At Ivy Cottage "we did all the things we had moved into the country to do, with such serious dedication that it amounted to near fanaticism; we bought the chickens and the goat; we worked the land and reaped the harvest, storing it as housewives of bygone days always did." They also grow strawberries, while husband Rick finds work to supplement their income. I always find it fascinating when writers include lists of their expenditure. Here's Pam's (from 1975):
After five years they move to Fir Tree Cottage in Lincolnshire, which comes with 7 acres of land. "This time round we had more idea of what to look for when buying an old property".
When they move to Ivy cottage they have one son, Jade. They later have three more children: Dicken, Clyde and Bryony. Pam does not give us much domestic detail, nor does she tell us much about family life; instead she concentrates on all the activities on the farm and readers can certainly learn from their experiences and mistakes. There are chapters on growing strawberries and flowers, picking fruit, making cheese, making hay, keeping chickens, goats, rabbits, pigs, bees, sheep, cows, geese and turkeys. Pam becomes interested in dying the wool from their sheep with vegetable dye and she explains the process and includes a list of plants to use. Still needing extra income they install and fit out a caravan, which they rent out to holiday makers.
They suffer draughts, blizzards, heatwaves and very cold winters but even with setbacks there is no place they would rather be: the last chapter is titled: "But there is nothing else we would rather do".
After all these years the farm is still going strong. "Strawberry Fields", as it is now called, is run by Pam and her children. They now specialise in growing vegetables. Listen to their story on On Your Farm
Pam can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Organic_pam
Interesting to hear the story now . It was first serialised in the Practical Self Sufficiency Magazine before the book was published, and you know what I'm going to say "had the book but it's long gone!" I seem to remember she had loads of details of having the babies!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds just up my street, and that photo of the drawing of the kitchen at the end is very "me". Took me back to our old farmhouse. Here we are a bit more modern as a nod to advancing age!
ReplyDeleteWell, she does describe the birth of three of the children but the chapter is just over two pages long, so it is very brief. The children don't feature in the rest of the book.
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