jandtaa

Been out here in LOS since 2003 when I fell in love with the country.Currently spend 6 months here and 6 months in the U.K. where I live on a 50 acre organic smallholding in a small hill farming community in the North Yorkshire Moors out in the back of beyond and work as a chef and grow lettuce and salad leaves to supply the local restaurant trade, pubs and farm shops as well as over 70 varieties of fruit and veg for home consumption all organically though uncertified (have been growing with my dad since I was in nappies apparently).Out here in Chiang Rai the wife has 12 rai of paddy out in the back of beyond (a home from home really) and a couple of years ago I purchased another couple of rai closer to the village to turn into a home plot. Interested in creating a small "edible food forest", a bio-intensive organic market garden, raise fish, poultry, pigs, ducks etc for home consumption and selling any excess ( hopefully becoming self-sufficient a la John Seymor ).Ideally all this will be done organically, something that as a chef I feel is particularly of importance and using permaculture principles which would seem logically to be the future of sustainable food production.Always happiest when there's soil under my nails and I'm surrounded by nature!! Other interests are fishing,walking,photography,graphic design and art as well as messing around with my Linux computer set up.Always up for a few cold ones and a good yarn !! Joined up to TV in 2007 although had been browsing as a guest for a couple of years getting the feel of it. Recently became a lot more active with my posts because I feel I have a load of research info from the past 5 years that other TV members could possily benefit from (firm believer in giving something back and have learnt a lot from this site), I'm finally putting the theory into practise so can share any successes and the inevitable failures with others and probably the key factor I have now learnt to type with two fingers and a thumb so it only takes half an hour to compose a post !!