Update: Dancing Heifers, Christening Cows & 1960s Marriage

31st October 2015 by Lorna
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Rua, our Red Heifer with her cow's lick

It’s quite a while since I last wrote a ‘My Farming Life’ post – mainly because writing, editing and self-publishing took over. It doesn’t mean life on the farm has been quiet though, there’s been lots going on.

Naming Cows

One thing we did was we have registered our dairy herd as pedigree now which is exciting for us. What was even more interesting was choosing names for them. There’s just over twenty cow families in the herd so we had to [...]

Mother-in-Law Day: How To Get On With Her

25th October 2015 by Lorna
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The Irish Mammy-in-law

Today is Mother-in-Law Day believe it or not.

The website Days of the Year says “Mothers-in-law get a pretty bad deal. Do they deserve the reputation they have for hounding son-in-laws, and always being a witch? Mother-In-Law Day gives you and your mother-in-law a chance to get to know each other, and to get away from all of those horrible preconceptions. Why not give your mother-in-law (and mothers-in-law everywhere) a fair chance – take them out for a nice meal, [...]

Cheese Making, Birr Castle, Seven O’Clock Show and Birthdays

21st July 2015 by Lorna
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birthdays

Once again, not so much farming in the last week although we did get a clear TB test. When you hear of some farms being almost decimated, it always causes a little bit of anxiety that week.

Blogging is going to be a bit erratic until the book is done and dusted! It’s been an extremely busy couple of weeks too – every week seems to have at least two or three things going on that absorb so much time and [...]

Interview with Organic Beef Farmer Maria Phelan

16th July 2015 by Lorna
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Maria-Phelan-3

12% of Ireland’s registered farmers are female. That means that the percentage of women farming registered with a herd number is 12%. Apparently half of that number are widows which suggest the majority of them are over 60. That translates into 6% of Ireland?s farmers being young and female. However, is this really a true reflection on the facts? I’m afraid I don’t have the time [...]

Farm Safety Memorial Service and Review of Farm Safety Book for Children

27th June 2015 by Lorna
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30 people died on Irish farms last year and five of those were children. So far this year, 7 people have died on Irish farms. A huge improvement on last year considering we are half way through the year but still 7 too many.

The efforts of Norma and Brian Rohan in setting up Embrace Farm, the holding of a memorial church service last June and another one tomorrow, the focus of the media on farm safety and the [...]