Dynamite_Matt
Member
Good Morning folks,
Long-time lurker, one of those that only posts when they want something! So here I am to try to benefit from the years of knowledge available on these boards, ideas i've not thought of, focus the mind and maybe make some contacts, i figured im going to be using these boards for advice and have been, it only polite I introduce myself.
So in brief me & my partner have been slogging away in the southwest working fulltime jobs and renovating houses on the side always with the aim of ending up at a small holding before 40, well we have made it! just im 39. I grew up on farms and have fair farming knowledge but no real practical expearience (plant expearience, diggers mainly on our sites) my family was always into building so alongside my full-time job at merchants we have always built. My partner's work is not related to building or farming but she is the best labourer I've ever worked with from tiling, carpentry, paving, shifting blocks, driving dumpers, etc. With the exception of electrics, gas & plastering we are capable of most tasks and am always willing to learn.
Covid initially caused us grief mainly due to it making it not profitable for us to renovate anymore and our initial target area for a holding was Wales (in between my family in the south west and hers in Yorkshire) and we've all seen what prices have done there in the last two years, but the silver lining was it forced us to look elsewhere and pushed a "now or never" attitude we fell in love with an island in Orkney and have purchased just over 20 acres surrounding a 3 bed house with a nice selection of stone barns and sheds the land is mostly grass with a reedy/marshy strip but appears productive seeing pictures through the year with cattle, sheep and hay/silage making.
This all happened very quickly in the space of a month it went from booking a viewing trip up to a closing date being set before we could view and after a few video calls our offer was selected and im ecstatic to say it was selected not just with money in mind, We made it clear we are coming to work and want to reinstate the holding so believe we beat some retirees and holiday folk. We've been up once, plan another trip or two before the move.
So now we are in the "sh!t its real stage", We have to sell our bungalow down here (pay back family) finish up our jobs, small extension for mother, organise and go in January (best of the weather) with a pickup, livestock trailer & dog
We will be mortgage free have a couple of years living expenses put to one side which should leave us with 50-100k to make a start with. Our initial plans being to create a cabin/holiday let primarily for family & friends (the house will not be renovated for a while so we want somewhere nice for those that make the effort to see us to stay in but can also provide a little income definitely don't want to many tourists though, reinstate the veg gardens with a couple poly tunnels and just take it easy and integrate for the 1st year, The lands currently rented out (unofficially I believe) but that suits us and expect we'd slowly take the land back field by field when we have a use and until then he can use them hopefully with my help. When we start thinking animals we were initially thinking pigs and dairy goats, pigs might be out need to look into the abattoir abit more and goats well they seem high maintainance to me and what will we do with the males? When we were up there everybody was just saying beef to us which im keen on after some tuition from a local, Orkney cattle look to be tanks compared to our soft southern cattle! We do need to generate income but may well do some work on the island to integrate as much as anything, we aren't greedy we'll only need basic income to survive a d intend to keep it below tax thresholds.
We are realists we know this will be our biggest project to date and our initial main aim is to integrate so we are not going to arrive and start this and that, just ease into it see the lay of the land. Alot will depend on how our bungalow sells down here fingers crossed its good then im allowed to think of a excavator if I'm really lucky a tractor, mower, etc. but I have plenty of other things to think about, what are haulage costs? do I drive a trailer up with our stuff? can my timber suppliers drop up there for me? Should the small holding be registered as a business? Pickups just gone bang need a new one, so so much to do.
I know there's at least a couple of regular posters from Orkney didn't want to take liberties and tag them in.
I would appreciate your comments.
Long-time lurker, one of those that only posts when they want something! So here I am to try to benefit from the years of knowledge available on these boards, ideas i've not thought of, focus the mind and maybe make some contacts, i figured im going to be using these boards for advice and have been, it only polite I introduce myself.
So in brief me & my partner have been slogging away in the southwest working fulltime jobs and renovating houses on the side always with the aim of ending up at a small holding before 40, well we have made it! just im 39. I grew up on farms and have fair farming knowledge but no real practical expearience (plant expearience, diggers mainly on our sites) my family was always into building so alongside my full-time job at merchants we have always built. My partner's work is not related to building or farming but she is the best labourer I've ever worked with from tiling, carpentry, paving, shifting blocks, driving dumpers, etc. With the exception of electrics, gas & plastering we are capable of most tasks and am always willing to learn.
Covid initially caused us grief mainly due to it making it not profitable for us to renovate anymore and our initial target area for a holding was Wales (in between my family in the south west and hers in Yorkshire) and we've all seen what prices have done there in the last two years, but the silver lining was it forced us to look elsewhere and pushed a "now or never" attitude we fell in love with an island in Orkney and have purchased just over 20 acres surrounding a 3 bed house with a nice selection of stone barns and sheds the land is mostly grass with a reedy/marshy strip but appears productive seeing pictures through the year with cattle, sheep and hay/silage making.
This all happened very quickly in the space of a month it went from booking a viewing trip up to a closing date being set before we could view and after a few video calls our offer was selected and im ecstatic to say it was selected not just with money in mind, We made it clear we are coming to work and want to reinstate the holding so believe we beat some retirees and holiday folk. We've been up once, plan another trip or two before the move.
So now we are in the "sh!t its real stage", We have to sell our bungalow down here (pay back family) finish up our jobs, small extension for mother, organise and go in January (best of the weather) with a pickup, livestock trailer & dog
We will be mortgage free have a couple of years living expenses put to one side which should leave us with 50-100k to make a start with. Our initial plans being to create a cabin/holiday let primarily for family & friends (the house will not be renovated for a while so we want somewhere nice for those that make the effort to see us to stay in but can also provide a little income definitely don't want to many tourists though, reinstate the veg gardens with a couple poly tunnels and just take it easy and integrate for the 1st year, The lands currently rented out (unofficially I believe) but that suits us and expect we'd slowly take the land back field by field when we have a use and until then he can use them hopefully with my help. When we start thinking animals we were initially thinking pigs and dairy goats, pigs might be out need to look into the abattoir abit more and goats well they seem high maintainance to me and what will we do with the males? When we were up there everybody was just saying beef to us which im keen on after some tuition from a local, Orkney cattle look to be tanks compared to our soft southern cattle! We do need to generate income but may well do some work on the island to integrate as much as anything, we aren't greedy we'll only need basic income to survive a d intend to keep it below tax thresholds.
We are realists we know this will be our biggest project to date and our initial main aim is to integrate so we are not going to arrive and start this and that, just ease into it see the lay of the land. Alot will depend on how our bungalow sells down here fingers crossed its good then im allowed to think of a excavator if I'm really lucky a tractor, mower, etc. but I have plenty of other things to think about, what are haulage costs? do I drive a trailer up with our stuff? can my timber suppliers drop up there for me? Should the small holding be registered as a business? Pickups just gone bang need a new one, so so much to do.
I know there's at least a couple of regular posters from Orkney didn't want to take liberties and tag them in.
I would appreciate your comments.