Solihull Living Nov - Dec 2021

means that there’s plenty of room for
everybody to get some space outside. I
enjoy the busyness and noise of family
life in the house. But I can get away from
it by walking out my front door. Plenty
of people can’t as they leave their front
door and if they live in a city, it’s still loud
and busy when they get out. We’re lucky
here to have the wide open spaces and
the kids spend a lot of time outdoors.
We’re working farm and that means that
everyone mucks in - no matter what
the age, it could be collecting hen’s
eggs, feeding the horses, or helping find
uniforms for everyone, also cooking. Real
dough is just as good as playdough and
the kids love learning to cook. The only
time when we all come together is tea time
at the farm, when we all come together to
eat, it’s my favourite time of day, when I
get to hear what everyone’s been up to on
the farm and school.
Your children must have a wonderful
time and appear to have no fears with
any of the animals. Do they each have a
special one?
I suppose they do. Quite a lot of the girls
loves the horses. Violet loves the cows,
she was excited recently that our pet cow,
Ciara has now come in from the fields.
Violet hand reared Ciara from a calf, so
she thinks she belongs inside the house
and doesn’t like the other cows. Miles is
very taken with the hens and his flock of
30 sheep. Through the winter and up to
lambing time Miles looks after his flock of
sheep after school. Sidney has his own
dog, Nell a sheep dog and she runs for
him, so that’s quite a big thing for a young
lad to be able to work his own sheep dog.
It’s a level up from being a pet. The terriers
are wonderful they are real characters,
they are source of frustration as they
will have fights with each other, or they
wander off from the farm to the local pub
quite a few miles away! The terriers, are
Chalky and Sprout, sadly we lost Pippin at
the beginning of lock down. Tony the pony
(pictured above right) is loved by Annas,
Clemmie and Nancy, they look after him,
feed him, brush him and ride him. They
also love the bigger horses Josie and
Princess. Princess is very good with the
kids and often two of them ride her around
the fields. They also like to take the horses
down to the river and give them a bath
and wash and comb their tails.
Will any of them follow in your
footsteps?
Yeah, I think so, at the moment Miles and
Sidney are very keen on farming and Edith
is a good shepherdess. That said I never
place any expectation on any of them
to follow me into being a farmer and a
shepherd. You don’t know where life will
take you. I’m not sitting here going: “I want
you to be a shepherd”, because life goes
through stages, and what you want to do
changes, so I’d rather they make their own
choices, they can do whatever they want
to do. It’s a difficult thing to ask a child
what they want to do with the rest of their
life. They’ll figure it out as they go along.
What is your favourite season and why?
Summer. But really I mean June. June is
my favourite month, because all the sheep
have had lambs and been turned back
out onto the moor and it’s before hay time
and clipping, so there’s a lull and a pause
in the farm work, and at the same time
everything comes to life - the flowers, the
birds on the moor. In June, the Curlews
are back, as are the Lapwings, Golden
Plover, Black Grouse. All you can hear
is birds, wherever you’re walking. There
are woodcock and snipe too - they are
all ground nesting birds up here on the
moor, so you get to see their nests as
well - and it’s just beautiful. The flowers
you see in June are marsh marigolds,
globe flowers, all the hay meadow
flowers, rare orchids - it’s really pretty.
What made you decide to write this
book? It is a delightful read and the
recipes are a treat….
Celebrating the Seasons, came about
because I wanted to answer some of the
most frequently ask questions, how do
you cater for such a big family? Tell us
about the practicalities? What do you
cook? It was really difficult selecting
recipes for the book. I wanted to include
forgiving recipes. Recipes that it was
totally fine to get distracted in the middle
of and would still turn out good. Recipes
that were achievable with the most
basic of ingredients, simple feel good
food, that was nutritionally good too. My
absolute favourite is the Tagine recipe,
it’s a people pleaser, for me its so easy
and the smell always brings everyone
to the kitchen - which is helpful! Every
time I cook it it’s different, sometimes
chick peas, sometimes wild rice, some
times couscous - it always comes out
slightly different each time. In addition
to the recipes, people have told me they
loved my photos and images of the farm
that I post on twitter and would always
suggest I do a photograph book. If you
go back to basics it was a photography
book - Hill Shepherd - that inspired me
to become a shepherd. So it’s nice to
go full circle. I know how inspiring a
photography book can be - how it can
really steer you and how a picture can
tell a thousand words. I really hope that
when people buy the book, that they
look at the pictures over and over again
and still find something new in them, as I
have with Hill Shepherd.
What would you like to tell our readers
about your life?
I want people to know that Celebrating
the Seasons is a book about going your
own way. It’s not a blueprint for how you
should live your life, it simply says this
is what we do as a family this is how we
do it, feel free to follow the recipes, or
do them your own way. I want people
to not let themselves to be stereotyped,
to know that all things are achievable if
you really want to do it. So many people
said you won’t have time to write a book,
you won’t achieve that. But I believe you
can do anything you just have to start
doing it. If you want to write a book,
start writing. I got an E in GCSE English,
and this is my fifth book. Anything is
possible.
Celebrating
the Seasons with The Yorkshire
Shepherdess by Amanda Owen by Pan
Macmillan, £20.
www.minervamagazines.co.uk | 23