Hi from west Wales in the UK - I'm a prepper and a homesteader (and before that I used to be a penguin catcher)

First and foremost I'm a prepper and a homesteader.

A big part of my prepping is learning new skills. I love going on courses around the country. I've been on almost a hundred over the past four years.

More on those later, but here's me on an introduction to blacksmithing course. That was hot and hard !

And here's me again learning how to handle heavy horses. I really enjoyed that one.

I'm also a numbers person - I love maths and spreadsheets. I have spreadsheets for everything. If you can't put it in a spreadsheet it's not worth doing :-)

So here are a few numbers to fill in a bit more of my backstory :

• I was born in the 60's
• My weight is in the 70's
• I got married in the 80's
• We had kids in the 90's
• We bought our homestead in the 2000's
• I got serious about prepping in the 2010's

I have 17 acres, 16 chickens, 15 pairs of socks, 14 apple trees, 13 raised beds, 12 broken computers (I'll fix them one day), 11 rooms (in the house and the coachhouse), 10 gardening books, 9 rhubarb plants, 8 power tools, 7 favourite shirts, 6 ducks and geese, 5 walkie-talkies, 4 blue cars, 3 children, 2 greenhouses and a lake.

Phew, try saying all that without taking a breath !

I'm hooked on gardening - particularly the growing food part of it. But I don't like bugs and pests - particularly slugs and cabbage white caterpillars. I will defeat them (organically of course) before they eat me up...

And I like raising chickens. That gives me a good excuse to end for now on a cute chick pic :

Much more coming soon - about prepping, homesteading, gardening, cooking and my general thoughts about the world.

If there is anything in particular you would like to know more about just drop a note below and I'll do my best to answer.