Life on a farm is varied, it ebbs and flows, presents itself often in ways I never imagined. I never imagined owning a pony, I never imagined spending days on a determined campaign to control the vicious flies that are drawn to horses. The donkeys suffer the flies, they spend a lot of time in the shade of the barn, refuse fly masks (they quickly remove the masks from each other, we lost a lot of masks that way before we gave up.

Lots of horse owners keep their animals inside the barn all day to keep them away from the flies. Chloe is restless and indifferent to almost anything. She is loving her daily evening hose-downs. I love doing it.

But you can’t really solve the fly issue without the donkeys, as flies lay their eggs in the manure of equines. Since we got Chloe, we’ve been investigating our options, this year we launched the fly wars. It is three-pronged.

One we remove the manure from the area of the barn quickly. Two, we put a fly mask on the pony during the day. Three, we got a hormone based feed that the horse and donkeys eagerly eat, it passes through them and stops the flies from re-producing. No insecticides.

We know we will never get rid of the flies completely, but people who use this pellet feed – they just need a small amount a day, say it can reduce flies by 70-90 per cent. And the donkeys and horse think they’re getting treats, they gobble it up.

Ideally, we should have started the feeding in May, before the flies really get going. But we should be able to see a reduction in the flies before too long. A farm is about life and death, change and growth. I am forever faced with problems I have never faced before, in this way, I grow and adapt.