It has been a while since my last blog post and I whole-heartedly admit that I have slacked on that front.  But something happened yesterday that reignited that spark to write again; we received our first batch run of our second children’s book – Sammy the Slow Worm! It was such an exciting moment for us all, and the children's reaction alone made the years of work worthwhile. However, let me rewind a little bit to explain the hiatus.  We self-published our first book, Percy the Pipistrelle Bat, a few years ago. That book took years to come to fruition because life took over (a house move, house renovation, two babies, fluctuating cash flow…..you get the idea). However, we did finally get it out there and received lovely reviews from readers – it appeared that the book had struck exactly the chord we were hoping for!  The manuscript for the second book was written but we then parted ways with our Percy illustrator. It was an amicable decision; they were moving much further away and we were really keen to work with someone that we could meet up with on a regular basis. We daydreamed of creative chats over mugs of coffee and hefty slices of cake! As luck would have it, we discovered that one of our friends was incredibly talented at art (well, not just art... she is incredibly talented at A LOT of things and is also an ecologist to boot!). Fortunately for us, she agreed to bring Sammy's story to life, despite already juggling a full-time job and countless other commitments. Whilst our new illustrator was busy being her wonderfully creative self (she's one of those annoyingly talented people who seems able to turn her hand to almost anything), we decided to expand Great Oak Farm into children's clothing. After all, slogan T-shirts are a great way to wear your interests and passions, and it inspired us to create designs that would encourage little ones to get outside and experience an 'outdoor childhood'. But how would we go about it? We didn't have the cash or the storage space to buy large amounts of stock, so we decided to try 'print on demand'. It seemed like the perfect solution; clothing would only be printed when an item was bought, removing the risk of wasted stock. We went a bit mad with designs and colourways, thinking that perhaps on this occasion, more really was... well... more! Ultimately, though, we found that print on demand meant selling T-shirts and hoodies at a much higher price than we felt comfortable charging... even with all the organic cotton credentials. So things stalled once again. Between our ecology businesses, two children, a smallholding and everything else life throws at you, we simply didn't have the time or energy to keep pouring into what felt like a fruitless exercise. For a while, it honestly felt as though Great Oak Farm had lost its momentum. I still kept up with the social media posts (on the whole!), but that was pretty much it. Then we received the finished, hand-painted illustrations for Sammy the Slow Worm. The Artful Bat had given us the pick-me-up that was desperately needed. A colourful tonic of flowers, slow worms and butterflies that filled our work-weary hearts with joy. It was exactly the impetus we needed because, after all, we couldn't let these beautiful images linger in the desert of business ideas! We promptly had the illustrations professionally scanned using a giclée (I still can't pronounce that word) art print shop and found a local printer who could turn those digital files into actual, real-life books. Unfortunately, life wasn't quite finished throwing obstacles our way. Just as we had finally put money aside for the print run and marketing, our elderly cat, Mickey, was attacked by an off-lead dog that squeezed into our garden. The vet bills were substantial and quickly swallowed the savings we'd carefully put aside. It set us back considerably but, of course, getting Mickey back to full health was our number one priority. Finally, at the start of the summer, we got the ball rolling with the printer. A few in-person meetings and some emails back and forth later, we were the proud owners of two boxes of freshly printed Sammy the Slow Worm books! I collected the books yesterday and David and I couldn't wait for our children to see them. They had watched the story grow from rough ideas, to original paintings, to a finished manuscript, but to hold the book in their hands was something else entirely. They pored over every page and then they were off—not to resume whatever they'd been doing before, but to follow wherever that little spark of creativity took them. Our eldest immediately carried on writing his own story (watch out for the forthcoming publication of The Catmonauts!), while our youngest decided she wanted to make her own miniature Sammy book, which she duly did. That reaction was a stark reminder... actually, scrap that. It was a rather big slap in the face as to why we created Great Oak Farm in the first place. To connect children with nature. To inspire empathy for wildlife. To encourage muddy puddles, outdoor adventures and curious minds. And, perhaps most importantly of all, to nurture the wonderful creativity that children seem to have in endless supply. Yesterday reminded us that Great Oak Farm isn't about selling t-shirts or writing blog posts every month or having the perfect social media feed.  It's about encouraging children to notice the world around them. If one little slow worm can inspire a child to write their own story, make their own book or head outside to see what lives beneath a log, then we're heading in exactly the right direction and that’s OK with us. We'd almost forgotten that. Thankfully, two cardboard boxes on the kitchen table reminded us.   With love,     The Great Oak Farm family