Small lifestyle changes I have started making in 2025

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GOAL:

To research and understand how food additives and non-organic products can affect our health and to combat this by starting to make more food where possible and eating organically/whole

When I go food shopping now I’ve started making switches to organic produce where available. For examples I’ve recently picked up organic lettuces and organic Scottish porridge oats. I’ve also made switches with our pasta choices to wholewheat varieties.

I’ve also started making some sauces from scratch and I’m about to prepare some cereal bars!

GOAL:

To implement ‘slow living’ strategies to make my brain calm down and focus on the ‘here and now’

I’ve started a daily sensory activity with my toddler whilst I’m in the kitchen cooking dinner. We have so far tried sponge painting and also breaking his Lego animals out of a block of ice.

I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve to try!

Things that make my soul happy

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⁃ Clean sheets on the bed

⁃ A roaring fire on a chilly day

⁃ The smell of yummy home cooked food

⁃ When my boy reaches a milestone and I witness it for the first time

⁃ Progress with my animals

⁃ Having a loving, caring family

⁃ A clean kitchen in the morning

What makes your soul happy?

Seasonal changes

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I think it’s pretty common for people to feel down once the weather changes. In fact even our pets can suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly shortened to SAD).

The NHS describes it as a lack of interest in things that would normally excite you and feeling in a low mood.

Don’t get me wrong – autumn is my favourite season! I love the temperature, the ability to wrap up cosy on dog walks and also lighting the fire in the evening. However, waking up whilst it is dark outside never seems to get any easier.

Especially as this year I have the most perfect toddler waking me up at all hours of the night (teething – yay!).

It’s also a nightmare for keeping the house clean. I struggle when it’s completely dry outside as we don’t have a porch or boot room – we only have the main door that goes straight into the dining room. Which makes everything feel nice and open but also mucky. Think muddy farm wellies, work boots, dirty paws and mucky pram wheels.

So if you’re like me – living your best farm life and working on your dream homestead but also a little bit demotivated with the grey skies and dark mornings – you’re not alone. Keep going – it all starts to change again on the 21st December!

Alternative career choices

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List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

If I had my time again, I would definitely want to explore working outside.

I love my job, but I very much have to be tethered to a desk and computer all day. Which can be difficult and mentally draining.

I know working outside would be physically more tiring but actually being able to see progress is something I thrive on.

I’d love to be able to garden for people or help design their outdoor spaces

I’d love to work with animals – so try and get into farming from a younger age.

Alternatively, I do think I could be one of those people who cut themselves off from the world and become completely sustainable. I don’t like relying on convenience and I’m slowly falling in love with homesteading. So if I could turn that into a career then I’m up for trying!

What I appreciate now I’m older

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What do you think gets better with age?

The one thing I now appreciate more than I ever used to is a cosy home.

I like to spend time cleaning it, making it practical yet homely, rearranging decor and burning candles/wax melts.

I like the smell of the bread maker baking our latest loaf, or the clink of the glass milk bottles rather than plastic ones.

I like putting my money aside now to save for our home improvements. For example, over the next few years we will be investing in projects that help our home become self sufficient.

To briefly explain, my family and I live in a farmhouse that the previous owners extended into a horseshoe shape around a courtyard. So we have a big but awkward home. There are 8 bedrooms in total and 9 bathrooms. However, my family lives in the original farmhouse that makes up the left side of the horseshoe. We have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. We have separated our house with a lockable door so we are at no risk of people wandering in.

The entire house is run on one oil boiler that is temperamental to say the least. We also only have one hot water tank that’s enough for 2 normal showers.

This year’s investment is to open up the chimney and replace our small, non-efficient open fire with a wood burning stove. In theory we will go from about 30% efficiency to 80% efficiency with our investment!

Also, now that I’m working from home and Bertie will be home on the days I’m not working, we need to ensure the house is warm. Something that it never seems to be!

Next year or maybe the year after, we plan to separate our house with its very own heating system. We have solar panels so think that an electric boiler could be the way forward. As we do this we will also replace our upstairs bathroom and have an electric shower put in.

So, as I age I have started to appreciate how making a house a home is time consuming and costly. But it’s also so worth it.

Homebird Living: the 2022 Farm edition

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As a true Homebird, being frugal is something I try and do daily. I don’t go overboard and make my own cleaning products or only forage for food, but I do what I reasonably can with what my lifestyle allows.

As a bit of background, I’m 27 years old, work full time, with two horses, a terrier, a very busy farming/haulage driving boyfriend and we are currently 7 months pregnant. We also have a farmhouse renovation project we are funding as well as saving for our baby and everything else life throws at you! So frugality comes in handy with our lifestyle.

First things first, our animals never go without anything. The dog needs hypoallergenic food as without it she gets super itchy. The horses will get hay, feed, farriery, vets visits whenever required and our herd of cows are being fed a lot more than usual this time of year due to the dry weather (*does a quick rain dance*).

Yet, even with our animals taking priority, there are simple things I try and do to save us money. As well as certain things I’m going to start doing which could also help.

1. Cooking – such an overarching subheading as there is literally SO much that can go into this category but I will give summarising it a go. Also, I have previously written an article for the Ladies Countryside Community about saving money on food shopping – click the link here to have a read: https://ladiescountrysidecommunity.com/blogs/food-glorious-food

Convenience is a great thing and supporting local is important to us so we try and do this where possible. I have put in place a milk delivery which comes on a Saturday and Tuesday and we have 6 pints of milk, 1 pint of orange juice and a loaf of sliced bread. It’s just super handy to have this in place as we would forever run out of milk or bread and not realise until one of us goes to make some cereal. So always having fresh delivered is fantastic and it also supports a local farmer! Before I was pregnant we also got eggs delivered weekly but as I have to have red lion stamped eggs currently, we stopped this. We have tweaked this order over time to figure out how much we needed and because of this, we never have any wastage so no money going down the drain.

I may reduce the bread to once every two weeks as it does keep well in the fridge and I really fancy making my own bread. I’ve done some experiments and I’ve found a super easy mix from Tesco which is £1 a bag and really doesn’t need much intervention from me! I also have the chance of borrowing a bread maker from the in-laws so may give this a go to see how easy it is. We absolutely LOVE fresh bread and butter in our house so I think this would be a treat for us daily and would perhaps also save us a couple of pounds here and there.

Also, if people gift you food find a way to use it as part of your meals. For example, at the moment my grandparents and in laws have had a much more successful gardening year than I have (I’m blaming pregnancy and heat!) so they are constantly gifting me the extras they don’t need. We get cucumbers, tomatoes, jams, chutneys and lots of fresh fruit so I’ve started freezing what I can and storing using the rest up in meals. Yes, it takes a little more time but actually you can really tell the difference between homegrown and shop bought produce. My favourite thing at the minute is to use old takeaway tubs to freeze washed tomatoes along with herbs, salt, pepper and also garlic. When you then defrost these they become mushy and you automatically have yourself a base for a pasta or curry! We also have an absolute glut of cooking apples from this huge apple tree in our garden so I have washed, chopped and frozen as many as I can in our freezer to use for crumbles and pies over winter.

Homegrown – as I said above, my garden really hasn’t done too well this year. I’ve had a few bits and bobs but nothing I could say ‘this has saved me so much money’ so I will try again next year! However, we did have some of our pigs butchered into sausages, gammon joints, steaks and bacon so we have an abundance of meat to use. We are selling bits here and there and all money is going to FIL to go towards the costs of feeding/ butchering but actually, we now have so much meat to last us months, if not years! So these cuts of pork are featuring heavily in our meals at the moment, meaning we aren’t having to spend much money on meat. FIL also attends livestock markets weekly (part of our family business relies on being at these markets) and quite often he will come home with boxes of beef or lamb and give us some. So we always seem to have decent cuts of meat to use in the freezer which is handy.

2) Renovating – I think for me the biggest hurdle to overcome was actually just accepting help. For months I felt so guilty because my MIL would come down to our house and help/organise the renovation of certain rooms. Growing up, my own family only really got professionals in to decorate the house so I had no skills to bring to the table. Yet, she has taken her time with me and now I can confidently say I am happy painting, sanding, wallpapering, and also building furniture! It’s so nice to put your own stamp on your house – something I never appreciated before we moved to the farm and now I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also love up cycling old pieces into new ones so a lot of our renovation has only cost me time and no money. Just occasionally fuel money to collect the furniture that others don’t need.

Also, renovating a bit at a time has helped us save money and stress. We’ve done each room as we need it! So far we have done our bedroom, bathroom, snug, kitchen and dining room, downstairs WC and utility, nursery and spare room. We are now working on the extra toilet, extra spare room, hall, stairs, landing and living room with fire place. Doing it gradually has helped us save a lot of money and meant we could save up more money before starting the next room. This allowed us to keep saving into our emergency fund account and keep living normally rather than scrimping for pennies. Also, by doing what we can ourselves means we again are saving on paying for professionals.

3) Living below our means – working on my budgeting monthly has really helped to start saving more monthly to help towards our future costs. I’ve currently got savings for Christmas, the baby’s bank account, emergency funds, a small buffer in my current account and also my own personal savings. For a long time I would live pay check to pay check but I reevaluated how I spent my money and now I’m in a happier position! There is still lots to be done but I don’t feel stuck anymore. Dan has always been good with his money management so I’m glad it’s finally rubbed off on me! To help keep on track I use my notebook to update my savings and debt monthly and keep it somewhere accessible. I also review all my monthly costs and have recently switched horse insurance providers and have started claiming what expenses I can through work (business mileage and my eye test so far!).

If any of my other homebirds out there can give me any other tips or tricks to help with the modern frugal lifestyle I would very much like to hear them. I don’t have time to do endless surveys or have lots of things to sell on eBay so ideas that fit into my kind of lifestyle would be fantastic!

Renovating our farmhouse: 6 months on

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If you’ve been following my journey on Instagram you’ll know that in March, Dan and I moved into our forever home. I wanted to post another update following my blog post in June to update readers on what progress we are making alongside working full-time!

For a very long time the property was used as a halfway house for a religious charity so we were effectively taking ownership of a HUGE project. It was obvious not a lot of money had gone into any of the decoration, electrics, plumbing, the heating system or large kitchen – everything had been done as cheaply as possible and safety didn’t seem to be a factor in that. However, underneath the shoddy wiring and interesting décor’ is a jewel of a house just waiting to be rediscovered.

The first major task was the farm electricity. The whole farm was run off of the main, outdated electricity board on a household, non-watertight cable. Once this was sorted, the electrics in the house were then tackled and separated, with certain sections being turned off completely for being unsafe. The large house is now run off of 3 circuit boards so each section can work out how much electricity is being used.

Secondly, we had to work on the windows. Our house was the only part of the large property that had original, single-pain sash windows which looked lovely from afar but didn’t match the rest of the PVC windows on the property and did NOTHING at keeping the house warm. We had to replace 4 windows (1 which was over 2 metres long!) and fit a new PVC, lockable back door.

Amongst these other projects, I set to decorating the spare room so we could have guests stay over. This project cost about £80 in total and involved buying paint and accessories for the room. Everything else we already had or were gifted. Our own bedroom, living room and bathroom I decorated with the help of Dan’s Mum and sister just before we moved in, so they were already liveable. The bathroom does need replacing but with a little spruce up and regular cleaning, it should last us another 2-3 years. That way we can stagger the cost of the renovation. I’ve also been working on the garden all summer as well and next year I plan to really knuckle down on the vegetable garden and patio area. We are also planning to get our 2 stable blocks in place for the winter but this involves the boys and their diggers! So just waiting on some time from them – not that they really have any spare with how busy their business is.

Thirdly, our part of the property didn’t have a kitchen. It had space for a kitchen but the room was a large utility and 2 bathrooms. It’s taken a long time and we are about a month away (and a lot of hard work!) from having it finished but we are NEARLY there. We’ve removed walls, built stud walls, replaced the ceiling and rewired the whole room. Wren Kitchens have designed us my absolute DREAM kitchen and we are now just waiting for the plastering to be done before we get it painted and fitted. It will soon be a medium sized kitchen with a walk in pantry, mini utility room and downstairs shower room.

The kitchen and attached rooms are our most expensive project by far. It’s actually daunting working out how much money we soon need to part with to pay our lovely tradesmen for their hard work. Yet, once this kitchen is fitted our house is much closer to being a home.

I will do another progress report in the next 6 months – at that point we will have lived on the farm for a whole year! I already have a list of projects as long as my arm that I’d like to crack on with but a lack of time, lack of money and my sanity get in the way.

Follow me on Instagram for more updates.

Long overdue Homebird update – 2021

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Since last year a lot has changed.

Dan and I said goodbye to our rented terrace house in March this year to move into our farmhouse. It’s a huge project as the house was not a home at all. It took a team of us to get the house clean enough to start decorating, then once we’d got our essential rooms done, we moved in.

We currently have our bedroom, our snug, the guest bedroom and we’ve given the bathroom a spruce up to get us through the next few years. We’re using the property’s existing kitchen but have just put the deposit down on a new kitchen which will be fitted into where the current large utility room is.

We are both putting money away every month to pay for these projects but something I couldn’t wait to work on was the garden.

It was such a large unused space, laid mostly to lawn but with a patio area and brick built barbeque. I am sure over the next few years the garden will change even more but I’m so happy with the changes we’ve already made:

  • We have removed and reused the picket fence from the top of the garden to the bottom of the garden to separate the lawn from where I wanted my kitchen garden.
  • We’ve stripped down and rebuilt the wooden rear porch. A clematis had become rooted within the wooden planks and damp had seeped in.
  • We’ve taken out the old pond and created a rustic strawberry patch with flower bed towards the back.
  • We’ve recycled my friend’s fabric greenhouse and created a large allotment patch to grow fruits and vegetables in.
  • We’ve cut down two thirds of the ancient apple tree as it’s started to go rotten. We will still have a large crop of bramley apples for the next few years but I imagine that the tree will eventually need to come down for safety reasons.
  • We’ve painted the rear of the house cream, as it had become discoloured and was a dark yellow when we first moved in.

By the end of next year I’d love to have the garden fencing all finished, along with a large glass greenhouse in place ready for next Spring. I also want to build large raised beds around the edge of the kitchen garden and plant a plum and cherry tree. We are currently growing carrots, raspberries, blackcurrants, rhubarb, garlic, mangetout peas, sugar snap peas, 3 different tomato varieties, onions, leeks, dwarf French beans, rubber beans, potatoes, corn, peppers, spinach, basil, mustard leaves and melons. Just a few things which we will need to harvest and freeze for use throughout the winter!

Speaking of winter, we also want to have the stables in place which will be a lot of work stripping back dead trees and flattening the earth underneath. We have 2 stable blocks each with 2 12 x 12 stables in and both Hartley and his buddy Lenny are currently living out 24/7. It’s incredible having the boys at home and I often work with Hartley now later in the evening to ensure I can fit everything in.

Once the kitchen is in I will stop with any house renovations over the winter and just focus on keeping on top of the house as it is. We have a living room to renovate with the original open fireplace still present – something I am so excited we get to use! I also want to decorate the porch and dining room, along with the stairs, hallway and landing but that is a big job.

I’m going to keep posting my updates but now everyone is up to date I’d love to hear your thoughts! I’m sharing daily updates of our progress over on my Instagram page (@abiidowdy) so head over to follow what we get up to.

Thanks for reading.

Winter yard essentials for the full-time worker

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With the freezing temperatures and daylight not breaking through until 7:30am, dragging yourself out to the stables can be difficult. Equestrians often face early mornings, late evenings and not a lot of reward in the winter months so I thought I’d pull together my absolute yard essentials to help get you through.

With my horse on a DIY yard and working 9 hour days, I will often only see my pony in the dark during the week. Without top notch facilities it’s difficult to keep any exercise regime consistent so I’ve learnt to be adaptable and use my time efficiently.

A decent headtorch – one job that you can’t escape is poo picking. It has to be done all year round and regularly – especially if like me you have paddocks with a public footpath running through! To try and salvage what daylight I can, I’ve started poo picking after work in the dark with my headtorch on. It’s not as easy but it does mean the lighter half hour between 7:30am-8am I can work my horse to some capacity! I also know a lot of equestrians ride with a head torch. I’m lucky enough to have a single flood light in the school so can see 1/3 of the arena when it’s pitch black so haven’t attempted riding with a head torch just yet, however I would like some advice from someone practised!

Yard gloves – different to ordinary woolly gloves, these have a rubber coating similar to gardening gloves that help keep the moisture and cold out. I currently have the Shires Aubrion gloves and they’re a complete game changer for frozen mornings! Frozen locks, frosty pitch forks and sharp hay seeds are no longer an issue – they’re also great to wear whilst de-icing the car.

Wellies – every equestrian need a decent pair of wellies to get them through winter. Wellies with a neoprene lining are the best at keeping feet toasty warm whilst also keeping them dry. I personally have a pair of Joules wellies with a neoprene calf (printed with little bees!) that I’ve worn every day for over a year and they’ve not split or torn – a great bargain in a 30% off Joules sale in 2019.

Waterproof trousers – I think depending on how long you’re outside will decide on whether you go for just some trousers or whether weatherproof overalls are necessary! The trousers are the cheaper option though and are easy to layer over your clothes quite quickly. I don’t even know what brand mine are but they’re fab for when I nip straight to the yard from work. Mountain Warehouse and camping shops often sell these fairly cheap or you can invest in some that are suitable to ride in from various equestrian brands. A lot of trousers/overalls also have reflective strips on so whilst turning out or riding they make sure you have extra visibility so you can be seen by other road users.

Reusable coffee cup – whether it’s covered in glitter, slogans or completely unbranded, EVERY equestrian needs a decent portable coffee cup. Every morning I make myself a coffee to go to heat me up on the way to the yard. The Chilly’s bottles are perfect for keeping coffee, tea or soup REALLY hot for a long time. I’ve literally left my coffee in it overnight and it was still warm in the morning – a worthwhile investment if you work outside or plan on going riding.

A “can-do” attitude! – I’ve really had to change my attitude around the winter months to not lose sight of why I keep horses. I used to let somebody else turn my horse out in the morning and then just finish my jobs as quickly as possible in the evenings. I’d be miserable and felt out of shape and unconfident in the saddle. However, I’ve changed my perspective slightly by thinking of the winter months as preparation for the Spring. I’ve started signing up for riding club training (lockdown depending of course) and organising rides out with people at the weekend. I’ve also made myself a promise that I’d do something with my pony everyday. Whether it’s a walk inhand, lungeing, stretches, or grooming, all of these things help my bond with Hartley develop.

So fellow equestrians, are there any essentials that I’ve missed? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

My 2020 Gardening Review

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Now that we’ve lost the light in the evenings and the mornings are usually cold and damp, it makes it very hard to find motivation to spend time in the garden.

Just on Friday morning I was out there in my PJs, wellingtons and hair thrown up in a messy bun getting soaked in the rain – all before work. Many of you know that I adore my little garden and I’m so proud to have transformed it from a blank space in to a prosperous little fruit and vegetable patch. This year, as strange as it’s been for everything surrounding Covid-19, I’ve fallen in love with gardening and have developed a passion for growing my own food. Next year will undoubtedly be bigger and better but I’d love to know if you have any tips and if there are any plants that I should be focussing my energy on!

Tomatoes: these are the gift that keeps on giving! My favourite fruit to grow as their yield is so fantastic. I’ve still got twelve out of thirteen of my original tomato plants, a mixture of Red Alert, Red Cherry and Gardener’s Delight, still growing fruits and I must have had over 300 tomatoes from my garden. I use a lot of tomatoes in my cooking and will also pop them like sweets now I know how good a homegrown tomato actually tastes. Next year I would like to try and grow some bigger tomato varieties – any suggestions would be welcome!

Cucumbers: for anyone following my Instagram stories you’ll know that I’ve had a LOT of cucumber plants this year. For some reason I just can’t keep them alive and I do everything I can! Is there some magic trick?! Can any seasoned gardener help me?! I’ve had about 11 plants in total and I’ve managed to grow 2 cucumbers. My Grandparents have harvested up to 20 cucumbers from that number of plants so I know my yield isn’t normal.

Runner beans: Another disaster. I had 3 plants that produced a total of 2 runner beans. They were watered and cared for but produced a lot of flowers and nothing else. Obviously I need to work on getting natural pollinators to my garden (which means flower shopping!!!) but has anybody else had an AWFUL year with their beans?!

Melons: I’ve had 6 melon plants, 2 of which actually produced a form of melon which quickly went rotten. A heartbreaking find as I was so excited to taste it but I have harvested the seeds ready to try again next year. I still have 1 melon growing that is currently slightly bigger than a golf ball so stay tuned…

Chillies: these hot little rockets are great to grow and will be returning in 2021. I had 4 plants and I’m still harvesting! I did have to google why my chillies were turning black but, do not panic, that is normal. I’ve got a mixture of red and green chillies, all super-hot, that I throw in my pasta and curry dishes – I just love spice!

Strawberries: a very short-lived crop but I will definitely be creating a strawberry patch in 2021. The 3 little plants I had produced a few strawberries which I quickly ate – I think I need to invest in about 20 more plants!

Potatoes: I harvested quite a few small potatoes this year from a barrel planter and I’m definitely going to be planting these again. I’ve really enjoyed roasting these in a little oil with some salt and the skin left on.  They’re dead easy to grow – you literally just leave them and drizzle some water every so often.

Carrots: I’ve still got these to dig up – fingers crossed that they’re delicious!

Salad planter: earlier this year I created a planter out of an old palette – an idea I saw on Pinterest. I must admit, the salad I did harvest from this was lovely but I didn’t plant anywhere near enough seeds! A lesson learnt for next year.

Pumpkin plant: I’ve had 0 pumpkins. I’m not sure why but I don’t think I will try again next year. I did buy the plant on a whim and I’ve had loads of flowers but nothing has materialised.

That’s my roundup done. I’ve had a mixed bag of luck this year but, for my first every try at gardening, I’m pretty proud of what I achieved. I’ve got lots of ideas for next year and the moment I get a bigger garden I am creating a huge allotment space. Keep an eye on the blog for updates.