Charity Quilt Finished!

 

The quilt I started making a few months ago is finished and ready to be auctioned when my Ag n Chat group stages our Australian Year of the Farmer Ball at the end of October.  It was a very easy quilt to make and I think it's simplicity really shows off the beautiful fabrics I used.  We have quite a few handmade items all made by our members that will be auctioned on the night for charity.  Our plans for the Ball are progressing well, and we're all just a bit excited for the night to finally come.  Lots of new dresses have been bought, and we're watching our diets and exercising so we all look fantastic on the night - we don't get to really dress up very often!!  Normally it's just jeans, shirts and workboots for us farmers wives!!

An Overnight Trip with the Girls

During the week I went on an overnight trip with my Ag n Chat group.  As usual it was another fantastic learning experience for our group.  There will be a more detailed post about the trip over on our blog soon!

Our first stop was to visit Origin's Cullerin Range Wind Farm near Gunning.  After visiting Origin's Gas Fired Power Station at Uranquinty earlier in the year, a seed was planted that we all wanted to know more about wind energy.  The Wind Farm is an amazing sight to see and learn about how they work.  The turbines are 80m tall and the blades are 45m long!  The 15 turbines on the farm will permanently power 15,000 homes.

We had a lovely overnight stop at Schonegg Country Guesthouse in Murrumbateman.  I can highly recommend this accommodation - it has a wonderful quiet, country atmosphere and Evelyn our host was just amazing.  It would be a perfect base for a trip to Canberra because it's only about 30mins drive from the capital and well away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

Our next stop was to visit French Black Truffles of Canberra.  No one in our group had ever experienced truffles before - never smelt or eaten them.  Sherry, the owner of the truffle farm was a wealth of knowledge and an extremely passionate woman.  The weather was horrendous so we couldn't go out in the paddock with Sherry and Snuffle her truffle hunting dog and experience a hunt, but we listened to Sherry's experiences with awe for over 3 hours!!  We all had a smell of a fresh truffle (the 3 month truffle harvest had just finished) and came up with some amazing similarities of what they smelt like - molasses, red wine, earth, smoked oysters?!!  They were definitely very different smelling, but quite pleasant, so we all can't wait to actually experience eating some one day.

Pennant Banner

Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours cutting and sewing some pennants to make a fabric banner to decorate our hall for Ag n Chat's "Ball in the Hall" in October.  I have lots and lots of fabric scraps so the banner will be a very cheap way to jazz up the hall.  It's about 7m long, but I might make a few more pennants to make it up to 10m.

Marrar Ag n Chat

Jump over to Marrar Ag n Chat's blog to see what we've been up to this year, and what charities we've been supporting.

Our main one is lending to Kiva to distribute microfinance loans to women in agriculture in Africa.  We are currently financing two loans.

Faith - a tea grower from Kenya

Millicent and her group - maize growers from Kenya

Last year we also decided to donate money to the Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) to buy supplies for these very important kits.  The kits are then distributed to developing countries to help reduce the number of deaths attributed to pregnancy and childbirth - "every 90 seconds a woman dies of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth".  For less than a cup of coffee you can buy all the supplies needed for one kit - a plastic sheet, soap, 2 gloves, sterile scalpel blade, 3 cords and 5 gauze squares.  Funds are also made available for training women on how to use the kits.

A Little Bit of Sewing

This afternoon I've been a bit productive and churned out the centre of a quilt top.  I'm still waiting on the rest of the fabric to arrive via Australia Post to add the borders on and get it sent off to the quilter. 

Our Ag n Chat group has decided that since 2012 is the Year of the Farmer we should put on an event to recognise and celebrate the impact farmers have on our community, region, state, nation and even the world.  Our event will be a "Ball in the Hall" in October and we'll have a lovely dinner and dance with some raffles and items to auction.  I volunteered to make a quilt as one of the prizes.  More details will come in the next few months as we finalise all the details of our night.

Can you see why the fabric is called "Prince Charming"?!

Ag n Chat Overnight Trip to Cowra/Canowindra/Manildra

Last week 10 Ag n Chat ladies embarked on our annual overnight trip - this time visiting Cowra, Canowindra and Manildra. First stop was a quick morning tea/catch up at Young before heading to the Cowra Information Centre for a presentation there about the World War II Cowra Breakout.


The Cowra Japanese Gardens were next on the agenda and what a beautiful day to visit there!

On to Canowindra and the Age of Fishes Museum to learn about the districts important fossil history.

Our overnight accommodation was at the very comfortable Old Vic Inn at Canowindra.

We were joined by 5 local ladies from the NSW Women In Agriculture group for a very yummy dinner.

Super cosy lounge room to have a great old chin wag!

Next morning was a very informative and mind-blowing tour of the Manildra Flour Mill. Wow, whoever designed that factory was very ingenious!

Last "agriculture" stop was the MSM Milling canola crushing and packing plant.

We then all wanted to go back through Canowindra and sample some of their gorgeous boutique clothing (Saffi) and homewares (Bendy Street Emporium) shops and art gallery (River Bank Gallery).

Phew!! We fitted in a lot in our 2 days away - thanks Wendy for organising!!

Ag n Chat Metalwork Day

Yesterday I went to the monthly Ag n Chat meeting which was held at Jo's learning how to make metal flowers for the garden. It had rained 30mm overnight so we worked in very cold and damp conditions. My flower is held by Michelle - 3rd flower from the right. Click on the photo for a closer look and check out http://www.marraragnchat.blogspot.com/ for the full story and also what our group has been up to lately.

Microfinance Loans

Towards the end of 2010 our Ag n Chat group decided that we wanted to become involved in microfinance loans for women in poverty stricken countries to help them either start or continue their own business to support their family. Today we finally made a decision on who to help and through which agency. We chose to donate through Kiva which is a well-established organisation based in the USA.

The photo above is of Rosine from Rwanda who we chose as our recipient. She is a 35-year-old entrepreneur that is married with two children, ages 3 and 6. Her husband is a technician and both of their children are in school. For three years, she has been running a business buying and selling fruit. She plans to use this loan to purchase oranges, tree tomatoes, citrus fruits, and mangoes that she will sell to meet the growing demand of her business.

Once Rosine has repaid her loan to us we will then choose another worthy recipient to help - and the cycle will continue!

O

After re-sowing 250ac of mouse-eaten canola today I'm now curled up on the lounge in my jamas and ugg boots watching Oprah's second farewell show. Farmer Phil is still out there spreading the paddock with poisoned wheat in an attempt to exterminate another few thousand mice who survived the last baiting a few days ago!

I'm not ashamed to tell you that I'm a big Oprah fan! If you come to my house in the afternoon, Oprah will always be on the tv. She is a very inspiring woman and some of her shows have been very thought provoking for me.

One particular show I saw last year had a huge effect on me. It was an interview with the authors of the book "Half the Sky", husband and wife Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

I ordered the book the next day from the local bookshop and waited the few months it took to get it in . When I started to read it I couldn't put it down and I was always quoting excerpts to Farmer Phil whether he wanted to listen or not!

The book recounts real life stories from girls and women all around the world who have suffered the most horrific abuses imaginable. Some examples are from third world countries who value women so low that they may as well not exist!! From girls who are kidnapped and forced into prostitution in Thailand, African women giving birth to dead babies after days of traumatic labour with no hint of health care, female infant genocide in China just because they had the misfortune to be born a girl, and girls all over the world who are deemed not worthy of an education just because they are female!!!

It really is unbelievable and until you read the book, you just cannot imagine this sort of thing happening in our world in 2011!! The great thing about the book is the list of organisations supporting women which you can research and see if you can help in anyway.

I suggested our Ag n Chat group become involved in the "micro loan" system where we provide a small amount of money to a woman so that she may start a small business to support herself and her family. We are in the process of deciding where and how to spend our money and I'll let you know what we decide in the near future.

So, Oprah really does have some wonderfully thought-provoking shows but I also really love it when Nate Berkus does a house makeover show - I'd so love someone to come and visit my house!!

Art Purchase

While in Narrandera today, our Ag n Chat group had a lovely lunch at the East Street Cafe which had a beautiful display of artworks for sale. I could not resist this oil on canvas painting called "Grevillea & Friends" by Catherine Stewart. As soon as I walked into the cafe it caught my eye - the gorgeous colours of green and red. It's now hanging in our front entryway. Catherine was actually Emma's art teacher last year at school but she has now retired from teaching to concentrate on her career as a professional artist.

Ag n Chat Visit to Fisheries

This morning we kicked off 2011 for Ag n Chat with a visit to the Narrandera Fisheries. Our guide Dexter gave us a very informative talk about the native freshwater fish species in Australia and also the fish pests such as Carp and Redfin.


The centre was opened in 1962 as a research centre to study the biology and ecology of inland aquatic systems. It is also now a productive hatchery which releases millions of fingerlings of Murray Cod, Golden Perch, Silver Perch and Trout Cod into waterways in our area. The centre is also an educational centre for children to learn about fishing and preserving the fish environment.

This is "Agro", a 20 year old Murray Cod who has a very easy life floating around all day getting fed twice a week. He is also one of the "stud" males used for reproduction.

Ag n Chat Christmas Party

Last night we hosted a hastily organised Christmas party for my ag n chat group including husbands. On Wednesday/Thursday we had another 50mm of rain so that brought harvesting to a grinding halt again!

I sent out a quick email Thursday night and asked anyone who could come Friday night was most welcome. We had a really nice night after a tough few weeks of trying to harvest. It's great to see our farmer husbands get together and let their hair down for a few hours before having to worry about harvesting again.

The sun has been shining yesterday and this morning so Farmer Phil is hopeful of starting up the header this afternoon. We have a week of fine weather coming so we need to get stuck in!

PS - as you can see my beautiful Australian hardwood deck still hasn't come to fruition so we laid down some good old Aussie blue tarps instead which worked a treat!

Ag n Chat Visits an Olive Farm

This morning our Ag n Chat monthly meeting was at Riverina Olive Grove where Gerard and Vici have added an interesting aspect to their farm business. They built an olive processing plant on site which processes olives from all over the Riverina for smaller growers.

They have also branched out into producing a range of natural organic skin care products called Olive by Langlois. We tested the products which smelt and felt amazing. We all left with a small goody bag for us to try. They are an internet based company but they also have products in retail outlets. Just look at their website for more info.

Here is the processing plant with Vici explaining how olives are cold pressed to extract the oil. It was a very interesting morning at a farm which is right on our doorstep and which we didn't really know anything about! Vici explained the differences between virgin and extra virgin olive oil, the smell that good olive oil should have, and how long olive oil will last in the pantry.

Ag n Chat Overnighter

Last Wednesday and Thursday saw 7 Ag n Chat ladies embark on an overnight trip taking in the sights of Narrandera, Hay, and Deniliquin. Our first stop was Lavande Aromatiques at Narrandera to hear about Joanne's passion for lavender.

The gardens smelt absolutely amazing with all the lavender plants there.

"Wyreema " Kelpie Stud was our next stop to visit Gordie McMaster and his dogs. The stud was established in 1882 and is the oldest stud of it's kind in the world.

This is Seanie, Gordon's best dog and one of the top sire's in Australia. We watched Seanie work and he showed us just how intelligent he is - it was amazing to watch!

The homes of Gordie's dogs - under the shade of ancient pepper trees - perfect!!

Gordie ready to show us a demonstration of his beautiful, intelligent dogs.

Our next stop was Shear Outback at Hay to take a look at the history of shearing in Australia. I think these sheep are fake??!!

Blade shear and hand piece display at Shear Outback.

Kim, Jan, Me, Wendy, Carol, and Barb at the famous Peppin Merino at Wanganella, near Deniliquin - Anne is taking the photo.

We were very lucky to visit North Tuppal shearing shed where a recent re-enactment of the famous Tom Roberts painting "Shearing of the Rams" took place. The manager of the property, Bernard showed us around and gave us the history of this famous shed.

The catching pens behind the board.

This is the 72 stand board measuring a staggering 88 metres long!

Bernard, the manager giving us some history around one of the wool tables.

This is the massive wool room with the original Humble woolpress.