THE SMALL HOLDING
By hercules
It was a miserable, rainy day.
Sitting on a wet city park bench, was a middle-aged man, called Ted.
At that moment Ted was dwelling on his life. It was going nowhere.
He had to travel to and from work by tube six days a week.
His job was most boring. He had to spend long, tiresome hours in an office, staring at a computer and sorting out paperwork.
Life outside work was hardly easier for Ted.
He had no choice, but to put up with traffic, night lights and dense crowds. Very crowded areas made him feel disorientated and faint.
Even his apartment was of little comfort, if any at all. He had no one to share it with. No friends, no animals and no family members.
Ted, who was an only child, very rarely saw his parents. They were always off globe-trotting.
Sitting on the park bench brought him some comfort.
But it was no more or less than a way of escapism. A way to bypass his troubles. A way to focus on a future out of reach.
Ted wanted a future outside the city. A life on a small holding in the heart of the country.
But it did look out of reach for him. It had nothing to do with financial difficulties, far from it. He had plenty
of money and could sell up.
The thing was, he didn’t feel capable of going it alone.
Living by himself in a flat was one thing he could cope with. Handling a small holding alone was on a different level.
One day, something happened, which changed everything.
Ted was all by himself on the park bench, when a middle-aged woman came and sat by him.
For a moment they stared each other. Next thing, they got talking.
The woman, whose name was Sally, asked Ted why he looked so down. She could sense that something was the matter with him.
Ted told her everything. What his life was like, how he was feeling and the kind of future he desired.
When he finished, Sally opened up about herself. It turned out that her life was in the same situation as Ted’s. She wanted the same future too. Yes, Sally wanted to live on a small holding in the country.
So that’s what happened.
Ted and Sally left their jobs, sold their flats and escaped from the city.
They brought a small cottage, a ten-acre field and a row of four stables in the country.
Yet setting up the small holding wasn’t something, which was going to happen overnight.
Sally and Ted had to introduce themselves to people living in a nearby village. They had to explore the surroundings and get to know local farmers.
After that, the work finally began.
First of all, they had to build pens for animals, including chickens, goats and pigs.
When those jobs were out of the way, they brought the animals themselves.
First, they got six pigs, six goats, twelve ducks and twenty Rhode Island Red chickens. Then it was three horses and a flock of thirty sheep. Last of all they got three black cats and a pair of wolfhounds.
Getting the animals was a major start in setting up the small holding. A successful one too.
Ted and Sally then went on to start an allotment. Both of them were vegetarians. They grew a whole range of crops, including leeks, potatoes and kale.
Very good for the community that was.
Sally and Ted took it in turns to sell their crops at the weekly village market. They sold plenty of eggs and goats’ milk too.
The animals also got their fair share of food.
A farmer cut and bailed the hay for the horses, the goats and the sheep. The pigs had vegetable leftovers and the chickens and ducks had bread and corn.
To add to everything, the animals gave birth. There were kittens, pups, lambs, kids, foals, chicks and piglets.
It was most delightful.
Sally and Ted were very pleased with the way everything had turned out.
No longer were they lonely, sad people living in a big city. Instead, they were living a shared dream in the country.
They even got married and had two children, called Jed and Susan.
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