It is nearing one year since we moved onto the hill. One full cycle of the sun. The seasons have rolled over us dramatically, turning the hill from gold to green and back to gold again, and we have felt every pelting storm and freezing night and blazing summer sunbeam to our bones.
A year ago, we sold our house, packed our bags, gave our stuff away and stepped into the unknown, into the wild in a leaky old trailer, to live on the land. They called us brave and they called us crazy and perhaps we were, but I think one has to be a little bit of both to get by in this crazy world. Though to be fair, this adventure has really not been too far from whence we came. We only traded an old, cruddy, concrete cottage for a caravan; closed fields, a garden, and barns for wide open rock, heath and bog; the comfort and convenience of power and plumbing for candlelight and rain.
The year has challenged us in ways we could not have imagined, tested our commitment to the lifestyle, each other, and the land. Changed us, perhaps, in ways we may yet realise that will guide us into the next chapter of our lives. We have seen the beauty of the land unfold through all four seasons, marvelled sparkling hoar frost and ice as thick as bricks, trudged and waded through snow and floods and sweltered under soaring summer skies. We have watched the sun rise and set above the mist, seen kestrels dance and dive and fledge their young, listened to the stags roar and the wild wind howl and thunder rumble overhead. And we have laughed and cried and danced in the rain.
We have had our first crop of lambs conceived, gestated, born and raised on this hill. Hardy, thrifty lambs born of heather and rain, made of the land they live on. And we have seen the land settle into the hoof prints of our livestock.
After three summers of open grazing and mostly just observing here while living and wintering our flock at our little lowland homestead, we began to see the land green and reciprocate the giving and taking of the sheep; now, after our first winter here, managing the land a little bit more intentionally, we’re seeing our impact really start to show. Just yesterday, as I drove up the hill toward home, my eye was caught by the bright swathes of fresh green spreading across our slopes where a year ago, two years ago, it would now be turning brown like the high hill, completely swamped by old, rank, purple moor grass. We have grazed hard, in winter we bale grazed the higher, drier slopes with beautiful, weedy, seedy, organic meadow hay, then over-seeded with native grasses and forbs. We put up fences and began to get a handle on properly rotating and resting areas (this was all open, rough land so we’ve started from scratch with that). I have worked with the goats clearing gorse scrub, moor grass and bog myrtle to restore our pastures, and I continue to learn from the land how best to tend it. Or rather, how best to attune our farming practices to it, because in the grand scheme of Life the land cares not what we do, whether we stay or go. If I have learned anything from this year on the hill it is that the land will recover from our blunders and life will flourish here long after we are gone. We may come or we may go like seeds on the wind but the land will always be. We can only try to live in accordance with it for the time we have here.
It is clear to me now that the flock are on this parcel of land for twelve months of the year, that it’s time to reduce the sheep’s impact, lessen the pressure just a little bit, let the land rest, close off areas for full recovery. Our aim is to have the land provide, without needing too much in the way of feed inputs or housing sheep over winter, without exhausting the land, to find a balance where land and livestock support one another. And where we fit into that picture as shepherds, farmers, or just another expression of life momentarily flourishing on this ridge of shale and clay we have set our roots into. That means making some hard final decisions over the next few weeks and months to reduce the sheep flock, breeding even fewer ewes this year, and changing our focus away from solely sheep to a more mixed system, which we were doing anyway, our focus naturally shifting back to feeding ourselves from the land we live on, now that we live here.
Less farming, more homesteading, less hauling beets and hay across the icy hill in freezing rain, more time to write and make home and perhaps even catch up on some of my wool crafts, to bring back some comfort, ease and enjoyment into our life and home as we brace ourselves for another Winter on the Hill.
This seems a good time to reflect on where this Substack came from, what it has become and where it’s going. I started writing on here last winter as a place to share and document our work on the land, to expand on my writings on Instagram, where many of you have followed over from, outside of the limitations of social media, and also to play with ideas and form to take my writing into a bigger project (that is still very much in the vague ideas stage but I hope writing here will eventually allow me to bring some form to it). It has become much more than that, and with your support it has become a significant part of my work and livelihood that I am now committed and beholden to.
The focus of my writing here is on the land and our human connection to it. I intend to continue publishing a fortnightly, public post on working with and living on the land, nature, farming and homesteading, raising livestock for food and fibre and all the cycle of life and death that encompasses, the fibre we wear and the food we eat that are ultimately why we farm and what connect us all back to the land. And I have added a monthly Connection newsletter for paying subscribers. I know from the messages you send with your subscriptions that for many of you it is the connection to the land, to Ireland, and daily life on the farm that you enjoy, so that’s where I will get into the daily going ons, what we’re up to on our farm and homestead. I hope I can also share some experience, tips, things I’ve learned along this wild ride, to give some value for your coin. This month’s Connection letter will be out this Sunday, on harvesting the bounty of our wild, abundant hedgerows, escapades with rambunctious teenage ram lambs, and the mystery of our disappearing ducks.
I realise I might lose a few subscribers with this slight shift and putting some content behind a paywall. That’s okay. To borrow again from a writer on here whose “linguistic carvings” on his fascinating travels through the world of traditional dairying I admire and have quoted before, Trevor Warmedahl, a.k.a. Milk Trekker, “these words are my craft,” and take time, energy and skill like any other, and I am comfortable with asking for reciprocation. My public posts will always be sent freely to all subscribers, but I don’t want to be cluttering up your inbox if you’re not that interested in my words to stay around for them. Please feel free to unsubscribe. If you are still here, thank you, your support and encouragement as I figure out this platform and my direction with it, free or paid, is greatly appreciated.
If you enjoy my writing and haven’t subscribed yet, please do. Free subscribers get all my fortnightly public posts, and there are a couple of options for those who wish to support my work with a paid subscription and access extra content. This is my livelihood and every subscription, like, share and comment helps.
Go raibh maith agat.
I agree with Sarah!
Thank you for sharing. I look forward to reading your posts. I can’t wait for your book!