Just three years ago we moved from a semi detached Edwardian house with a small garden and an allotment from the leafy suburbs of Manchester to start a new way of life "out in the sticks" in a stone farm house on an 18acre small holding on the Cheshire, Peak District border, at Macclesfield Forest. We began our new life with just three red hens. Three winters later later we have increased our livestock to a vicious cockerel named Trevor; twelve Sussex, Blackrock and Warren hens; our own flock of forty Texal ewes, two texal rams - Erol and Flynn; one amazing pure breed prize winning Saddleback pig called Bluebell; a flock of geese; some ducks of mixed parentage and four Limosin Aberdeen Angus cross Heifers.
It has been a steep learning curve of Alpine proportions and at times a baptism of Hells fire! This year I've decided to document our relatively new way of life and I hope you will join me here to enjoy the changing of the seasons and to experience the joys and pitfalls of country life, and to have a taste of what life can be like living on a mixed small holding.
