Carol Trainor is a rural journalist turned grazier, who committed career suicide in a time-honoured fashion when she married a farmer and moved to a rural area to spend her life as a farmer's wife.
Carol has lived on a property 50 kilometres from Hay, in New South Wale’s western Riverina, for the past 12 years and thinks despite a few hiccoughs, so far so good. The black clothes - and trimmer figure – of the once-former farm girl who loved a life in the city with the odd foray to the country to recapture her farming youth, are long gone, but there are compensations. She can fix an irrigation channel blow-out (which came shortly after learning how to cause one), untangle a kangaroo from a fence (but can't fix the fence afterward), keep an eye out for a thunderstorm on race day during fire season and knows a district fly wave has the power to halt all social occasions.
Carol and her husband run a stud and commercial sheep and wool production operation and see agriculture as continuing to offer great opportunities. They have spent the past few years trying to nurture the flock through a drought. Their property is a registered wildlife refuge, their operation has an EMS compliant with ISO14001 and they are always trying to learn more and look for the best way to run their sheep and their property. They believe that the health of their land and stock is the corner stone of their businesses future success.
Life in a rural area also offers a great life for Carol and her husband's four small children. And if the travails of that life mean that it has only been in the past year that there has been any need to explain to a seven-year-old exactly what those windscreen wiper things are and what they do, it is also breeding children with a big dose of practicality and resourcefulness.
Carol's role in her family's farm business is fairly typical, ranging from administration, book keeping and marketing, to working outside, particularly in busy times such as lamb marking and shearing. She also keeps an ear out for loud voices from the sheep yards and is adept at knowing just when is the right time to make a dash down to the yards to help out. Carol also tries to keep in touch with her former career while keeping up with school and family commitments, as well as win the daily tussle about who gets to avoid the morning run down to the school bus, 10 minutes drive away, all while maintaining a pantry her grandmother would be proud of.
