June Letter From The Farm
In which the shed gets demolished. Finally.
Another speedy month at Broughgammon Farm and suddenly I’m sitting here at my desk on the first day of school holidays, only slightly prepared! Over the years I’ve become progressively better at dealing with the summer hols, there’s now a lot of forgiveness and an acceptance of mess, imperfection and “wasted” days. I do get the occasionally moment of green envy when I see people off on family holidays abroad-something we are not able to do here with the farm to run. I did write a whole post on the struggle of being a farmers wife but in the end I felt it was a bit depressing so it’s still in the drafts! Maybe one jaded day I’ll post it but I’ll spare you that at the moment!
The biggest news of June happened right at the end of this month and it was the arrival of the builders to begin my cottage renovations. I am beyond delighted! I have been waiting patiently for years for some home improvements but there’s never been the right time. Finally the stars have collided and here we are-the digger is in the garden, the shed is a heap of rubble and I’m spending hours poring over tile samples. Hallelujah!! We are building a new boot room and studio and then a kitchen extension as well moving the bathroom and hopefully (if budget allows) some general work like replacing the windows and lime plastering the old stone walls, which are currently coated in non-breathable cement. I’ll keep you posted on any fun updates via Instagram.
The garden has been GREEN and abundant this month. I’ve been meticulous with my successional sowing this year and have decent sized plots for summer/autumn and winter 25 26. I’ll have to film a walk through for you as it’s actually rather impressive and Im dying to show it off! The polytunnels are ok, I have salad and beans as well as edible flowers in one which is pretty low maintenance at the moment and providing some nice pickings. The old location of the storm damaged tunnel has proved to be just as abundant as its now producing the most glorious collection of forage-able delights! As well as loads of nasturtiums and cornflowers! Delightful indeed! The new tunnel is slowly coming to life, I’ve had quite a few deaths of plants but what remained has now taken root and I’ll certainly have a decentish harvest of tomatoes and courgettes this year. Im happy!
Amidst the end of school year parties and reports we had Open Farm Weekend here at the farm. This mainly entails lots of press, which is brilliant! I did have a video taken for it -I’ll post above. If I look odd it’s because my brain is trying to navigate the many chicken created dust bath holes under my feet as I’m told to move towards camera! As a result it’s very stilted but you get an idea of what we do for the event. When we started as part of Open Farm Weekend it was the only time in the year where we opened to the public, however now we have the farm shop open every weekend so I dont get so worried about dealing with larger numbers of visitors. We’re taking it in our stride these days. It’s really mind blowing realising how much we’ve developed as a farm and business and now we take 50 people every Tuesday for a tour and lunch without breaking sweat! I would have never envisioned it!
I’ll wrap this June letter up with a note of Rupert. If you follow me on Instagram you’ll see I posted on Rare Chromosome Disorder Day all about my journey as Rupert’s mother. Rupert is my 8 year old in case you didn’t know. I think it was the rawest and most open I’ve been on that app and the reaction was truly heart warming!
Im going to repost what I wrote here to save you the journey over to Instagram but before I do I’ll say that while I’m trying to keep these monthly letter’s farm focused I feel Rupert and his extra needs are a monumental part of it. For me at least. Not only does his demands shape my day but I strongly feel it will shape the farm’s future. I hope I can do good with this life I’ve been given, and part of that good has been caretaking this land on which I am steward. I also hope I can share this space with as many people, disabled, special needs and neurotypical. What an honour it is to be able to do that and so I hope that will be happening more as I get more confidence in my plans and how to execute them.
Anyway here’s my Instagram post in honour of Rare Chromo Day:
Today is Rare Chromosome Disorder Awareness Day and I couldn’t let this this day pass by without sharing even just a little bit about my story of being a mummy to a child with a rare chromosome condition. I’ve found that sharing our stories here on this little app is an incredible way of lifting others up, sharing kindness and awareness and so here I am…
Some of you will already know this but I imagine a majority won’t-but my eldest Roo was born with a genetic duplication 8 years ago. I had no idea. Rare chromosome disorders are not easy to test for and certainly when I was pregnant there was no test for this. There are so many genetic disorders that the doctors barely even know about and this was the case for Roo’s. (PS-I won’t have enough space to share the whole story from pregnancy to 8 years so Im going to record an audio and share on substack this week NOTE-I have not done this yet but will do at some point!)
The first few weeks of becoming a mother was living hell. SO much went wrong, I was terrified and completely drowning, surrounded by medical equipment and on multiple times I thought he’d died. At the time we had no idea WHY these things were happening, why was so small, unable to feed, weak…Fast forward at about 1 month old I found out about the results of genetic test (I still cant believe how I found out! Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and just hug myself). It wasn’t a feeling of a breakthrough but rather a death of all my future vision of being a mother. Grief rolled in.
I should pause here and say I know this isn’t the pretty, positive picture the world wants to read but I have to be honest. And I know Im not alone in these feelings, although at the time I was truly alone in every way. Having a child with special needs is a very complicated thing on multiple levels and it’s a journey. Being newly located in the middle of nowhere was hard enough but suddenly being submerged into motherhood with a child that was hardly thriving was terrifying.
Im going to share the bulk of this all on my Substack but let me round this up with a bit of a fast forward. IT GETS SO MUCH BETTER!!! My husband and I began to get skilled at managing a child with so many medical issues. We became confident. I took out the printed out sheet on Roo’s specific genetic duplication that the doctor had handed me and read it for the first time at around 8 months old. I sat in the corner of a room and sobbed and completely broke. I grieved and grieved in that moment and allowed it to fully wash over me. The fear for him, what could be coming, what my future might look like. It was an enormous moment of emotion but it was a catalyst for my emergence as a mother to this special little boy. I had survived the worst. So had he. We were ok.
Fast forward to another pivotal moment in our journey…School. We had settled into our comfort bubble-protected, me perhaps in slight denial but doing a good job, a lot of love, and a new sibling. Then it was time to sort out where I was going to send my son to school. Special school was beckoning. Roo had severe learning delays at this point, wasn’t potty trained and was showing signs of sensory processing disorder amongst other things. Our local primary suggested they could take him but I made a split decision to go for the special school. I knew there was no going back after this, I had truly labelled him now. I had a special needs child attending a special needs school. I remember dropping him off on his first day and watched another child screaming as 3 members of staff encouraged them through the school doors. I wanted to run back in and grab my child out of there. It looked like hell on earth to me. It turned out to be the best decision of our lives.
Im going to leave this here and talk about this later on as honestly I could write on this for ever. But I want to say this to anyone out there with a child with unique needs, entering this journey- you will not break, you are the right parent for your child, you will be happy.
Being a parent to a child with a genetic disorder isn’t easy that’s for sure, however making him happy is. Giving him a good life has been easy, joyful, exciting. I have become resilient and I see parents around me in similar situations equally, if not more, capable and balanced. However the journey does not end, it evolves with many complicated twists. The wear and tear of the silent work we do is real, the fear is still there and a day of parenting these children is lightyears away from a day parenting a standard needs child. So please raise your glass, salut or hat to all the parents out there using this hashtag today.
Sending love to you all x