Small Scale, regenerative, off grid living.
Welcome to our crofting life!
Join us on our journey towards self sufficiency, working with the land and regenerating the ancient forest of our croft.
Welcome to Cormonachan Croft
Cormonachan Croft is a 24 acre forested croft on the banks of Loch Goil, in the Trossachs National Park, Argyll. It is located in the very Southern end of the Highlands of Scotland and, in our humble opinion, a very special and perfect little part of the world - it feels remote but being only an hour and a half from Glasgow and the Central Belt we are also quite accessible too.
Life Off-Grid
We live 100% off-grid. We have our own water supply from a stream that crosses the land. have solar panels, a backup diesel generator, and battery storage. No gas, no oil, no other fuel. have our own sewage treatment plant that processes everything and emits clean water to a soakaway. This may sound very hippy and extreme, but I can assure you that we live very comfortably in our 3/4 bedroom house with all the modern conveniences without needing to be overly aware of energy consumption. For those interested in our setup, find out more here:
Our Animals
All the animals we have on the croft have a function and play a role in the regeneration of the land. Our top tier workers are the goats and they are perfectly suited for our wild, overgrown wilderness. They particularly love jaggy plants like brambles, holly and thistles and we have those in abundance! We have seen such a huge increase in the number of wildflowers since the goats have cleared some of the dense brambles and allowed other things to take seed.
We also keep a team of chickens, occasionally other random poultry like ducks, quail, guinea fowl.
We have Pigs for part of the year to rear for meat and they also serve an important role in managing the ground for us.
Finally, we have a growing number of Bee Hives, our honey has been so popular with the locals and it is wonderful to see all our bees buzzing around when the weather is actually dry enough!
Trees
The croft revolves around the trees - it has been an absolute delight to see the explosion of growth in the short time we have been here, we now live in a young forest, rather than an expanse of saplings struggling to get going with the odd mature tree.
The benefits of the trees are multiple, they bring in more wildlife - not always welcome when the pine martins and foxes make off with our chickens! They shade out the bracken and allow the carpet of gorgeous bluebells to thrive in the spring and a wider species of wild flowers to take seed.
We now have more shelter for our bees and to grow vegetables.
