The leaves are turning and I can’t believe it has been nearly three months since my last column in Irish Country Living. The summer seems to have flown by. September crept up faster than a fresh nettle sting and autumn calvers will be springing any day. I’m delighted to be back on these pages.

Most of June, July, and August were spent working on my book (still pinching myself to make sure it isn’t all a dream), which is due out next autumn, both here and in America.

As per Murphy’s Law, everything did not go quite as planned. That was okay. I knew it wouldn’t be a piece of cake, despite having a chapter dedicated to puddings, cakes and confections.

After handing in my manuscript filled with funny foibles and adventures of settling into life in the Irish countryside, it was time to test and tweak all the recipes and shoot the photographs to go with them. I opted to take all of my own pictures and, thankfully, a food stylist friend came over from the States to help out.

Each day we suited up in a uniform essentially consisting of aprons and wellies and set out to prepare, test, style and shoot all of the recipes proposed for the book.

Those first few days were dynamic. By day four we had nailed 24 recipes. I knew that if we kept up that pace, there was no question of meeting my deadline.

Then, at the end of that first week, I slipped and twisted my ankle, landing in Mallow General Hospital for the bones of a day. I left Cork with crutches and orders to stay off the foot for at least three weeks, potentially six. It was dreadfully dispiriting.

Then, after giving my ankle a break for a few days, I was miraculously back in the saddle, despite doctor’s orders. This was just in time for both the dishwasher and clothes washer to break down.

After replacing the dishwasher, our clothes washer mysteriously began working fine again, so we rolled up our sleeves, made up for lost time and revelled in clean tea towels.

Over the course of the next weekend, we set out to prepare and document a tea party in a fairy fort, a picnic at the local point-to-point, and host a “hammer and crab” dinner party at the farm. Tick. Tick. Tick.

A fabulous friend from Tennessee came to visit around the time that we were shooting an American southern-style Sunday lunch of buttermilk fried chicken and a mess o’ greens from the garden. The same day, our donkeys decided to put in their contribution by gobbling up all of my Georgia collard greens just before I went out to snip them for our meal. Very generous of them, right?

Two deadline extensions, 16 chapters, 125 recipes, six plus oven burns, contributions from an army of friends and family, and far too many wine-o’clocks later to count, I submitted everything, lock, stock and barrel to my patient editor across the Atlantic. Now, I await her notes and changes.

In the meantime, I am switching gears and spending more time working in the farmyard. In the past, I have helped out with various chores, but now I am taking the plunge and becoming a fully-fledged “farmer in training”.

Going forward, I will be sharing my new experiences in farming firsthand, with the odd recipe thrown in if I find one special enough to share here. (My blog, farmette.ie, will still feature new recipes on a weekly basis.)

So far, I have been getting more acquainted with the milking parlour (head covering should not be optional), I am learning to count cows in the field (not as easy as it sounds), and am assigned to caring for the autumn calves.

On the poultry side of things, Geoffrey and I recently acquired 12 turkeys that we will be managing up to the Christmas season. They will be pasture-reared and we will be fully in charge of each gorgeous gobbler from start to finish.

Wish us luck.