Illness, recession but I still want to grow my own - how?!

[Farmer gra]

As a family, we have been living the ‘good life’ in west Wales for 5 years now on 40 acres. Half of it is fields and the rest is deciduous woodland. Our main aims to look after the wildlife habitat and aim towards self suffiency probably 20/30% there?
Our present problem is that as opposed to when we started there were 3 of us, 2 full time and 1 part time, now I’m still here! My son in law has had to go contracting for indecent amounts of time to pay our bills and mortgage something to do with the recession. His wife (our daughter) has a medical condition that has been slowly sapping her strength for years, a sudden down turn has caused her to struggle with children and supporting her husband! This leaves my wife inside and me (granddad farmer Gra) on the out side with plenty of useful advice from daughter. I’m struggling to keep up with everything.

All the jobs listed are ongoing and if anyone is interested in helping for some hours in return for camping, meals supplied and lifts where its possible then contact me through www.virtuallynatural.com our web site which tells about us.
Farmer Gra.

Typical types of work.
Wood to cut and bring in by quad and tractor.
Hedges to lay (after a fashion)
Tracks to reopen (big strimmer)
Ponds to maintain
Barn maintenance (doors, guttering, cleaning clearing)
Identifying listing of plants, trees, birds, etc.
Wild food, wine ingredients collecting.
Wine making, jam making, sorting and storing food stuffs.
Chickens, geese, pigs and sometimes sheep need feeding.
Grass in lanes needs cutting.
Young trees to be weeded and fitted with collars.
Entrance road (unmade) potholes to fill and ditches to clear.

[Millymollymandy]

Welcome to Ish and I hope you find some help soon!

[ina]

Hiya Farmer Gra - welcome to Ish!

Your weblink doesn't work... I was going to have a look and see whether you possibly thought of getting somebody through wwoof? If, of course, that is possible on your farm. I'm a bit too far from you to pop down and help out.

[red]

welcome

[Odsox]

Your weblink doesn't work...

Try it with .co.uk instead of .com

This works, or I presume it's the same site ..... http://www.virtuallynatural.co.uk/

Anyway, welcome to Ish.

[Farmer gra]

Sorry you're right it is .com!!! i'm famous for my computer skills. thanks for the welcome, its not all bad news here, still keeping up with the home brew. Farmer Gra

[Thomzo]

Hi and welcome to the site. It sounds as if you have your work cut out.

I'd love to come for a few days but I don't have a tent.

Good luck finding help

Zoe