More projects?!! A distraction...or a well timed solution?

Woody is now installed into his exciting new job while I continue with work and life here, running home command making lists of weekend jobs.

We have not yet limed/fertilised any of the pasture as we had hoped we would, funneling  the money into setting up the house instead.  We have had to face the facts that the grass will be too poor to graze until we do and I will have to keep buying hay.  That's fine as long as I know in advance to budget for it.

With the past week's intense days of sun, torrential rain and high humidity everything has started to finally green up.  With temperatures around 18-20 degC, steam rising and clouds low on the hills it's all looking and feeling rather like the mossy mountains in Malaysia!

I am still keeping the horses tightly corralled and feeding hay, we're all quite sick of it now they'd rather be on fresh salad!  The winter paddocks are yet to recover their decimation and our flat summer paddocks, rested since October, are only just coming to life.  All the beautiful meadow flowers are back; bluebells, wood anemones, violets, common Orchids, lousewort and all the common favourites and not so favourite, Ragwort!

We are on a mission to get some sort of all-purpose store to house the hay we now realise we need all year round, the tractor and to be able to corral the horses undercover in the winter.  We could put temporary/portable stables up but that would very much limit what we could use them for and frankly where others have done it we think they look ramshackle and scruffy.  

Another option is to raise the roof height on the cow shed and tank/re-lay the concrete floor (it floods!) but to be honest there's only so much you can patch it up and really it needs knocking down and rebuilding.  Basic architect drawings and planning will cost about £1500 and we are unsure if they will approve a barn.  Groundworks and the concrete base are probably £2-5k (only because we will do most of the work ourselves) and a barn could be anything from £5-15k.  An architect is on standby to submit the proposal...and then we found a possible unexpected solution......

There is a paddock of 2 acres and large modern barn coming up for auction only a mile down the road.  Well hedged, Level, square, with road access.  It requires some perimeter fencing (grrr our favourite thing!), repairs to the barn and a good tidy up but it could solve our winter problems and allow Woody to use more of the our current land to plant his woodland (the main reason for wanting land in the first place!).  The guide price is a little out of reach without further borrowing but the thought of an instant solution is very tempting.

We are in a pickle now as it is perfect, but are we taking on too many projects?  Too much risk? Spreading ourselves thin? Does "10 little acres" really have the same ring about it??!  I know one thing, I cannot do another winter like the last one, and the horses certainly cannot, I am still dealing with ongoing hoof issues that standing in the constant wet caused.

Woody's home this weekend so we will do some serious thinking and look at the figures.  A solution or a red herring....we're really undecided!