Danish visitor Imke with Carol's baby Digby.
Since our new friend Imke arrived a month ago to stay with us while she plans her travels through Australia, with a few short day trips to see the local tourist attractions, we have started to see our home through her eyes.
It really does sometimes take a visitor to help us appreciate the everyday. And while we have started to look anew at the sunsets and plains country, we are also focusing on wildlife in a way we haven't previously.
It has taken a Dutch visitor to remind us of the beauty of the gorgeous sunsets and limitless views of the land we live on.
What you do when you're not harvesting…
There's nothing funny in the irony of these areas that have struggled with no water for more than five years and now there is more water than anyone would ever want.
When an email popped into my inbox this morning warning the Federal Government is considering following European regulations on roo bars, my thoughts went instantly to the four children, many black cattle and numerous roos which converge on any trip to anywhere, where I live.
Every farmer in Australia must have been inside listening to the Country Hour and trying to look at the same wretched website as me yesterday afternoon.
It's the sheep version of Next Top Model cattle calls in the sheep yards today. Sheep are being moved through the race, pegged (so that's where all my clothes pegs are) and drafted into groups, only for the next mob to go through the same process and then have it all repeated again.
In the weeks since I accidentally went off line with an unanticipated lack of internet access as I traversed Australia, my last casual post highlighting a video of a group of blokes skylarking in wet paddocks has been overtaken by much more serious events.
A paddock picnic is almost a barometer of well being at our place.
A farm-dwelling friend has rediscovered her identity through a stint of off-farm work recently, spending a week travelling and working with other professional types in a constant discussion and productivity whirl such as used to make up her daily life.
