Mount Howick

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 over a space of about three hours! It has definitely fixed our water problems for this year.

The Boss always says low dams can be fixed within a matter of minutes if you’re under the right thunderstorm. Well he was proved right!

Last week was a pretty amazing week for me. I became an aunty for the second time, a little girl named Lexy Grace, was born to my sister, Susan and her husband, Nathan.

I saw the redesigned website which will be launched in about three weeks and I’m so happy and excited with it. I can’t wait to show you all and see what you think.

The final cover for Purple Roads made it’s way into my in-box – you’ll all see shortly.

I was asked on Facebook what it was like to hold a book I’d written in my hand. It’s a difficult feeling to describe. On one hand all I want to do is run around and scream, shout and cry. On the other side it’s almost a feeling of reverence as I look at the cover and see my work bound inside a beautiful cover ready and waiting to go on the shelves.

I wrote about seeing Red Dust for the first time here and how we country authors have to go a little out of way to get our books!

Loretta Hill wrote a gorgeous blog about seeing someone buying her book, The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots, when it first came out earlier this month ( http://lorettahill.com.au/?page_id=67 ). You can feel her excitement and pleasure at this. I think every author has a dream to see someone buying or reading their book in a public place like an airport – I know I have. Although it’s never happened to me, I still hope I might!

So Gaby Cumming I hope this answers your question!

What was wonderous about your week?

Rochelle's yummy New Year's Eve dinner

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 started out beautifully; calm, warm and the lamb roast cooking in the webber smelt delish. As we sat down to Rochelle’s entree, we heard the distance sound of thunder… then BANG! The lights went out.

No power, which isn’t all that unusual when you live at the end of the power line. But it’s slight awkward when you still have to serve up dinner and dessert!

As it was, we piled everything we had ready onto the plate and just ate that – there wasn’t any green involved, much to Hayden’s delight!

With the lights out and chatting done, we figured we’d best be off to bed. We had no idea if 2012 was going to start with fires started by the thunderstorms, so we’d better grab some sleep while we could.

Thunderstorm coming in over Esperance Bay on New Year's Eve day

It’s fair to say that 2012 started with a bang!

How was your New Years Eve?

The sun sets on 2011

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 F*** Off 2011 party!)

During 2011 I learned two things. I think I knew them already, but they were definitely reinforced.

One: Health is King.

Two: Family and the people you love, is Queen.

If you have these two, not much else matters.

I’m not going to dwell on 2011. It’s finished and it can bugger off. Let’s look forward.

2012 is going to be a great year! Firstly Purple Roads will be released. I’m looking forward to this. Writing Purple Roads took place during a fairly turbulent time for me and my family, so to see it wrapped in its cover and finally on the shelf will be a big relief.

2012 is The Year of the Farmer!   I’m stoked about this. One of my aims to is too somehow bring understanding from both city and country people alike. Since I’ve been involved in the writing industry, I’ve spoke with so many people who come from a country, if not farming background but live and work in the city. I’m astounded such a gap, misinformation and understanding of BOTH worlds can exist. To help bridge this gap, I’ll be running a series of Guest blogs with farmers and other people in the agricultural industry.

2012 is National Year of Reading.  Obviously bringing the joy to reading to both kids and adults is something very dear to me. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be involved as a ‘Friend’ of this initiative. I’m also one of the Patrons for this, at my old school – Orroroo Area School. Thanks to Jenny Rosenblatt (who is also one of my old teachers!) for thinking of me.

2012 is The Year of Silver Gums! The publication date of Silver Gums been brought forward by twelve months. This means it will be available on the shelves in March of 2013. It also means my deadline is August 2012. Ummm, yep, head down!

Personally 2012 sees my daughter head into year seven and son into year six. My sister is due to have a baby any tick of the clock and the farm, well this year we’re hoping for rain at the right time, high prices and full dams.

To you all who take the time to read these little blogs of mine, thank you. I hope you find them interesting. From my family to yours, we hope  2012 is a wonderful year, full of health, happiness and love.

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 at the hospital or the ‘Old Folks’ Home, so everyone got a piece of the Christmas joy. I knew that we would go to Church before we opened the present and there would be chicken and pork for lunch.

Hayden cooking

Some of these traditions I’ve taken over to my family, but The Boss’s family has some of their own – peppermint chocolate slice is one of them… And a very good one!

I’ve brought in two new traditions which we’ve started this year.

Boxing day, one of the kids has to cook tea and New Years Eve, the other one has to.

Hayden did a great job of making this lasagne – you can see the concentration on his face! Lasagne, salad and garlic bread… Yum, just about my favourite meal!

Hayden's lasagne - yummy, even if he couldn't smile!

Tonight Rochelle is cooking a three course meal – with the help of The Boss. Marninated Chicken drumsticks is entree, roast lamb and veggies, cooked in the Webber, for mains and self saucing chocolate pudding. With all of that in my tummy, I’m pretty sure I won’t see the New Year in!

Wishing you all a wonderful night tonight, oh and do you have traditions in your house? I’d love to hear about them.

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 tell you!) in anticipation of Father Christmas (who would trip over and wake the household if she didn’t!) and her Gran who is arriving tonight. When I’m not typing this, I’m beating egg whites for a Pav and making the stuffing for the chicken tomorrow.

Rocket is most miffed that he has been used for my Christmas model! I’m sure I hear him mutter something about being mortified that a Jack Russell had to be used as my Christmas card and splashed all over the internet! Well he was only used because I couldn’t get Meita to sit still for long enough.

So, as we say good bye to 2011, I want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas. It’s been a tough year for many so to you I say, enjoy the break, relax and know that you are thought of. To people who have empty chairs around your table tomorrow because you’ve lost members of your family; you are in my prayers.

Here’s to a much happier 2012.

Merry Christmas.

weaning cows and calves

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 time to give up that dreaded dummy! (Oh boy, I can I remember that.)

For calves, being ‘weaned’ means having them in the yards for about four or five days, depending on how long it takes them to settle, become used to me, as I plod around the yards, singing, and talking to them and mostly, how long it takes them to stop wanting their mum. Once we split the cow and calf unit, we don’t want them to get mixed up together again because all of the hard work we’ve already done will be wasted.

So for the time they are in the yards, we feed them hay and they have as much water as they need.

weaned calves

By the time they’re ready to head out into the paddock, they’re calm, they’re not frightened of people (because we give them what they need, hay and water) and they’re well on the way to making gorgeous cows, who will have lovely calves.

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 her characters looked like and think about what she was saying so I could imagine the setting. Often these stories would play in my head, like mini movies – I could see “Joe the Perentie, a big, lethargic goanna, walking slooowly along the bank of Todd River, before he flopped down to rest under the shade of a ghost gum.” Oh yeah, my Nana told The. Best. Stories. Ever! I miss her stories.

I can remember lying in my bed at night too scared to open the window because I was sure there was someone outside who would murder me. He’s coming for me! I would tell my despairing mother.

Yep. Bound to happen in a tiny town that has about five hundred people living in it. Good one, Fleur.

Anyway, I digress. Well not really. I have a thing about noises that go ‘bump in the night.’ I don’t like them.

This noise didn’t go bump, but went ‘Coo-hoooo. Coo-hoooo’ Now obviously living on a farm it is likely to be an owl or some kind of wildlife and yes, it sounded like an owl, but the point was I hadn’t HEARD it before. I didn’t like it because I hadn’t HEARD it before!

‘What is that?’ I asked one night after I’d listened to it for about the third night in a row.

‘Owl,’ the boss replied.

‘Doesn’t sound like an owl,’ I countered.

‘Owl,’ the boss said sternly, knowing my capability for turning a dog trotting down the path into a mob of cows thundering towards the house to eat us whole.

I didn’t believe him.

The next day I went searching and couldn’t find any evidence of an owl, anywhere. (Yes, yes. I can hear you saying it was day time… Not the point.)

Still wasn’t convinced it was an owl.

I kept searching – there had been heaps of pigeons bathing themselves in the sprinkler water and I saw one fly into a tea-tree. Then I heard the noise again – knew it wasn’t a bloody owl!

Baby birds at Fleur McDonald's farm

These two babies are what I found when I went searching and I’m CONVINCED it was their mum talking to the babies so THEY didn’t scared at  night!

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 wants my attention too. Harvest has started and for a couple of days last week, I was on the chaser bin.

Thursday, thinking I had a day at home, I quickly loaded the washing machine to the brim, threw on a loaf of bread and a cake and sat down at my office desk to start. Unfortunately all of these activities were still in play when the phone call to go and help in the sheep yards came. Nothing that any other farmer’s wife wouldn’t understand.

Rocket is Fleur McDonald's new Editor

Today, I’m thinking about taking the phone off the hook and turning the two-way down. Anna and Matt (the two main characters in Purple Roads) need my attention and to be honest, I need them. I have a few ideas racing around my head that I need to somehow work into this edit.

And obviously my new editor thinks it’s time that I worked on Purple Roads again. He seems to have that look on his face. Or maybe he just wants the opportunity to curl up at my feet and sleep.

I wonder if the boss would come looking for me if I didn’t answer his calls?

Harvest in full swing

I love the urgent calls over the two-way: ‘Truck due in twenty minutes.’ Or ‘This sections is yielding really well.’ Today I heard the boss saying that there was a section that looked like the kangaroos had used for both their living room and kitchen! I’m think that the barley must have been fairly flat and non-existent in that small patch.

I enjoy looking at the vividness of the golden barley stubbles against the blue sky and the green of the header. And I take great pleasure in knowing as soon as we’ve finished the paddock, sheep or cattle will be in them, grazing on the wayward grains that have somehow slipped through the header and on to the ground. It’s great feed for them.

Cattle will graze on the barley stubble

We have finished harvesting our canola with a return per hectare that left us quite stunned it was so good!

Our barley is swathed and we’ve decided to have a go at direct heading the last paddock of barley, which is what we’re doing today. I’ve been on shifting duty – shifting silos from one place to another, moving augers and taking samples to the bin, to check if the moisture is low enough for us to start.

I’m waiting for Hayden to get home from school. I know the minute he does, he’ll be entrenched in the little seat along side the header driver (his dad aka The Boss) and won’t shift until I insist he comes and does his homework!

Harvester in action

Rochelle on the other hand, will be just as happy walking Rocket and practising her basketball shots for a carnival on the weekend.

Meita the Kelpie Pup on the back of the ute

We always tie our dogs on because no matter how seasoned a dog is, there is always the threat of a kangaroo bouncing out onto the road, or something similar, meaning the boss will have to slam on his breaks.

Now Meita is a cage dog, not a chain dog – she lives in a ‘bitches box’, or cage, not on a chain. So when it came to clipping her onto a very short chain, so she couldn’t fall out of the ute, or even over the side and strangle herself, she really didn’t like it! She pulled and pulled, trying to get away.

Then the fun started; a fast ride down the road, she saw things she’d never seen before like cattle and she got to spend a bit of time with the boss. By the end of the day, she really didn’t care about the chain; she was looking for her bed.

Meita the Kelpie Pup after a hard day's work!

She was one tuckered out little dog.