I’m glad to have Barbara here today, to tell us all about her book, Zoe’s Muster. Once it hit the shelves, it flew off again, very quickly and has been received really well by readers. Here’s Barbara: I’m a little overawed blogging here about Zoe’s Muster with REAL farmers. I have to confess that while…
Meet Jody who has a great story about how she met her farmer! I first met my husband on a brown couch at 4am in the morning in the carpark of a B&S, we had a lot of fun on that couch and no not the kind you’re thinking of but a game in…
Sometimes writing just doesn’t go the way you plan it! Mostly I love it when that happens because if something happens, which I don’t is going to happen, then hopefully you guys won’t see it coming and get the same thrill and feeling of surprise I got, when I wrote it. (phew, do you…
Evan McHugh is my guest today, talking about his latest book, Outback Stations. Of course this subject is something I’m pretty familiar with and my love of the station country is well known. You’ll probably all realise this book is firmly entrenched in my bookshelf! Here’s Evan: While researching previous outback books, the names of…
June has been a wonderfully wet month and a very busy one! We were screaming for rain in the first week, but slowly Mother nature built her Cold Front’s a sent them one by one, week by week and let the clouds do their job. Rain it did – the second week of June…
Yesterday, there was a forecast for good rains. We’re getting pretty desperate for one of them. But when I went outside and looked towards East, this above photo is what I saw. Fog rolling in. To the west, it looked like the photo below: I was pretty hopeful when I saw the dark clouds,…
Feed time on McDonald’s farm happens every second day, when there isn’t any feed. Even though we had a whopping 45mm about eight weeks ago, we have had very little since and the paddocks are baring up quickly. Any tiny little morsel of green grass has been found and munched on by every-on-the-hunt sheep and…
Mum’s are so important – let’s face it, without them none of us would be here! Although there are times I wonder if they are the unsung hero’s of the world. I mean, who, other than a mum, will be up with a child, rubbing their back and offering comforting words, as they vomit, or…
I have just watched a heifer have her calf. There is nothing more special than watching a brand new life come into the world, be it animal or human. A “heifer” is a first time mum and like all of us, when we’re first timers, they’ve got some things to learn. She sniffed it…
The straw that breaks the camels back in Purple Roads, is when a load of fertiliser is stolen from Matt and Anna’s farm. This happened in Esperance a few years ago – a whole truckload just vanished into thin air. Word on the street had it crossing two borders into NSW and landing at…
I’m really excited to let you know, that in conjunction with Le Grand Book Shop, we will be launching Purple Roads at the Condingup Community Fair, 24th of March 2012. This is your opportunity to get your pre-relase copy. (It’s not really due out until the 2nd of April). Our community fair, or Condy…
I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you all, but I am NOT a summer girl! I don’t do heat and at the whiff of a 35 degree day, I promise myself I will shift to Tasmania. Yesterday it was 45.6 degrees on our verandah. In the bloody SHADE! I can’t tell you how ‘ugh’…
Yesterday we woke to our hill being shrouded in heavy, low cloud and gentle showers pushing up from the coast. It was a beautiful way to start the day, especially after the pounding we had on Thursday evening. It was the most incredible thunderstorm I have ever seen and we netted a whopping 46mm…
I wrote about traditions a couple of blog posts ago and mentioned Rochelle would be cooking our New Years Eve meal. Which she did with great aplomb! Yummy chicken drumsticks in a mustard and honey marinade and salad. It’s pretty hard to be a great cook though, when there isn’t any power! New Years Eve…
Well the sun set on a fairly crappy year last night and to be perfectly honest, I’m pleased to see the back of 2011. (I have to say, many people I’ve spoken to have found 2011 to be a bad year, so I don’t think it’s just our community that wanted to hold a…
One of the things I love about being married is two familles worth of traditions combine. I like traditions, especially around Christmas and birthdays. As a kid I loved knowing that we would go to the small Christmas pageant which was held in Orroroo every Christmas eve. I enjoyed the carols which were held either…
It’s CHRISTmas Eve! Can you believe it? This year has just flown by. And I must say, with cool, overcast conditions, it really doesn’t seem like Christmas! Our house is a flurry of activity at the moment – son is mowing the front lawn, daughter is tiding her room (no small job, let me…
Weaning is a fun time of year for me. Perhaps not for the calves as they’ve been taken from their mothers for the first time! Weaning is much the same for calves as it is for human babies when mum decides it’s time to no longer feed from breast or bottle. Or when it comes…
I guess to write a book you need some sort of imagination. Imagination is something I have and have had since I was very little. I was encouraged to have imagination – my Nana Parnell would tell me stories – stories that came from her head, without pictures or books. I had to guess what…
As the time for the unedited proof copies of Purple Roads to go to the printers, nears, my editing time seems to be shrinking – gasp! Late last week I got the third round of edits back and although there’s still a reasonable amount to do, there is a backlog of farm and housework that…
I love the hustle and bustle of harvest. If you discount the fact that you spend about fifteen hours a day, itching and sticking to vinyl seats that you have to peel yourself off of, harvest could be one of my favourite times of the year. Unfortunately those two things don’t help endear itself to…
