burr

Welcome to the

of Jonathan and Sara Burr

seasonal veg and fruit - honey - pork - lamb

Thank you for showing an interest in us and our products.
They were grown and made at our cabin, tucked away on the banks of the river Nar, near Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

We would like to tell you a little about our way of life. Our eco-cabin is powered by sun and wind and all our water is collected from the rain and heated using a good old Rayburn.

We are trying to live a responsible life recycling all that we can and not taking away more than we put back.

Our garden is sheltered and very productive without using modern chemicals on any of the fruit or vegetables.

The garden

This is where Jonathan spends most of his time. The 4 foot width beds provide the ideal size for reaching across to weed and harvest, without walking on the soil.

He practices a crop rotation system. By digging the beds for root crops, every 4 years, they can be followed by beans and brassicas, salads and squash plants.

Various soft fruit beds, including currants, grapes, raspberries and strawberries are not strictly part of the rotation but they can be replaced after a few years of fruiting by propagation.

All the compost piles are turned regularly as the vegetable matter decomposes, until it is ready to be added or dug into the beds again. It is at this stage that the plastic windows from envelopes are removed!

This process of composting only takes a couple of months from kitchen to bed….

Behind the scenes at Nar Hideaway….don’t waste your waste!

We are very proud of our eco toilet and would like to share with you how it works…..
This is a composting toilet, state of the art, built with twin vaults!
A metal filtering plate channels liquid waste into a holding tank outside. This is diluted down and used on the garden as a ready made fertiliser.
The solid waste drops down and is regularly covered with sawdust and water. After 2 years the other vault will then be used and the process starts again.
Beautiful compost will then be made as the contents of the previous chamber decompose for another 2 years (4 yrs in total).
This can then be accessed through a door outside, dug out and used as compost, at 10% of its original volume.

All the water used at Nar Hideaway is rainwater collected off the roof.

There are 4 x 1,000 litre storage tanks, providing the water needed for drinking and cooking, the washing machine, shower and bath.

Consequently we rely on and appreciate every rainstorm……

We built the sauna when we were first here as the water pipes could freeze during the winter. By heating up the room with the log burner we could sit and get warm, and then hot, and then sweat out the day’s toil!

Jonathan may then jump into the river to rinse down, Sara tends to only use the outdoor shower, which is also river water but somehow psychologically feels a bit warmer than the river……even in the winter.

In the summer the sauna doubles up as a fruit and vegetable drying room. We keep the fire ticking over for a couple of days and dry our plums, courgettes, apple rings and anything else we need to preserve that way.

The wooden boat on the river provides hours of fun for would be rowers, as well as a method of transporting wood from the other side of the river.

The food store

As the garden produces so much food we try to store it to use during the “hungry gap”.

The pantry is built on the north side of the cabin, so stays a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house.

We have learnt to preserve our produce, as we don’t have a freezer, by pickling, drying, jamming, chutneying and salting…..

We also run a market stall in Kings Lynn, once a week, selling dried organic goods…..so some of that food gets stored in here too.

The livestock

We have 3 hens, 1 cockerel and 21 chicks running around in the woods. They are bantam hens, which mean they normally roost in the trees, a great way to escape the foxes. With their chicks though, still unable to fly they are nesting in the green box behind the yurt.
	We also have 4 Tamworth weaners in the woodland ...
...and 8 Jacob sheep in a field just down the road. There are 4 rams and 4 ewes….maybe we will have some more lambs next year!
At the end of the woods we have some beehives….they used to be in the orchard but unfortunately didn’t survive the winter last year so we have moved them to a more breezy, sunny spot.

The tipi and yurt

As the cabin only has one spare room we wanted somewhere else where people could stay in the summer.

A couple of years ago Sara’s mother helped us sew the tipi canvas together and we waterproofed it with a beeswax solution. It has weathered a bit over time and is a bit mottled now, but is a lovely place to sleep in the summer with a gentle breeze through the smoke flaps in the top. We have fires in the tipi which are great for cooking on and going to sleep watching the dying embers…

As the tipi was not really designed for wet weather, we bought a yurt, which stays up all year round. This has a log burner in it which keeps it nice and toasty in the winter and makes a great Autumn/Spring camping space.

The orchard and woods

We have a fairly modern selection of apple, pear and plum trees in the orchard. It was very overcrowded when we first arrived, 5 years ago, so we have been gradually thinning the trees out and pruning them down to size.

A small gooseberry patch is also nice and productive. The un-mown grass provides a little meadow to encourage wildlife and unusual plants and flowers.

The hens, in the woods, often come exploring in the orchard, especially when the apples start to fall. They are great at tidying up all the grubs and insects that can attack fruit trees and of course they fertilise the orchard as they go too.

Every July we have a few weaner pigs that have a great few months foraging around in the woods. They are great fun, rolling over to be tickled and falling asleep in the shade. We have a pig weekend in December where we then make fantastic home made pork pies, salamis, sausages, pate, bacon & proscuitto…..

Energy generation

All our electricity is made by renewable sources, the sun and the wind. There are 2 Photo Voltaic Cell Solar panels on the roof of the cabin, one above the fridge and one above the toilet. A wind turbine is on the roof too, above the battery bank in the utility area. The electricity generated is 12 Volt, which can be converted to 240 Volt via an inverter, for appliances up to 500 Watts. All the electricity is stored in batteries, and appliances plugged into the inverter, or, like the cabin lights, wired into the cabin. Still, cloudy days are not so good for making electricity so it is important that we can store it well.

Any 240 v appliances over 500 watts, like the washing machine, Hoover and iron run off the diesel generator. We do this once a week or so.

Events and News
Check the window below for the latest news from Nar Hideaway
and details of our upcoming events.

Thank you for visiting our site.

You will find us at:

Nar Hideaway, Saddlebow, Kings Lynn, Norfolk PE34 3AP
Telephone: 01553 617730
e-mail: jonoburr(at)breathe.com

Jonathan and Sara are Affiliates of the Wholesome Food Association (WFA)
Click on the button, below, to go to the WFA website