effort to keep it cool whilst limiting the number of bugs that share the space with us.

Wasps are proving an issue.  They are everywhere.  I now have a wash up area under cover (think camp site sink) Washing up dishes has become a danger sport, and I can be regularly seen running around with a dishcloth and a cup as I defend myself from a wasp onslaught.  It isn't one, or even two.  Most likely it is five or six all intent on settling on whatever it is I'm trying to clean.

We haven't made it to the coast, even though it is a measly ten miles away.  Our days are full.  We are building, moving mounds of earth, cooking, clearing up after the cooking, gathering fire wood, hauling water or boiling water.  Living this way takes a lot more time.

I'm not complaining as this feels like truly living.  Every day I am aware of the slight changes in the weather.  I watch the horizon for rain clouds (there are none) and I notice the small things around me.  The colours of the stones in the stream, the huge number of white butterflies and where they gather, the arc of the moon.  Things that I would have liked to have known before now, but because I was cosseted inside I was not in tune with.

I am thankful for this time.  I know that it will get easier, that we will put infrastructure in place, and we will some day have solid walls and a roof, but I am happy for now to wait, to marvel in this naturally world and pretend that I too am a wild creature at home in my surroundings.

Haybales

Before we officially owned the land (can you ever really own a place?  I think not, but that's another post for another time) the farmer we bought from asked if he could take a hay crop from the land.  We were OK with this as we needed hay for our horse over the winter months, and so we came to an agreement that he could cut and bale at his leisure and then leave us enough winter hay in the barn up the road.

What none of us thought about or realised was the hours of play that a few bales could provide for a group of children.

Several were rolled together and a slightly dangerous game of bale jumping was developed.  It started with tentative jumps, but within a matter of days confidence was high and it became a race.  Who could race across the bales the fastest?

There was also one lonesome bale left at the top of the field.  We quickly realised that this was a great place to sit and watch the comings and goings across the valley.

After a few weeks, the farmer needed to put the bales under cover.  It was with heavy hearts that the children said goodbye to the bales as they were taken away on a trailer.  The loss of the bales left a gap in their play, that it became clear could only be filled with the invention of an equally if not more dangerous creation of a tree swing.