Diary of a Pint-Sized Farmer: A Year of Keeping Sheep, Raising Kids, and Staying Sane

by Sally Urwin

Overview

One woman’s humorous memoir about leaving the corporate world behind for life on a northern England farm with her whole family.

Ever dream of reinventing yourself and starting over? Sally Urwin did. Even though her feet don’t quite reach the tractor pedals, this city-girl-turned-shepherd found happiness and love with one husband, two kids, grumpy rams, ewes and lambs, Mavis the Sheepdog, and a very fat pony.

Once employed to market the insolvency services of a large accounting firm, Sally along with her husband, Steve, now run High House Farm in Northumbria. Built around 1840, High House is a working farm where the whole family (including two children) pitches in. In a fresh and funny voice all her own, Sally tells her story of the shepherding life?which at High House also includes the sideline businesses of a tearoom, winery, and a barn for weddings.

Diary of a Pint-Sized Farmer reveals the highs and lows of the shepherding life and the hard work in making a living from the land. Filled with grit and humor, eccentric animals, and local characters, this is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered what it’s like to pack up and find a new life on the other side of the fence.

Praise for Diary of a Pint-Sized Farmer

“Urwin’s account of a year on High House Farm, with its mix of arable land and 200 sheep in windswept Northumbria, is no rural idyll. But it’s full of passion for the realities of life lived knee-deep in the countryside. . . . Despite the hardships, Urwin still finds the fun in rural life.” —Daily Mail

“A wonderfully honest and comic account of what life on a farm is really like.” —Living

“With her witty humor and candid descriptions, it’s hard not to fall in love with Sally.” ?Countryman’s Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781567926873
Publisher:	David R. Godine, Publisher
Publication date:	08/27/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	219
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Sally Urwin is (probably) the shortest farmer in England and lives with her family and a lot of sheep in Northumberland. She used to work in the most depressing job in the world—marketing manager for a bankruptcy practitioner—but made a bid for freedom after nabbing farmer Steve from the Dating Direct website in 2001.

Read an Excerpt

I am going to do the whole bloody lambing. I'm going to lamb all the lambs. I imagine myself lean and strong, with thin thighs, in attractive waterproof overalls, striding through the lambing shed like I own it. I spend the rest of the evening searching through eBay for waterproof trousers, short leg, size 14, that don't look like a pair of plastic bags stitched together at the crotch.

Preface

Prologue

On a sunny spring March day, there is no better place to be than flat out in the straw of the lambing shed. The sun was streaming through the big double doors, and I decided that lying on the clean, dry bedding was a lovely place to have a snooze. Especially as I was surrounded by a flock of heavily pregnant ewes, who were calmly chewing their cud or sleeping stretched out in the straw. No one was due to lamb for a few days, so we all lay together, shifting a leg occasionally to get more comfortable, napping in the bright sunshine and storing up some sleep before lambing started …

A party of visitors appeared at the lambing shed door and peered over the top to look at the sheep.

I hauled myself upright and staggered over to say hello. They asked who the farmer was.

‘I am,’ I said.

They looked unconvinced. ‘But … who actually does the farming?’ they asked.

‘I do. Me. That’s what I do. By myself. On my own,’ I replied.

They looked around as if expecting my husband, wearing bib and braces, to pop up from behind a hay bale.

I tried again. ‘My husband Steve, who owns the farm, is at his other work today. So, I’m actually in charge.’

I realised I was trying to persuade people I’d never met, who didn’t know me, or even actually care, that I’m capable of looking after the sheep by myself.

They continued to look amazed, and after introducing them to a few of my (very fat and lazy) ewes, they walked back to the car park, making the odd ‘Well, I never!’ sort of noises.

Maybe I don’t look like a farmer? I’m only 4 foot 10 (on a good day). Perhaps they expect all farmers to be big beefy men with ruddy cheeks and hands like spades.

I refuse to say, ‘Oh, I’m the farmer’s wife’, as it makes me sound like I’m in a nursery rhyme or I stand in the kitchen making Yorkshire puddings and pots of tea.

Perhaps I should wear a name label, or a boiler suit with tractor logos all over it (if I could find one that didn’t need two feet chopped off the ankle)....

Editorial Reviews

Hilarious and honest”
—That's Farming

“A wonderfully honest and comic account of what life on a farm is really like.”
—Living

“With her witty humor and candid descriptions, it’s hard not to fall in love with Sally.”
—Countryman's Weekly

“Urwin's account of a year on High House Farm, with its mix of arable land and 200 sheep in windswept Northumbria, is no rural idyll. But it's full of passion for the realities of life lived knee-deep in the countryside ... Despite the hardships, Urwin still finds the fun in rural life.”
—Daily Mail

From the Publisher