Pennsif's Progress - The Days are Numbered // Day 1000 : The Polytunnel is in the House

I'm a homesteader and a prepper in west Wales in the UK.

As a homesteader I work everyday to improve our homestead. To produce more food and to make us more self-reliant.

As a prepper I prepare everyday for the chaos and calamity that may be just around corner - or it may never come in my lifetime. But just in case I want to be prepared.

As a prepper my greatest fear is that we won't be prepared enough when the bad times come.

So I am taking the opportunity that steemit presents to document my family's ongoing journey to homesteading self-reliance and prepping readiness.

Through this diary I am hoping to :

1. share our ideas and plans, our successes and failures, our victories and our losses.
2. produce a record of our progress that I can look back on when needed
3. motivate me to keep going, work as hard as I can and not slack or give up - time is too short.

To help push me forward I am setting myself the target of 1000 days to get the homestead fully functional and get all our preps prepped to the max. Counting down day by day to Day 0 on 18 March 2000.

There is no particular reason to chose 1000 days but I will around then be reaching a couple of major milestones in my life. And with the way the world is going the S may be hitting the F in the not too distant future.

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So to kick off this week has been a big week on the homestead with the arrival of our first polytunnel (hoop house in the USA?).

I've been so wanting a polytunnel for several years now to extend our growing season and even out the sometimes inclement weather here in Wales.

Now it is here.

Yesterday we got most of the frame up. Today we have started on the trenching and tomorrow it will be more trenching and the door frames. Hopefully it will all be up and running by the middle of next week.

The polytunnel is 18 foot by 42 foot so a fairly decent size.

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As well as the polytunnel I also continued clearing the old overgrown upper back garden. Willowherb, bramble and willow had really taken over as this area of the garden hasn't been used for about 6 years. Now it is cleared and will give me another 4 raised beds to bring into production.

The lower back garden, which has been my main growing area until now, is really jamming it. The amendments I made to the soil over the winter really seem to be paying off with some excellent crops being harvested - cauliflowers, cabbages, broccoli, lettuce, leeks, chard, beans, peas, onions...

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Aside from the garden this week has seen two other big moves for us.

We've finally got the cash together to start on intalling some photovoltaics. An order for 9 PV panels has now been placed. We won't be going offgrid yet but it is a significant step towards electricity independence for us.

Also this week my youngest daughter completed her Duke of Edinburgh Silver qualifying expedition. 43km unaccompanied across some Welsh mountains on two of the hottest days since 1976. And she is only 14. A real Junior Prepper in the making :-)

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That's all for Day 1000. 999 more days to get it all together.

Goodnight all.

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If you would like to read more about my background check out my intro post :

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@pennsif/hi-from-west-wales-in-the-uk-i-m-a-prepper-and-a-homesteader-and-before-that-i-used-to-be-a-penguin-catcher

For a list of Preppers & Homesteaders on steemit check this post :

https://steemit.com/homesteading/@pennsif/preppers-and-homesteaders-on-steemit-the-updated-list-v2

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