Quitting the Rat Race - A Day in My Life

greetings everyone welcome back to my little small holding here in county sligo um it's early july it's about 8 30 in the morning and today i'm going to attempt to film a day in my life here at mossy bottom this i think is one of the most requested videos i've ever had though i cannot promise that it will be entertaining there'll be plenty of interaction with the animals a bit of gardening maybe some restoration work in my granary later on and i'm hoping in the evening to begin uh filming a youtube video uh which this video which will also be a youtube video of course will then film me filming yeah it's early and despite living on what most people would call a farm i'm definitely not a morning person um but i think all will make sense as we progress through the day just stick with me so the first thing i always do in the morning is tend to the animals some need feeding some just need letting out of their enclosures and it takes me a while to do this so i always like to go armed with a very large mug of tea made from my own fresh leaves of course in this case spearmint and the first thing to do if you move to a small holding is invest in a really big mug first up we have my two baby abacot ranger ducklings which look really big but they're actually only about two months old ducks grow really quickly and they're in there with a cuckoo maranchik a chicken chick which happened to be born on the same day it hatched exactly the same time so i put them in together and they're in this uh small enclosure temporarily to allow them to toughen up a bit before they get introduced to their respective flocks there you go each of the rabbit tractors gets moved onto fresh grass which as you will see is my morning squat routine if it's a warm day i open up the polytunnel doors because the temperature can quickly build into the high 30s and even 40s during the summer which isn't good for some of the plants in there it seems quite overcast today but it's actually really warm very muggy next we have my flock of chickens which live in this area behind me and you can see their chicken coop which was an old rusting cattle trailer and that i converted into a chicken coop last year and i'm really pleased with it i've actually got loads of footage of that process so i'm going to make a video for you at some point when i get around to it um back to the chickens though the morning is when they get their layers pellets which contain all the nutrients things like calcium that they need to keep laying eggs and of course egg laying is the main reason that i keep chickens here at mossy bottom i'm also going to give them some some brassicas in this case some kale which has gone to flour and to seed from the previous year's crop and i deliberately leave my brassicas in the ground over the winter for two reasons first of all to create chicken feed and the seeds are full of protein and the other reason is to create an abundant nectar source for pollinators especially bees which adore them during the spring and early summer people often ask me if the chickens can escape because the fence looks really low the answer is yes they can and they often do but they have no real desire to leave this area and if they do escape normally they just spend the rest of the day running around the outside of the enclosure trying to get back in where the other chickens are normally in the morning i pull lots of grass from weedy areas and around vegetable plots and throw it into my rabbits but you can see they've just moved from the area they were in in my rabbit warren video from a month or so ago to the original area that they started in which is now regrown with lots of grass and the new area is now barren and um needs some time to recover so they don't need extra grass this morning there's plenty in there to keep them going and then we come to the most outspoken residents of mossy bottom fatso and titch by cooney cooney pigs here you probably heard baying in the background like wolves awaiting their breakfast while i was doing the other animals and their job as you folks already know is to plow the soil ready for next year's crop of vegetables but pigs being pigs will always take the um the lazy option in life for very good evolutionary reasons actually so if there's a way to get food without working for it then they'll learn very quickly um to exploit that so if you want your pigs to plow as i do you can't over feed them but equally they must get everything they need nutritionally to be healthy which today means a small bowl of oats and barley and pig nuts for each of them and the wooden contraption uh which i feed them in um you won't have seen that in my dedicated coonie cooney video because i've since made this um is a way to separate them so i can stop fatso the big ginger pig um who eats at 100 miles an hour from stealing the food from titch the little black one who likes to take things easy when eating i think she might be part tortoise to be honest i've had to make various modifications to this contraption and because fatso learnt to lift it up and you probably saw that there from the back and push her way in in spite of it weighing about 50 kilograms it's very heavy which is about two-thirds of my body weight titch is effectively sealed in now to her great pleasure allowing her to finish her breakfast in peace uh if you can call it that with another pig um rocking and rolling your enclosure as you eat i suppose it's a relative term next we have another rabbit tractor to move there's four in total spread out all across my land and i think you can see behind there as well the veggies are doing really well this is my winter plot so it has things like uh beetroot and sprouts all my brassicas uh purple sprouting broccoli kale um i think i'm gonna have another bumper crop this year it's looking good next we have my adult abacot ranger ducks which sleep overnight in their duck house and in a morning cannot wait to get back to their pool at this time of year i can't free range them unfortunately because the vegetable plants are still too young and tender and the ducks damaged them i have tried but that's only for a month or so more before i can let them out to start murdering slugs there are now three ducks living in this area my original two adults called curtis and patsy and also an adolescent abacot ranger called ducko i wasn't feeling very creative that day um unfortunately ducks are very territorial and patsy hasn't taken too fondly to the introduction of ducko i don't think curtis particularly minds that's the adult male the drake but patsy is very protective of her ensuite swimming pool she's not physically aggressive to doco but she um she does quack very loudly whenever the two get close um it's a large enough enclosure though with plenty of space so they can gradually get used to each other and i did begin this introduction by having doco in a separate enclosure within this enclosure with with um a separate house so i have taken it slowly and things are definitely improving of course eventually the other two abacot ranger ducks will move in here as well but if you're thinking about getting ducks yourself one day that's definitely something to bear in mind ducks will forage naturally in the grass during the day and it's amazing how much food they can actually gather doing that but i also collect slugs for them from my vegetable areas and i love the idea of connecting the dots so taking away something that damages my vegetables and turning it into a resource which feeds my ducks which then lay eggs i also of course top up their daily diet with special pellets made for ducks and geese and if you want to tame a duck this is definitely the best way to do it because they learn very quickly to associate you with food instead of running away from you ducks are often quite timid so you do have to spend some time with them when they're young to sort of train them to be comfortable around people so you start with the food in the grass and then once they get used to that you introduce your hand with some food on it and then once they get used to that you can move your hand around in their presence and eventually they'll come to you and they'll feed from your hand and even uh try and mount your arm lovely nothing wrong with you here we go final squat of the day order has been restored i also feed the cats and moss of course i'm trying to feed the cats a lot in the morning so that they have to sleep the whole rest of the day to digest it all and the idea is to try and prevent them from hunting when the birds are active particularly in the spring and summer months and of course i want them to be then very active at night when the rodents are about munching on my strawberries and my other crops and so far it seems to be working pretty well so at this point i usually go for a quick run in the forest before breakfast um admittedly though i'd be less inclined to do that if it was winter but at this time of year with moss for company it's just a lovely way to start the day and kind of wake up a bit and the best thing is it doesn't matter how you look because nobody's going to see you in a forest my stock what are you doing in there oh so i've cooled down after my run uh had some breakfast it's now about 10 30. another mug of tea to keep me going and now i'm gonna water everything in my polytunnel and this is something i do usually once every two days i like to really soak the roots and let them dry out a bit the next day seems to produce better results for me at least than watering small amounts daily and the only watering i really do here at mossy bottom is in the tunnel during the summer months because it rains so much outside that you really don't need to water your crops and it's one of the few advantages really to the irish climate and it's really good for things like brassicas which require lots of moisture for leaf growth i probably will set up a drip irrigation system in the polytunnel at some point just to save time because watering everything in there takes about an hour um but for the moment you know my watering cans do the job okay folks it's about 12 o'clock and now i'm going to do some restoration work here in my granary which i'm aiming to complete this summer hopefully many of you ask how things are going with the restoration of the cottage well it's currently full of all my tools equipment animal feed human feed everything else i own in the entire world bear in mind that my caravan is tiny so there's just no storage space in there whatsoever um so my aim has always been to turn this 100 year old granary into a workshop and also a storage space in order to then move everything in from the cottage into here so that i can really start work on the next stage of the cottage restoration but these things don't happen quickly that's just the way it is i've already replaced the roof in here including doing all the timber work and rebuilding the stone walls up to the level of the roof because they'd all degraded and the stone was coming out and i've re-pointed the stonework internally that was a huge job all had to be done by hand the walls still need cleaning as i say and there's some holes which i need to um fill but apart from that i'm almost at the point where i can put down a new floor there's one job to do though before that and that's remove this internal wall which there you go was built at a later date to the rest of the granary and probably to create separation for an animal stall but the stonework in this internal wall is really badly made and it's leaning to one side so it really has to come down once that's done i'm going to lay a new floor build a mezzanine level make my own wooden windows and doors that'll be fun equip the building with electricity build a rainwater collector attached to the roof with some tanks on that side and that'll allow me to plumb in a washing machine and sink down here hopefully and i was given a beautiful pot belly stove by my neighbor which i'm going to attach in here to keep me warm on those chilly nights when i'm working away on various projects and the best part of all is i get to move all my tools in here and set this place up as a workshop i can't wait to do that one of the things that consistently surprises me here at mossy bottom and living this type of life in general is how long it takes to achieve the things that on paper you expect to happen a lot quicker it's very important i think and this is something i've embraced early on in this new life to be happy right now to create a life that is fulfilling in the immediate term and that you can sustain for however long it takes to finish those big projects rather than putting your life and your happiness on hold while you desperately try to finish something and in order to do that you have to find joy in all the small victories in life each stone you put down um each bite of each meal that comes from your garden if you can find meaning in those things rather than constantly seeking something bigger something distant and then you can really live in the present and let the future take care of itself which it invariably does especially if you're happy and i should add i am a worrier by nature like most introverts so it's been quite hard for me to make that adjustment um it's definitely not been easy but i i really think it's been key to me finding happiness here so that's the wall gone um i think it's about two o'clock so definitely time i had some lunch um but after lunch i will come back in here and do another few hours um taking some of this stone and using it to fill the holes uh in the wall that have been left by bits of stone falling out and the rubble which you saw me taking out which is mostly um lime concrete and i will use to fill the gaps in the floor to infill those holes so that when i lay a new floor i don't need quite as much material so nothing will go to waste any of the stone that's left over i'll take out and i'll save for future projects of which there definitely will be some okay time for lunch hmm so so okay so one or two of you have requested in the comments that i should do some cooking with my uh homegrown produce on these videos and i thought about it a bit of course it's a big part of my life um cooking with my own food i would say about sixty percent of what i eat uh is from things that i've grown or produced myself so it's definitely an important aspect of being self-sufficient the problem is here's the catch i would say that i'm a terrible cook i'm much better at growing food than i am at cooking it it's definitely not my forte in life and part of the reason for that is that i'm a super taster which is a real thing go and have a look on the internet uh it basically means um i don't like strong flavors i hate beer i hate coffee can't stand the stuff anything that has that really strong overpowering flavor i just don't like it and i also don't like combinations of flavors i like to keep things simple and subtle and that's the reason that i keep saying in those comments that i don't grow garlic it's just too overpowering for me i don't like the taste or the flavor of it at all incidentally if you do like garlic and you intend to move uh to the west of island then it grows fantastically well here it's one of the easiest things to grow the same is true onions and that whole kind of family the alliums are really easy to grow here um but i am going to do some cooking for you today so you can see the kind of things that i eat and the produce that i use i'm going to keep it simple this this would be what i would have at this time of year uh pretty much every day for lunch and on that subject my diet very much does depend on the time of year and of course i only have an acre of usable land here so potatoes are really the only carbohydrate crop that i can grow um so i do have to buy bread and oats and other carb staples like rice if i want them um if i were to get more land one day and it definitely won't happen before all the buildings are restored um but if i were to then there are three things that i'd love to do one is grow spelt because i love spelt bread um the second is to grow oats um for porridge and other oat things and also as animal feed and the third is to keep goats for milk cheese butter and just the pleasure of their company back to today's lunch though i'm gonna have um poached eggs from my own chickens on toast with freshly picked spinach leaves this is the perpetual spinach by the way that i mentioned in my top 10 veggies to grow in the winter video a handful of red currants just to add a sharpness of flavour and a few uh monge two peas um for sweetness as a bit of a side and after that a bowl of strawberries to satisfy my sweet tooth [Music] wow the key to mars two peas being delicious is harvesting them when they're young so they don't get that stringiness you almost want to pick them before the peas really even fully develop um [Applause] leftover um eggshells can be broken up and given back to the chickens and just make sure you break them up otherwise you're teaching them to cannibalize their own eggs um but yeah really good for giving them back the nutrients and minerals they need to lay more eggs so there you have it folks poached eggs on toast with a bed of perpetual spinach and some red currants and a side of marsh two peas and look at that for dessert a moomin's mug of strawberries what could be better than that i'm gonna eat finally let me just say i don't like to rush lunch i think it's probably my favorite meal of the day and especially in the summer i'm a big believer in using that time to recover ready for a long afternoon and evening of work i tend to work really late usually until maybe eight to ten o'clock when it starts to get dark and if i rush lunch i don't seem to have the stamina to keep going quite as long so i'll probably take about an hour and a half maybe even two hours to cook and eat and relax a bit with my animals and gather my thoughts ready for the afternoon's work [Laughter] so it's about half past six i've done a few more hours work in the granary um and this is actually one of my favorite times of the day to record youtube videos um because my brain has finally kicked into gear and talking into a camera requires more energy and concentration than you might think i'd say it's probably harder than knocking walls down to be honest um although i do love the creativity involved i'm usually a wreck by the end of it and i often wonder if people can tell from the videos when they watch them uh after the rabbit warren video uh in which i had to stand in one place being chewed on by midges for about an hour i had to retreat to my meditation stone in the forest where me and moss reconnected with a less vicious side of nature that's one of the great things about summer though the fact that i can stay out until nine ten o'clock and it's still light okay so i'm now going to attempt to film a second youtube video and i'm gonna try and film me filming that video for this video as i mentioned at the beginning bit of a weird inception moment here at mossy bottom uh but i reckon if i could pull it off this should look quite good um i'm just on my way back to the caravan to get another battery pack because alas my phone is about to die there's also the technical aspects of filming to contend with most youtubers are sat in cozy studios with fixed cameras and microphones and lights perfectly set up and even then it's a complicated business because batteries can die and mics can fail and camera settings need adjusting outside in rainy island with wind and sun and neighbors appearing and aeroplanes flying over and crazy border collies who like to knock tripods over it's even more challenging on average it actually takes me about three to four hours to film a 20 minute video and most of that time is getting the angle right and setting things up i'm not a professional videographer i should say that by background and i don't have sophisticated equipment either but i do like to produce videos um that look reasonably good and kind of showcase what i'm doing here so i guess i take my time as with all things i know some of you have pointed out the technical issues in the comments of past videos well all i can say to that is you should see the content i've had to refilm because my microphone cut out or my camera ran out of power or my sd card was full or my tripod blew over or was knocked over um or even and this really happened once a bird decides to deposit its fertilizer upon my camera lens mid-recording you'd be amazed the things that can go wrong out here in the west of ireland when you're trying to film a video and that happens quite a lot too okay folks it's three hours later i finished recording uh the video within this video now i need to wrap up this video it did work out pretty well i'm quite pleased um but i am pretty exhausted at this point uh it's the first time i've ever recorded two videos in a single day um so predictably i'm now gonna head to the forest with moss and have a nice long walk for about an hour before it gets dark and this is really my time to unwind and think and plan for the next day and of course to burn some of moss's limitless energy which would otherwise be focused on trying to herd and corral every single animal here and i'm sure you've noticed him doing that in previous videos it's his favorite activity even the cats believe it or not get herded around by moss if you're thinking about getting a border collar yourself then you will either need sheep cows or a never-ending supply of sticks and not forgetting a very strong arm to throw them with [Music] okay everyone it's dusk which at this time of year is about 10 p.m just gone here in ireland and the midges are out they're swarming me it's time for me to put the animals to bed it's actually lighter out than it looks on the screen and so i can see just fine um the rabbits will get an extra scoop i'm just dodging the midges they'll get an extra scoop of dried pellets each just to make sure they're not missing out on any nutrients the chickens will get shut in their coop just in case fantastic mr fox does show up and somehow outwit moss that would be a first there's no way into that coop when the door's closed okay let's get started before i'm eating alive [Music] the ducks put to bed okay time to put the chickens to bed oh one very naughty cat did you see that sneaking in we have one two three four five six seven eggs today not bad the pigs don't get fed at night they have all their feed in the morning and they can forage on grass and roots um to their hearts content during the day in fact i actively want them to do that but as you can see they do like to have a good scratch before they go to bed good night piggies so the ducks are put back in their wooden house with some more food and water for the night um again sealed in nothing's getting in there without a sledgehammer believe me and the boards are one inch thick on that duck house all the way around the floor too let's put them back to bed so okay we're almost done just most to feed but first the cats which get fed in their penthouse apartment at the top of moss's kennel and the reason for that is to stop moss stealing their food it's the only place that i've worked how i can give them feed that moss can't get his head into let me sneak it in there there you go okay last but not least moss gets to enjoy a nice big bowl of dog biscuits uh while contemplating the end of another day in doggy paradise here you go moth enjoy time for a spot of supper myself maybe a bit of reading and then the bliss of sinking into my bed sheets for another night's sleep thank you for watching everyone and of course continuing to support the channel in the way that you do i hope you enjoyed this one it was a lot of fun to make um though predictably exhausting wherever you are in the world take care and bye for now i also feed the cats and moss of course um i'm trying to feed the cats a lot in the familiar sound on these videos i'm trying to feed the cats in the morning it's really deja vu isn't it [Music] can i even get one word out keep it up buddy keep it up just remember i've got two cockerels and i only need one yeah i'm looking at you i also feed the cats and moss of course and i'm trying to feed the cats a lot in the morning so that they have to sleep the rest of the day to digest all that food um [Music] he's jumped off his rock he must be done and that was a joke by the way i'm not gonna eat him i also feed the cats and moss of course and i'm trying to feed the cats a lot in the morning so that they have to collapse and sleep [Music] i also feed the cats and moss of course i'm trying to feed the cats a lot in the morning and so that they have to sleep the rest of the day to digest all that food the idea is to try and prevent them from hunting when the birds are active particularly in the spring and summer months when they're nesting and of course i want them to then be really active at night [Music] shut the fudge up you

Channel: Mossy Bottom

Views: 380,272

Keywords: quitting the rat race, smallholding, homesteading, homestead, a day in the life homestead, a day in the life smallholding, living on a farm, what's it like to live on a farm, mossy bottom, self-sufficiency ireland, moving to Ireland, living off grid Ireland

Id: prxYoAsMYxI

Length: 37min 53sec (2273 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021