The ups & downs of farm life

May really put us to the test weather wise, It started off lovely and sunny but soon took a turn with almost a month full of on again off again heavy rain. The paddocks began to rise and at one point it looked like the water level would never drop back down. But just as the last week of May was upon us the skies cleared up and the water began to drain away.

It was the first time we had had to shut down to the public since opening our doors in December and it was a hard but worth while choice to make. We shut for 3 out of the 4 weekends which meant we could push the animals out to the wider paddock so they could be a drier.

During our time closed I began to panic had we done the right thing opening up a farm, how long will the rain last, will the paddock ever dry up, what will it look like once it does, will people visit us after we shut for so long, and that was just some of the wild situations I played round and round in my head.

Closing the farm, having heavy ongoing rains, caring for the animals in the wet, mucking out pens, it all had me feeling like it would never end. But when I look back in hindsight I was all things I couldn’t control, all things that would fix them selves in time and all things that wouldn’t matter much in another 3 months let along 3 years but yet each day it played on me.

It wasn’t till after that I looked back and thought oh you probably needed a day or two of rest and that is what the wet weather had offered some time in the middle of feeding duties to catch up with long over due coffees with friends, days to work the bees in between the wet, time to jar honey and cook homemade meals, I even got a few beach days in at the end of mullet season. And guess what it stopped rain the paddock dried up, the animals are happy and healthy and the grass looks greener. Isn’t it funny that sometime we don’t ask for a break but the universe realizes we need one and hands it to us! (or could we say forces it lol)