Farming in Rural Ireland

With Saint Patrick's Day tomorrow, I decided to post some photographs of the landscape around me here in rural Ireland. Those of you that read my blog will know that I spend all my time in the Irish countryside. I work in rural Ireland and I am passionate about the future of our rural areas. I am married to a full time farmer and this is rare nowadays as there are fewer full time farmers in this area. In my free time, I love wandering around the farm taking photographs of the beautiful landscape around me. Farmers are custodians of our landscape, they have shaped it over the years and utilised the landscape to make a living. I never lived on a farm until three years ago and I now know first hand how hard farmers work. My husband works up to 12 hours every day, apart from Sunday when he takes a few hours off during the day to spend some time with me (he still works around 7 hours on a Sunday). On top of the 12 hour days, there are hours of time spent up during the night with cows calving. To me, farming is much more than a job, it is a vocation and a lifestyle.