I love reading – love reading to myself and I love reading to my children. Although they are too old now for ‘bedtime stories’ I still read them a series of books each winter. Two years ago we did the Harry Potter series in four months, last year we did the Famous Five, The Hobbit and the first Lord of the Rings. ?This year, I’ve been so busy I haven’t been reading much to them but are part way through [...]
Two weeks ago was World Food Day but I never got a chance to write a post. ?I interviewed Shane McAuliffe of Truly Irish ?some time ago but never got around to writing the post as I needed to give it sufficient time to do it justice and now that the book is in the editor’s hands, I’ve time to get back to blogging. ?Pig farming doesn’t get a great press here in Ireland – we hear of [...]
228,000 people ?visited the Ploughing Championships over the 3 day event this week. The last time it was held in Ratheniska in Co. Laois was 1943, it was a one day event, 6,000 people visited and there wasn’t much besides the ploughing. ?Nowadays the ploughing, while significant, isn’t visited by many of the attendees. People go for the day out, the craic with friends, to meet people, to see what is new, to do some shopping, to see the latest [...]
Nature and nurture – how many of our characteristics and behaviour are learned and how many are inherited? ?People often debate this particularly when it comes to adoption and fostering. With cattle, it’s a bit of a different story. We want them to inherit good genes ?from their dam and sire, that’s why there’s so much research and money put into EBI, breeding, AI and more. ?But do they inherit the characteristics of kindness, shyness, greed, selfishness and charm from [...]
Farmers meals tend to be at different times to other occupations but they vary hugely between farmers too. Most farmers will have their dinner in the middle of the day, partly because they are near to the kitchen as work from home and partly because they start physical work so early in the morning, they need their meat, spuds and two vegetables by the mid day.
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