Down on the Farm - August 3rd 2008

3rd August 2008 - The Lay of the Land

So, here's the situation – we're WWOOF-ing on a 37-acre organic, low-carbon, smallholding in rural Oxfordshire. It used to be animal-based but, for a variety of reasons, S has decided to reduce the number of livestock and move towards fruit and vegetables. There are still a few beasts about, though – 40 laying hens (there used to be nearly 100 but several visits from foxes has reduced the number), about 15 sheep, 17 geese (eight young ones and nine psychotic adults), 10 pigs (nine are weaners and one is a pet), two horses and five cows. The young animals are being grown for Christmas dinners so they won't be about long.

There are quite a few mature trees about as the site was originally part of an estate. That means, of course, that, being ornamental, not all of them are actually any good for much, like the pines, but they look okay and can still be used for firewood. As the soil is on the acid side, oaks grow well and there are some fine large specimens, including a couple of what I think are Turkey oaks, with their mossy-looking acorn cups. Two of these oaks are in the nearest field and they block our view over the valley. Saying that, they also protect us from the prevailing east winds and we may well appreciate that when the weather cools down again.

That brings me to the domestic arrangements. Other people's domestic arrangements can be quite interesting, especially if they're a bit odd, as they are here, so I'll give some detail. The main issue in is that S doesn't have planning permission for a permanent residence, though she's been trying to get it for seven years. That means we can only have temporary accommodation on the site and this is in the form of three mobile homes set out in a U shape. We have one, S and her partner have one and the other is shared, being a kitchen and living room. They're pretty rough and ready but as we spend most of our time outside anyway, we aren't that fussed. I don't think any of us is especially house proud, though you do need to be tidy when there isn't space to spread a lot of things about. It's glorified camping.

The other oddness is that the site is off-grid - i.e. there is, as yet, no mains electricity – and that's taken a bit of getting used to, though it's not as much hassle as you might expect. I missed a hairdryer at the beginning and things like milk don't last, but it's an interesting challenge. The main unit has the benefit of three small solar panels and a small wind turbine. These serve to power the farm's three working light bulbs (one above the dining table, one above the sofas and the other above the kitchen sink), as well as charging laptops, mobile phones and whatnot. That's it as far as electrics go. The occasional visitor still asks to put something in the fridge, or if they can have some ice, even people who've been there many times and know full well that it's off-grid. I guess it shows how used we all are to the idea of power on demand. As such requests are generally met with mocking derision, they are not repeated and most of S's friends have now learned to buy a bag of ice on the way over.

The other two units use candles and lamps and we also have some rechargeable LCD lamps, which each give three hour's of surprisingly bright light before you have to either wind them up or plug them into the cigarette lighter in the car to charge up off the battery. For heating, our unit uses bottled gas, which also heats water and powers the gas cooker we use. The main unit has a large wood-burning Rayburn stove and S's has a wood burner. Lighting the Rayburn on summer days can be unpleasant so they also have a little gas cooker, or we light the BBQ and cook outside.

As for toilet arrangements, our unit has a very small bathroom. It's like a cupboard, but it has a flushing toilet, a sink and a shower. S didn't have a bathroom to start with, but her partner has built them one in their unit. He's made a pretty good job of it too. Our toilet worked to start with, but it's recently backed up so we need to rod the pipes. Until that is done, we can only pee in it, which brings me to the outside composting toilet.

This is basically a small shed with a toilet in it and a stable-type door so you can hook back the top half to stop it banging about in the breeze. It's a nice little shed, painted dark purple, with a golden hop growing up the outside and pots of Nicotiana round the door. The plan for it came from the wonderful Humanure Handbook, which tells you everything you need to know about poo and how to deal with it if you don't want, or have, a flushing toilet. In brief, the toilet looks like a regular one, except for it being in a shed. It's boxed in and under the seat is a large bucket. When you've done your business, you throw in a couple of handfuls of sawdust to cover it up. There is no bad smell, it just smells of sawdust, and it doesn't attract flies either. When the bucket is full, it's tipped onto a special heap, covered with dried grass and left to rot down for at least a year, at which point it's useable, nutrient-rich compost.

I have yet to experience going out to use it when it's snowing, but have gone round there first thing in the morning, in pyjamas and Wellingtons and holding an umbrella. The only thing I don't like about it is that when S's partner built it, he somehow forgot that not everyone is 6' 4" like him and he made the seat too high. Being nearly a foot shorter myself, when I sit on it, my feet don't touch the floor. To deal with this, a plastic child's toilet step was provided, amid much laughter. It serves and I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses it.

With an outside toilet like that, there is the obvious issue of knowing if someone else is in there or not when you want to go yourself, so we always make sure that the door is latched after using it. If it's left with the top half open, you know you need to wait your turn. The view is splendid, looking down through a large field, newly planted with over 100 fruit trees, and away across rolling green countryside. I'll take some photo's and post them when I can.

As for how we're spending our time, much of it so far has been taken with planting fruit trees and vegetables. Then, there are the animals to look after and general maintenance work like hay-making, weeding, putting up fences, mending gates and any other projects we decide to get involved with. Things like digging clay from the stream edge down in the lower field to make an outside clay oven, or putting up an overflow green house to take the huge number of chilli plants we've started and which didn't all fit into the polytunnel.  

Sometimes, everything stops for a short emergency. The pet pig occasionally escapes and goes on the rampage. She's a Gloucester Old Spot, as big as a family sofa, and she can do considerable damage in a short time. Last year she chewed her way through the polytunnel cover and ate half the contents before anyone realised she was out. The geese are still having quite nasty fights amongst themselves, though not as many as they were in spring, and they sometimes need to be separated when they start. Then a while back the horses jumped out of their enclosure and started eating the new fruit trees.

So, there is something a little different each day, which suits me well. We're out and about in the fresh air, getting fit, learning new skills, doing something useful and meeting interesting people. The change from sitting at a desk nearly all day is a huge relief and part of me feels that this experience has been on the agenda my whole life, that it had to happen at some point. It's strange and new and currently very interesting. What will happen next is anyone's guess, but the story has now begun.

© Copyright Miranda Hodgson 2008