Living in a large Victorian house near Bodelwyddan and running an after school club before relocating to a neglected smallholding with sheep, chickens, pigs and geese in the hills at Llangernyw may seem a radical change in lifestyle, but maybe there are some similarities. Sarah Bennett-Evans and Howard Wallis now find themselves tending to the many and varied needs of their animals rather than facing the challenges of occupying a group of energetic children. Not that they have left that all behind for, when in 2006 they sold their house and took on a hefty mortgage to buy Llanerch

Farm, they brought with them their four apprehensive teenagers and the hope that they would all settle in.

“We chose to change our lives as we really wanted to rear our own animals organically,” Howard explains. “We had a lot of land clearing to do when we got here and the house was virtually derelict but we’re getting there!” And they certainly are, for now they have just experienced the first lambing of their forty Welsh Mountain ewes and are selling the chicken eggs from their seventy-five Welsummers, Marans, Hamburgs and Buff Orpingtons at the farm gate. The Muscovy ducks waddling around the yard provide another source of eggs and, with a few incubating, Howard and Sarah hope soon to be able to add to their number.

They are duly proud of their two Pedigree Welsh pigs which are just producing their first litters, “a momentous event for us!”, soon to return to the farm to join the two others, a Gloucester Old Spot and a Saddleback. Having started with only a handful of geese from which to sell the omelette-size eggs, the couple have now decided to radically increase their flock. “Geese are relatively easy to look after and yield a number of products. As well as being able to sell them as a table bird, we can sell the down and feathers and goosefat is increasingly in demand these days, especially for great roast potatoes!” says Sarah.

With financial help and advice from the Welsh Assembly Government, they hope to have their own organic processing unit and cold room built at the farm by the end of the year. “We won’t then have to pay someone else to prepare our meat which means we can add value by cutting and packaging it ourselves,” Sarah adds. With this in place they will then be able to really concentrate on increasing their sales at food festivals, farmers markets and via the internet.

So how has the move gone? “It’s been a lot of hard work and there have been hiccups along the way, but the children have settled in well now, we have a large part of what we were wanting in place, and plans for more, and we know now where we’re heading with the farm.”