School’s out for the summer! Well for me at least, but I have spared a thought for those Junior Cert and Leaving Cert students who have exams to do. It will be me next year. Typical exam weather too I’m told, with the sun shining for most of it.

We visited Mallorca for a family holiday for the June bank holiday week. Of course, the weather seemed to be better at home, with frequent checks and comparisons on the weather app on our phones. Still, it was great to get away. We did a lot of driving around (my parents seem to like this sort of thing), and saw many different parts of the island. There was lots of mixed farming activity, from olives, vineyards, dairy, sheep, tillage, and horticulture.

Personally, I preferred playing in the pool with my siblings. When we got back home to Offaly, you would have though we had been away for months. The lawn had gone mad, and the weeds in the vegetable garden seemed to have taken over. Guess who had to help sort it all out!

Since my last blog, there have been some new additions to the farm. My dad has been planning and scheming for many months, and decided that he wanted to invest in some hens, so we now have about 50 organic hens roaming free. We converted one of our stables into their henhouse, and they now have state-of-the-art accommodation with a battery-operated door that lets them out in the morning and shuts them in at night. One less job to do at least.

The whole compound is surrounded by electric fence, and we are determined to not to let Mrs Fox or Mr Pine marten in to visit this year. They are very friendly birds, and love to peck at your boots when you stand among them.

My mum has been busy meeting different farmers around the country, and she brought me with her on a visit to a discussion group on a dairy farm in east Cork last week. The farmers made us feel very welcome, and she got to ask them lots of questions. The farm was in a beautiful area, and had some amazing views. It was all very interesting for me, for the first 10 minutes or so, but after 2 hours of questions and answers and discussions, I was glad to be on the road again!

It’s been a month or so now since the hens started laying, and we have buckets of eggs to deal with. We plan to sell most from the farm gate (literally) using the traditional “honesty pot” method. We are on a quiet country road, so do not get much traffic, so will have to rely on word-of-mouth and social media to market our eggs. We are also eating copious amount ourselves each day. My mum joked the other day about sending me to the end of the road with a sandwich board. At least I hope it was a joke…I’d better keep my head down!

Charlie Hackett is a 13-year-old boy from Geashill in Co Offaly, where he lives with his two younger sisters Poppy and Heidi, and his younger brother George. His parents Mark and Pippa both work on the farm, producing organic beef and sheep, and along with a few horses, chickens, dogs and cats it is a busy family farm. He is a student at Kilkenny College, and boards there during the week.

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