Never be afraid to be the only woman in the room. A hard take in Australian Agriculture but today, on the International Day of Rural Women, I’m reminded of how far women in agriculture have come, and how much things have changed for women who want to work on the land. Like just about every…
Have you got long lasting memories of hanging out in your grandma’s kitchen? I sure do. My Nana H was the best cook – some of her specialties were chocolate chip biscuits, sponge cake, trifle and bread rolls made from scratch. In fact she taught me how to make bread from scratch and I still…
There is a Facebook photo with a picture of a strawberry saying: ‘cut ‘em up, don’t throw ‘em out. Please continue to support Aussie Farmers through berry tough times.’ What a great campaign created through horrible circumstances. I wonder what makes someone or some people want to bring an industry to its knees? What…
“Don’t be afraid of being the only woman in the room. People judge more on ability, smarts and character, so just be yourself and prove your knowledge and you will be able to talk to anyone.” ~ Laura Bennett Usually I would find an inspiring quote from a famous person to introduce my next Bush…
“Every job is a self portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence” ~ author unknown Welcome to my new series, Bush Lanterns, highlighting women in the rural and agriculture sector! There are so many amazing and wonderful women who don’t always get recognised for what they do and I feel…
Esperance received a fair bit of rain on Thursday. Rain is one of my all-time favourite parts of mother nature. I grew up in the mid north of SA where it wasn’t a common occurrence and, as a farmer, I know there are good times for rain and others not so great. To me, any…
What a difference a year makes. This time in 2015, my daughter and I were hanging out in Melbs waiting for the last concert in the Taylor Swift 1989 World Tour. Do you know it feels like a life time ago, yet I can remember everything so clearly. It had been a fairly tough year,…
Back in December I was planning out a new book. I wasn’t sure when I was going to write it, because I was thinking about taking twelve months off from writing. This book I was planning, called Indigo Storm, had a very tricky storyline and required a fair bit of research and I knew I…
Today we’re going to be drafting off a heap of lambs to go to market. Last week we weighed them all up, so we knew how many we had to send and our stock agent could organise a truck. Prime lambs are one of the main enterprises in our business. Both Anthony and I love…
I love a good sunset or sunrise. Last Saturday evening, I was hurtling back from the other farm, after showing mum and dad the header and how it can swath canola. Coming from the mid north of South Australia and them being sheep graziers, they have no idea about cropping! Anyhow, I had Mum…
It true. From little things, big things grow. And when it comes to cropping, Canola is a great example. It’s starts off as a tiny black seed – smaller than a grain of sea salt and just slightly larger than a ‘hundred and thousand’ (you know what I’m meaning? The things kids love to…
It has been so long since I’ve posted a blog and I really must apologise! I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as busy and that is really saying something. Silver Gums is due at the publishers in exactly 29 days. I’m still putting the finishing touches to it, so I have been head…
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,…
It can be daunting sitting down at a blank computer screen wondering if I know enough words to fill it enough to tell a story. I need somewhere between 90 and 100,000 of the bloody things! And, obviously, they all have to make sense and have a story line in there as well.
