Life is getting busy off the farm

Some people talk very passionately about having a good work/life balance in farming.

It is a very relevant subject, but, in my opinion, the really important thing is to get satisfaction from whatever you are doing – whether it is for work or pleasure.

If someone asks me to do something, I always try my best to agree. As a result, I have got involved in a number of organisations and I seem to be on the road a lot.

The last 10 days have been particularly busy, but at the same time very rewarding. It started with two presentation events – where I was representing the Vaughan Trust.

The first was at Enniskillen Campus and the second was at the Enniskillen Show prize night – the Vaughan Trust had provided sponsorship for both.

Down through the years, I have been very fortunate to receive prizes and recognition for the work on the farm.

However, I am thrilled to move to the other side and be able to hand out awards to some very worthy people.

I get a lot of satisfaction making other people’s day. I had to give up some of my time to attend these events, but the job satisfaction made it all worthwhile.

UGS visit

Then a few days later I had the pleasure of representing the Ulster Grassland Society (UGS) at the autumn event held on the Pollock farm, outside Castlederg.

This was my third and final farm walk as president of the UGS. It’s hard to believe my year is almost up.

This turned out to be another excellent event and really well supported by members from all over the country.

I thought that Jessica Pollock was a fabulous host and she made my job extremely easy.

She described her system very well and had no problems answering all the questions. Jessica is a true inspiration for young people thinking about entering our industry.

Support

Then the next morning I was on the boat heading to Peebles in Scotland, to support our good friends Phillip and David Clarke in the final of the British Grassland Farmer of the Year award.

Although they did not win, it was a tremendous achievement to get to the final three – it is great to see a thriving father and son farming partnership.

The next morning (before heading back to the boat), we got the opportunity to visit the farm of Robert Black, who won the Grassland Farmer of the Year competition last year.

This was a bit of an eye-opener. He is farming over 1,000 acres of hill land, but it is not hill land like we understand in NI. It is a dry hill and he is able to grow cereals and brassicas.

Robert farms suckler cows and sheep, with everything out-wintered, except the calves that are under a year old. Cows calve outdoors in April and the sheep lamb outside at the same time.

It is a completely different system in both size and intensity to here in NI.

Home farm

Back home, I need to try and get a little work back into the work/life balance. It seems to have been tilted heavily in favour of life recently.

Then, unexpectedly, I had two gentlemen arrive at the farm. They had driven around south Fermanagh looking for me.

They have read my articles and they wanted to say how much they enjoyed them and my total honesty. They only stayed about 10 minutes, but they left a present and promised to come back again.

I was really chuffed, and it was the perfect end to a really satisfying 10 days.

It is not always easy to get the work/life balance right, but as long as you get personal satisfaction, that’s what really matters.