Ridgedale Eats!

So back in the winter, I put together this simple sketch. We've just turned up to pick up our new kitchen. Now, I don't, I don't have an HTV license, so Dave's come with me to drive. This is a beast. Beautiful windows and then a hatch that opens up to serve food. Wow. Chef Elan is gonna have a dream. Freezers, fridges, storage, changing cupboard, We've got a burner, we've got a griddle. Ventilation up here. Very nice. Super cool. It's a big old trailer, It's six meters long and I think it weighs 2,200 kilos. So luckily Dave's got a HTV license. Okay, that is a big wagon. Hilux can pull out no trouble, but a couple of tonnes more than I'm allowed to pull on my license. Lucky we got fireman Dave here. Well, it's four hour drive back to the farm. Chef Elan's going to be happy. Halfway stopping for lunch. Well, all this way back to Ridgedale and Richie had a go. Look what happened now. I got it stuck in the ditch right outside the farm. This side of the road is just super sludgy and I think it's where the stone ends here and the mud starts there. It just caught the lip of it with the tire and that sort of forced it down because I wasn't driving, my wheels weren't in the ditch. So it's a little bit sad end to it. You can see my wheels weren't in the side with the mud, so it's just the trailer sort of slipped itself down. Don't know what we're going to do yet. The boys just see what the boys do. Okay. Logistics in the farmyard. Okay. Morning after the big day, what we want to do is get this trailer tucked in nicely against the slaughtery with a bit less of a gap. So the only way we can do that, we can't get the machine on. It's too heavy to push and pull back and forth. We've jacked it up and we're hoping we're jacked up on one side. We're hoping we can lift the other side with the forks and just basically push gently. Perfect. Chef Elin hasn't even seen in here yet. Got to get her reaction. Have a look. Have a look. Yeah. Either way. Wow.

Why is it so low, people? Okay.

Dave, can you do the hat? What?

I can't even open. Wait.

Bacon buddy as well, please.

Bacon buddy.

Bacon patty.

It's not on the menu today. It looks wonderful because it's It's. It's a crowded space, but this place makes it really open.

Look at this, folks.

Kind of like a cooking car. Then you shop.

Right now it's got a water heater in tanks. Obviously, if it was mobile.

This is very nice.

Changing cupboard. What? That's for the stabilizing legs. We should have that one out here in the corner. Yeah. Sleep in here, Elan. It's insulated.

It's changing it. You go in here.

It'S going to.

Be so easy to clean this thing. It's just spraying it down.

This is a lighting and ventilation that you can control when the electric's on. Wow.

Big, big fan.

Lots of lights. These are free fridges and that one's a freezer over there.

Wow, it's beautiful. This is amazing.

And there's still space here, too, for storage and for storage and other stuff. This is a. No, that's not a washer. This is a gas griddle to go up on there so you can fry enough bacon for me in the morning. Yeah.

Wow. That's amazing.

This is a nice place.

No, it's too bad.

So some pretty big investments. I put about €35,000 into the kitchen wagon. So quite a big investment. But this is going to be a certified kitchen space that for the first time ever, means that nothing needs to happen in our private house when we have trainings. And as well as opening up the camping rentals on the new land we purchased, it's going to be invaluable for value adding and just a really clean, dedicated, hygienic space that feels good in the middle of a working farmyard. So quite a lot of investments this year over the winter. I've obviously put a lot of cash into these tents and all the teepee platforms up in the forest and buying a machine like a tractor. And they feel like good investments. We've paid off our farm debts aggressively in the first five years and we have enough surplus cash to make further investments that improve quality of life. And these feel like things that open up other additional income streams and give us more options and flexibility as well as peace of mind in keeping things out of our private space, which becomes increasingly important. We've had very open gates the first years with just everything happening in our backyard. No personal space, and that's detrimental to, you know, relationships and to stress and well being. So it's been time to make some much needed improvements. And I think they're really good investments. Loving this space. We're hoping we can keep this open. You come and get Your food and eat here with a view of flowers and a beautiful garden. It's going to be wonderful. So this is Ribis alpinum. It's a little ornamental and it's going in at three plants to a meter between all the lime trees. So this will grow up into a nice hedge and we'll just prune it into a sort of box shaped hedge with the trees popping out the top. I think it'll look quite cute. And the main aim is to stop kids running out onto the road and just stop some of the dust from the road coming in in the summer months. Next priority is getting all of these bare root black currents in. You see they're starting to bud up. They need to get in the ground. Try to keep them a bit moist. But it's windy. Got a few gooseberries. Got to get them in the ground now. That's the priority. Ragnar, you got a box in the post from William, who was here helping me build decks. Oh, interesting. It's got insects on it. Should we open it up? I got a knife here. Dirty one. Mind your fingers. Whoa. We didn't catch that on film, but there's little mousetraps that sprinkle these out. Was that what it was in? It's a surprise. It's made it so it would surprise you when you opened. But. But I think it surprised you. But I didn't get to see it. What is inside? What do you think this is? What is it? It's got a net. So something can breathe there. Something in these? Something in them. What could it be? Open it. Shall I open one also? William is sent Ragnar a lot of insects. Thank you, William. Nice Ra. What a cool gift. Birds. Talking of bugs, praying mantis laid an egg sack here. It's a bit out of focus, but Praying mantis was getting so big. And then she laid an egg sac. But she won't have any eggs. There is a self fertile type of mantis, but not this one. So tree planting has begun. This is what we're contending against. The voles. This was quite a nicely established hazel bush that's been here a few years. Unbelievable. The voles have just. They seem to be taking everything out. You can see the little teeth mark here. Now we have fruit trees this size with hazel this size. That's what everything was planted out at. But we've just had devastation. We've had four winters now. It didn't get cold, so they've just been reproducing like crazy. Oh, I was just putting this video together and I realized I've basically not got the footage that I thought I had. We planted about 200 berry bushes today and tomorrow we're going to get into some more tree planting. Then we've got rid of all the bare root stock and that takes the pressure off because everything else is potted and we can take our time with that with the plethora of other jobs that are going on. Sorry about that. I thought we had some cool footage, but we yeah, I basically didn't catch any of the planting, so a nice early start. Great to get some plants in the ground. It's different doing things earlier in the season because you've got more logistics with the wet weather and the mud and cold and still frozen ground in places where it's tucked away on the north side, but fun. It's going to be good to see things come into life. It's been a long winter now, but I think that's all I've got time for, folks. Don't forget the Kickstarter is on for nine more days. We've got over 250% funded now. That's incredible. Still waiting to hear back from the printer about our final print design, but I'm so excited to get that to you and thanks for all your support. I really appreciate that, as always. You can find out more in the links below. I'll try and make sure I'm carrying my mobile cameras with me over the next days, but just simply too busy right now. See you in a video soon, folks.