The Farmers Wife: Ryan

Showing posts with label Ryan. Show all posts

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Ryan's American Adventure 2014

Ryan left for his 6 month trip to Orlando, Florida on Mothers Day with 3 other ski bums from Australia. He will train the whole time he's there. It's a great life he has!

The Aussie crew with Kyle their Kiwi coach for the next 3 months. Beautiful weather everyday!

Cropping 2014

When Ryan broke his ankle skiing we then had plenty of spare time to get ready for our cropping season. He needed surgery to remove some floating bone and about a 6 week recovery period. He missed out on skiing at the NSW State Titles and the Nationals in Darwin.

We got started cropping early with Ryan able to man the seeding rig. We had a smooth 6 weeks cropping which was great! There was some good rain before, during and after so we are very optimistic for a good year!

Moomba Masters Waterski Tournament

This year Ryan qualified to ski in the very prestigious Moomba Masters which is the biggest professional tournament in Australia. It's held on the Yarra River in Melbourne and thousands of people come to watch.

Unfortunately things didn't go well for Ryan with him breaking his ankle in the Night Jump event. He'd never jumped at night so it was a big learning curve for him.

His good attitude will see him back there next year bigger and better!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

New Zealand

We've had a very busy first two months of 2014!

We didn't fit our annual waterskiing holiday to Renmark in this year because Ryan was selected to ski for Australia in the Under 21 team. It was for the annual Aussie/Kiwi Challenge and this year it was held near Ashburton in New Zealand's South Island.

The whole Aussie team ready to board the plane at Sydney Airport - U 14's, U 17's and U 21's.

Team photo with the Kiwi's.

On the final morning we woke to snow on the mountains! It is supposed to be Summer! We left home when it was over 40 degrees to snow!!

Scenic drive up to Mt Hutt, a popular snow skiing field.

A few of the Aussie kids had never seen or touched snow before so this trip was very special.

Of course a snow fight happened as soon as the mini buses stopped!

Everyone was in the fight!

Official team photo's taken in the snow in Summer for a waterski tournament!!

It was so bright they couldn't see.

Ryan's Under 21 team - Olivia, Cam, Jayme, Ryan, Anthea, Trent, Jacinta and Team Manager Griff

Still having fun in the snow.

Lots of great photo opportunities with the magnificent scenery!

We were quite high up and you could see for miles over the patchwork Canterbury Plains.

An Aussie/Kiwi challenge tradition - the Under 21's boat race! Australia won!!

Ryan sculling his beer!

The Under 21 Kiwi's and Aussie's with their medals at the presentation night. Australia won the team gold in the Under 14's, the Under 17's and the Under 21's - a clean sweep!

Back to Christchurch for a quick look around the CBD and the earthquake one. It was very sad to see it a long way off being back to what it was before the earthquake. Lots of rubble, containers everywhere, lots of machinery and workers, but still looking like a ghost town.

Broken buildings!

Vacant blocks of land where the fallen buildings have been cleared away.

An ingenious idea - the container shopping mall!

An outdoor church!

Ryan flew home from Christchurch with the rest of the Aussie team while Farmer Phil and I flew to Auckland and spent 3 nights visiting my old school friends. Photo taken from the Skytower in Auckland CBD of the Harbour Bridge.

Andrea and Farmer Phil at One Tree Hill where the only tree fell down a few years ago and now there is an argument about what sort of tree to plant to replace it! .

Andrea and I at One Tree Hill with the Skytower between our heads. We met at the start of intermediate school in 1980 and still keep in touch!

Andrea and her gorgeous twins Alexander and Max! They are very precious boys after many years of trying to have a family!

Joanne, Adrienne and I out for dinner. We met at the start of high school in 1982 - can't believe that was 32 years ago!!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

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

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Our First Overseas Adventure!!

We've been home almost 3 weeks so I thought I'd better get some photos posted about our amazing trip to Canada and USA!! Here is a tiny selection of the 850 I took!!

We had 2 weeks with the Emma's school travelling around Canada and some of the USA, and we then had 5 nights in Orlando, Florida to see Ryan while he's there for 13 weeks water ski training.

Beautiful Vancouver Harbour

Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco

Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world - San Francisco

The most famous streetscape - you might recognise it as the "Full House" house - San Francisco

Alcatraz Island - excellent tour - San Francisco

Emma looking a bit bewildered about the size of her breakfast!

Every second vehicle is a "pickup truck"!!

Custer's Last Stand - Montana

The water towers in every town.

Oil rigs or "grasshoppers" as they're called are on almost every farm throughout Montana

Our fabulous host family in Sidney, Montana - Krista, Kathy, Kirk, Hailey and Jared

The prairies heading towards Canada - all wheat and canola

We visited a Huterite community near Sasskatoon, Saskatchewan. They farmed 12,000ac, had a large commercial dairy, beef feedlot and poultry farm to support the 105 people living there.