Introduction

Why the blog?

For the last few years, I've been travelling/working on multiple farms all over the world with my dog, Jane. This was not always the linear path predicted for me from when I was a child. Many friends have suggested that I write a blog or even book! As my social media channels gained traction, the previous excuses I gave are no longer relevant so I'm committing myself to give it a go. I'm going to write a 'bank' of previous stories so that I can maintain at least 1x blog post a week for the next 12 months. Whilst sharing to a few thousand people on social media, my profile was hardly 'private' and I think a blog is the best method to share some of my travels in a form that I can control. That being said I'm very new to this and would appreciate any and all feedback; what people would like to hear about, if the content flows (I'm quite bad for going off on a tangent!), any questions people may have.

Feeding Sheep as a kid

Earlier Years

Despite popular assumption, my early childhood was in a reasonably large town, my childhood home was surrounded by others in a pleasant neighbourhood crescent; I was surrounded by people who worked in offices. However I was fortunate that a number of farming families 'adopted' me and allowed me to escape the town into the countryside. Growing up I'd always be fantasising over what animal to request from father Christmas to put in the small 15x20 garden at the back of the house; usually, it was a horse or but often a dairy cow so that I could milk every morning. From the age of 6 I'd drawn up my dream farm, complete with buildings and pictures of all the animals (20 chickens, all with names and exact colourations no less!). At primary age, the obvious career path was to become a vet, until a farm who I was very close to came down with TB. Fortunately I wasn't present that day but it's still a topic which rocks us all now; a top pedigree cow (named after me) was sentenced to a positive TB result, leaving her calf (a bull calf with a clear TB result) forced to be bottle fed and weaned early. Speaking to vets it appeared that a large chunk of their job was giving this devasting diagnosis to farmers, something I knew I would really struggle to do.

Feeding a horse in 2004

For many years I actually wanted to become, either an Orthopaedic trauma Surgeon or a fast fighter jet pilot in the RAF (- a good combination?) I went to RAF Brize Norton a couple of times and acknowledged that I would not be good at receiving orders; obviously, something which is quite important in the military(!). Similarly, I spent time doing work experience in the NHS before calculating that it would take me a minimum of 24 years to become a consultant in the avenue I wanted to go down; I am far too impatient. This was after I'd taken my father around Selwyn College at Cambridge and maintained my "I want to be a doctor" stance. Even as I boarded the plane to Cyprus I was saying "this is just a gap year", deep down I knew it wasn't, friends now joke I'm living a 'gap life'!

I've not always worked in farming, I've held a few positions within management and marketing & sales. I do enjoy the initial challenge, understanding new process and procedures, product marketing and customer targeting; the hustle & bustle of office life… usually for about 3 months before 4 walls become really quite tight and frustrating. Working in both agriculture and business is not a common combination however both industries have similar aspects when approached at the right angle: eg. When working with animals, especially a task like lambing a certain level of empathy is needed to help a ewe in pain or difficulty, empathy as a skill is key to be a good leader in business. In an office environment it's important to utilise your working hours effectively to maximise your output; similarly when working on a farm, some jobs can only be completed in daylight and time management is important as it to prioritise certain tasks over others. In times of less income I've dipped my toe back into the marketing world; sometimes it's even helped me pay some bills for agricultural equipment.