whoops, and Forest Tots

Urgh, like all good intentions, this seems to have gone a little awry!!!

I'm honestly not sure what has happened to the last month, I think it's been taken up with a poorly toddler mostly, but also fighting to keep pigs in, foxes out, weeds down and playgroups started.

I know it's not very farm related, but I'm very excited about a  new playgroup that a friend and I are starting in the Forest.  It's called Forest Tots, and is an outdoor playgroup.  That is we are outside unless the weather makes it dangerous to play in the woods.  We have a website, but it isn't finalised yet, so I won't post a link here, but I will steal the bit from the Philosophy page, as I think it's rather lovely!

* We believe in splashing in puddles

* We believe in rolling in the snow

* We believe in warming ourselves by a campfire when it's cold

* We believe that conkers need to be collected by the pocketful

* We believe that trees were made for climbing

* We believe that bushes are just asking to be hidden in

* We believe in walking in the rain

* We believe in building dens

* We believe in playing with sticks

* We believe in making mud pies

* We believe in sitting in the sunshine

* We believe in picnics

* We believe in wild adventures

 

We Believe that children should be free to be children

In other news....

It's September!  How did that happen?  the last time I checked it was May, the baby's birthday was coming up and I was planting seedlings.

I'm now holding conversations, sort of, with a 16 month old and drying out onions and grubbing up spent plants. I quite genuinely don't know what has happened to this summer.

It's been beautiful, productive, and completely different to any of the preceding summers for me, but it's flown past and I'm not sure I've loved that aspect of it.

On the plus side, longer evenings leave more time for planning and crafting, plotting and scheming, making and talking.  Plus the log burner being lit again.  It's like having another person in the room and always feels like greeting a long lost friend the first time it's lit for the winter.

Website up and running!

I finally managed it, with the help of a lovely friend, Crookham Farm now has its own website.

You can find it at www.crookhamfarm.co.uk and although there isn't much on there at the moment, I now, hopefully, have the ability to change and improve it.

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to our blog!

We moved here just over three years ago, and I've finally got round to starting a blog to document our lives, the progress we have made and what we are hoping to achieve.  

Maybe one day I'll even be able to write about making some money from this place......

Back when we moved in we were faced with this:

Did a LOT of this:

 And even more of this:

There has been a huge amount of work over the last 3 years but there's also been a lot of these:

 And some wonderful ones of these...

We're now part way through extending the house, have pigs, sheep, chickens (quite a lot of chickens actually, don't tell Si!) and a polytunnel and veg garden producing lots of our food.

We're never going to make a fortune, or even a living from this place, but if it allows us to eat good quality food with a known provenance and gives us enough to sell that it covers our costs then we will be happy.   

I know both Si and I are jealous of our daughter growing up here, with all the freedom and fun that it will entail.