So near but yet so far...

The gap between the dream and reality was never so apparent as last weekend when we went, for the second time, to the Smallholder and Garden Festival in Builth Wells.

The first time, in 2009, all was new, exciting, overwhelming even. It was an opportunity to see animals and ask questions of their owners in a way we hadn’t been able to do before. It allowed us to decide that Anglo Nubian goats were our goat of choice and that a cow needed too much space. We spoke to people who bowled us over with their enthusiasm and positivity while, at the same time, leaving us with no illusions that a smallholder lifestyle is a soft option.

This visit we went with open eyes and decided to concentrate on less but more intently. This also proved difficult as there was again so much to see but we did spend plenty of time around the goats and Anglo Nubians came out top again, although Toggenburgs come a close second. I spoke to a very nice lady from Devon who gave me lots of advice and then brought everything home by asking: How much land do you have?

So the dream and the reality are still very far apart. While the slowly recovering economy is starting to reduce the negative equity we found ourselves in two years ago, it’s a long drawn-out process and one that will probably never give us a good return for our money. At the moment I think we’d be lucky to get the deposit back. Anything on top of that is a bonus.

So what are the next steps? Well, firstly a trip to Poland in July which will be concentrated around Szczecin. This will allow us to explore the area further and decide if it really is where we want to be. It will also enable us to visit a few estate agents and talk to some people about the price and availability of property with land. After that we can decide if we have the money to carry on.

It's a dirty job, but...

When I was 17 and Channel 4 was just months old, I watched The Animals Film. It showed, in graphic detail, factory farming and what went on in a vivisectionist’s laboratory. I decided there and then that no animal needed to live in such conditions and I gave up eating meat (and six months later, fish) as a personal protest. I said at the time that when factory farming stopped, or when I killed and ate my own meat, then I would eat it again. That hasn’t changed over the years, neither has my support of animal welfare (although not animal rights). Over the weekend, though, I think the day got that little bit closer.

We had three hens. The biggest used to bully the other two to the stage where they have almost no feathers on their backsides. One of them was also laying shell-less eggs. So, with my dad’s help, we built a ‘sin bin’ and I started to isolate them to find out who was laying soft eggs. It turned out to be the bully, so she was put in the sin bin for two days to try and cure the feather pecking. However, when she was put back in the run she viciously attacked the other two and plucked feathers from anywhere within reach. So we took the decision to cull her.

Not an easy decision but the hens aren’t there to look pretty, they’re there to lay eggs. As Agnieszka said, we’re not a charity. In addition, if I want to farm a smallholding, then there will be times I need to cull birds or animals and if I can’t do it, then I might as well forget that kind of life. It isn’t something I would do for the hell of it, just when it’s necessary. So I took advice about the correct procedure and late on Friday night when it was dark and everything was still and quiet, I lifted her out of the sin bin and wrung her neck. She was plucked, dressed and in the fridge an hour later.

To say I haven’t wrestled with my conscience over the weekend would be an untruth. It bothers me that I did something I thought I never would. I lost sleep over it, felt guilty, tried to justify what I did and at the end of it all came to the conclusion that it was the best thing. We don’t have room for a ‘free-loader’. She had a good year with us, was well looked after, but in the end she stopped producing what she was bought for.