It all started about 5 years ago when two good friends, Dave and Mags, tempted us with the idea of buying an abandoned village in Spain. Sadly it was at the wrong time but it kick started something in our imaginations. We dreamt of growing our own food in a community and having our own energy generation. We then started talking about doing something in Wales with the community of friends we had made here. Unfortunately we were all at different stages, eventually we realised we needed to do something on our own.
So having had years of experience volunteering with a green building company (Rounded Developments) and Cardiff Friends of the Earth we knew we wanted to build as green as possible. We are now exploring everything from using the stream to provide some energy to solar and small wind turbines. We will be adhering closely to the philosophy of reducing first, ensuring that anything we consume is at the minimum, which shouldn't be a problem. The house should be fairly passive as the walls are about 2-3 foot thick, it should get great solar gain and is in a very sheltered south facing spot. We are also exploring underfloor heating in order that we heat the house as evenly as possible. This year we hope to plant hazel, ash and willow plantations to provide biomass fuel for the future, and we will be coppicing some of the old hazel in Autumn after the nesting season. We will also be collecting rainwater for showers and washing etc whilst remaining on the mains for drinking water.
Monday 10 March 2008
Sunday 9 March 2008
The first week of owning a pile of stones and a beautiful piece of land.
This is a bit of a blog for all our family and friends to keep you up to date with what we have been up to over the last 6 months, why we have been out of touch at times and what we will be doing for the next... who knows how long!
So anyway about 4 months ago we had accepted an offer on our house in Cardiff and were looking for a place to rent in west Wales. We had seen a lovely house in Llandeilo and in the afternoon went to casually look at a piece of land a bit further up the valley. It was out of our price range but was intriguing so we couldn't resist looking. The owner had decided, however, that she would drop the price by enough for it to suddenly be in our price range. By the end of the day we had resolved to put in an offer and buy it. The last few months have therefore been a bit madcap! James was finishing his PhD and so the leap into this may have seemed more than a bit daft.
Our kind friends and family have helped us in many ways, from putting up with us and our mad cat in their houses, to storing our furniture and ridiculous amount of books and records. Our friends, Clayton and Dana who came over from America to go to our parents wedding anniversary party, even became our willing slaves for a week on the land!
Without them all this would all be even madder we're sure!
So on the 29th of Feb we finally bought the place. A total of 9 acres of mixed land which has not really been touched in the last 40 years or so, a stream or few, about 5 acres of very rich, slightly clayey (is there such a word?), south facing field, the remaining 4 acres being a mix of woodland and open steep sloping meadow.
It's a little piece of heaven!
We have been fortunate enough to be able to see the land go from the dark of December into the sunshine and snow of March. We have found bluebells, daffodils, snowdrops, foxgloves and unfortunately Japanese knotweed! The land is bordered on all sides by streams, but rises away from them, the barn is thankfully out of flood range by a good long way! The last week has been spent: climbing around in the brambles; exploring the range of the land; creating the platform for our yurt which we will be living in for the forseeable future; and getting the caravan up a crazy lane and track.
We will try to portray all of this in pictures as much as possible here.
So anyway about 4 months ago we had accepted an offer on our house in Cardiff and were looking for a place to rent in west Wales. We had seen a lovely house in Llandeilo and in the afternoon went to casually look at a piece of land a bit further up the valley. It was out of our price range but was intriguing so we couldn't resist looking. The owner had decided, however, that she would drop the price by enough for it to suddenly be in our price range. By the end of the day we had resolved to put in an offer and buy it. The last few months have therefore been a bit madcap! James was finishing his PhD and so the leap into this may have seemed more than a bit daft.
Our kind friends and family have helped us in many ways, from putting up with us and our mad cat in their houses, to storing our furniture and ridiculous amount of books and records. Our friends, Clayton and Dana who came over from America to go to our parents wedding anniversary party, even became our willing slaves for a week on the land!
Without them all this would all be even madder we're sure!
So on the 29th of Feb we finally bought the place. A total of 9 acres of mixed land which has not really been touched in the last 40 years or so, a stream or few, about 5 acres of very rich, slightly clayey (is there such a word?), south facing field, the remaining 4 acres being a mix of woodland and open steep sloping meadow.
It's a little piece of heaven!
We have been fortunate enough to be able to see the land go from the dark of December into the sunshine and snow of March. We have found bluebells, daffodils, snowdrops, foxgloves and unfortunately Japanese knotweed! The land is bordered on all sides by streams, but rises away from them, the barn is thankfully out of flood range by a good long way! The last week has been spent: climbing around in the brambles; exploring the range of the land; creating the platform for our yurt which we will be living in for the forseeable future; and getting the caravan up a crazy lane and track.
We will try to portray all of this in pictures as much as possible here.
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Bracken! by Dana Kittle
Tree on one of our sloping meadows
The Barn by Dana Kittle
This is our Welsh Barn which we have just bought. Our architect has confirmed that the old crucks we've found inside date it to being at least 300 years old.
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