She is beloved by her husband, her nine children, her celebrity pals, her readers ... and 1,000 sheep.
Now shepherdess Amanda Owen is gearing up to add promoting the new edition of her latest book, A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess, to her daily chores, including lugging haybales up hill and down dale.
The 41-year-old, who grew up in Huddersfield and attended Newsome High School, was inspired by the books of James Herriot to give up the rat race for the life of a freelance shepherdess, cow milker and alpaca shearer. She now lives at Ravenseat Farm, high on the moors at Kirkby Stephen, in Swaledale, with husband Clive and her ever-expanding family aged between four months and 16 years.
It’s a life she embraces and which TV presenter Ben Fogle - just one of the visitors to her remote homestead - called “extraordinary”.
Another was Adrian Edmondson, who enjoyed a sleepover in a shepherd's hut with a beer cooling in a nearby stream. He described the family as akin to TV’s The Waltons. Countryfile presenter Julia Bradbury is also a friend.
Seen by millions on television in The Dales, in Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild and on Countrywise, Amanda has become a major TV hit. Voted Yorkshirewoman of the Year by the Dalesman magazine, she is also the author of the top-10 bestseller The Yorkshire Shepherdess.
Among the stories in the new book are the touching tale of an epic two-day journey taken by a ewe determined to find her lamb and of Clive almost being arrested on a midnight stakeout to catch a sheep-worrying dog.
When she’s not writing she’s slogging across her hill farm’s 2,000 acres feeding her livestock, children in tow. And when she’s not with the animals - 1,000 sheep, four dogs plus chickens, pigs, cows, horses, an uncontrollable goat and a vole who has taken up residence in the living room - she sells cream teas to walkers who stop at her farm on the Coast to Coast walk. Ravenseat is halfway along the 192-mile journey, which 16,000 people walk every year. bringing new faces and stories to the farm each day.
She also runs James Herriot tours for fans of the books, who visit her farm to see a way of life that hasn’t changed for decades.
Amanda will be touring Leeds, Manchester, York and Darlington with the new edition of the book in the coming weeks.