Horse & Hound: “How To Get Started in Endurance Riding”
Feature about endurance riding for Horse & Hound (website)
Student Farmer: “The Ten Types of People You Meet at Agricultural College”
Vice: “Where Are All The Young Farmers?”
For most people, farming represents an alien landscape of mud, early starts, low wages, rural isolation, bad smells, and a lack of opportunity for anyone outside of its traditional demographic. Even among those growing up in the countryside it’s rarely seen as an aspirational career choice. It might not surprise you to hear, then, that even in Wales – where 88 percent of the land area is in agricultural use and the industry has a comparatively high rate of regional employment – just 3 percent of farmers are under the age of 35.
Four Goods Co: “Stemettes- Empowering the Next Generation”
Most readers, when reflecting on their school days, will remember that some subjects seemed to be inherently gendered. Few and far between were the boys who chose to study Food Technology or Textiles, and girls very often gave up Physics the moment they left their GCSE examination, never even thinking of the opportunities that this subject would present should they pursue it to a higher level. While society may have moved on from splitting careers into gender binaries, at school level there are still huge divides in subject participation, with half of state schools having no girls at all studying for an A level in Physics. This has serious impacts on women’s university education and subsequent working lives, with just 14% of Engineering graduates being female, and 24% of graduates from core Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics courses being women (2016/17 graduation year).
Four Goods Co: “Norway- The Great Recycling Machine”
An article for FourGoods Co investigating the success of Norway’s recycling programme
Four Goods Co: “What Makes the Finnish Education System so Successful?”
Why is Finland’s education system so successful?
Horse & Rider: “Flight Paths”
Interview with Recycled Racehorses Falconry for Horse and Rider magazine
PR Work: The Pumpkin Pantry
In 2019 I was asked to complete some PR work for The Pumpkin Pantry, a pick your own pumpkin patch in Ceredigion. As a result of my press release and comms work they were featured in the local and national press
Tiny Calf: A Cow Behind the Statistics
We are now over half way through calving. While the rate of calves being born has slowed down- and so there is less time spent on first feeds and navel dipping and recording births- there is still plenty to do with over a 100 calves to feed and care for. The milking cows are grazing by day, and the grass is growing.
Nuffield Scholarship Q&A
Last October I was incredibly lucky to be offered an opportunity to complete a Nuffield Farming Scholarship, kindly sponsored by the Elizabeth Creake Charitable Trust and a Young Nuffield Award. My topic is "Can the UK improve the ethics of its dairy calf management whilst retaining profitability?" and I hope to share my experiences as it unfolds.
Are There Antibiotics In My Milk?
Farmers use antibiotics. Like any other species, cows get sick, and it is in their best interests to be treated with antibiotics when necessary. The average dairy herd varies across the UK, but sizes range from 50 to over a thousand cows. If you picture a school or an office with as many people as that, at some point one of them will be ill and need antibiotic treatment. The same applies to cows- even under the best management systems some will become ill.
Dry January: Spring Calvers Did It First
When I started working in dairy consultancy (way back in 2007, when I was 14, Donald Trump was just a business tycoon, and Rihanna's "Umbrella" was at number one for ten weeks), one of the first things I learnt about spring calving was that they effectively had January off- or at least that is what it looked like for someone from an all-year-round calving background.
Living in Lockdown: A Woody Update
It has been almost four months since I received a phone call to stop my day-job farm visits, and the start of lockdown rules which initially stopped me from riding. When the BHS advised riders to avoid riding in order to reduce pressure (caused by accidents etc) on the NHS, I immediately stowed away my saddle and offered Woody some time off. I'm incredibly clumsy (I have a scar in my eyebrow from walking into a gate), and with Woody not even being four years old at the time, continuing to ride seemed very foolish.
In Defence of Potato Waffles
For lunch today I ate two potato waffles, broken apart with my fingers (my front teeth are sensitive to heat, the occasion did not warrant cutlery), and dipped into a squirt of Heinz barbecue sauce. My boyfriend had waffles too, as a main course after a starter of cheese on toast. His condiment of choice was Heinz tomato ketchup, and he ate his lengthways.
Mystical Jadeite (but we call him Woody)
At the end of November, a new ex racehorse came into my life. Woody is a four year old (technically still three) 15.2hh bay gelding, and he is lovely.
Silver Blue
I haven't posted anything on here for a while- partly because I've been trying to pitch ideas to paid platforms, partly because time seems to become tighter with every passing week, but mostly because I haven't been hunting this season.
What You Should Know About Dairy Farming: Introduction
The more I read and the more I see, the more it becomes obvious that the general public want to know more about how their food is produced- and how animals are managed. It's very easy for those of us who exist within this milky echo chamber to be surprised when people comment on pictures of calves to say that they are cows missing their babies, or to roll around with laughter when a survey shows that children think chocolate milkshake is produced by brown cows, but the truth is that we can't expect anyone to understand our industry if they haven't been exposed to it. How many of you could recognise a coffee crop if you saw one? Or know how cotton is harvested? And those are two commodities that it's likely you are exposed to every day, that also exist in the wider agricultural industry.
"If you're from Africa, why are you white?"
Armed with a yellow fever certificate reminiscent of dog vaccination card, under strict instructions not to play with any pets, and armed with a suitcase of books and several bikinis, I made my way to Nairobi.
Goodbye 2017... Hello 2018!
Girl, it’s a privilege to live in an age where a woman can buy a house off her own salary, and not be left homeless when The Man With The Cash decides his trouser snake would rather dance to a new sheet of music.
14 Hunting Horses You Might Meet in The Field
When the London Commuter decided to swap shooting for hunting, he really wanted a mount that would impress his mistress in ways that his pair of Purdeys never managed. As a result he took his cheque book to the hunt's dealer, who, never one to miss a trick, sold him a glossy black gelding of dubious history, straight off the Irish ferry.