Guest Blog: Nick Parnell

I’ve know Nick all of my life – he’s my brother. I am not biased when it comes to his musical ability. He is seriously good and I’m not the only one who thinks so! “Parnell wields the mallets with the nonchalance of mastery … virtuosity worthy of the highest praise.” – The West Australian…

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Silence is deafening!

Thunderstorms are awesome things to watch – I love the power that comes with them, the electrifying excitement, the knowledge that there are some things that humans can’t control, that we just have roll with. They sometimes bring a great deal of rain and some times, inconvenience – or at least that’s the way we see…

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Sheep work and holidays!

It’s been pretty cold here lately!  And it’s school holidays. As much as the kids like to help, sometimes our jobs involve things that they just can’t do, so when we arrived at the sheep yards at 6:15am and it was bitter and frosty, the kids took exception to being involved with our farming life! (As…

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ABIA Awards

It’s been such a busy time for us recently, with seeding, sheep work and all sorts of other things on the go! It will be like this until after Christmas now with hay making, shearing and later, harvest. We’ve been lucky enough to have good rains and everything seems to be on track for a good…

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Contentment

I guess it could be said that living this close to the sea we have the best of both worlds. The farming with its freedom of the outdoors and the beaches. There is something wild and solitary about our beaches that’s hard to describe. The evening I took this photo we were the only people on the beach. The…

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Wednesday

The phone call came at lunch time: ‘Fleur, would you come and pick your child up, please? She’s had slight accident and needs to go to hospital.’ Enough to strike fear into the heart of any mother, let alone one that was about 10km away from her car, in a clapped out tractor, feeding out…

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Here’s hoping!

I hear rainbows have magic powers! Well, here’s hoping it can fix my garden! This was our view as I took the kids to the school bus last week. A rainbow ends on my farm… that’s got to be good.  After all, they’re supposed to have a pot of gold at the end, aren’t they? I…

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Another night at Thomas River

The boss mans’ fishing adventures have been non-existent lately! Between my high-flying (and rather unusual) absences, the rainy weather (not that we’re complaining!) and getting to the busy time of year,  it’s been rather difficult to make it to the beach. However, last weekend we all made it down there. A fire, full moon and toasted…

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The Condy Fair is on again!

Well next Saturday is the Condingup Community Fair, aka the Condy Fair! It’s always such a fantastic day – we have a hard working committee that makes sure that it goes off without a hitch and that there are many exciting and fun things happening. Because the fair is held to raise money for our…

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There’s a snake in the house!

There was some excitement in our house this morning! I opened the front door and in-between the screen door and wooden door was a Tiger snake. I had the kids and Rocket following me, so I tried to slam the door, hold them all back and try and control my total fear. All in one…

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Down to the Duke!

Every year huge amounts of people make the pilgrimage from Kalgoorlie, Esperance, the surrounding farms and other places, to be near these beautiful beaches. And every year at Wharton Beach, they hold swimming lessons. This year, in amongst the hum-drum of farming (of which so much is still happening), our two are doing the lessons…

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Israelite Bay

One of the last frontiers in the fishing world, on the South coast of WA, is Israelite Bay and ‘The Cliffs’. These are at the beginning of the Great Australian Bite. It’s where the keen fisherman go and brave the wind with the sand blasting and pull in Pink snapper, sharks and Mulloway off the…

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Merry Christmas!

I am having trouble in understanding where this year has gone! But here we are at Christmas time again. And here is Rocket, acting as an unwilling Christmas model! I wish you a wonderful Christmas – full of love and laughter, safe and peaceful. I hope whatever you are doing brings you happiness. Please, stay safe…

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Farmer’s Foe

We had some drama in our neighbourhood today! A fire started just to the back of our farm and was on a neighbouring farm – if you’re a regular visitor, you’ve probably seen me write about my friend Gill who is the world’s most amazing cook! This fire photo is what fronted her and her family…

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Medicinal only!

I’m not a chocolate freak, at all. At least not like Anthony, who can make a family size block of chocolate disappear over two night! However, there are certain circumstances that I like chocolate and this is one of them. Double choc chip muffins that my daughter makes! She kept telling me they were good…

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