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[Terra Firma]

I feel like I am leaping into a great big online pool by starting this diary! Marion and I are just so focussed now on what we are in the process of doing that if we made general forum posts replies may not be forthcoming from us and that is why the diary is such a good idea.I will endeavor to be as frank and accurate as possible so our diary is of real value to others with similar aspirations.
The story so far.
Marion and I were motived to buy some land in 2008 primarily due to a desire to have a permanent home for our 2 horses.Renting off others was getting to be a real pain.We also felt that land was a stable asset in these uncertain times and offered us the possibility of dreaming about living on the land.
The area we live in is dominated by huge land holdings like Sandringham, Houghton, and Holkham so there is actually very little small acreage land in our region.In mid 2008 we were aware of a parcel of 9.25 acres and the asking price was �100,000! Outrageous!
We just happened to come along when the owner was prepared to negotiate.We did our homework on land values and offered �60,000.We agreed at �65,000.It still may seem a lot but for us it was as good as we were going to get around here.It is actually a beautiful parcel of land and only 4 miles from our village.As it turned out the agents were pretty slack in measuring the land.It turned out to be 10 acres!
The first thing to tackle was the water supply.We had an agreement with the neighbor who sold us the land to bring it through his land.After some serious concerns about his attitude we decided to approach our large farming neighbor to the east and he agreed to let us run the line along the edge of the adjoining field at no cost.After a fight with Anglian Water we got a connection at a very reasonable cost.A local farming friend used his tractor with an amazing combined trencher and hose layer and we laid 400 metres in just over a day.
The first months were spent tackling the ragwort problem (still ongoing).Then we decided to apply for some grants to help us plant hedgerows, an orchard and a woodland.We got 40% funding support from the Norfolk County Council went ahead and planted 5000 hedgerow plants, 350 woodland trees and 75 orchard trees plus a shelter belt.
To be continued....