Where the story begins?
Well, that is hard to say. However, in retrospect, the first big step out of my comfort zone was applying for an unpaid (unpaid!) dairy farm worker position, during the calving season, near Kilkenny.
I worked for bed and accommodation. My job was to help with feeding the calves, as they are weaned off their mother's during the first week of their lives.
It was hard work,living in a cold Victorian house, about 100+ babies to feed twice daily, pushing the milk barrell and being hit, pushed and chewed by the calves. The weather was..well...Ireland in February-April. So I have seen everything, from snow to my colleague farmers putting on SPF 30...cause you know...they are ginger. And ginger turns red quick.
Sure, the animals were cute, but man....was this hard.
I left Croatia with €500.00, a suitcase and a backpack...and submitted my paperwork to the Veterinary Council of Ireland in Dublin, to get registered as a vet in Ireland.
It took nearly three months to finally get my license, as at the time I was the first Croatian vet that had applied to get registered...things moved slowly.
During those three months, living and working on the dairy farm was a very rich life experience, but one I wish to never go through again.
I am very much a city girl. I understand the freedom farming life allows to an individual, having no boss, no coworkers, seminars or phone calls...It is you, the land, your family and the animals. I get it how this is very fulfilling to some people. It is charming and humbling, but boy oh boy I find it isolating, never ending and dirty.
My inner fashionista had no space to express herself with shoes or jewellery. This was very different to what I was used to.
I have learned a thing or two about dairy farming, driving a JCB and the sacrifice one does for their family, or in my case, for their personal future.
I will be forever thankful for all the intentional, and unintentional lessons that lovely family had though me.