I was born in England July 1961 on the foothills of Pendle Hill, Lancashire. My parents were Town folk who'd recently bought the 27 acre farm as lifestyle buyers rather than commercial farmers. My Mother had grown up with ponies and wanted the same for here children Father had no experience of the countryside but liked the idea of hobby farming. Hollins Farm comprised of a grand Victorian Farm house built by a local wine merchant in 1901, a collection of stone barns, Milking parlour and dairy, pigsties, chicken sheds, assorted timber and corrugated iron garages and sheds.

I grew up surrounded by the joys of nature, wild flower meadows, hedge rows, majestic Trees, ferns, lichens, mosses, insects, butterflies, moths, mammals, birds. We had our menagerie of chicken's, ducks, geese, a goat, sheep, calves, cows, ferrets, cats, dogs, horses and ponies, our farm had become our playground, our school, the best nature documentary ever, fascinating in every way. We learnt so much every waking moment. Parents found a wonderful old farm labourer Isaac, who supplemented his income helping and teaching us at weekends, he loved the land, animals and the seasons. I remember him once patting the trunk of a large tree silently thanking it, and saying out load what a grand old Oak it was then guessing its age.

I was hungry to learn as much as possible, there was always something I could nether name or understand as more aspects reveal themselves, my ignorance is boundless. Did you know birdsong reduces enormously once mating and hatching is over? And woodland wildflowers have to flower and pollinate before the leaf canopy cut off the light. I learnt that nature is a finely balanced interconnected cycle on a timescale we hasty humans miss. The struggle for light with trees bending this way and that, the colonisation of the invading fungi armies, the all covering creep of the mosses, the cycle of life and decay.

Leaning on the farm yard gate watching the colours fade into dusk, tired from a day's physical work and anticipating a wholesome dinner is truly magical and deeply restorative. These moments of quite contemplation made sense in a profound way. Isaac surveyed the view and said ‘this is Gods country'

We had so many plans and schemes. When parents bought the farm the house sat centrally in a one acre paddock the previous owners had used for chickens, gradually mother had turned it into a lovely garden. Isaac built Stone paths with steps all of slightly different heights; we made a vegetable garden with four year crop rotation reducing the need for artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Repaired land drains and rebuilt drystone walls. One spring I planted a few Christmas trees in an overgrown corner of our hay meadow and continued planting more trees each year until five years later I harvested a 6ft Fraser fir, the smallest Christmas tree we'd ever had in our Victorian Farm house. It was my own Christmas tree, satisfying beyond measure. I had become a Christmas Tree Grower.

At 16 years old I announced to friends and family, ‘I shall be selling my mature trees this Christmas'; and then came the pleasure of sharing, the slow reveal to first-time visitors, the anticipation of their joy; kids wearing old clothes because they will get dirty, possibly fall over, the family choosing there tree, wonderful memories; I planted more trees each spring. I am now a commercial Christmas tree grower and retailer selling online with next day delivery across the UK, as the years passed from those firsts tree sales society has become more risk-averse with fewer families wanting to visit farms, cars pull in with the family onboard but the kids don't indulge, unable to leave there social media or electronic games. Increasingly customer's telephone or order online.

Hollins Farm has been a wonderful experience I have become both more ‘possessive' as I have aged wanting to protect it from the harm of uncaring visitors, and at the same time realising that it owns me far more than I can ever own it. This natural world will still be telling the story to those who are prepared to open up and listen long after I've gone.

I am now 50 my ignorance is still boundless but I understand Isaac talking with the Oak tree and what he really meant by ‘Gods own country'. My Fathers ashes are spread at a particularly magical part of the farm where a spring issues to form a stream by a single ancient blackthorn that grows vertically then horizontally when its height exposes it to the wind, on a clear day you can see 30 miles from this point. I want to be spread here to so I may become an integral part of the story.

I don't expect to fully understand the social media generation but note with interest that one third of 2010 orders were placed through mobile devices  Real Christmas trees