THE GOOD LIFE

Ideas and advice for would-be smallholders in the country and the city

I got my first Swiss army knife when I was just ten. It seems young in hindsight, but my older brother had got his two years earlier, and I’d spent the summer enviously watching him whittling sticks and carving his name into things. By the time it was the new school term, he must have had a sticking plaster on the end of every finger. I loved mine. It had everything an outdoor girl could want

– scissors, screwdriver, blade, bottle opener, saw and file – although I’m not sure the toothpick ever got an airing. I’m determined to teach all my daughters to use pocket knives safely so they can enjoy adventures outside.

I’m also a believer in having as few tools as possible. I still have a penknife now and I use it for cutting baler twine, sharpening my woodworking pencils, opening packages, taking cuttings, stripping wire and light pruning, among other things. I also want the girls to know a bit about knots – my husband was a keen sailor as a teenager and he mastered a

Sally and her family share their plot with sheep, horses, chickens and the odd peacock. Maintaining a vegetable garden, orchards, fields and a wild pond, Sally has perfected the art of smallholding on a budget (sallycoulthard.co.uk)

LOCATION

The Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire

PLOT SIZE

12 acres

EXPERIENCE

Sally has been running her smallholding since she moved to Yorkshire 11 years ago

number of knots that have come in handy ever since. Whether we’re lashing something to a trailer, rescuing a broken hay bale rope, securing an animal to a fence or doing tree work, we use knots all the time around the farm. The one we use the most is a quick release knot – no matter how hard an animal pulls, it won’t come loose, but with a quick tug on the other end of the rope, the hitch is released.

The second is a splicing knot or reef knot – I’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve had to join together bits of rope that have snapped or not been quite long enough by themselves. The last is a figure of eight knot, which creates a stopper knot at the end of a piece of rope. Traditionally, it is used to prevent fraying, but it comes in handy if you need to create a rope swing or stop a rope slipping through a hole.

I find learning new knots quite tricky – the diagrams aren’t always easy to follow – but, fortunately, I still have my tattered old Ladybird Learn About Knots book by Ronald Hinton. It came out in 1977 – I’m showing my age now – and is a bit of a children’s classic, but it has brilliantly simple instructions. I have to confess, however, that even some of those look difficult – I’ll leave the double blood knot or West Country whipping to the experts.

A Swiss army knife has everything an outdoor girl could want