Meeting Glenn McGrath!

In early April this year Farmer Phil and I were invited to a McGrath Foundation dinner and fundraiser presented by the Commonwealth Bank.  Glenn McGrath met everyone as they arrived with a handshake or kiss and hug.  He spoke for more than an hour on everything from his upbringing on the family farm, to his illustrious cricketing career, meeting Jane his wife, then Jane's devastating cancer diagnosis and treatment, the setting up of the McGrath Foundation, the birth of his children through to Jane's very sad death, and then the meeting of the new love of his life Sarah.  He posed for a photo with everyone there on the night and a considerable amount of money was raised to fund more breast care nurses in the community.  It was a fascinating insight into his life and distinguished career. And what a wonderful, caring man he is - we all have a bit of a crush on Glenn McGrath now!!

Melbourne!

A few weeks ago Farmer Phil and I took a trip to Melbourne to catch up with Emma for a couple of days and see The Rocky Horror Show.  Wow - what a great production and the cast were fantastic!  Craig McLachlan was so good as Frank n Furter!  Farmer Phil had no idea what the storyline was, so we had to explain it to him!

We also did a tour of the MCG which is really interesting - an iconic Melbourne spot.  Farmer Phil and I had done the tour years ago before they pulled down the original members stand and did the latest redevelopment.  It's well worth a look if you're in Melbourne.

Entry into the National Sports Museum is included in the MCG tour and it has some fantastic exhibits of all sorts of sports.  They had a special exhibition on medals this time which was fascinating.

So much to do and see and eat and drink in Melbourne!!

Grease!

While in Melbourne we saw Grease the Musical.  Grease is my favourite movie of all time - I remember seeing it at the Wagga Drive-In with dad and my sister Lisa in our mum's car - a mini!!  I was only about 7 or 8 and I think most of it must've went over my head but we just loved Olivia Newton-John!!

Rob Mills as Danny and Gretel Scarlett as Sandy. 

Greased Lightning!

Summer Nights!

We had fantastic seats!  Todd McKenney was the Teen Angel, Bert Newton was Vince Fontaine and Anthony Callea played Johnny Casino.  It was a fantastic production - go and see it if it's in a theatre near you!

Emma is off to Univertsity!

As soon as we returned from New Zealand, Emma and I were off to Melbourne for a day of orientation and filling out forms!  Then a week later it was pack the car with all her stuff and get her set up ready to start uni.

Emma is doing a Diploma of Specialist Make-up Services.  Which means she wants to be a movie/special effects make-up artist!

We found some fantastic student accommodation for her in Footscray which is about a 15 minute bus/train ride into her King Street campus in Melbourne's CBD.  It's called Victoria Place and they are all individual studio apartments with their own kitchen and bathroom/laundry.  Perfect!

Getting settled in!  Emma loves her course, has met the other residents, is looking for a part time job and is generally loving Melbourne!

Kindrawares!

Kindrawares, the little shop I own with my sister Lisa in Coolamon, NSW is going great guns!  We've had such a great time over the last 14 months since we opened.  Everyone who visits loves our quirky, colourful little shop!!  Check us out on Facebook!  We have lots of beautiful gifts and handmade goodies from all over Australia and the world!

Harvest 2013!

Harvest 2013 was a mixed bag - after a very significant frost event in late October the yields on both the canola and wheat were down from previous years.  The low lying paddocks were badly affected but the more hilly paddocks were fine.

Due to Ryan being away waterski training it was my job to drive the header for a large part of harvest.  We employed a driver for the semi and another bloke to man the tractor and chaser bin.  Daniel helped out for a week or so as well.  It all went smoothly with only a few minor breakdowns.

Anyway, it's all done and dusted for another year and we'll do it all again next year!!

Wheat

Unloading on the run

Canola windrows

25 Years!

On August 26th Farmer Phil and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!!  I know - we can't be that old!!

We spent 2 nights at The Buckland Retreat near Bright, VIC.  It was just beautiful and soooo peaceful!!

This was out accommodation!

    

This was the view from the deck!

We did some beautiful walks in the mountains, ate, drank and relaxed for 2 days!

Another 5 Weeks Go By...................

............... and not a single blog posting!!!  How slack am I?!

We had a shocking end to 2012, so it's taken a while to get back into the swing of things!! 

First off Farmer Phil's 74 year old dad broke his leg in 4 places stepping down off a tractor!  Then we lost our beautiful Jack to a snake bite.  Someone backed into our new ute while I was doing the Christmas grocery shopping and broke the tail light.  Then Christmas Eve there was a short, sharp storm hit our house with howling winds and rain resulting in uprooted hedge plants, a smashed bird house, rainwater coming underneath the roof tiles and into the house via light fittings, a blown in garage roller door, and a 40kg pool cover reel picked up and tossed like it weighed nothing.  I know it's nothing compared to the devastation that has hit the whole of Australia in the last month with bushfires and now flooding, but we thought we must have "kicked a Chinaman" or something for so many things to go wrong in the space of 7 days!!

Anyway, here is what's been happening since my last post!

Christmas Day was at our house with Farmer Phil's family.  My brother in law's 5 children had a great time utilising the pool for the afternoon!

Christmas lunch was outside on the deck

New Year's Eve Farmer Phil and I went to the most beautiful beach wedding ever!!  It was at Moonta Bay in SA.  Congratulations Murray and Nicki!!

Farmer Phil and I in our NYE Glam - minus stilettos on the beach!!

We then had our annual 2 week waterskiing/camping holiday at Renmark, SA where not a single photo was taken but a great time was had by all!  First week the weather was all over 40 degrees with a top of 46!!

Last April I booked tickets for Farmer Phil and I to see Cirque Du Soleil's OVO in Melbourne during January.  Everytime we go to Melbourne and walk past The Hotel Windsor I always comment how I'd love to stay there sometime.  Well we did this time!  It was only for 1 night but sooooo worth it!

The dining room where breakfast was served.

A Superior Room very similar to the one we stayed in complete with huge dressing room, marble bathroom and old world class!! 

The 3 clowns of OVO - "Ladybug, the Foreigner and Master Flipo"!

"Ant" acrobats were absolutely perfect in their synchronisation of kiwifruit!

The "Firefly" diabolo juggler was amazing!

"Spider" Contortionists were unbelievable!

Love duet of the "Butterflies" rope adagio!

The "Flea" acrobatic troupe were amazing!

And now we're back to the reality of getting Emma organised and back to school this week for her very last year of school ever!!!!!  Year 12 and the Higher School Certificate here we come!

Emma has also been busy rehearsing since early November for a show she is performing in during February/March in Wagga Wagga.  It's called "Life in the Spotlight" and is an all singing, all dancing show featuring songs from Glee, Hairspray, The Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages etc with all proceeds going to Telstra Childflight.  She started out having 3 Solo's as well as being the Lead Backing Vocalist, but now she has been given 3 more Solo's to do.  So she's been a very busy girl trying to learn all the songs as well as the choreography and staging!

The upside for the start of 2013 is that we've had no Summer rain here so that means no spraying of weeds over the 5,000ac for Farmer Phil.  Ryan has been busy with his tournament waterskiing events and doing lots of training.  Farmer Phil is happy to have some spare time to go along and help out at the tournaments and do lots of boat driving!

It's been back to our little shop "Kindrawares" for me over the past 2 weeks.  After a very busy Christmas period, it's very quiet at the moment with lots of people still away on holidays.  Hopefully once the kids are all settled back into school routine, then the shop will be buzzing again!!



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.