As part of our campaign to Back British Farming we sit down with farmers on our rural community blog, and chat about all things farming. In this blog we spoke with Hannah Druce (@devon_farmgirl), a farmers wife to be, upholsterer and small business owner from Devon. Read more below about her journey and life in farming…
My name is Hannah, I am 26 and I live on a dairy farm near Broadwood Widger in Devon.
I moved to Devon in 2018 to be with my now Fiancé. Before then I was a swimming teacher in Hampshire with no farming background or knowledge!
I don’t think I woke up one day and just decided to become a farmer, it happened very organically. I fell in love with a farmer and the closer we got the more I fell in love with him and the lifestyle we had. The farm is now part of who I am and who we are as a couple.
The farm is a 4th generation dairy farm, it has and will always be dairy. In recent years it has diversified into rearing store cattle as well.
The key qualities needed for this job include patience, resilience, dedication, a good work ethic and a love for the outdoors, whatever the weather!
I didn’t go to an agricultural college. Everything I know now I’ve either found out the hard way or learnt from my fiancé and his family.
We have two farm dogs called Charlie and Vic who help us with the animals. Charlie is great at working bullocks and Vic is great with the cows. We also have Nellie who is more of a pet than a farm dog but loves the tractor and will happily look out the window whilst we’re doing tractor work.
Nellie is fully trained and the farm dogs learn from each other and any previous dogs we’ve had.
We don’t yet have children although Nellie is our baby! I do run the home and two small businesses as well. I own an upholstery business and soft furnishings business. It can be difficult to juggle everything but our home and my workshop are both on the farm so we are never far away from each other if we need help.
A typical day would start early! My fiancé gets up around 3.30am and I get up around 3.45am. We milk, do yard work and any jobs until 7.30am. Then we clean the sheds and feed the animals before having breakfast around 9am. It’s much easier this time of year and in the summer though as a lot of the animals are out in the fields. We milk again at 4pm and finish the day whenever the work is done, some days that’s 6.30pm some days that’s 12am it just depends what needs to be done!
We try and make time to get off the farm and have some time away. We occasionally go away for a weekend or very rarely a holiday! We are currently planning our honeymoon which will be the longest we’ve been away from the farm!
Being a farmer is great because every day is different. No two years are the same. You get to work with the seasons. It is very rewarding. You get to work with animals. We live in a beautiful part of the country.
If you’re a farmer and you’d like to contribute in our campaign to raise awareness for the incredible work in British agriculture, please drop us a DM on Instagram – @_howdenrural