Friday, June 5, 2009

Lovely weather for ducks


At last we've had some rain and as we drove around the farm this morning we came across a mob of ducks on a dam. The collective noun for ducks escapes me for the moment. It's not a flock, I'm sure. This is one of the many things I love about Australia, everything can be lumped under 'mob' in the collective world and no-one contradicts you!


It's been a great week so far and this rain has capped it off. As I watched the dawn come up this morning, silhouetting the shearing shed and the eucalyptus trees, I could hear the steady throb of the tractor engine in a nearby paddock, seeding our barley crop. Above that, the heavenly sound of rain on a tin roof, whislt the fire crackled away in the sitting room, revitalised by a few well placed mallee roots. A perfect start to a June day on the farm.

On Wednesday I had a radio gig on ABC 720 with Eoin Cameron and the Slim But Savage One (his producer for those not familiar with the Perth ABC Radio breakfast program). We played The Appendage (the poem about having fun with chicken necks.) This led to many lovely emails from all sorts of people including a gentleman from a group of dog walkers in Perth; a lovely lady hoping to get a copy of A Bird in the Bush for her mother who is blind; two emails from old friends we haven't spoken to for over ten years, and one from a lady who remembered my dear departed mother when she was living in Kalamunda. She too lost her mother to cancer (her mother Sheila had lived next door to my mother, Jane) and we have decided to raise our glasses to them both at 6pm tonight.

Thanks for contacting me, Christine, and in answer to your question "Is 6pm to early for farmers?" the answer is "It is never too early for these farmers to appreciate a good glass of red."


This is one of the things I love about radio, its ability to connect, or in this case reconnect. Thanks to Cammo and the team having me on the program this week I shall be sharing a reflective moment at 6pm tonight, when I raise my glass with a woman in Perth whom I hardly know to toast our wonderful mothers.

"To Jane and Sheila".......wish you were both here...

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