This week’s tweeting farmer at @IrelandsFarmers is Marita Kelly, who hails from Knockanore in Co. Waterford and has a dairy and suckler farm.
Marita farms with her mum and works as a journalist too. Her media work is often strongly tied to farming as is evident in her recent radio documentaries entitled ‘The Auld Fella’s Time’ which looks at the links between farming past and present.
Marita’s favourite aspect of farming is the calving, being so close to the action, the medical side of the calf being born and of course, the wonder of seeing a newborn calf nuzzle its mother. She does admit to a slight moan when the alarm goes off at 3am, 4am and 5am to watch a cow but still gets a buzz from it.
Naturally enough, there are jobs which are the least favourite too, such as changing wire for the cattle in a massive downpour, when you realise there’s a hole in your wellie when you are squelching through muck and she was never a great fan of dehorning. She enjoys overcoming the various challenges that farming presents.
Paudy O’Brien provided great tweets last week, leading discussions on loneliness and depression among farmers to providing a history of his farm. Marita is going to share what it is like being young and female in a farming work and she will also be providing plenty of humour too.
Marita finds twitter to be a great way to connect with other farmers particularly as not everyone is in a discussion group. She find it good to compare with other farmers and see how well their crops are performing, compare feeding and grazing ratios. “Although wet hands and smartphones aren’t an ideal combination, if nothing else it’s nice to know fellow farmers”.
Follow Marita on @IrelandsFarmers this week for an insight into dairy and suckler farming in Co. Waterford told from the perspective of a young woman in her early twenties.