Life on the Land

This episode will delight all the parents, guardians and teachers listening today, who have read aloud the tales of George the Farmer and his wife, Dr Ruby to the wide eyes and excited ears of little ones.

Today we’re chatting with Simone Kain, author and co-founder of the George the Farmer educational enterprise. Born and raised on a farm in South Australia, Simone lives in Penola with her farming hubby, Justin and their three young sons – George, Frank and Louis.

Simone, alongside her business partner Ben Hood, writes and publishes picture books, music, free paddock-to-plate videos, apps, nationally touring performances and free curriculum-aligned resources for kids, helping them learn where food comes from and just how important agriculture is.

The idea for an Aussie fictional character that inspired and educated about farming was sparked when Simone was heavily pregnant and looking for something for her tractor-and-farming mad toddler.

Today’s episode of Life On The Land is brought to you by AgriFutures Australia.

The Rural Women’s Acceleration Grant is a new AgriFutures program, developed to foster growth and development in women involved in Australia’s rural and emerging industries, businesses, and communities.

Seven Australian women per annum will be granted a learning and development bursary of up to $7,000 for professional development to enable them to bring their idea, cause or vision to life.

Applications open on Thursday, 26th of August 2021. Find out more via the AgriFutures website agrifutures.com.au.

This week, we’re back with Heidi Castleden from Hovell’s Creek near Boorwowa on the southern tablelands of New South Wales.

In her lifetime, Heidi has been the recipient of not one but two organs, two livers, donated by strangers. These have saved her life and in turn given her the ability to start a business, get married and have a family of her own. Her story is beyond remarkable – the depths of her courage and resilience is something most of us would never have to encounter in a lifetime let alone by the age of 15 when organ donation first became a reality for her.

This week – we hear more of Heidi’s story – the loss of her mother, the women who cared for her, her marriage to James and the birth of her daughter.

Thank you to Antola Trading our sponsor for this episode.

You can find Heidi at @castleden_co on Instagram and at castleden.co

Sign up to the Graziher newsletter or subscribe to our quarterly publication for 2 or 3 years and receive a Rachel Castle Graziher Tote Bag at graziher.com.au

Today’s guest is Heidi Castleden from Hovell’s Creek near Boorowa in southern New South Wales.

On two occasions – an organ donated from a stranger – has saved her life.

The first time was when she was just 15 and the second was when she was 31.

At 15 years of age, after years and years of unsolved medical ailments, Heidi received a diagnosis of a rare congenital liver disease. She was told she would need a transplant in 5 to 10 years but the need came much quicker.

Heidi’s life has been spent managing, waiting and overcoming a myriad of health setbacks for herself and her family. But not for one moment, will she be defined by this. In fact, she told me that some of her friends might be surprised when they hear the finer details of her story.

This week is Organ Donation Week in Australia – the week in which we are all encouraged to speak with our loved ones about organ donation – and to register if that’s what we decide we want to do. You can find out more at donatelife.gov.au

Thank you to our sponsor Antola Trading - Check out the new season collection at antolatrading.com

Have you got yourself one of the new Rachel Castle Graziher Tote Bags yet?

If you subscribe for 8 or more issues of Graziher magazine - you'll be gifted one of these gorgeous new bags.

In fact, did you know that homewares and bedding designer Rachel Castle is a total born and bred country girl - she grew up in Sale in Victoria and still hopes that people can see a glimpse of the country girl in all she does.

She's our guest for this episode of Life on the Land - to tell us how her rural roots have shaped the person she is today, the way she approached collaborations and how it's influenced the way she does business.

Originally from Paris, Alienor’s heart lies in adventure. She has lived in Brazil for 18-months managing a boutique hotel, has trekked across Mongolia on horseback twice and has travelled from Siberia to Paris in a motorbike sidecar.

But her most recent and all-encompassing trip was here in Australia. Passionate about advocating for the plight of the Aussie wild horse, Alienor trekked the Bicentennial National Trail with her three brumbies – an expedition that took 13-months across 5,330km.

Alienor started in Victoria’s Healesville and ended in Cooktown, Queensland. Around 50 people have completed the trek – more people have walked on the moon. She was the second woman to complete the trail, and the first with wild horses.

Her Australian story started 16-years ago, when the then 20-year old Alienor landed in Melbourne for a three week holiday. She never took her flight home, and ended up in Central Australia working in remote Indigenous communities.

Thank you to our Sponsor for this episode MaiaGrazing.

If you have a copy of the Winter edition of Graziher you’ve no doubt already met today’s guest Whitney Spicer. She’s not originally from the country but she’s young and vibrant, bubbly and creative, and she’s just the kind of women that small towns embrace because they choose to move their life and their family to the country.

Whitney lives with her husband and three kids in Manildra in central west New South Wales. As a newbie to country living she still takes delight in the things others sometimes take for granted – the school bus, the local show, and the dirt roads.

These are the things country folk sometimes grow tired of, but really, these things make the heart that keep small communities ticking, alive and checking in on one another - and from this strong foundations are created and they often breath confidence into other things – which in Whitney Spicers case is her work as an artist – which has seemingly bloomed since she's lived in the Country.

If you would like to sponsor an episode of Life on the Land you can contact Graziher on Instagram of email Sally Jackson at [email protected].

Make sure you don't miss an edition on Graziher with your very own subscription. For a limited time if you subscribe for 2 years or more you will receive a Rachel Castle Graziher Tote Bag in the mail as a small gift. graziher.com.au

PHYLLi Designs is the brainchild of hat maker Laura Hall. Laura has just opened her flagship store in her hometown Scone and is one of the only traditional hat makers in Australia to have a bricks and mortar presence.

Ironically, she failed textiles in high school, and is also entirely self-taught. Her hats are now rocked by the likes of Matt Damon, Delta Goodrem and Elsa Pataky. There’s hope for us all!

Laura returned to her early childhood hometown after the 2020 lockdown, to be near her dad who sadly had terminal cancer. Yet 18-months ago, Laura was hardly making her Sydney rent. She had made the bold decision to leave her corporate career to pursue her creative passion – sparking a journey that has led her to become one of Australia’s premier hat makers.

Thank you to our episode sponsors the team from SG Off-Road – make adventure happen with SG Off-Road.

To be honest, our host Emily Herbert struggled to know where to begin when writing this intro. Tracey’s resume is incredibly impressive. She was the first female CEO of the Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association. She has been a vital, driving force behind the watershed class action against the Federal Government’s 2011 live export ban to Indonesia – which has won the unwinnable, with an expected $600-million in compensation for producers and beef businesses.

She has recently been awarded the 2021 Queensland Country Life Beef Achiever at Rockhamptom’s Beef Week. She has been named one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence, owns and runs a successful small business and is the mother of four sons who are sixth generation Territorians. She has also known unbelievable tragedy and grief. But tough country calls for tough people and resilience was interwoven in the blueprint of Tracey’s childhood.

Our amazing sponsors for this episode are the team from SG Off-Road – make adventure happen with SG Off-Road.⁠

When a monsoonal low hit Thea Harrington's farm, she and her husband Dudley sat in silence for hours, in fact days while downpour after downpour battered their tin roof – it was the stuff of nightmares - there was no communication with the outside world, and no way of moving from their home, no way to quantify the devastation.

For Thea - not originally from the country - there could have been no bigger introduction to Life on the Land - she'd only lived at Werrina, 30km north of Julia Creek for 18 short months before this great test of their relationship and new marriage.

The result is an awe-inspiring partnership, tested over and over again - each time coming up trumps with a growing gratitude for life and the people in it.

Thank you to our sponsor for this episode brought to you by the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority, or QRIDA. For more than 25 years, QRIDA has been supporting Queensland primary producers to make a start in agriculture, improve long

term sustainability and profitability of their enterprise, recover from natural disasters and get

back on track with their finances.

Today's guest on the Life on the Land is Edwina Robertson. If you don’t know who that is, there’s a very strong chance you’ve seen one of her photos. Eddie is a wedding photographer whose work is iconic in regional and rural Australia. The ‘queen of dust’ has been shooting weddings in the bush and across the world for eight years, some of which have gone viral globally.

Eddie grew up on a mixed farm outside Deepwater, NSW with her two siblings, mum and stepdad. She was estranged from her biological father, who was tragically killed in a plane accident when she was just 12.

After boarding school, she went on to study fashion in Sydney, before working in real estate in Brisbane. I picked up Eddie’s story in 2013, when she was at a very low point. She had been in what she described a depressive state for four months, since she had found out the guy she thought she

was going to marry had been unfaithful.

Unemployed and with no idea where she wanted to go in life, she sat down and wrote a list of the things she wanted from a career. Four things instantly sprang to mind.

Thank you to our sponsor for this episode brought to you by Queensland’s oldest law firm; Rees R & Sydney Jones.