Country Enterprise - Seaweed makes a great fertiliser near the sea. Beekeeping is possible in the city.

<P> Sometimes you can buy an asset with a property - not simply the buildings or land but perhaps a wood. There is a chapter on woodland that helps to classify what kind of wood it is. It may be an area of water (there is a chapter on that too). Even strange things like wind power can be seen as an asset in some ways. Wind-powered electricity storage systems can save on heating and lighting costs and in many enterprises this can make an appreciable difference. </P><P>If you live near the sea, you may well have access to plentiful seaweed and this is a tremendous fertiliser for vegetables and fruit. If you live in the very heart of a city, you have a potential market all around you so if you can produce a marketable product you can succeed. You can even keep livestock in high-rise flats by keeping bees on a balcony (as long as your landlord agrees). Hives are kept on some office roofs and town honey producers are often winners at honey shows. Bees will travel to collect their nectar. When London and other cities still had areas of bomb damage the bee population must have been especially content: masses of the pink weed - rose bay willow herb - quickly clothed the bomb site. Often referred to as 'fireweed' it grows in profusion on fire-razed ground. In town and country it shows the position of fires long gone. Its sweet nectar is a great favourite with bees. </P><P>Country enterprises started off life as we know it today. After all the person who was good at making pots soon became the village potter. The person who was good at transforming wood into usable objects formed his own business. Whether these enterprises received payment in kind or in money makes very little difference; it was still a case of an enterprising individual able to use his assets to the best of his ability and the market-place accepting that he had something acceptable with which to trade. </P> <P> The final assets required to succeed in a country enterprise are the ability and determination to sell your product. This is very often the biggest stumbling-block. </P><P>Unless you accept from the outset that what you produce must one day be sold, you are not going to receive any income from your venture. The thought of producing enough to eat and drink for your family from your own resources became immensely popular a few years ago. The independence to be gained was seen as a worthwhile goal and certainly home-produced food is extremely nutritious. The drawback to the concept is that unfortunately in our modern world we have to produce a surprising amount of cash to survive. Rates, rent or mortgage payments cannot be made with honey; even if you burn wood to heat your house and fuel your cooker, you will still probably appreciate electric light and if you aim to live well on your home-grown produce, then a deep-freeze is a great help. Also many people were so good at producing to feed themselves that they produced gluts that needed to be disposed of. </P><P>This leads on naturally to producing extra especially to sell. The satisfaction we felt when we first sold our hand-raised pies to local pubs and restaurants still glows today. The pork in them was home-produced as was the lard in the pastry. There is a tremendous amount of pleasure to be had from this kind of venture. There are, of course, always bad days. </P><P>The hurt you feel if someone criticises your produce is unbelievable until you have felt it. Even if you can see that the criticism is unfounded and that the customer is just letting off steam, it will probably haunt you at night. That is one of the problems of working with such personal projects: the satisfaction is tremendous on good days but bad days are worse than you can imagine. An essential asset is to be able to ride them.<P ALIGN=RIGHT> <A HREF=assets6.htm TARGET=mainframe STYLE="text-decoration: none">seaweed and beekeeping</A></P>