Great Expectations, Innovation and Loyalty – What A Week

27th September 2017 by Lorna
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Ploughing Championships

I thought my expectations heading to the Ploughing Championships last week were quite normal. I knew I would have a busy morning with two interviews, followed by going to the “Women in Ag” panel in the Irish Independent tent. After that, my only “must sees” were to see some ploughing, watch the sheepdog trials, and visit some engineering stands to suss out their calf gates to create calf pens in a shed. I reckoned visiting 4 or 5 [...]

Low Fertility, All Bull

29th July 2017 by Lorna
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Red, the second Hereford bull

About 14 years ago, I was teaching Communication Studies at a third level college. I brought a t-shirt into one seminar, asking students  to discuss how they would regard a person wearing it as it bore the slogan “High Fertility, No Bull”. I didn’t show them the front which showed the logo of the Artificial Insemination company but as it happened, I don’t think they would have recognised the name anyway as none came from farms. Their interpretations were varied [...]

Thirteen Farm Women go to Wales

28th July 2017 by Lorna
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SE Women in Farming in Wales

I went to the Royal Welsh Show for the first time on Monday. I’ve been to a couple of shows in the UK before: the Bath and West show many years ago when we lived over there, the Nantwich show about three years ago but this time I went with other women from the SE women in farming group and we went to see a few other things as well.

We travelled over by ferry which I was a bit apprehensive [...]

Farming Essentials: Mobile Phones, A Good Dog and Telepathy but 2 out of 3 ain’t bad

15th June 2017 by Lorna
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Cows going out to grass on a beautiful evening

Telepathy fails sometimes doesn’t it? Even on farms? So what do you need instead? I’ve concluded a dog and a mobile phone are essential requirements. Although we have to bear in mind that a mobile phone doesn’t always work. A dog? Well, that’s up to you to ensure you have a good one – or at least know its weaknesses.

These events happened a couple of months ago, late March and early April, when the cows were out but it was [...]