About

 The purpose of this blog is threefold!


To document our journey to the countryside. When we moved up to Caithness from rural Lincolnshire, the only difficulty to adjust to was that we were now living in a town. 11 and a half years later, we had decided enough was enough. We were going to live in the countryside again - but this time in the serene beauty of the Caithness countryside. We had developed our lives in this county, and found work here, none of us were too keen to leave. We are constantly making wonderful memories here, and I wanted to store them somewhere, as well as in my head!


To encourage others to think about a move to the country or, at least, to decide on a more self-sufficient lifestyle! If I can encourage one person to grow their own food, or foraging sensibly, I will think this blog has been a success!


So that I can eventually pull together the blog posts, and create a book for Christmas presents to family and friends. I love creating books for Christmas presents!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Free Fruit

Image
Let's start by saying this indisputable fact: I love our new place! I love Stempster! I love the house... and I love the garden. One thing I don't love about it is that it's a money pit. This won't always be the case, I know, but right now, there are a million and one things that need mending, and purchasing. The result is that I don't have as much money to spend on the garden as I would like. I get around this by buying younger plants. While I would love a semi-mature dogwood, it's cheaper to buy a young plant in a 9cm pot and just be patient. It will grow - it will just take a little longer. Cheap plants are beaten by free plants, of course. This weekend, I put in 2 blackcurrant bushes, 2 gooseberry bushes, 1 vigorous mint root, and 1 blackberry plant. I also got 3 young bamboo shoots which is going to save so much money in the long term! How did I get all of this? Well, I dug them up out the garden of no. 53. We're hoping the house sale will go through ve...
Read more

New Year, New Start

Image
I'm dreading going back into work on Thursday. There's no real reason, except there have been multiple stresses over the last two terms. Forget that, the last two years! I love and relish every holiday because it's time spent recuperating and being able to be myself. But I made a decision. Rather than worrying about work, and other concerns that prey on my mind, I'm going to create the garden of my dreams: a haven that will help me offload all worries. I know it will work because being outside, for me, is real healing time. Even if I'm digging a new border (digging is certainly not my favourite job in the garden) I feel better. The north side of the house which overlooks the "Kitchen Garden". The inverted commas are because all the rubble and rubbish make it as far from a kitchen garden as possible. There is a lot of work to be done here! So... my plans for 2022... I have two projects I want to concentrate on, but there will be many more jobs that I'm ...
Read more

Slow, but Sure

Image
Sunday sunrise over the broch Mum insists that January is not a month to do any gardening. I disagree. I believe there is a lot that can, and will, be done this month. The problem with preparing the ground in January is that, if the soil is too wet or frozen, you can damage it by digging. But right now, the shrubbery is on hold and I'm trying to prepare the Kitchen Garden for planting this spring. The more I see in the news, the more I see the need to become as self-sufficient as possible. The great thing about our plans for the Kitchen Garden is that we're trying the 'no-dig' method. This means that the soil will not get much disturbance. Instead, I am putting cardboard down and then compost above it. One of the beds has very poor drainage, so I'm trying putting homemade bark chips down before the compost. Yes, I know it's not recommended as a mulch because of slugs, but I think if the compost goes above it, the slugs won't be much of a problem. It's wo...
Read more