PRE- ORDER Fleur's newest novel 'Voices in the Dark'
In summer one of the things I love are the amazing sunsets. They can be anything from wild – like the ones created by thunderstorms – to sublime and just plain beautiful. I must admit, coming from the mid north of SA and after spending a lot of time around the Alice Springs area, I thought…
[flickrvideo]http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleurmcdonald/4113399297/[/flickrvideo] When we did the first edit for Blue Skies, we got to the part about harvest and Ali asked me to insert what a header was. Now, I’m sure most of you who jump on here to have a look know what a header is! But, just in case there are any city folk who…
Our season has come to an abrupt end. There wasn’t any gradual change in the grass as there can be some years. It went from green to golden in the space of about three days! Now is the time that my love/hate relationship starts with summer. I am not a fan of hot weather –…
Rocket hates being left out of anything! If he is left at the house, he barks and barks and then when we come home, he’s exhausted! He’s pleased to see us for about five minutes and curls up, content that his family his home and goes to sleep! Keeping an eagle eye on things here, he’s waiting…
Look at all our beautiful hay! The cows will be happy with us this year! I love it when it looks as golden as this (always reminds me of the fairy tale, Rumplestiltskin), but I love it even better when it’s all been carted and stacked in rows, away from the weather. Holly, the pregnant Kelpie, has…
Today was a very exciting day! Our brand new toy, a John Deere tractor, was delivered. Tractors are such a huge part of our farming life – I think, either Anthony, I or our workman, are in one every day! If we’re not feeding hay with it, we’re spraying, seeding, pulling the chaser bin, carting gravel,…
Rocket is the best little guard dog! He let’s us know the minute someone comes in the drive and I can tell you, we’ve been grateful more than once, for his vigilance! For a little dog, his legs are so strong – he can actually balance on the pads of his feet, for quite long periods of…
Wouldn’t it be lovely just to laze in the sun? Well that’s Rex’s life. Completely retired, except for the odd ride in the back of the ute, his life now consists of chasing the sun. One moment he’ll be stretched out in front of the door and I trip over him every time I set…
This is Wally. Actually his real name is Law, but he’s a bit of a Wally, and he’s been called it that many time, he comes to that name too. You would have to wonder what was going through his head, when he decided to go to sleep like this! He stayed like this for about twenty minutes…
This doesn’t really look like the standard library does it? Not with all the utes parked and strange looking things, including a cement mixer, at the front. Where are the books? Well, this is my new library! I have a friend who I swap books with fairly regularly, but we don’t ever seem to be…
It doesn’t seem like twelve months ago that we hitched up the mower to the tractor and started roaring through our oats crop! Today, that’s exactly what happened. Anthony’s towing a mower conditioner, which is like a huge lawn mower, but inside of it, there’s special rollers that crimp the stems of oats, ‘just right’…
What’s a boy to do when the sheep won’t run? Have a rest of course! These full-wool girls were not at all interested in running into the sheep crate today! We were loading them up into the truck so we could cart them back to the other farm for shearing, but they were being a…
The kids and I climbed Mount Howick recently and were left in awe of the view! Every time we go up there, we know it’s going to be good, but I think we forget how great it is until we get there again. It’s also quite deceiving how high the hill is. Our cattle look like…
[flickrvideo]http://www.flickr.com/photos/fleurmcdonald/4035228275/[/flickrvideo] I shot a couple small videos at our ram sale last week. I talk about a ram sale in Blue Skies and I thought, if you haven’t been to one before, it would help you visualise the atmosphere and excitement that runs around a shed as the auction starts. You may have to watch it a couple of…
The build up to any sale is huge, especially big if you’re putting your efforts before your peers and they are judging your work. Our ram sale was a great day! After an early start, the rams were settled in their pens and Rochelle and I headed off to the supermarket to grab all the…
This is why, when you live on a farm, you need a four wheel drive! Often you become a transport company! Ours is called FNA transport – officially Fleur and Anthony Transport, unofficially, a rather rude word starting with F Average Transport! I took some of the extra wool into Esperance, to make the journey to…
A little while ago, Anthony and I made a journey across the Nullarbor to Adelaide. We were going to look for good stud rams, to help advance our White Suffolk Stud. After a day in the airports we went straight from there to the show! It was wonderful to walk in and be greeted by…
Sometimes when the crop gets a bit too high and there’s a disease or fungus in it, we need to call in the plane. If we run over it with the boom spray and tractor, we’ll do more damage to the plant, than good. Cropsdusters are daredevils, I’m sure! They fly so close to the…
This is what our first day of shearing looked like at 6:00am! Sheep all ready and waiting in the yards, clear skies and a wonderful sunrise, sending a message that it was going to be a special day! We tested our new shearing shed well and truly, with 450 ewes being shorn. It worked really…
There’s no way around it, I’m a foody. I love following our produce through from pasture to plate. I love winter and the food it brings with it – thick, hot soups, bubbling casseroles and simmering stews, all served with hot bread rolls, fresh from my oven! Cooking away quite happily, in the camp oven,…