Is there a more Australian way of hatching a business deal than over a barbecue? That was how emu farmer Ian Marston from The Rock in the NSW Riverina convinced his local butcher Tim Driscoll to get on board with selling meat from his birds. "I tried some emu steak at the barbecue, and I've loved it ever since and now eat it once a week," The Rock Butchery's Tim Driscoll said.
A rural bedtime story is providing hope and much-needed income for one family of central Queensland cattle producers, who have survived five years of drought. Samantha and Josh Comiskey run a cattle stud at Alton Downs, north of Rockhampton, where the odd shower of rain has provided brief relief but not enough to break the dry. "We are definitely not alone with so many in the same situation. It is a constant thought (and) conversation amongst those in the area," Ms Comiskey said. The couple had been forced to find additional work beyond their farm operation. "We needed to generate an off-farm income because it has been really difficult," she said. Ms Comiskey has written stories and brainstormed ideas from a young age. She recently published a bedtime story for children inspired by life on the land, called 'When we wake to feed the cows,' and the first print run sold out within a month.
It's a busy time at the Wilson family farm in South Australia's Riverland region where the pomegranate harvest is underway and grower Jane Wilson is delighted with the abundant crop they are picking this year. "We are really happy with our crop, especially our young trees, we were hoping to get, say four pieces of fruit on each one, that would be good, but as you can see some of them are more like 40, instead of four." Jane and her husband Paul have been growing pomegranates at this property at Loxton for about four years, it was her father-in-law who came up with the idea of growing the exotic fruit and first trialled it in this region about a decade ago. Now, the family are struggling to keep up with demand as consumers catch on to the health benefits of pomegranates.
When World War I began, a squatter's daughter from South Australia was living in a stately British home. She was worth the equivalent of more than $40 million and had ties with the royal family, but rather than keep the horrors of war at a distance, she opened her doors and cared for 50,000 wounded Anzac soldiers on her estate during the conflict. The story of Letitia Billyard-Leake (born Letitia Leake) involves family tragedy, a vicious court case and philanthropic gestures beyond anyone's expectations and it started in south east South Australia where her father was a pioneering pastoralist, building Glencoe Station in 1844. Local researchers Carol Grbich and John Berger were so captivated by Letitia's story that they left semi-retirement to write a book about her fascinating life.