Welcome to the world of middle-aged downshifting and self-sufficiency

We are new recruits to the small army of people up and down the country who have rebelled against the system, and decided that they would really prefer to know exactly what they are eating !

With eventual self-sufficiency our aim, we have taken on an allotment and we are growing our own fruit and veg and breeding chickens in our garden and on the allotment.

This is how it began............We had been vegetarian for three years or so, as we had become disgusted with the way animals are raised for meat. Mad Cow Disease followed by Swine Fever, and to cap it all Foot And Mouth made us decide that we weren't prepared to eat meat. Not because we were scared of CJD or anything else associated with meat, but becuase of the wanton destruction and disregard for animal life. F & M is merely a type of cow 'flu, the animal usually makes a full recovery from it, apart from one tiny detail - it's milk yield is affected. So, millions of animals were murdered on purely economic grounds. It wasn't just this though, it was the way in which they were slaughtered - farmer's much-loved animals were shot and then left for days right outside their front doors. Pets and rare breeds were not spared. Every night on tv there were the harrowing scenes of huge bonfires, and worse still the mass graves when things really started to get out of hand.

Is it really any wonder that there have been a huge increase in the number of vegetarians in the last few years ?

Then we began to read disquieting articles about just how our fruit and veg are grown........

The upshot of all this is that in August 2004 we decided to take on an allotment, and by September we had decided to also start raising our own chickens.............so this is where our story starts, and splits into two parts. You need to click on either "our chooks" or "allotments" at the top of the page to continue reading - although to confuse matters there are chooks on the allotment !

This site is still very much under construction, but we hope to be able to eventually build it into a diary of our efforts to follow the inspiration of Tom and Barbara Goode, but bring the "Good Life" to a small corner of a council estate in Ipswich rather than Surbiton.

Mike & Sue Woolnough
Chicken Corner
The Back Garden
Ipswich

1st January 2005

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