travel – Treechange life

October 2025: reviews, experiences, and happenings on the farm

Read – The Watervale Ladies’ Writing & Firefighting Society by Mette Menzies

This book has three elements important to me right now – friendships, writing groups and preparing for a potential bush fire. (Let’s hope I don’t have to fight a fire like the resourceful women in this book.)

Four women, with a variety of ages and backgrounds, join a writing group in an Australian country town. They soon find themselves besieged by issues including a land grab by big business and dastardly deeds by crooked lawyers and journalists.

The women are all facing various challenges and life transitions. Soon the pressures lead to friction in the group. Can they find the courage to question and prioritize what’s important in their lives? Will they find forgiveness for themselves and each other?

Importantly, the women are lucky enough to find great food and coffee in the township while they face these other hardships. This is worth celebrating in rural Australia.

The Watervale Ladies’ Writing & Firefighting Society was laugh out loud funny in places, with a romance thrown in.

Watched – Slow Horses (Apple TV)

In the industry, ‘Slow Horses’ is a derogatory name for this team of supposedly failed secret service agents. A team that usually manages to outsmart and embarrass England’s intelligence agency elite.

The show mixes thriller, drama, comedy and black comedy genres.

Jackson Lamb is the team’s boss. He’s both obnoxious and endearing. There’s multiple Reddit threads dedicated to his hilarious one-liners which get better with each new season.

There’s a sneaking mutual respect between Lamb and his team, even though he constantly belittles them. Many of the Slow Horses show symptoms of unprocessed trauma. A feature of the show is how they support each other through professional and personal challenges.

Live – Take me to the river

The river bank is still scarred and eroded, still littered with fallen trees and debris in places. Our community is still struggling to recover from the 1-in-500 year flood we suffered earlier this year.

This made the Take me to the River cultural riverside walk with a local historian and Aboriginal Elder all the more beneficial.

We learned our region was named by the Governor of the Bank of England who had never been to Australia. The local Aboriginal people refer to our region as ‘the place of the big hollow’ which indicates both the land’s fertility and propensity to flood.

The highlight for me was hearing a very recent Indigenous story. Over 1,000 members of the Aboriginal community came together to perform a dance to heal the land in December 2019. This followed four years of terrible drought, followed by the worst bush fires in Australia’s history.

After hours of traditional music and dancing in the sand, their feet found the fresh water beneath. A flock of yellow-tail black cockatoos soon landed nearby. These prehistoric-looking magnificent birds are considered to signal coming rain. It did rain soon after, and the drought was declared over in February 2020.

October farm happenings

It’s spring, which means lots of seedlings to plant for summer crops. Herbs were one of the first to go in. Charlie, loves helping in the garden.

Over the past four years we’ve planted lots of Australian native plants. We’re now getting to enjoy both the blooms and the bird life they attract.

June 2025 – in review

A month of books, TV, movies, performances, happenings on the farm.

Read – Some Day is Today by Matthew Dicks

Have you noticed I’ve hardly blogged over the past few years? Well, this post is my second in two weeks (not six months). I’m on a roll.

Reading Some Day is Today is the kick up the pants I needed to get writing and put it out there.

If you have a desire to create, there’s no excuse.

Author Matthew Dicks is known as an epic storyteller. He’s nerdy and eccentric, but successful in following his passion. He’s both relatable and inspirational.

Some Day is Today is full of interesting anecdotes about how Matthew overcame challenges. He organised every aspect of his life to achieve his creative and life goals. There’s advice on career choice, decision-making, relationships, and time management right down to minutes taken to unpacking your dishwasher.

Narrated by the author, it’s an easy and engaging listen on Audible or Spotify.

Watched – Murderbot (Apple TV)

A TV adaptation of the science fiction series by Martha Wells (comedy/action/sci-fi).

I’d never read a science fiction book. I asked hubby for a recommendation, as he only ever reads this genre. He suggested Martha Wells’ The Murder Bot Diaries. Immediately engrossed, I marathon-read the entire series. So, I was excited to get into Murderbot when it came out on Apple TV.)

The protagonist, who calls ‘itself’ MurderBot, is a rogue, but benevolent, ‘self-governing’ security unit. A ‘synthetic’. It’s assigned to guard a team of human researchers somewhat naive to the realities of a universe of exploitable resources. Observing its charges, MurderBot grapples to understand human nature with all its messiness, duplicity, desire and emotion. Trouble usually ensues when MurderBot indulges its addiction of sneakily binge-watching its favourite human soapie TV series, Sanctuary Moon. This provides MurderBot with more questionable insight into the nature of humanity.

Light-hearted in bite-sized episodes.

Cinema – The Salt Path

Based on a true story by author Raynor Winn, this movie stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

The couple are beset with challenge and heartache. They’ve lost their home and livelihood, and the husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness. So they set off on a yearlong hike around the wilds of coastal south-west England. Why wouldn’t you?

Bleak and desperate are two words I’d use to describe the first half of this movie. There were a few lighter moments and the cinematography is glorious.

The Salt Path is about bravery, overcoming challenges, and most importantly identifying your life’s priorities. In this case – relationships and a connection with nature.

The movie was ultimately life-affirming and reignited my bucket list desire for a long hiking holiday. An unexpected theme about sustainable living also came through, which of course I completely related to.

Live show – Tales from the Climate Era

When I lived in Sydney, going to the Belvoir Street Theatre was a treat, so when this theatre company visited my new country hometown, I had to go.

The traveling production Tales of the Climate Era was a series of skits about climate change. How companies, governments, communities and individuals are grappling to understand. Asking questions – is it real? Should we do something? If it is real, when would it be over?

It could be described as confronting, however, I found it no darker than my already swirling thoughts.

I realised how confused I am about the whole issue, so I’ve enrolled in a short university course to hear directly from experts in the field. Hopefully I’ll come away with more answers than questions.

June farm happenings

We harvested a huge crop of purple sweet potatoes. (Well hubby did. It involves rooting around in the soil with your hands, and there’s earthworms the size of boa-constrictors in that garden bed. They creep me out.)

Please, urgently send your best recipes for these purple beauties. I’m learning to make purple pie crusts and gnocchi.

Our region suffered a devastating flood, where people died and thousands of animals were killed. This has been a terrible event. I’ll write about it when I’ve come to terms with it.

We celebrated the Winter Solstice, a turning point for life on the land.

We’re nurturing our first batch of koala habitat trees. Part of our long-term aim to give back to Mother Nature. More koala news to follow.

The perfect break – finding a holiday that ticks those most important boxes

It’s February and holiday season is over. Are you planning your next holiday?

Years ago, at a holiday destination in Fiji, Hubby and I met a couple who had spent their annual holiday at the same resort … for the past 18 years. I judged them – privately of course – for what I perceived to be their lack of curiosity, the missed opportunities for adventure and personal growth.

But people need to choose their own adventure, or seeming lack thereof.

My aunty is planning a holiday to Rwanda to see the gorillas. What amazing memories she’ll make.

I have a bestie whose holidays usually involve long trips by road, train or plane, with tightly scheduled itineraries, to visit historical and cultural sites.

Neither of these two types of holidays call to me at this stage of my life.

Vehicles parked on the beach with surf in the background. — A group of friends waiting for sunrise

For me, holidays are precious. There’s never enough time or money available in this short life to spend on a holiday that doesn’t meet my needs. And since we’ve moved to the country, it’s harder to get away in summer, when there’s endless watering, mowing and weeding.

We’ve just come back from a week’s break, camping at the beach. In summer. Last week, as I lay on our holiday beach 200kms away, I knew the grass was growing under our house-sitter’s feet.

Now we’re back and we’ll have to mow for two days, but the holiday was worth it. It ticked all the necessary boxes for me right now.

Group of seagulls on the beach with sunset behind them.

When I lived in a city, months would pass without my stepping on sand or grass, without seeing a sunrise or sunset. I needed trees, streams, rocky escarpments and gorgeous gorges. Remote hiking in Australia’s Top End? Tick.

Much earlier in my life, before kids, when I was establishing my own business, I worked 16hrs a day. I was completely focussed on my client’s needs and making the next mortgage payment. I popped Ibuprofen for headaches and alcohol for insomnia. I was vaguely aware my mind inhabited a body which moved me between client meetings, a body I was neglecting. After visiting a health farm, for detox and deep-tissue massage, I returned, more a human being and less a human doing. Tick.

Vehicles parked on the beach near the tide line.

When the kids were younger, each day was rushing between before/after-school care and work. Packing lunches, cooking healthy meals, weekends of shopping and house-chores. I needed a break with domestic assistance. Buffet meals, housekeeping and kids’ activities every day and evening. Yes.

Now I live on a rural property and work mostly from home. Aside from the bird calls and an occasional koala growl, it’s quiet. Most of my human interactions are via Teams meetings. I crave friendships, laughter, conversations, connection with others.

Our beach camping break with good friends was perfect. I lounged in the sun with sand between my toes. Each day started with coffee on the rocks, watching the surf and sunrise. Each day finished with a communal cook-up. We laughed from sun-up till sun-down.

Coffee cup in the foreground with the ocean waves behind.

Camped away from the city lights, one night we were lucky enough to see the Planetary Parade. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus all clear against a crisp indigo canvas. Then the dark night fell completely and lights from thousands of stars sparkled to life as we all gazed upward.

Vehicles parked in a campground at night with a single star in the sky. — Watching the planetary parade – Venus just visible at the top

Returning from one holiday I’m always planning the next. This break was just what I needed. My next holiday may well be the same again. And again. It’s ticking those most important boxes for me right now.