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?

Today we are harvesting (yay!). Instead of being on the chaser bin, however, I’m on grain cleaning duty.

All I have to do is clear the chute away once in a while, so it doesn’t block up — hence the shovel leaning against my office!

I’m madly writing my second book, which I can excitedly tell you, that Allen and Unwin have signed up for publication in 2010.

Blue Skies (working title) isn’t as far a long as I would like, so I am taking all opportunities that come my way at the moment. Even if that means the drum gets a bit hard and hot on the bum cheeks!

There is a sense of urgency in the air in the Condingup/Beaumont area! After a half a day harvesting, yesterday dawned bright and warm and there are trucks, headers and chaser bins moving on most of the farms in the district.

The golden glow of the stubbles that have already been harvested are taunting the farmers who haven’t started yet but today we should all get going.

We need to get as much grain off as quickly as possible, so that if the predictions of ‘destructive thunderstorms and gale forced winds’ that echo around the cab of the header, come this afternoon, we have some safely in the silos.

We sent our first truck of the harvest off with a great sense of relief that harvest is finally underway and even though I’m watching the thick black clouds roll in, I think that we’ve had our fair share of rain over the past three weeks and we’ll still be harvesting tomorrow … but then again I’m also ever the optimist! Here’s hoping.

This week I made two trips to the Beaumont Bin (which is one of the outlying silos that grain is delivered to once harvest starts) to have the moisture in our grain tested. Tarren is one of three beauties working there, testing the moisture, checking the specifications and giving the truckies a bit of lip when needed!

The moisture of the grain needs to be right for storage and the rest of the tests tell us what grade the grain is, therefore what we will be paid. After all the rain, the quality of seed is surprisingly good, which is fantastic for both the growers and the buyers!

The big silver enclosure you can see behind the ute is usually close to being full by now, but the rain has held harvest up and now even though there has been some sunny days, the moisture in a lot of grain is still too high to harvest, so here’s hoping for a few 35 degree days and a good, long crack at harvesting!