About me

183:769676174 (Susan Kelly) — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 15:01:14 GMT

A post about me written for International Women's Day 2022

Hello! My name is Sue Kelly and I am a dog walking business owner, a photographer, and an Earth Museum Global Storyteller. I’m also a wife and mum to two grown-up boys and a rescue dog. I love nature, dogs, travelling, history and culture.

I was very honoured to be asked to contribute a guest blog to celebrate International Women’s Day this year. I strongly believe in women supporting other women, and have been lucky to experience this support throughout my life, both in terms of friends, education and business.

I spent 30 years working in the Public Sector, mainly in services responsible for employee health, safety and well-being. By late 2018, I was burnt out and needed to move away from a corporate environment to improve my own well-being and long-term health.

In 2019, I launched my dog walking business, Sue’s Canine Care. I specialise in solo or 2:1 walks for dogs that wouldn’t thrive in a pack walk. I help busy, working dog owners, who love their pets but can’t always be there for them, and older, retired owners who feel their dogs need a longer walk than they can manage.

I’ve always sent my clients photos of their dogs taken while we’re out walking. More recently, this has led me to begin incorporating dog photography into my business offer, thanks to encouragement from my wonderful mentor, Ursula Kelly, and support from other women in her mentoring group. I’m currently exploring a new brand under the title ‘The Mindful Dogwalker’. We’ll see how that develops in the coming months!

What seems like a long time ago, I studied archaeology and anthropology at University. In 2016, I was incredibly fortunate to get the chance to accompany Dr Janet Owen on an expedition to Patagonian Chile and Argentina, to follow in Charles Darwin’s footsteps while he was there during his voyage on HMS Beagle. This was the start of a wonderful project that has become The Earth Museum (TEM), a not-for-profit heritage and culture organisation founded by Janet. Late in 2019, I was asked to join the all-female board of the organisation as a non-executive director, which is proving to be an interesting & exciting role. I’ve also contributed stories for our website, based on photographs and letters my Grandfather sent home as a young man.

So, what is The Earth Museum? Among other things, it’s a free virtual space for the generally curious, for history and heritage lovers, for virtual travellers and for creative educators. We use stories to connect & map treasures in museum collections with the people and places they’re linked with. We aim to bring together local and global heritage stories with UN Sustainable Development Goals and citizen curation to develop digital resources and a digital global citizenship programme.

Recent TEM projects and stories have included developing Taken Rapanui Heritage & Artifacts maps with the Rapanui Pioneers Society, mapping East Midlands Heritage with a group of local museums, mapping Ryde’s Heritage through Explorer Trails and Workshops, and developing curriculum resources for schools with Gosport and Farnham Multi-Academy Trust.

My personal and business journeys have taught me so many things. If I had to pick a few, they would be to:

● get outside and into nature whenever you can. This has a proven benefit for mental health and well-being, and has certainly had a hugely positive impact on me.

● be open to new opportunities in life and business; it’s never too late to change track if your current one isn’t enabling you to thrive.

● get help, advice and support from others; there’s so much experience, knowledge and goodwill out there!

To finish, a personal plea from someone who is passionate about dogs. If you’re thinking of getting a dog, please consider adopting rather than buying one. There are so many abandoned dogs needing homes and too many unscrupulous rogue breeders. In my experience, a rescue dog won’t necessarily have any more ‘problems’, and they have so much love and gratitude to give!

My links

My business website - www.suescaninecare.co.uk

My daily walking adventures are my Instagram page - www.instagram.com/suescaninecare

My Facebook business page - https://www.facebook.com/suescaninecare/

The Earth Museum website - www.theearthmuseum.co.uk

Our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/The-Earth-Museum-110504680408927/

Oak Tree Farm Alpacas

183:769676174 (Susan Kelly) — Sun, 03 Apr 2022 14:45:14 GMT

Guest blog for International Women's Day

The Women Who Planted Thyme

Life at Oak Tree Farm, home to the Oak Tree Alpaca Herd, with Fiona (artist) and Jane (gardener)

Women are said to be skilled multi-taskers. We juggle different aspects of ourselves and fill the time we have. If you had told me four years ago that I had time to be involved with a smallholding that combined alpacas, chickens, sheep and an edible flower and herb garden, I would have laughed. And yet here we are, with a growing herd of alpacas and a soon-to-be blooming farm garden.

We started with a field, a spade and an idea about working the land and caring for animals. We have dug the earth and created beds, planting thyme. Thyme is a herb which symbolises courage: a sense of being who you are with your whole heart. This is what the land offers to us. As the thyme became established, it took up space and we found time we didn’t know existed: a space to breathe between work and home. We were growing time.

There is something both grounding and soothing about working with the land and animals. As part of the small team that owns and runs the farm, I take pleasure in documenting activity on the farm across the seasons and creating art inspired by what I see. I have time to look in different ways, from above and below and tinted with different hues.

The garden has become home to a diverse range of edible flowers and herbs. It is intentionally (and inevitably!) wild around the edges so we can forage nettles, dandelions and other ‘weeds’ alongside the ones we put in the ground deliberately. Our polytunnel extends the growing season a little, giving us more thyme, and allows us to grow tender plants too.

The land is always changing and the time we spend there is both nourishing and satisfying. There is a direct relationship between the time we put in and what we see around us. We are always learning what works and what doesn’t: weathering storms, managing disappointments and sharing success. We can’t keep this sort of experience to ourselves, and we spend some thyme offering a range of opportunities to be at the farm.

There is thyme for others to help with animal care and land management, building confidence and broadening experiences. We are a venue for other events, too, and welcome visitors who learn about foraging with The Nottingham Forager or take part in yoga or mindfulness sessions.

Visitors can book in for an alpaca experience all year round, spending time with our gentle alpacas, either feeding them in the fields or walking with them through our corner of ancient woodland. When you come to the farm, we love to tell you about our composting and the contribution the alpacas make to the farm garden.

We also offer seasonal events, often in collaboration with others, and we are now planning for Mother’s Day and Easter. Sharing our love of being outdoors and creating in nature are key parts of what we do.

So, if you’d like to add a little more thyme into your day, as a pause between all the other ways that you spend your time, we highly recommend planting some. Not only do you get to smell the musky and aromatic leaves (and taste it as you add it to your food), you also find a connection with a clock that is governed by the rhythm of the seasons: a different sort of thyme.

Find us in Instagram and Facebook @oaktreealpacas

Website: www.oaktreealpacas.co.uk

Email: oaktreefarm2017@gmail.com

85ec6148f73248c7a8ef8f0216b77f02

About me

A post about me written for International Women's Day 2022

Oak Tree Farm Alpacas

Guest blog for International Women's Day