Selfsufficientish.com

I have a small poly tunnel which will now be used for fruit, I like the idea of putting an apricot in there, might have a think on it. Thanks Tony.

There was a mention of apricot harvests in West Cork....what variety do you grow? I have none here, but I had one tree in the UK. I forget the variety, it was one specially bred for the UK climate. When I bought it, a very knowledgeable gardening friend almost wet herself laughing at me!!

I am considering home educating my 9 year old, I have no idea if I have to register somewhere, or if I have to follow the standard curriculum and will she have to take tests at the end of the school year? She's a very bright girl, who was well advanced when we moved here from the UK. She did brillia...

What is the maximum age for slaughtering goats for meat? We have a 3 - 4 year old female who we have just found out is sterile. Sad as it is, she is of no use to us. Would the meat be tough? We eat mutton and thought it might be similar.

Thanks for the information, i have decided to start painting my nails so i can put the rum nail varnish remover to good use!!!

My hubby made marrow rum last september, following a recipe from this forum. We have left it for a year and were disappointed to find it had turned into nail varnish remover.

Any ideas why??

He produces all sorts of wonderful homebrew but this just didn't work out.

He has a very large 'manbag'!!!! And he fathered kids this year too. He's not your typical billy though, very docile and not overly smelly - we did think he was sterile for a while.

We have been told that having the billy in with the girls will taint the milk, but we didn't find that at all this year.

Zoe, that sounds like good advice. In fact its all good advice. The person in question keeps asking if my eldest daughter has forgiven her yet....I should really say no, and that i don't blame her for with-holding forgiveness!! Part of me wants to be completely honest with her and the other part thi...

I decided that this year, i would be completely honest with people. Not that i was a dishonest person before. Its not as easy as i thought. I've completely stopped telling little white lies....'No, your bum doesn't look big in that' ........'that dinner was delicious'...and so on, I have even spoken...

We only have 1 sheep and 1 ram, however, we do have a small herd of goats with an intact billy. We let them live as a herd all year round and have encountered absolutely no problem.

Hi, we did exactly what you want to do 18 months ago!! We moved to a cottage with 2 acres of land near Adamstown in Co. Wexford. We grow our own fruit and veg, milk our goats and produce meat from goats, pigs, sheep, ducks and rabbits. We also keep chickens and ducks for eggs. We are in the process ...

Ha ha ha, thanks Old Jerry, advice and humour together always goes down well!!

One of our nanny goats produced 2 kids on wednesday, who are destined for the freezer. Our goat book says to slaughter them at 8-10 weeks, but we think that they will be quite small at that age. Has anyone raised their own goats for meat before who could give us some advice?
Thanks, Lisa.

Thanks everyone, we now think its something more than just the fibro, i'm on a waiting list for brain scans, will let you know how i get on xx