To be jealous of Amanda Owen (Yorkshire Shepherdess)

[AliceAbsolum]

Her life just looks amazing. Yes obviously hard at times and not perfect. But 9 lovely children, she's gorgeous, kind husband, successful career, meaningful job and being able to spend time outdoors with her family. All the animals and space.
What I'd give for that life!

She’s on Saturday kitchen thingy now with James Martin

Oh God,he'll be all over her

Farm health and safety radar going utterly mad when I see her free range children

Yes. Farming is dangerous, even for adults - 2% of the UK workforce, but 20% of fatal workplace accidents.

It's all very well being nostalgic about the freedom that children had in previous eras, but the price was much higher rates of accidental death and injury than now. I think there is a balance to be struck - sedentary kids are at risk too. But I don't think anyone can keep a proper eye on her number of young kids, while also running a farm. She must be relying on the older ones to watch the younger, which is placing a huge responsibility on them.

Noel Fitzpatrick makes all my arsehole detector receptors zing.

Total egomaniac and I agree that many of those animals should be put to sleep.

@Wildrobin

I wouldn’t be jealous as such as it must have its challenges too but it did make me wish more children had that old fashioned outdoor life again. Ours do in a sense but we don’t have all the animals to care for so once we’ve had a woodland ramble or cycle we are usually back inside!

thats how i feel also.

I thought she and her DH were living apart.I think anyway that the life is meant to look like this .In reality its hard work and her 9 children must find that sort of life hard as well.One of her DC has gone to Uni recently and says she finds it good to have some space to herself now!

Noel Fitzpatrick has a total god complex. Some of the animals he heroically saves are dead not long after the cameras stop rolling.

I think there is a bit of a safety in numbers aspect with the Owens though. Most accidents involving children on farms these days seems mainly to be little ones wandering somewhere that someone else isn't expecting them to be. The Owens do tend to move as a pack with bigger children looking after younger ones.

Too many farmers are too blasé about farm safety even though every farmer knows someone something horrible has happened to in a farm. Just in my own wide farming circle of several generations I know of 3 people killed in quadbike accidents (2 rolled, one in a crash with a car) one person killed by a bale falling on them, one killed falling through a barn roof, a small child falling in a slurry pit and dying, one person with a hand missing from a tractor incident, one person with a brain injury from a tractor rolling, one person with two legs missing after falling in a piece of machinery and probably hundreds of missing bits of fingers/toes across loads of people.

I absolutely agree re the ethics of Noel F’s experimental surgeries. Most are absolutely not in the best interests of the animal.

Yup @TupTupGimmer Just in my own family, we have had one uncle fracture his femur and nearly die through blood loss (being a farmer, he drove himself to hospital..), and another fall through the ice into a slurry pit and get out by the skin of his teeth. And god knows how many near misses involving irate cattle or dodgy machinery. And I wouldn't say my family is blasé about H&S.

Obviously kids can do lots on a farm, perfectly safely. But things happen quickly and unpredictably, especially where livestock are involved, so you need an adult eye kept on them. I used to love visiting the family farm as a child, but there were a few incidents involving hay barns and huge heaps of sand - both magnets for kids - that I look back on and think we were lucky to survive, but they didn't seem dangerous to us at all at the time. Even a sensible older child won't necessarily be able to anticipate danger in the way an adult would.

Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs there is. Agriculture in general is the most dangerous industry in the UK in terms of fatal injury

www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/resources/fatal.htm

@1AngelicFruitCake

I love the programme but I don’t like the focus on Clemmie. Yes she is adorable but it seems so unfair on the other children. If she’s genuinely working hard on the farm, there’s no way she’s got time to give the children individual attention, it’ll be older ones looking after younger ones. Also find it sad that Clive seems to dote on his children but doesn’t see his older daughter or grandchildren. I think Amanda is incredibly ambitious and making the most of the fame. It’s sad as she appeared to have it all and she can’t sell that if they split up.

The children choose themselves how much they appear - you don't need it signposting which children have declined to be as included this season as in past seasons. If they don't want to be, they're not filmed.

Clive's son works on the neighbouring farm and they have a good relationship. His daughter refused to attend his wedding to Amanda, making a fuss it was some sort of betrayal even though he'd been divorced for years. She refuses to contact them then went to the papers. Odd really.

If you can make money from a few photos and a-day-in-the-life books, then why wouldn't you? That money will help their kids remain living in their area, something a lot of rural, coastal and families in desirable spots can only dream of, as their towns are sold off to wealthy Londoners as holiday homes.

I've only heard of her because I saw the book in a book shop the other day. I didn't look because it's not really my sort of thing and never seen the series on tv.

From the sounds of it the whole thing seems overly romantised if people are inspired to follow her lead.

My ancestors were shepherds in Gloucestershire. My great great grandfather was a shepherd and coincidentally had 9 children too. No way would I want to live their life. Hard, back breaking work and scrabbling around for enough money to feed and clothe 9 children? I don't think so.

[quote BalladOfBarryAndFreda]Farming is one of the most dangerous jobs there is. Agriculture in general is the most dangerous industry in the UK in terms of fatal injury

www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/resources/fatal.htm[/quote]
A high suicide rate too.

It’s a tough life for the vast majority of farmers, no doubt, @knittingaddict

Whatever the reason for not visiting the newborn in the SCBU she wouldn’t be receiving a Mother of the Year award from me. I find that very cold hearted.

I wasn’t wild about them letting their younger dog impregnate their 10yr old bitch either. Unsurprisingly, that pup was stillborn.

@Moonbabby

Farming is a piece of piss compared to a properly hard life, like being a single mum on a council estate with no support, or working a crappy job on minimum wage around caring for your elderly relatives, or being trapped in a 9-5 that you hate but can’t leave because of your mortgage.

It’s an amazing lifestyle, organising your own time, totally free to stop and chat to the neighbours, have lunch and tea breaks (lots) whenever you want them, knowing that you’re working for yourself and not some 23 year old smart arse line manager who could have you disciplined for having a 34 minute lunch.

Sheep farmers work hard during lambing and for a few weeks after. Then it’s basically part time for the rest of the year unless you can’t manage your time properly.

Arable farmers work hard in summer and for a bit whilst sowing and spraying. Otherwise it’s basically free time.

Dairy farmers to be fair do work every day, I’ll give them that. But usually with relief millers.

Yes farming is hard work but 24 hours/365 days is a total myth. Farmers moaning about their work whilst living a fairly enviable lifestyle is going to turn the public off one of these days.

It’s hard work - like any job. But not relentlessly hard. And with so many perks. You don’t hear of many quitting to go live in a town and work in Lidl, do you?

There, I said it…

No they don't leave to go to work in Lidl .... they get desperate and overwhelmed with hard work and the sheer loneliness ... and commit suicide. Farmers have the highest rate of suicide in any profession!

I absolutely cannot stand her - I vowed never to watch again after she put a pony in the back of her Land Rover - dangerous, stupid and irresponsible.

@elbea

Having worked on livestock farms, it’s really tough. Lambing is absolutely back breaking. Up all night, taking turns checking on the sheep every hour. Feeding, watering, moving livestock is tough, even tougher with a baby on your back in all weathers. Once I’d finished feeding and watering it would be time to feed the orphans and then you’d start again, stopping only to put new lambs in pens, given them iodine and supplements.

I did one lambing season in the Welsh Mountains where we couldn’t leave for a month due to being snowed in. I was still out from 6am until 8pm everyday, we stopped for bait, lunch and tea otherwise we were out all the time in the bitter cold. Your hands bleed from being wet and cold all the time. I did one check in the night too.

Upland farmers income is on average around £20,000 per annum. They earn much, much less than minimum wage, never go on holiday because paying somebody to watch the farm is so expensive. It is very much not idyllic.

I'd take it compared to living on well under twenty grand in a mould infested, unheated flat on a crappy estate.

Lots of UK farmers and their families live below the poverty line in unsuitable housing. It’s no less shit, just a different flavour

I'd take it compared to living on well under twenty grand in a mould infested, unheated flat on a crappy estate.

Exactly.

Lots of UK farmers and their families live below the poverty line in unsuitable housing. It’s no less shit, just a different flavour

It’s much less shit.

One of my friends is married to a farmer. I haven't seen them since we moved away years ago.

They lived in a rented farmhouse. Sounds lovely doesn't it? The house was small, cold, damp and hard to keep clean because of the stone walls and floor. They ate things lke crow pie for lunch. I think people like moonbabby have a completely distorted view about the hard graft end of farming. For the vast majority it's a difficult life with few rewards. As for organising your own time? Is that a joke?

Ugh no, I'd hate her life. Kid after kid after kid. Yuck!

Yuck?