We are into June and for us it’s time for the pheasant poults to arrive which means the start of the crazy busy time. I know many shoots have reared their own which makes the season a lot longer for many keepers and their families (we have been there and thankfully we are at a shoot that buys poults in).
In this month’s blog I want to talk about how I cope with the busy time and finding a balance between helping out and doing things for yourself.
I fully understand that once they have birds to look after whether it be chicks in rearing sheds or poults out to wood they are tied to being there at certain times of the day, multiple times of the day and this can leave them with very little time to do anything else, as a result you end up being the one to goes to work and helping so you get to spend time with them or so the kids can see daddy too. Don’t get me wrong I love nothing more than being out on the estate in the pens filling feeders or beating in the shoot season but I do find that when things aren’t quite going to plan it weighs on me too.
I know this is not the only profession that affects the partner and/or family but I don’t think some women realise what they are signing up for, they see the lovely houses, cars, dogs, shoot days and all the other bonuses that come with the job but they don’t see the long lonely nights when keepers are out lamping or the events they have to go to alone because their partner can’t have the day off. Quite often many keepers wives or girlfriend sacrifice their own time to help out on the shoot and this can cause some resentment in the relationship, I know there have been times where I have hated the job because it can totally rule your life and I found it particularly difficult when the girls where babies and I needed that support at home but birds where here or it was a shoot day. The best bit of advice I can give to anyone in this lifestyle is always talk it out, we both bottled things up and it nearly broke us, there were times I expected him to be there to do things with the kids without actually telling him I wanted him there which ended in arguments. This lifestyle is all about compromise on both sides.
Luckily for us our girls are very interested in the shoot and love to get involved which I know isn’t the case for all keepering families, at our previous job they were happy for the kids to be out with us doing feeding, dogging in and beating/picking up on a shoot day. They would find it so exciting making a drink and snacks to go out feeding with daddy or being there on the day the poults arrived, we would always try to give them a job to do so the feel like they are helping and don’t get bored too easily and the main thing for Hattie is to make sure she doesn’t have to walk anywhere!! If it’s a job on a quad she’s your girl. With the new shoot we are still finding our feet in regards to how much the kids can be out, craig has been taking Olivia out feeding on the weekends which she looks forward too and we try to do a family dog walk every day, Sundays are family days and most of the time it just involves going out for lunch but as long as it gets us all off the estate for an hour it’s a nice break.
As always thank you for reading my blog and I hope it can help at least one person to not feel alone. My inbox is always open for anyone that wants to talk.