A Fantastic Article in the Sunday Independent!

One Sunday recently a lady I didn’t know came into the Shop and was asking all sorts of informed and ‘loaded’ questions. The Shop was busy and I couldn’t really give her my full attention, but as I dealt with customers one by one, she explained that she was Lucinda O’Sullivan from the Sunday Independent and could she have quick conversation with Michael and I. “Of course” I said and after phoning Michael, “he’s just mixing some concrete” wondering how long Michael’s “five minutes” would be this time! But Michael arrived on the scene promptly and showed Lucinda all the animals around the farmyard while I looked after the customers.

When there was a break in customer “traffic” we sat down around the picnic table outside the Shop, in the scorchingly beautiful heat and had a chat about farming, the way the winter went for us,  the fodder crisis at the time, the Shop, our suppliers, how we started, how it’s going and what our plans are for the future. Due credit to Lucinda she listened to us rabbit on about our daily life and wrote the most fantastic article, that just hit the nail on the head. Our friends on Twitter @kilmullenfarm put it nicely when they said: “Great article, a balance of the dreams and realities that face farmers..”. Which sums it up, in a nutshell, you can click here to read the article.

We feel so fortunate to receive this kind of media attention, it is a real boon to our business and what we are trying to do here, because we are only ordinary farmers facing the daily trials and realities of farming life like countless others, and we count our blessings everyday.

Rabbits, Rabbits….. And More Rabbits!!

When the first litter of kittens (baby bunnies) arrived they were so cute and cuddly and we were thrilled with there safe arrival. After six weeks these little speedy, fluffy little things were ready to launch into the outer world and easily found new homes for themselves. Innocent little me thought that there would be a reprieve. Perhaps as much as three weeks maybe. To give Mammy bunny (Ruby) some time to recover after the birthing process, not to mention raising a family with a Daddy (Max) who just hangs around all day. And a girl needs to get her figure back, right??!

“But, oh no! Not so silly human. Us parent rabbits can’t wait to kick the fist lot out because the second lot has ALREADY ARRIVED!!! And we have them hidden under the straw, in fact they have been here for maybe ten days! HA HA! Stupid human, don’t you know we breed like… well, rabbits!” Huh! I do now. So the second lot of joyful fluffy rabbits have arrived and are waiting for little boys and girls to come and visit and play and politely ask Mam and Dad for a new rabbit hutch!

 

 

Actually they are very cute. I was in feeding them and didn’t they creep up out of their little hide-y-hole and I got a pic! One of them is snow white and just adorable. Come and see for yourself!

Visitors to Liz Keegan

For those who are visiting the Farm or the Farm Shop please note the access route remains the same, just follow the clear sign posts for the Farm Shop.

 

For anyone visiting Liz Keegan please note there is no access to the farm house from the yard. Liz now has requested her privacy and as soon as was possible this has been facilitated. She now has her own separate entrance, with new gates and a safety mirror. Visitors to Liz please note that there is no parking in the yard, but ample parking in front of the farm house. We hope that this will ensure Liz’s privacy and comfort and maintain the health and safety of those visiting the Farm and Shop.

Give-away Weekend!!!!

For this weekend only we are having a little give-away of some choice products to celebrate the safe arrival of summer!

Up for grabs is

Stokes Horse-radish; spend €20 and get one FREE!! Normal RRP €4.95

This offer is available while stocks last.

 

Sam’s Cookies Meringue Shells; Buy 3 punnets of Strawberries and get one pack of Meringue Shells absolutely FREE! While stocks last and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.

 

Open 10am to 5pm, see the cute new baby bunnies while you’re there!!

A Tweet-Up with some lovely Farming Ladies!

As you know Waterfall Farm is on Twitter, and recently a ‘Tweet-Up’ (a meeting organised over Twitter) was organised for us ‘farming ladies’ that are on connected Twitter. It was very exciting to be involved with this meeting, with lots of planning, organisation and consultation happening in anticipation of the delicious lunch we had at Cillin Hill, in Kilkenny. Females in farming is a ‘hot topic’ nowadays and Louise Denvir from ‘RTE’s ‘Country Wide‘ and Aisling Hussey from ‘The Farmer’s Journal’ also came along and sat in on our lunch listening to the nine farming women present chat about farming, from a female perspective! This was broadcast on the RTE Radio’s Country Wide programme on Saturday the 18th of May, click on the link above to hear it. As presenter Louise Denvir explains there was a lot of talk about the term ‘Farmerette’ which was used as a hashtag so those of us on Twitter could easily follow the conversation and interact with each other.

 

 

Famerette – To Be Or Not To Be…. Called A Farmerette

Gosh, well there was a lot of discussion between the nine of us as to whether ‘Farmerette’ was an appropriate term for women involved in farming or not! Between all of us present at the lunch it was a passionate but quite civilised discussion and everyone put forward their thoughts and reasons for or against the term. Some of the ladies were for ‘Farmerette’ and gave their different reasons for that opinion. Others didn’t seem to mind too much either way. And one of us flew solo and stated that she did NOT like the term ‘Farmerette’ and gave her very valid reasons. I believe on Twitter the debate became quite passionate. But I felt that this debate was taking up too much of our time and so we moved onto discussing other farming topics that were pertinent to our individual and collective situations.

 

The whole day revolved around Twitter and other social media outlets and how they are used by farmers. Twitter was the reason how our meeting came about in the first place. I think that Twitter has a role in making farming accessible for people who are not farmers and don’t know anything about farming, where their food comes from or food production. We spent some time discussing this and also how Twitter could help with farmers feeling isolated, which in theory is a good and valid suggestion, but I do wonder about the Broadband coverage around Ireland.

 

However I am no internet expert and bow down to the wisdom of people like Lorna @irishfarmerette and Elaine @newfarmerette and Suzanna @ZwartblesIE who all make huge advances through blogging and social media to bring daily farming life to the general public. From listening to Suzanna and following her on Twitter you can see how she is making what she does with the Zwartble sheep accessible and easy to understand to the non-farming folk, as well as promoting the breed. Lorna is a whiz-kid on the aul blogging and gave plenty of insight into that, her various websites and businesses as well as all the work she does on the farm, especially during calving! Elaine hails from Co. Wicklow, like me, and struck me as a real get up and go sort of person. Herself and her husband have taken over the family farm and are diligently improving it and adding their stamp to it. They farm sheep and cattle and Elaine runs a riding school! Oh and not to mention the blog she has and the Awards she’s nominated for!

 

The lovely Fionnuala @fimalone1 came from a different perspective as she is very involved in animal nutrition and an expert in that area, as well as being a full-time Mum/student/farmer & wife! While horticulture was the key component in the lives of Tracy @tracydwjones and Jo @CarraghNurseries and they discussed what they have to do on a daily basis. How they use different initiatives to help boost their businesses and the challenges they face in being taken seriously as females in farming and their industry.   I really admired Jo-Ann @JoAnnMcCormish from Co. Meath who talked about how she set up her farm, from scratch in recent years. Her difficulties when taking her lambs to the abattoir, both emotionally and also she felt maybe not being taken as seriously by the other farmers there because she was a ‘farmerette’.

 

The lunch Cillin Hill served was superb and the Piedmontese Beef steaks supplied by Helena of @cattlenclydes were just divine! She is a real promotor of this breed of cattle and she does a great job, and she has a fabulous Clydesdale horse! Anything with to do with horses is a big plus for me, because that is my area of expertise. While anybody that knows me, knows that my farming knowledge comes from what I have learned from Michael, but I do thoroughly enjoy working and living on our Farm, running the Farm Shop and being the back-up shepherd-ess!

 

So I just grabbed onto the coat tails of these lovely ladies and admired all the different women in farming, because no matter what term you use to describe them they don’t shy away from hard work and certainly know their stuff in all their various and varied areas!