On The Move
J
onathan & Denise >
We’ve been making important changes to The Big Garden & Croft and our other websites.
As some of you will already be aware, The Hebridean Woolshed website recently got messed up by an automated plugin update, and was knocked out of action. In any event, the site badly needed an update – of content, aesthetics, structure ; and as we’ve been looking for ways to simplify life, we took the decision not to reinstate it from backup (no simple task, it seems!), but rather to author a completely new, simpler set of pages under the umbrella of The Big Garden & Croft . Which puts the Hebridean Woolshed back where it originally started, fifteen or so years ago. The domain hebrideanwoolshed.scot now redirects to the Woolshed page on this website. So, the Hebridean Woolshed is on the move!
We posted, just a few weeks ago, that we would no longer be making preserves specifically to sell. We have therefore removed the Preserves page from this website. But we’ve also removed the pages for Hatching Eggs and Hebridean Sheep. These, too, are lines of business that we’ve now firmly committed to down-sizing – which we’ll do progressively over the next three years or so.
These are all steps aimed at reducing our workload – to a level appropriate to the dignity of our ages and our rising hopes for an increase in repose. Or to put it another way, to take life a bit easier as we get older. *
We’ll be posting more about these changes – and others – in the coming weeks and months, as decisions made become actions taken.
* D > We could also try reducing the number of words we use, couldn’t we, J, Mr Editor-in-Chief ? Hmmm?
English
Basque
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Portuguese
Scottish Gaelic
Spanish
Welsh
These are conversations we have also have here at Fernwood. I so appreciate you words’ “we don’t want to fall out of love with what makes us happy”. Such careful work tweaking a lifestyle around this concept. This life we love. this life we make a living from, is quite labor intensive and by the end of the day, by the end of the season, we are tired! No big changes at the forefront just yet but we do entertain what it will look like in the coming years. A little more time canoeing the lakes, I hope and a few less hole digging! Glad to hear that two farmers ( the two of you) are looking for ways to add quality and time to their lives without taking away from what makes one happy. I will stay posted! Best to you both!
I know just what you mean. Nowadays, I can take care of the house and yard, and I can write. That’s about it. Twenty years ago, I could do much more. Sounds like you are on the right track.
J > The decision we took to post less is beginning to look like the wrong decision. Yes, we’ve a backlog of important work to clear, but we’re increasingly feeling that the writing and the reading, the observing and thinking, are what should take priority. This is proving to be the biggest problem we’ve faced since we moved to the islands : after nearly 16 years of organic expansion, we’re struggling with the idea of winding things down : it’s a very negative concept, that runs against the grain. We need to find a way that feels natural and positive, and that’s as much about the way we see things as the facts of the case. We’re getting there – but it’s not easy finding our way!
I should say so! Good luck. Not easy to wind down to a way of life that you hold dear.
Hi, I read your post with interest and will look forward to seeing what choices you make and if you decide to scale back up or down depending on how things work out over the next few years, I am expanding the gardens for the fall plantings but keeping a lower scaled down flock and herd this year.. we will see what next year brings 🙂
J & D > We especially value your interest, as we identify so much with what you do : you’re an inspiration! We don’t want to find ourselves at breaking point, and then reacting negatively and precipitatively. We don’t want to fall out of love with what makes us happiest : we want to find a way to maintain our way of life, but less full-on. We’ll still be jam-making and wine-making, spinning and weaving, but incresingly just for ourselves and family and friends, less so for income : fortunately we’re reaching the point when pensions (modest though they are, these days!) are starting to kick in.
Hi J and D, I hear you, I will be pulling back on a few of our smaller breeding programs here on the farm as well. I will keep my best and most production programs going but because we are focused on the land, the buildings repairs, and with the rising costs of food, plus now we have a number of increased costs coming in with this current Tarriff war that is just starting. Some of the things we need and use on the farm, must be sourced beyond local and those 10 to 25% increases will be paid out our budgets.
So while I am very pleased with where we are at in many ways, I am also leaning down.. First and formost, we must feed ourselves, our family-friends and only then can I worry about if we have enough left over to sell for the public.