Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen is ‘Celebrating the Seasons’

The Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen, is releasing an updated paperback edition of her book Celebrating the Seasons.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

It details the harsh, but rewarding, realities of living ‘in tune’ with the seasons on one of the highest and most remote hill farms in England.

Amanda grew up in Huddersfield, but was inspired by the James Herriot books to leave her town life behind and head to the countryside.

After a period of milking cows and working as a contract shepherdess and alpaca shearer, she eventually settled down in Swaledale, North Yorkshire, where she has been for over 25 years.

Amanda OwenAmanda Owen
Amanda Owen

The mother of nine runs a two thousand acre hill farm, 50 miles from the nearest large town.

She is a full time shepherdess tending to a flock of 1,000 sheep.

The author of five Sunday Times Bestselling books is also a star of Channel 5’s highest rated factual series, Our Yorkshire Farm.

In Celebrating the Seasons, Amanda shares funny and charming stories from across the farming year with her family and their many four-legged charges, from lambing in spring, to haymaking and shearing in summer and feeding the flock in midwinter.

Chocolate orange Chelsea buns feature in the bookChocolate orange Chelsea buns feature in the book
Chocolate orange Chelsea buns feature in the book

In this updated paperback edition, featuring additional material taking us up to February 2022, Amanda learns why pig-feeders are best left in situ, camps out overnight in a moorland sheep-fold and finds a new super-size friend for Tony the pony.

Celebrating the Seasons vividly evokes the Swaledale landscape where Amanda lives, with its sweeping moors, rare wildflowers, and elusive hares glimpsed in the fields.

The Yorkshire Shepherdess believes in using good, seasonal ingredients when it comes to feeding her family and includes her favourite recipes, from wild garlic lamb with hasselback new potatoes, to rhubarb and custard crumble cake and Yorkshire curd tart.

Part recipe book, part memoir, the paperback of Celebrating the Seasons includes 36 stunning photographs taken by Amanda, showcasing the bleak and beautiful landscape she calls home, opening up a window into a life lived on one of the country’s highest, wildest moors - land so inaccessible that in places it can only be reached on foot.

A recipe for wild mushroom soup is includedA recipe for wild mushroom soup is included
A recipe for wild mushroom soup is included

Amanda’s love of photography came out of a desire to keep a lasting record of family life on the farm – taking natural, honest and spontaneous pictures of spectacular scenery, and providing a real insight into the unique joys and challenges of daily life.

Written month by month, Amanda takes the reader on her personal journey through the seasons, describing the age-old cycles of a farming year and the constant challenges the family face.

Amanda is a passionate photographer and the author of the top 10 bestsellers The Yorkshire Shepherdess, A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess, The Adventures of the Yorkshire Shepherdess, Tales from the Farm and Celebrating the Seasons, which was the biggest selling Hardback Non-Fiction title of 2022 and was shortlisted for Non-Fiction Lifestyle Book of the Year at the 2022 British Book Awards.

She has also regularly appeared on TV in shows such as The Dales, Winter Walks, New Lives in the Wild, Springtime on the Farm and, of course, Our Yorkshire Farm.

Celebrating the Seasons paperback edition will be available from 4 October 2022 priced £8.99.