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…
Are you feeling a little tired? Don’t feel like reading a bedtime story to the kids? Well, I’ve got your problem solved! Pop them into bed and let Jack and I read them my latest children’s book, What Should a Horse Say? When I was little my mum used to be really tired at night…
There is something supremely beautiful and quiet about shearing sheds, when they are empty. I’ve always thought they are so atmospheric. When I was younger, I often headed up to the shearing shed on my Nana and Papa’s station and just sit and think, or even walk around and feel the smooth wood, smell the…
With The Boss on the boom-spray practically every day for the last two weeks, our working dogs, Weasel and Law have been hanging out with the kids and me. We’ve been checking out sunsets, heifers calving, watching the tractor go ’round in that ‘beautiful circle‘, Sara Storer sings of. So really, they’re on an extended…
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…
Introducing Ross and Robyn Lane from the central wheatbelt of WA. 1. Summary of family and farming enterprise. Our family farming business consists of Ross and Robyn Lane and our three sons Colin, David and Matthew. At the moment our oldest son Colin is working full time in our farming business and the other two…
[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…
Our annual sale – Tomorrow! For many years now, we’ve held an annual ram sale in Esperance. We gather up the best of our rams, truck them to town, wrestle them into pens and let farmers pass judgement on them! Tomorrow is the big day (18th Sept 09). At the moment, I’m snatching five minutes…
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…
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…
Coming up on September 18, we’re holding our annual ram sale. To do that, we need to blood test all our sale rams, to make sure they don’t have any nasty diseases that they can pass on to the ewes that they will mate with. It’s a regular practise with most studs – we feel…
These beautiful looking sheep are our stud ewes, complete with their long, lean and muscular lambs! As part of our farming program we run a White Suffolk Stud – something that my main character in Blue Skies, Amanda, does. These girls are just about to be run through the jetting race – to make sure…
We were lucky enough to be able to buy the inside of a shearing shed, complete with catching pens, grating, gates… the works. Having two farms 18 kilometres apart and only a shearing shed on one of them, makes life quite difficult at times and involves stock trucks carting sheep backwards and forwards at shearing…
Check out this cheeky little fella! I fed some hay out for the bulls who live in this paddock, but they were busy sunning themselves way down the other end and obviously didn’t hear the tractor with the wind that was blowing. The sheep took full advantage of not having to muscle their way in…
Dogs work really hard at shearing time. They make the job much easier by packing sheep into races, getting them into the shed, penning up and of course helping muster the paddocks to bring the sheep into the yards. That’s of course if you’re a work dog. Rocket’s not. But because his legs are so…
Every year we scan our ewes to see if they’re pregnant. There’s a couple of reasons we do this, one is so we can pull out all the dry ewes (one’s that aren’t going to lamb) to sell and so we can feed the wet (pregnant) ewes better and two, to know what we can…
I love shifting stock. It’s great fun just slowly wondering them down the laneway to the paddock or yards. It’s where I do a lot of my planning for writing and because I’m outside, right in middle of my inspiration. It’s where I get most of my ‘light bulbs’ ideas. I never leave home without…
