A brand new start

 

My last post was just so negative and I can't have that on my blog. The last year has been hugely trying and there was a time when I was about to throw in the towel and head back to the UK. For financial reasons I've not been able to do that in a hurry and as time goes by I'm more settled and even content here. I won't be revisiting the situation that lead to me being here alone, it's time to move on and leave all of that behind me.

This year is proving to be as big a challenge as last year and it occurred to me a while back that I've not made an easy life for myself by becoming a farmer so late in life. I'm dealing with livestock and as I read on another blog, livestock often becomes deadstock! So far, I've managed to save my animals, but it's been hard and often traumatic.

I have successfully raised my first batch of ducklings, only 3 out of 6 survived the incubation process but I have more due to hatch this weekend so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't lose any. Fool that I am, I even have a couple of gosling eggs ready to hatch!

 I have no idea what the future holds for me now. It's very early in the morning and I can't sleep because my beloved horse Bo is sick with laminitis. He's currently at a friends field so that my own land can recover from a very wet winter. This means that I have less control over his condition and need to get him home as soon as he's able to make the walk along the lane.

In a short while I'll do the morning rounds of feeding and letting out the poultry, I have 5 chickens with another 2 joining them next week and at the moment just 3 breeding ducks, the parents of the 3 above. I enjoy my morning routine, it gives me a chance to walk around the farm and check out what needs to be done, fixed, cut back, or repaire. It's my quiet time when I feel grateful to live in such a beautiful place and it feels worth the stress and hard work and I realise I wouldn't go back to my old life even if I was paid a heap of money! 

Talking of money though, it would be good to have some as my income has dried up! I can't have the students here any more, they're just too difficult to deal with and I'm tired of parenting other people's children. They come to me to learn English, not manners, those, they should already have!

So, it's going to be quite an interesting process this year and I've decided to share it on my blog, what will work and what will be a disaster, I have no idea!