May 1, 2025 • 41 mins
Rachel Ward always sensed she would need to find her purpose outside of acting - for reasons she will explain in this conversation. But she never would have guessed that she’d find that purpose on a working cattle farm in rural Australia…
At MID, we like to call this time in our life the “third age” - it’s that post-work era where we’re redefining the shape of our days, our contributions, our passions and our purpose. And Rachel Ward has a LOT to say about this.
Rachel Ward is an iconic Australian actress who met Brian Brown on the set of the The Thorn Birds in 1982 and followed him to Australia, where they have lived together ever since, raising a family and working. More recently Rachel has directed films like Beautiful Kate and Palm Beach, and now, a documentary about her rural pivot.
As you’ll hear, in her third act Rachel Ward has became a farmer at 60. And not a hobby farmer, but a farmer-farmer - the real deal, inspecting her soil for dung beetles and worms.
You can follow Rachel Ward here.
And you can find out more about her documentary, Rachel’s Farm, here.
THE END BITS:
Share your feedback! Send us a voice message or email us at podcast@mamamia.com.au
Follow us on Instagram @MidbyMamamia or sign up to the MID newsletter, dropping weekly here.
Mamamia's new podcast BIZ is rewriting the rules of work with no generic advice - just real strategies from women who've actually been there. Listen here.
CREDITS:
Host: Holly Wainwright
Executive Producer: Naima Brown
Senior Producer: Grace Rouvray
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. A rural life looks
good on Instagram, rolling green hills and shaded verandahs and
pretty fluffy animals, sunsets and sunrises painted across big skies,
acquired a pace, a calmer mind, and a rural life
(00:35):
also looks good in your plan for your post work self.
And welcome to this bonus episode in our mid mini
series about that third age, what you might want to
do when you finish doing what you've been doing for
money all these years. My name is Holly Wainwright and
I have an incredible guest to talk about taking an
(00:55):
unexpected pivot a little later at the most and it's
Rachel Ward. Yes, you know who Rachel Ward is. She
is an iconic Australian actress who isn't Australian at all.
She's actually the quintessential English gentlewoman who met Brian Brown
on the set of The Thorn Birds in nineteen eighty two.
It doesn't get any more iconic than that, and she
(01:17):
followed him to Australia, which was a place she says
she knew nothing about, and they've lived here pretty much
ever since, raising a family and working. More recently, Rachel
has directed films like Beautiful Kate and Palm Beach, and
now a documentary called Rachel's Farm about her rural pivot.
(01:37):
As you're about to hear in her third act, Rachel
Ward has become a farmer, and not a hobby farmer
that just looks pretty on Instagram, but a farmer farmer
taking on the running of the cattle property that for
years was a picturesque Northern river's weekender and holiday home
for her family.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Not anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Now it's where Rachel Farm's cattle and her land regeneratively.
You're going to hear her talking about deciding to become
a farmer, a hands on one at sixty, and the
existential crisis that pushed her in to regent farming.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
As it's called.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You're going to hear her talking about what Brian thinks
about life on the farm, clue he's not that into it.
And you're going to hear about Rachel's life from a
rarefied aristocratic upbringing in the English countryside to feeling pushed
aside by the film industry, to what motherhood meant to
her and how it all led her here to looking
at cowpoo for validation that she's on the right track.
(02:33):
So come and sit down on the verandah with Rachel
Ward and I. Rachel, we need to talk about dong
beetles already, because for all the sort of passions that
we might come to at different points in our lives,
a dung beetle obsession is particular specific and it's a
clumsy way of saying, I guess you've become a farmer
(02:56):
at a sort of surprising time in your life. Yes,
and it's an amazing story. And I'd love to start
with the farm itself, which has been in your life
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So you bought the farmer initially as a holiday home almost,
and it's grown in importance. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah? Spot on.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We bought it as a sort of lifestyle retreat, and
we bought one hundred acres and we had about thirty
cars on there. And there was the guy that we
bought it from. He continued to manage it. He moved
to another house nearby and continued to manage it, and
then it passed to Mick Green senior who managed it
(03:41):
beautifully for.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
How many years.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I would think about fifteen years and then young Nick
took over. And that's where the documentary sort of joins in.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
When you buy a place as a lifestyle retreat, but
it's being managed, is that then? So you and your family,
your growing family, you would go up there for summers,
for holiday weekends, and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You loved it right every holiday.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, you weren't necessarily hands in there, but it was
your place, your happy place.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We didn't travel much. We didn't go overseas much. I've
never been to Bali or places like that, so we
just always went. Every holiday, we'd get in the car
and go.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Up to the farm. So the kids are very country kids.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
They went to school in Sydney, but every holidays we
went up there and they had their life up there,
and they had their ponies and you know, learning to drive,
and we're quite near Scott's Heads, so they all learnt
to surf and yes, and I was incredibly sort of
hands off and thought that I had really nothing to
contribute as far as the farm went. It seemed very much,
(04:51):
you know, a man's domain.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And Brian was.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Very keen that we were participated locally, that we had cattle,
and that we weren't just there as people who weren't
part of the community. So we were from the beginning
very much part of the cam unity. At one point
we were even showing cattle or even that the Maxville
Show with our cattle.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So but you know, but very just enjoying it.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Lucky to have, you know, to be able to have
that escape to the country, and that's what we did.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And you grew up in the country, correct, So was
it something that you were very keen to have that
part in your child's life, in your life as you were.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yes, I think I probably romanticized it, and I did
grew up in the country. I didn't want to move
full time to the country. I mean, I was very
wedded to, you know, my career in entertainment, so I
didn't see myself being a farmer at that stage. But
as it went on, I mean, it was really not
(05:56):
until the bushfires that I had the big switch. And
it was really not until I read Charles Massey's book
and understood about call it a read Warbler, that I
really understood about other forms of farming and that there
was even other forms of farming and that I went, oh,
(06:17):
maybe I can do that too.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So in the documentary, which is beautiful, I think I
really really loved it. The part that sort of expresses
this period, your daughter says that she was worried about you.
You were very distressed. I mean, I can't imagine why
by the climate crisis, the climate catastrophe, and that was
(06:41):
it was like you were burning to do something about it,
to somehow be part of a solution.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
What was that time like hard?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean it was a yeah, it was brought on
by my fear of I mean I really believe that
the I would say today the fear mongering actually of carbon,
the whole carbon issue, and I was, you know, I
felt terribly impotent because I you know, on the in
the media obviously we heard how that it was an
(07:13):
existential problem, and yet sort of governments really didn't seem
to be acting as if it was an existential problem.
So it was that that thing of like, well, are
they going to do something or are they not? And
who if they're not, what are we going to do
about this situation? Because I was certainly after I witnessed
the fires and then went and there was you know,
(07:36):
a lot of talk about this being beyond just the
normal bushfire, and that this was you know, as hot
as we're ever going to get, and and everything went,
you know, it was obviously going to go up in flames.
But I think I was a bit ignorant about what
aspect of climate change was in was inciting those fires
(07:57):
or was creating those fires? I don't necessarily think. I mean,
I think we had a big drought, and we were
and we have forests which are full of uh fuel.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, so it was a.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It was timely and was it really because we had
too much carbon in the atmosphere?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is it really climate change or is it just a
very long drought with a heavy load of fuel. So
I think.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Today I'm more circumspect about that and I'm less concerned
about that aspect of climate. I'm certainly, you know, really
working hard that we get more biodiversity and we hold
more water in our.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Land, because when you are on the land, whether you're
living there full time or not, you're much closer to
these disasters, like literally, but also emotionally and in terms
of your stress levels about them, in terms of fire, flood, drought,
and all of the rest of those things. You can
feel it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You can almost well you're right in the middle of
it usually and it has enormous consequences to you as
a farmer and to the community that you love.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, so at the time, this the anxiety around climate, which,
as you say, you've kind of shifted a little on.
But you say in that you say in the documentary
that also you've become a grandparent. You're looking at your
grandkids and thinking what's going to happen for them? What
kind of world are we giving them?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
That was all part of the sort of you know,
definitely adding to my fear load of what was the
future of my grandchildren, because you know, I felt that
I was okay, I mean, I'm not going to be
probably around when probably around when everything comes home to roost.
But I obviously, you know, with having grandchildren, it brings
that very it brings that into focus, the fact that
(09:44):
your grandchildren are going to be here, you know, after
they have prophetically said that the world is nigh so.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And you One of the things about getting older I
think sometimes too, is you struggle with the idea that
not everything's getting better. In fact, quite a few things
seem to be getting worse and sometimes there's the anxiety
about what can I do about that? How is it
too late for me to participate? I guess this is
a lot of the stuff that was going on that.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yes, it sort of trivializes to a lot of the
things that you're doing. It feels very trivial, like making
films and making TV shows. And I just felt I
needed to, you know, push my energies in a different direction.
The impotence was alleviated by the fact that I realized
I had three very strong motivating factors in my life,
(10:32):
which was the fact I had a farm, and after
reading the Call of the Reed Warbler, I realized I
could actually change the direction of my farm and the
way I found And I also understood that farmers, you know,
had to take a bit of responsibility about where, you know,
biodiversity was heading and growing monocultures and clearing land and
(10:52):
pumping out carbon. And then as a consumer, I just
completely changed the way I understood my food dollar, how
my food dollar worked, and how I could, you know,
buy according to my values. And I also kind of went,
if I'm going to call myself an environmental the first
thing I've got to look at is how I spend
my food.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Dollar and the power of your person.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
That's right, because that has an enormous effect on the
way farmers farm.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So in the film, this begins in a way. It's
a beautiful film because your property is beautiful, your enthusiasm
and commitment to this project is beautiful. Your farm manager
is such a great foil because he's kind of like
steady on Rachel. I go all the time at the
(11:39):
beginning of that, because obviously you've got a great narrative
arc in the film in that you know, you get
your soils tested, you work out what you're doing, you
work out what you're aiming for. This is a massive
learning curve. One of the things I was watching thinking
when I was watching it is it's very exciting and
energizing to learn new things, right, especially if you're a
(11:59):
bit of a point in your life where you're feeling
a bit lost or I mean, I don't want to
put work in your mouth, but feeling a bit lost,
or what's my role now or my career I'm not
sure where.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Careers basically winding up kids have gone, you know. And
I still felt credibly energetic and like I had something
to offer, but trying to find where that how you
are going to contribute is a horrible moment. It's a
very sort of until you also knowing that you're going
to have to go on a big learning curve. That
(12:32):
first step is it's hard to make, isn't it When
you change your life, change careers, whatever, you get divorced
or you know, those huge life changes and you know
that you've got a massive hill to climb before it
gets easy again. And it's yeah, and I was very
resistant to putting those that first foot out. And I
(12:53):
knew that if I I'd never made a documentary before, to.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Make dramas directing actors.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, so it was a totally different entertainment form
for me.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And I didn't want to be in it. I wanted
to bring attention to all.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The wonderful farmers, these early adopters of this type of farming.
And there's after reading the book, I was just suddenly
made so aware of how heroic some of these early
adopters have been and how they were still you know,
going forward and doing it without really very little recognition.
And yeah, so I didn't want to be in it.
(13:33):
And then my producer, Beteina Dalton, said, oh, well, you
have to be in it has to be your journey.
And I said, well, it's going to be about a
minute and a half long because I haven't you know, I.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Don't know anything about this.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And I think she knew somehow that that was going
to be Obviously the entertaining bit the fact that I
knew nothing about it, but I still had to talk
about it, and I still and you're not really when
you're in the middle of your journey, you're very often
not aware of what your journey is, what the you know, beginning, middle,
and end is. And you know, we're all very used
(14:06):
to the structures of a heroic journe and I certainly
didn't have an end to the to the story. I
had the person going on the journey myself, but and
I had it to a certain point, and I had
the amassing the knowledge and the wisdom and all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But then what and luck nature hands you a few
good plots.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Nature definitely hands me some good two good chapters.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, after the break, Rachel tells me what life on
the farm is really like.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
One of the things that is really interesting about the
story is that you it's it's very hands on work,
and at one point you decide that you need to
move to the farm permanently to do this properly. And
you're learning everything that the that the farm managers were
doing before, which you I've heard you say, which looks
(15:01):
like very hard work to me, But I've heard you
say that it was fun, like it's fun that you
love that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, it's a bit physical.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's a bit physical, but it's not that ba I
mean a lot of you know, farmers, they definitely need strengths,
particularly strength in their hands. I find that that's you know,
I talk a lot about this being female friendly, and
it is in a way, because you're those things that
you bring as a woman into the cattle yards. You know,
we are more gentle. We're gentler with the animals, I think.
(15:29):
But there's a lot of things I can't do. They
have something called an onto tractor called a PTO. Any
implements that you're using, you have to put the PTO
into the tractor. And I still can't do that, and
it's just because I don't have the strength in my
fingers to do it. And there are a couple of
things that you just it's not so much strength it's
the mechanical know how and that comes from sort of
(15:50):
growing up beside your father, your your farmer father, who's
just over the years has shown you a bit. I
mean like Mick just has you know anything on the farm,
any implement on the farm. He just has a knowledge
about how to fix or how to oil or how to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Keep up with those things.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That's my been my biggest learning curve is I'm not
very far, but it's just and everything breaks all the time.
You know, you're constantly getting people into fix the tractors well.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And also and I know that obviously the documentary consolidates
these events, but anyone who lives on the land would
know it's true. There's always a thing. So there's a drought,
or there's a fire, or there's the muffler fires or
there's whatever. Yeah, and it is hard work has discussed.
But did you is it harder? I guess did you
love it as much as it appears that you did it?
(16:40):
Did it give you the kind of meaning that you
were looking for in it?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes, in many ways it did. I certainly love being
on I love a rural lifestyle, and I didn't realize
how much I would enjoy it, and I think maybe
it was the time of life. You know, I was
not really interested in, you know, a social life anymore,
or you know, in the entertainment industry was getting harder
(17:06):
and harder, and you know, obviously the gender and age
issues come into that.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Did you feel that keenly as part of why you
were pulling away from from that?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of brick walls in the entertainment
industry and there's a lot of frustration, and as there
is in farming. I've probably chosen.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Gone from farming is like, oh, I thought.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
You know, I came up against nature, but we're up
against so much more than nature. But the supply chains
are really only geared to the big business and to
sort of corporate farming and industrial farming, and that's really
not what we want always. You know, it certainly fills
a place, but it's certainly for anybody who wants to
(17:51):
live a rural lifestyle. It's very difficult to maintain a
life on the land.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So any idyllic vision of like this is going to
be lovely. I'm going to be sitting on my veranda
and the cows are we moving in the pastures, And
it'll be is that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It's not that I wish it was.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, sure, if you want to lose a lot of money,
you know every year. Yeah, but every every farmer has
somebody's got a second job in town. It's not possible
really to make a living on farm.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And that's and that means.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
That no young people are attracted to it. So the
average age of the farmer is about sixty five. And
I don't know who's coming up. My son actually has
moved to the country, but he wants to try and
grow hemp. So you know, he looks at mine and goes, well,
that's not a career for me. I can't make money
on what you've got set up. So I find very
(18:44):
much now that I'm in a position of or that
I'm involved much more in advocacy than.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I am in the farming farm.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I see, you know, I just think the government and
the farming bodies are not paying enough attention to what's
going on with small farms and rural lives.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And what they need, what they really need.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Or what those wholes the whole, the whole hint to
land really from the coast three hundred kilometers towards the
Great Dividing Range or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
That's all small farms.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It sounds like the sort of to use a clumsy word,
the sort of mission or purpose that brought you into
this has morphed, right, and it keeps morphing, it keeps
And there's a bit in the documentary where Brian, you know,
your husband of forty years, is talking about you becoming
a farmer, and he says she's always been searching for things.
(19:40):
She always throws herself into stuff. He says, I wouldn't
want to be a farmer. I don't want to work
that hard. But is that true that you think you've
or you know, you've always looked for I don't want
to say causes, that's the wrong word, but like, no,
you want.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
To us, you want to throw Really I'd like to have,
you know, just stuck at what I started with, which
was like Brian as a as an actor, and you know,
men don't necessarily have to change their careers.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's interesting, right, you know, Brand.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Stayed as an actor and it's all you know, and
he's produced and now he's writing books and stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
But he wasn't forced to move on. A lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Women, you know, are used by dates come much sooner
and then we have families and that gets them the
way changing.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
No, you don't think that's changing. You think that we're
still like women are still very.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Much like oh, in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, and that's also true. You think as much behind
the cameras in front of it, like filmmakers.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Oh, I think then there's many more jobs for women
behind behind the camera. I think there are more not necessarily,
not necessarily as directors or people in in ch you know,
who get an opportunity to tell their stories.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I don't think there's there's a bit more women doing that.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I heard you telling a story about as young as
in your words, like beautiful young women that you were
growing up at these posh English tables and they're pretty
young women's always sitting next to the most important person
at the table. And then if the women get older,
they're like move further down the table.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's funny. I did say that.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, it's true, And that's kind of like a metaphor
for of this, Like it's not just about that table,
it's it says you go along.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It certainly feels well, that's why your power is in
youth and beauty. That's if your power is in youth
and beauty, and that that diminishes very quickly, so obviously
one has to move on from that, and it's a
free ride for a little while, a free ride with.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
A cost though too right, it's that sort of people
do you feel people really see?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I think I got a lot of opportunities for being
a pretty girl. No, definitely, I mean I think that
you know, just ah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Mean doors do open.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I think you know if you're yeah, I'm not going
to diminish that, it means that you actually don't. It's
not very satisfying for yourself because actually you can never
take credit for it, I mean, because it's not it's
just God given. Yeah, you know, you've got a good
looking mum or whatever, and you know you can take
(22:10):
advantage of that for a few years.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But it's very.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Unsatisfying because you kind of know, as my mother would
say to me, don't take yourself so seriously, darling. You'd
hardly be ware you were if you didn't look the
way you lived, so she was, and.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
A bet at the time that went down really well,
and I.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Was denying it to the hilt.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
But of course, you know, you know, really that until
you actually develop a few skills or you know, actually
a challenged by something and have to develop other skills
than the way you look.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well there's no skills in that, but yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Just do it later, so you're always a little bit behind.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And then I didn't go to you.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I didn't go to university until I was When did
I go thirty seven?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And was that you had your kids by then?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And yeah too uni.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, so I had all the you know, as an actress,
I had my life and then I had kids, and
then when I turned when my kids went to school,
that as she When my son was born, I went,
I've got to get my I got to get my
skills up now because in a minute he'll be off
at school and then what So, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It doesn't sound like you're ever someone who is happy
to just.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I was quite good at recognizing that used by dates
were coming up.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, I knew that as an actress I had a
certain amount of time. I was very difficult, difficult for
me moving here too as an actor because it was
at a time where Australia was very much sort of
forging its own identity and I was infinitely as a
as a throwback. You know as an actress, I was
a sounded look to everything as another era and I
(23:51):
didn't have that Australian quintessential thing that was going to anyway,
so it was difficult for me to get work.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's very often and somewhere in midlife that women might
choose to get more connected to nature. And I'm not
obviously by owning a farm necessarily, but I'm very into
my gardening. For example, I know plenty of women who
discover that they love to walk in nature, love to hire,
call those things. Do you think there is like almost
a call in us to that as we get older,
(24:19):
that it sort of settles us, helps us.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think it's so individual.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I imagine there's a lot of that online where people
can see other people's lives and they look very much
less stress in them. Great for the kids, I mean,
I think it's a wonderful way to live if you
can live without, you know, the culture that a city
gives you and the rets, the friends I suppose if
you if you, I mean obviously in places like the
(24:46):
Northern Rivers, there's so many young people up there, and
of course there's massive of friendship groups and all that.
I think that's that's probably the best option where you
can have a bit of both when there is a
town that is vibrant and can offer things, but then
you can retreat into the beauty and the peace of
the country. And I think that's what's threatened by not
supporting small farms being really we really need a Minister
(25:10):
for small farms because it's represent a very, very big
chunk and it's going to really change the you know,
the whole choice that we have.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Do we want to be urban or urban or do
we want to have an opportunity to have a rural
life as well.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So I think that we have to be careful we
don't lose that choice.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
More of my conversation with Rachel Ward after this break.
You've made some beautiful Australian films, though.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Behind the camera as an actress it dried up very
quickly for me, which which is always good because it
forces you in another direction. I didn't have any choice
but to get behind the camera you as I.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Am originally from England too, as you can probably tell,
I've been here for thirty years, so a long time.
One of the things that struck me so much in
the documentary though, is that you clearly have a very
deep connection out of that land. You've learned a lot
about it now, as you say towards the end of
the film, you do feel like you have deep roots.
(26:17):
Does it feel like that? Does it feel like home?
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, definitely feels like home. I love it there, and
I love it even more now that my boy is there.
That's absolutely great and he loves it and he's just
completely sort of switched on, turned on by the beauty
of it as I am. And yeah, I think it's
that thing as you get older, that you just you're
less distracted by the great things that nature and beauty
(26:45):
can offer. I think we're just too busy chasing our tails.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Certainly I was.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
And it's really only when I was sort of forced
to be there over COVID that I.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Sort of breathed into it.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And sort of let it come to me and was
surprised by how much I could be there alone and
be completely Yeah, I felt very comfortable in the country,
and I guess growing up in the country definitely makes you.
I can see the difference between me and Brian. He's
a little bit he's not He's just a little bit uncomfortable,
(27:21):
little bit nervous, you know, he's always worried about gates
and you know, and going through into places he maybe
shouldn't and we should go back now because it's going
to get dark, and and I was, no, this.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Is when it's the best. Let's go. You know, I'm
talking about on horses and things.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Clearly you've been married for, as we said before, forty years.
Obviously your differences in those ways and your different passions
and things obviously works right. Like it's not it's not
like she's going off to the farm. Well that's it, you.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Know, Well it is a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
I think that's healthy. You know. Brian is much more
rooted in Sydney and that's his you know, it comes
from the western suburbs.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
His comfort zone is the city.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
He's got friends from years back, you know, who are
in the city. And I think being an expert to
someone who's not from here, I'm not so tied to
places of you know, I don't have that investment in
those early years.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You probably feel the same. You know.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
It's interesting how you are romanced and it's also sentimental
where you grow up and all of those thing triggers
that you have as a child growing up, and you
look back on those aspects in a very sort of
tender sentimental way. So I didn't have that here. So
(28:38):
that's grown for me in the country, and it's all
of that sort of you know, comfort and sentimentality about it.
I would miss it deeply if I moved away from it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I heard you talk about this actually where you said
that bits of England like, because you can live somewhere
else for almost your entire adult life, bits of your
DNA away you grew up. I grew up in the
North of England, in Manchester, and I left when I
was twenty one. But when I go back, the red brick,
the chimneys, the buildings, I don't know. There's just something.
(29:12):
I don't know what it is because I haven't even
you know, I've had my children here, I've lived my.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I think it's your DNA. I think when you say
your DNA, I don't think it's your experience.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I think it is your DNA because your English has
comes through your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, your great grandfather.
I mean, all of those things that are in your cells,
that experience has come through. I believe it's greater than
that to just being in the experience of you. I
just I still am English to the core, but I
(29:45):
have I have fallen in love finally with Australia. I
mean it took me a long time, and it did
take me until I moved to the country because the
only way sort of in a way, urban lives are.
You can be an urban life. You can be anywhere.
You know, it's the same sort of thing. I don't
think that you know, being in Sydney is such a
(30:06):
different experience than being in single or London or whatever.
But when you go to the country and you just
experienced the smells and the wind and the sounds and
the light of places, that's when it seeps into you.
And my children definitely have that.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Your children, as you say, have grown up going to
the farm. I also heard you say once that you
wanted to make sure your children had a different kind
of childhood in terms of their connection to both you
and to being together and all those things. Do you
think when your kids are now proper adults and they've
got children of their own, do you feel a level
(30:46):
of pride that you achieved that that they've You've given
them that different kind of life.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yes, I mean, I don't know about pride, but I
recognized that it was.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
It was.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
It was a strange life childhood that I had, you know,
very separated from parents and very much brought up with
paid care, paid help. So I didn't I didn't live
with my mother and father, and they boarding school and
also you know, completely looked after buying nanny's and whatever.
So I didn't see my mother during the week at all.
(31:17):
She would come down on the weekend. It was a
very sort of Victorian old and you know in some
in some places it still exists. It was very much
like Ladied Eyes upbringing, and it was and it was
not good for self confidence.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
It was.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I mean, I look at Brian's life beside mine, and
he had a mother only but who was completely devoted
to him, and everything in her life was about her
two children, and she didn't really have any life other
than her two children. And I've never known anybody more
confident than Brian and his sister. And I think that
comes from the commitment of parents. And I think if
(31:54):
parents aren't there, the commitment isn't there, you know, I
mean they never came to you know, school things or anything.
So they were very absent. And you know, I look
back on that and I look at my children with
their children, and I see the commitment, and I see
the work and the effort and the relentlessness and the
bonds that happened as a result. Well, I didn't have that,
(32:17):
and I don't know what that meant to the shaping
of my character. And it probably made me quite resilient
and quite independent. And I'm probably here where I am
because I've got that sort of independence. I'm certainly not coddled,
but it's sort of Yeah. I certainly didn't want it
for my kid.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You obviously wanted something different, and it feels like that
in a way, it was a long shot, like coming
to Australia with this man who was so different, to
build this different life.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
But it crazy, it stuck. When you look at that, like.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
That young woman madly in love with this man so different.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Do you think what was I think, yes, sometimes, look.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
At the decisions you made when you were young, and
you were like, I was crazy, brave, Like is that
what you think I do?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Actually I do look back and think, yeah, I know,
because I see how hard it is with my kids
looking after their kids, and I go. Yeah, but I
was here and I didn't have mom or dad, or
girlfriends or anything. I was so isolated. And I also
did have I had no work, I had no career,
I had no It was starting all over again, and
like it is for any migrant.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It's quite a hard road.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
It's very sort of it's not really you know, it's
always about how lucky migrants are to reach the country
that they want to be in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
I was talking to a taxi my taxi driver last night,
who was a Pakistani and he said, it's we don't
do it for us. A lot of us are very
homesick and want to go home. We do it for
our children, to give our children an opportunity so that
they can be bussy kids, and particularly the girls, so
that the.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Girls can have opportunity and choice.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah. Yeah, not growing up in those patriarchic article societies,
which I definitely grew up in a very patriarchal society,
and that was that was one of the things I
wanted to get out, get away from.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Did you feel even then that Australia was a different,
freer place.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Now I didn't know anything about it at all. Brian
could have been taking me to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It was just about going with him.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I arrived on ash Friday, which
was forty years ago in Melbourne, where at noon we
were in blackness and it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Was and it was sing spires on the.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
And we were literally scuffing through black ash on the
pavement and I remember looking at and thinking, you want
me to live here? This is apocalyptic this place and
it was and also again and we were sort of
in It was in drag at the time. And I
arrived in Melbourne and then drove out to Ballarat and
(34:55):
I just could not believe the devastation of the country
and the trees, with the you know, the dead trees everywhere,
and the and the and the straw like grass. You know,
when you're used to that richness of color. So it
definitely took accommodating. And then I came to Sydney and
was blown away by Sydney and the birds and you know,
obviously I knew it was it was.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I was pretty lucky to be here, really, but it
does take.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It does take a long time to belong, to deeply
belong somewhere.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And you feel now that you when you said in
the in the documentary, I feel like I was a
shallow rooted person and I'm a deep rooted person on
the farm.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, on the farm I belong. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I don't feel it anywhere else, but I do feel
it on the farm.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Tell me, now, after all we've discussed about and your journey.
I hate that word, but with Regen, what do you
want people to know about that now? Because at the
end of the documentary it very much said you very
much encouraging people to shop small, to you know, buy
from local farms, buy from region farms. Understand what it
is is that very much what your average person can
(36:06):
do to.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I think, you know, I think it's that sort of
understanding that if you are an environmentalists, if you are
concerned about the way we're headed climate wise and diversity wise,
and just the way our souls are blowing away, I
think you have to make the connect between the food
(36:29):
you're eating and the way you want people to farm
and region farmers are on fire. There's a lot of
people turning, and there's you know a lot of farmers
really care for their land and do the best they
can and use minimum, you know, cutting back on the chemicals.
I think a lot of people are sort of beginning
to understand that. But unless we can reach the consumer,
(36:50):
and unless the consumer can go, Okay, you are farming,
you are putting. You can't carry it alone, you know.
We have to be with the consumer because it's much
easier to do it the other way. It's much easier
to spread out a field and whack in some seeds
for winter.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So care about where your food rong shop small if
you can.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, just go and always ask, you know, where is
this food from? I mean the moment is a little
bit inconvenient because you have to make a bit more
of an effort to find where who's farmed this?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Is there chemicals in it?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
You know?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Is this from a person who's really trying to do
the best by their land? And if we don't get
that response, they'll go. And not only will they go,
you know, it will become this.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I just think, you know, we only.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Have to look at Europe and look at America the
disappearing small family farms.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
They're all going.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
So the whole structures of you know, of rural life
will go. And I don't think that that people are
making those connects, you know, and I think there's a
huge movement with the with the World Economic Forum and
all of those sort of bodies that people are try.
It's all about scale and efficiency, and people want to
(38:05):
get rid of the small farms. They want big industrial
size farms that are that are that are basically run
by corporations.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That maybe that's what we want.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Maybe the next generation just goes, just give me efficiency
and give me the cheapest meat you can. I don't care,
but there is definitely a section of our society that
doesn't want that and at the moment we can't really
get it because of the food chains, and particularly when
you understand at what cost. I think that's the thing
is it's easy to comby the meat from you know,
(38:37):
the cheapest source, but once you begin to understand the cost.
I need to bring it back to dung beetles before
we finish Rachel where I started, which is in their documentary.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
If you don't understand the jaw, how happy somebody can
be to see some insects crawling around in a cow
pat as we used to call them in England cow pats, Yeah,
then they need to watch this documentary. But it's a
sign that what you're doing is working.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Of the health of your land. Yes, So if.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Your soil is dead and it's been blasted by chemicals
and over farmed, then it's dry, lifeless.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, So the.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Dung beetle was a sign of joint You call me
and you're like.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
There's a family of It's actually I'm almost more excited
by the worms. The worms are you.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Know, when you've got dry, when you've got dirt, not soil,
there's no worms in there. And you know, and I
think really what's made the difference with my land and
most regenerative farmers is the coverage on our soil we've
all got.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That's the main thing you have.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
You do not want bear soil because then the sun
just bakes it and dries it out and everything goes,
all the micro or all the microbes, everything just goes.
So you need to keep it as moist as you can.
It's like putting compost on your on your gardens. Obviously
it makes absolute sense. But obviously in places it is
(39:58):
it is hard to keep coverage on your grass. But
that is our number one priority, really is getting coverage
on our soil.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
So that means no tilling, so you're not churning underground
you're keeping.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
You're keeping this, You're keeping the roots in the soil,
long healthy roots that dig down for the for the
micro for the nutrients. And the more you use the chemicals,
the shorter the roots become. And it's only really with
that long growth and not tilling and.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Not you know, using too much chemical. You need you
need to make the grass work.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And there we leave Rachel Ward with worms and dung
beetles and the challenges and joys of life.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
On the land.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I hope you've enjoyed the special bonus episode of Mid
with Rachel Ward, who became a farmer when most people
are retiring. Actually becoming a farmer is a dream retirement
for some, although I think Rachel's story tells us why
it's certainly not the cruisy option. In these special bonus
episodes of Mid, we're talking about that next phase of life,
(41:04):
that post work era, and about how whether you're thinking
about dung or literal cruises, being prepared gives you choices.
Follow the link in our show notes about Aware Super
for more about that. The executive producer of this episode
is named Brown. The senior producer is Grace Rufrey. The
(41:24):
producer is Charlie Blackman, and there's been audio production by
Jacob Brown. I'll see you next week.
You're listening to Amma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on. A rural life looks
good on Instagram, rolling green hills and shaded verandahs and
pretty fluffy animals, sunsets and sunrises painted across big skies,
acquired a pace, a calmer mind, and a rural life
(00:35):
also looks good in your plan for your post work self.
And welcome to this bonus episode in our mid mini
series about that third age, what you might want to
do when you finish doing what you've been doing for
money all these years. My name is Holly Wainwright and
I have an incredible guest to talk about taking an
(00:55):
unexpected pivot a little later at the most and it's
Rachel Ward. Yes, you know who Rachel Ward is. She
is an iconic Australian actress who isn't Australian at all.
She's actually the quintessential English gentlewoman who met Brian Brown
on the set of The Thorn Birds in nineteen eighty two.
It doesn't get any more iconic than that, and she
(01:17):
followed him to Australia, which was a place she says
she knew nothing about, and they've lived here pretty much
ever since, raising a family and working. More recently, Rachel
has directed films like Beautiful Kate and Palm Beach, and
now a documentary called Rachel's Farm about her rural pivot.
(01:37):
As you're about to hear in her third act, Rachel
Ward has become a farmer, and not a hobby farmer
that just looks pretty on Instagram, but a farmer farmer
taking on the running of the cattle property that for
years was a picturesque Northern river's weekender and holiday home
for her family.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Not anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Now it's where Rachel Farm's cattle and her land regeneratively.
You're going to hear her talking about deciding to become
a farmer, a hands on one at sixty, and the
existential crisis that pushed her in to regent farming.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
As it's called.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
You're going to hear her talking about what Brian thinks
about life on the farm, clue he's not that into it.
And you're going to hear about Rachel's life from a
rarefied aristocratic upbringing in the English countryside to feeling pushed
aside by the film industry, to what motherhood meant to
her and how it all led her here to looking
at cowpoo for validation that she's on the right track.
(02:33):
So come and sit down on the verandah with Rachel
Ward and I. Rachel, we need to talk about dong
beetles already, because for all the sort of passions that
we might come to at different points in our lives,
a dung beetle obsession is particular specific and it's a
clumsy way of saying, I guess you've become a farmer
(02:56):
at a sort of surprising time in your life. Yes,
and it's an amazing story. And I'd love to start
with the farm itself, which has been in your life
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So you bought the farmer initially as a holiday home almost,
and it's grown in importance. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah? Spot on.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
We bought it as a sort of lifestyle retreat, and
we bought one hundred acres and we had about thirty
cars on there. And there was the guy that we
bought it from. He continued to manage it. He moved
to another house nearby and continued to manage it, and
then it passed to Mick Green senior who managed it
(03:41):
beautifully for.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
How many years.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
I would think about fifteen years and then young Nick
took over. And that's where the documentary sort of joins in.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
When you buy a place as a lifestyle retreat, but
it's being managed, is that then? So you and your family,
your growing family, you would go up there for summers,
for holiday weekends, and.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You loved it right every holiday.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, you weren't necessarily hands in there, but it was
your place, your happy place.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
We didn't travel much. We didn't go overseas much. I've
never been to Bali or places like that, so we
just always went. Every holiday, we'd get in the car
and go.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Up to the farm. So the kids are very country kids.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
They went to school in Sydney, but every holidays we
went up there and they had their life up there,
and they had their ponies and you know, learning to drive,
and we're quite near Scott's Heads, so they all learnt
to surf and yes, and I was incredibly sort of
hands off and thought that I had really nothing to
contribute as far as the farm went. It seemed very much,
(04:51):
you know, a man's domain.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And Brian was.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Very keen that we were participated locally, that we had cattle,
and that we weren't just there as people who weren't
part of the community. So we were from the beginning
very much part of the cam unity. At one point
we were even showing cattle or even that the Maxville
Show with our cattle.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
So but you know, but very just enjoying it.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Lucky to have, you know, to be able to have
that escape to the country, and that's what we did.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
And you grew up in the country, correct, So was
it something that you were very keen to have that
part in your child's life, in your life as you were.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yes, I think I probably romanticized it, and I did
grew up in the country. I didn't want to move
full time to the country. I mean, I was very
wedded to, you know, my career in entertainment, so I
didn't see myself being a farmer at that stage. But
as it went on, I mean, it was really not
(05:56):
until the bushfires that I had the big switch. And
it was really not until I read Charles Massey's book
and understood about call it a read Warbler, that I
really understood about other forms of farming and that there
was even other forms of farming and that I went, oh,
(06:17):
maybe I can do that too.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So in the documentary, which is beautiful, I think I
really really loved it. The part that sort of expresses
this period, your daughter says that she was worried about you.
You were very distressed. I mean, I can't imagine why
by the climate crisis, the climate catastrophe, and that was
(06:41):
it was like you were burning to do something about it,
to somehow be part of a solution.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
What was that time like hard?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean it was a yeah, it was brought on
by my fear of I mean I really believe that
the I would say today the fear mongering actually of carbon,
the whole carbon issue, and I was, you know, I
felt terribly impotent because I you know, on the in
the media obviously we heard how that it was an
(07:13):
existential problem, and yet sort of governments really didn't seem
to be acting as if it was an existential problem.
So it was that that thing of like, well, are
they going to do something or are they not? And
who if they're not, what are we going to do
about this situation? Because I was certainly after I witnessed
the fires and then went and there was you know,
(07:36):
a lot of talk about this being beyond just the
normal bushfire, and that this was you know, as hot
as we're ever going to get, and and everything went,
you know, it was obviously going to go up in flames.
But I think I was a bit ignorant about what
aspect of climate change was in was inciting those fires
(07:57):
or was creating those fires? I don't necessarily think. I mean,
I think we had a big drought, and we were
and we have forests which are full of uh fuel.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, so it was a.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It was timely and was it really because we had
too much carbon in the atmosphere?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is it really climate change or is it just a
very long drought with a heavy load of fuel. So
I think.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Today I'm more circumspect about that and I'm less concerned
about that aspect of climate. I'm certainly, you know, really
working hard that we get more biodiversity and we hold
more water in our.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Land, because when you are on the land, whether you're
living there full time or not, you're much closer to
these disasters, like literally, but also emotionally and in terms
of your stress levels about them, in terms of fire, flood, drought,
and all of the rest of those things. You can
feel it.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
You can almost well you're right in the middle of
it usually and it has enormous consequences to you as
a farmer and to the community that you love.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, so at the time, this the anxiety around climate, which,
as you say, you've kind of shifted a little on.
But you say in that you say in the documentary
that also you've become a grandparent. You're looking at your
grandkids and thinking what's going to happen for them? What
kind of world are we giving them?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
That was all part of the sort of you know,
definitely adding to my fear load of what was the
future of my grandchildren, because you know, I felt that
I was okay, I mean, I'm not going to be
probably around when probably around when everything comes home to roost.
But I obviously, you know, with having grandchildren, it brings
that very it brings that into focus, the fact that
(09:44):
your grandchildren are going to be here, you know, after
they have prophetically said that the world is nigh so.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And you One of the things about getting older I
think sometimes too, is you struggle with the idea that
not everything's getting better. In fact, quite a few things
seem to be getting worse and sometimes there's the anxiety
about what can I do about that? How is it
too late for me to participate? I guess this is
a lot of the stuff that was going on that.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yes, it sort of trivializes to a lot of the
things that you're doing. It feels very trivial, like making
films and making TV shows. And I just felt I
needed to, you know, push my energies in a different direction.
The impotence was alleviated by the fact that I realized
I had three very strong motivating factors in my life,
(10:32):
which was the fact I had a farm, and after
reading the Call of the Reed Warbler, I realized I
could actually change the direction of my farm and the
way I found And I also understood that farmers, you know,
had to take a bit of responsibility about where, you know,
biodiversity was heading and growing monocultures and clearing land and
(10:52):
pumping out carbon. And then as a consumer, I just
completely changed the way I understood my food dollar, how
my food dollar worked, and how I could, you know,
buy according to my values. And I also kind of went,
if I'm going to call myself an environmental the first
thing I've got to look at is how I spend
my food.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Dollar and the power of your person.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
That's right, because that has an enormous effect on the
way farmers farm.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So in the film, this begins in a way. It's
a beautiful film because your property is beautiful, your enthusiasm
and commitment to this project is beautiful. Your farm manager
is such a great foil because he's kind of like
steady on Rachel. I go all the time at the
(11:39):
beginning of that, because obviously you've got a great narrative
arc in the film in that you know, you get
your soils tested, you work out what you're doing, you
work out what you're aiming for. This is a massive
learning curve. One of the things I was watching thinking
when I was watching it is it's very exciting and
energizing to learn new things, right, especially if you're a
(11:59):
bit of a point in your life where you're feeling
a bit lost or I mean, I don't want to
put work in your mouth, but feeling a bit lost,
or what's my role now or my career I'm not
sure where.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Careers basically winding up kids have gone, you know. And
I still felt credibly energetic and like I had something
to offer, but trying to find where that how you
are going to contribute is a horrible moment. It's a
very sort of until you also knowing that you're going
to have to go on a big learning curve. That
(12:32):
first step is it's hard to make, isn't it When
you change your life, change careers, whatever, you get divorced
or you know, those huge life changes and you know
that you've got a massive hill to climb before it
gets easy again. And it's yeah, and I was very
resistant to putting those that first foot out. And I
(12:53):
knew that if I I'd never made a documentary before, to.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Make dramas directing actors.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, yeah, so it was a totally different entertainment form
for me.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And I didn't want to be in it. I wanted
to bring attention to all.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
The wonderful farmers, these early adopters of this type of farming.
And there's after reading the book, I was just suddenly
made so aware of how heroic some of these early
adopters have been and how they were still you know,
going forward and doing it without really very little recognition.
And yeah, so I didn't want to be in it.
(13:33):
And then my producer, Beteina Dalton, said, oh, well, you
have to be in it has to be your journey.
And I said, well, it's going to be about a
minute and a half long because I haven't you know, I.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Don't know anything about this.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And I think she knew somehow that that was going
to be Obviously the entertaining bit the fact that I
knew nothing about it, but I still had to talk
about it, and I still and you're not really when
you're in the middle of your journey, you're very often
not aware of what your journey is, what the you know, beginning, middle,
and end is. And you know, we're all very used
(14:06):
to the structures of a heroic journe and I certainly
didn't have an end to the to the story. I
had the person going on the journey myself, but and
I had it to a certain point, and I had
the amassing the knowledge and the wisdom and all of that.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But then what and luck nature hands you a few
good plots.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Nature definitely hands me some good two good chapters.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, after the break, Rachel tells me what life on
the farm is really like.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
One of the things that is really interesting about the
story is that you it's it's very hands on work,
and at one point you decide that you need to
move to the farm permanently to do this properly. And
you're learning everything that the that the farm managers were
doing before, which you I've heard you say, which looks
(15:01):
like very hard work to me, But I've heard you
say that it was fun, like it's fun that you
love that.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, it's a bit physical.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
It's a bit physical, but it's not that ba I
mean a lot of you know, farmers, they definitely need strengths,
particularly strength in their hands. I find that that's you know,
I talk a lot about this being female friendly, and
it is in a way, because you're those things that
you bring as a woman into the cattle yards. You know,
we are more gentle. We're gentler with the animals, I think.
(15:29):
But there's a lot of things I can't do. They
have something called an onto tractor called a PTO. Any
implements that you're using, you have to put the PTO
into the tractor. And I still can't do that, and
it's just because I don't have the strength in my
fingers to do it. And there are a couple of
things that you just it's not so much strength it's
the mechanical know how and that comes from sort of
(15:50):
growing up beside your father, your your farmer father, who's
just over the years has shown you a bit. I
mean like Mick just has you know anything on the farm,
any implement on the farm. He just has a knowledge
about how to fix or how to oil or how to.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Keep up with those things.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That's my been my biggest learning curve is I'm not
very far, but it's just and everything breaks all the time.
You know, you're constantly getting people into fix the tractors well.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
And also and I know that obviously the documentary consolidates
these events, but anyone who lives on the land would
know it's true. There's always a thing. So there's a drought,
or there's a fire, or there's the muffler fires or
there's whatever. Yeah, and it is hard work has discussed.
But did you is it harder? I guess did you
love it as much as it appears that you did it?
(16:40):
Did it give you the kind of meaning that you
were looking for in it?
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yes, in many ways it did. I certainly love being
on I love a rural lifestyle, and I didn't realize
how much I would enjoy it, and I think maybe
it was the time of life. You know, I was
not really interested in, you know, a social life anymore,
or you know, in the entertainment industry was getting harder
(17:06):
and harder, and you know, obviously the gender and age
issues come into that.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Did you feel that keenly as part of why you
were pulling away from from that?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah, there's a lot of brick walls in the entertainment
industry and there's a lot of frustration, and as there
is in farming. I've probably chosen.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Gone from farming is like, oh, I thought.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
You know, I came up against nature, but we're up
against so much more than nature. But the supply chains
are really only geared to the big business and to
sort of corporate farming and industrial farming, and that's really
not what we want always. You know, it certainly fills
a place, but it's certainly for anybody who wants to
(17:51):
live a rural lifestyle. It's very difficult to maintain a
life on the land.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
So any idyllic vision of like this is going to
be lovely. I'm going to be sitting on my veranda
and the cows are we moving in the pastures, And
it'll be is that.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
It's not that I wish it was.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, sure, if you want to lose a lot of money,
you know every year. Yeah, but every every farmer has
somebody's got a second job in town. It's not possible
really to make a living on farm.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And that's and that means.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
That no young people are attracted to it. So the
average age of the farmer is about sixty five. And
I don't know who's coming up. My son actually has
moved to the country, but he wants to try and
grow hemp. So you know, he looks at mine and goes, well,
that's not a career for me. I can't make money
on what you've got set up. So I find very
(18:44):
much now that I'm in a position of or that
I'm involved much more in advocacy than.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I am in the farming farm.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I see, you know, I just think the government and
the farming bodies are not paying enough attention to what's
going on with small farms and rural lives.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And what they need, what they really need.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Or what those wholes the whole, the whole hint to
land really from the coast three hundred kilometers towards the
Great Dividing Range or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
That's all small farms.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It sounds like the sort of to use a clumsy word,
the sort of mission or purpose that brought you into
this has morphed, right, and it keeps morphing, it keeps
And there's a bit in the documentary where Brian, you know,
your husband of forty years, is talking about you becoming
a farmer, and he says she's always been searching for things.
(19:40):
She always throws herself into stuff. He says, I wouldn't
want to be a farmer. I don't want to work
that hard. But is that true that you think you've
or you know, you've always looked for I don't want
to say causes, that's the wrong word, but like, no,
you want.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
To us, you want to throw Really I'd like to have,
you know, just stuck at what I started with, which
was like Brian as a as an actor, and you know,
men don't necessarily have to change their careers.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
That's interesting, right, you know, Brand.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Stayed as an actor and it's all you know, and
he's produced and now he's writing books and stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
But he wasn't forced to move on. A lot of.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Women, you know, are used by dates come much sooner
and then we have families and that gets them the
way changing.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
No, you don't think that's changing. You think that we're
still like women are still very.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Much like oh, in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, and that's also true. You think as much behind
the cameras in front of it, like filmmakers.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Oh, I think then there's many more jobs for women
behind behind the camera. I think there are more not necessarily,
not necessarily as directors or people in in ch you know,
who get an opportunity to tell their stories.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I don't think there's there's a bit more women doing that.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I heard you telling a story about as young as
in your words, like beautiful young women that you were
growing up at these posh English tables and they're pretty
young women's always sitting next to the most important person
at the table. And then if the women get older,
they're like move further down the table.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's funny. I did say that.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, it's true, And that's kind of like a metaphor
for of this, Like it's not just about that table,
it's it says you go along.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
It certainly feels well, that's why your power is in
youth and beauty. That's if your power is in youth
and beauty, and that that diminishes very quickly, so obviously
one has to move on from that, and it's a
free ride for a little while, a free ride with.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
A cost though too right, it's that sort of people
do you feel people really see?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I think I got a lot of opportunities for being
a pretty girl. No, definitely, I mean I think that
you know, just ah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Mean doors do open.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I think you know if you're yeah, I'm not going
to diminish that, it means that you actually don't. It's
not very satisfying for yourself because actually you can never
take credit for it, I mean, because it's not it's
just God given. Yeah, you know, you've got a good
looking mum or whatever, and you know you can take
(22:10):
advantage of that for a few years.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But it's very.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Unsatisfying because you kind of know, as my mother would
say to me, don't take yourself so seriously, darling. You'd
hardly be ware you were if you didn't look the
way you lived, so she was, and.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
A bet at the time that went down really well,
and I.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Was denying it to the hilt.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
But of course, you know, you know, really that until
you actually develop a few skills or you know, actually
a challenged by something and have to develop other skills
than the way you look.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Well there's no skills in that, but yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Just do it later, so you're always a little bit behind.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And then I didn't go to you.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I didn't go to university until I was When did
I go thirty seven?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
And was that you had your kids by then?
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And yeah too uni.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah, so I had all the you know, as an actress,
I had my life and then I had kids, and
then when I turned when my kids went to school,
that as she When my son was born, I went,
I've got to get my I got to get my
skills up now because in a minute he'll be off
at school and then what So, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
It doesn't sound like you're ever someone who is happy
to just.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I was quite good at recognizing that used by dates
were coming up.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
That's interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, I knew that as an actress I had a
certain amount of time. I was very difficult, difficult for
me moving here too as an actor because it was
at a time where Australia was very much sort of
forging its own identity and I was infinitely as a
as a throwback. You know as an actress, I was
a sounded look to everything as another era and I
(23:51):
didn't have that Australian quintessential thing that was going to anyway,
so it was difficult for me to get work.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's very often and somewhere in midlife that women might
choose to get more connected to nature. And I'm not
obviously by owning a farm necessarily, but I'm very into
my gardening. For example, I know plenty of women who
discover that they love to walk in nature, love to hire,
call those things. Do you think there is like almost
a call in us to that as we get older,
(24:19):
that it sort of settles us, helps us.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think it's so individual.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I imagine there's a lot of that online where people
can see other people's lives and they look very much
less stress in them. Great for the kids, I mean,
I think it's a wonderful way to live if you
can live without, you know, the culture that a city
gives you and the rets, the friends I suppose if
you if you, I mean obviously in places like the
(24:46):
Northern Rivers, there's so many young people up there, and
of course there's massive of friendship groups and all that.
I think that's that's probably the best option where you
can have a bit of both when there is a
town that is vibrant and can offer things, but then
you can retreat into the beauty and the peace of
the country. And I think that's what's threatened by not
supporting small farms being really we really need a Minister
(25:10):
for small farms because it's represent a very, very big
chunk and it's going to really change the you know,
the whole choice that we have.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Do we want to be urban or urban or do
we want to have an opportunity to have a rural
life as well.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So I think that we have to be careful we
don't lose that choice.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
More of my conversation with Rachel Ward after this break.
You've made some beautiful Australian films, though.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Behind the camera as an actress it dried up very
quickly for me, which which is always good because it
forces you in another direction. I didn't have any choice
but to get behind the camera you as I.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Am originally from England too, as you can probably tell,
I've been here for thirty years, so a long time.
One of the things that struck me so much in
the documentary though, is that you clearly have a very
deep connection out of that land. You've learned a lot
about it now, as you say towards the end of
the film, you do feel like you have deep roots.
(26:17):
Does it feel like that? Does it feel like home?
Do you think?
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, definitely feels like home. I love it there, and
I love it even more now that my boy is there.
That's absolutely great and he loves it and he's just
completely sort of switched on, turned on by the beauty
of it as I am. And yeah, I think it's
that thing as you get older, that you just you're
less distracted by the great things that nature and beauty
(26:45):
can offer. I think we're just too busy chasing our tails.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Certainly I was.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
And it's really only when I was sort of forced
to be there over COVID that I.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Sort of breathed into it.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And sort of let it come to me and was
surprised by how much I could be there alone and
be completely Yeah, I felt very comfortable in the country,
and I guess growing up in the country definitely makes you.
I can see the difference between me and Brian. He's
a little bit he's not He's just a little bit uncomfortable,
(27:21):
little bit nervous, you know, he's always worried about gates
and you know, and going through into places he maybe
shouldn't and we should go back now because it's going
to get dark, and and I was, no, this.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Is when it's the best. Let's go. You know, I'm
talking about on horses and things.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Clearly you've been married for, as we said before, forty years.
Obviously your differences in those ways and your different passions
and things obviously works right. Like it's not it's not
like she's going off to the farm. Well that's it, you.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Know, Well it is a little bit, a little bit. Yeah,
I think that's healthy. You know. Brian is much more
rooted in Sydney and that's his you know, it comes
from the western suburbs.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
His comfort zone is the city.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
He's got friends from years back, you know, who are
in the city. And I think being an expert to
someone who's not from here, I'm not so tied to
places of you know, I don't have that investment in
those early years.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
You probably feel the same. You know.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
It's interesting how you are romanced and it's also sentimental
where you grow up and all of those thing triggers
that you have as a child growing up, and you
look back on those aspects in a very sort of
tender sentimental way. So I didn't have that here. So
(28:38):
that's grown for me in the country, and it's all
of that sort of you know, comfort and sentimentality about it.
I would miss it deeply if I moved away from it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I heard you talk about this actually where you said
that bits of England like, because you can live somewhere
else for almost your entire adult life, bits of your
DNA away you grew up. I grew up in the
North of England, in Manchester, and I left when I
was twenty one. But when I go back, the red brick,
the chimneys, the buildings, I don't know. There's just something.
(29:12):
I don't know what it is because I haven't even
you know, I've had my children here, I've lived my.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I think it's your DNA. I think when you say
your DNA, I don't think it's your experience.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I think it is your DNA because your English has
comes through your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, your great grandfather.
I mean, all of those things that are in your cells,
that experience has come through. I believe it's greater than
that to just being in the experience of you. I
just I still am English to the core, but I
(29:45):
have I have fallen in love finally with Australia. I
mean it took me a long time, and it did
take me until I moved to the country because the
only way sort of in a way, urban lives are.
You can be an urban life. You can be anywhere.
You know, it's the same sort of thing. I don't
think that you know, being in Sydney is such a
(30:06):
different experience than being in single or London or whatever.
But when you go to the country and you just
experienced the smells and the wind and the sounds and
the light of places, that's when it seeps into you.
And my children definitely have that.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Your children, as you say, have grown up going to
the farm. I also heard you say once that you
wanted to make sure your children had a different kind
of childhood in terms of their connection to both you
and to being together and all those things. Do you
think when your kids are now proper adults and they've
got children of their own, do you feel a level
(30:46):
of pride that you achieved that that they've You've given
them that different kind of life.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Yes, I mean, I don't know about pride, but I
recognized that it was.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
It was.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
It was a strange life childhood that I had, you know,
very separated from parents and very much brought up with
paid care, paid help. So I didn't I didn't live
with my mother and father, and they boarding school and
also you know, completely looked after buying nanny's and whatever.
So I didn't see my mother during the week at all.
(31:17):
She would come down on the weekend. It was a
very sort of Victorian old and you know in some
in some places it still exists. It was very much
like Ladied Eyes upbringing, and it was and it was
not good for self confidence.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
It was.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I mean, I look at Brian's life beside mine, and
he had a mother only but who was completely devoted
to him, and everything in her life was about her
two children, and she didn't really have any life other
than her two children. And I've never known anybody more
confident than Brian and his sister. And I think that
comes from the commitment of parents. And I think if
(31:54):
parents aren't there, the commitment isn't there, you know, I
mean they never came to you know, school things or anything.
So they were very absent. And you know, I look
back on that and I look at my children with
their children, and I see the commitment, and I see
the work and the effort and the relentlessness and the
bonds that happened as a result. Well, I didn't have that,
(32:17):
and I don't know what that meant to the shaping
of my character. And it probably made me quite resilient
and quite independent. And I'm probably here where I am
because I've got that sort of independence. I'm certainly not coddled,
but it's sort of Yeah. I certainly didn't want it
for my kid.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
You obviously wanted something different, and it feels like that
in a way, it was a long shot, like coming
to Australia with this man who was so different, to
build this different life.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
But it crazy, it stuck. When you look at that, like.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
That young woman madly in love with this man so different.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Do you think what was I think, yes, sometimes, look.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
At the decisions you made when you were young, and
you were like, I was crazy, brave, Like is that
what you think I do?
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Actually I do look back and think, yeah, I know,
because I see how hard it is with my kids
looking after their kids, and I go. Yeah, but I
was here and I didn't have mom or dad, or
girlfriends or anything. I was so isolated. And I also
did have I had no work, I had no career,
I had no It was starting all over again, and
like it is for any migrant.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It's quite a hard road.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
It's very sort of it's not really you know, it's
always about how lucky migrants are to reach the country
that they want to be in.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
I was talking to a taxi my taxi driver last night,
who was a Pakistani and he said, it's we don't
do it for us. A lot of us are very
homesick and want to go home. We do it for
our children, to give our children an opportunity so that
they can be bussy kids, and particularly the girls, so
that the.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Girls can have opportunity and choice.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah. Yeah, not growing up in those patriarchic article societies,
which I definitely grew up in a very patriarchal society,
and that was that was one of the things I
wanted to get out, get away from.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Did you feel even then that Australia was a different,
freer place.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Now I didn't know anything about it at all. Brian
could have been taking me to Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It was just about going with him.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I arrived on ash Friday, which
was forty years ago in Melbourne, where at noon we
were in blackness and it.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Was and it was sing spires on the.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
And we were literally scuffing through black ash on the
pavement and I remember looking at and thinking, you want
me to live here? This is apocalyptic this place and
it was and also again and we were sort of
in It was in drag at the time. And I
arrived in Melbourne and then drove out to Ballarat and
(34:55):
I just could not believe the devastation of the country
and the trees, with the you know, the dead trees everywhere,
and the and the and the straw like grass. You know,
when you're used to that richness of color. So it
definitely took accommodating. And then I came to Sydney and
was blown away by Sydney and the birds and you know,
obviously I knew it was it was.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I was pretty lucky to be here, really, but it
does take.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It does take a long time to belong, to deeply
belong somewhere.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And you feel now that you when you said in
the in the documentary, I feel like I was a
shallow rooted person and I'm a deep rooted person on
the farm.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, on the farm I belong. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
I don't feel it anywhere else, but I do feel
it on the farm.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Tell me, now, after all we've discussed about and your journey.
I hate that word, but with Regen, what do you
want people to know about that now? Because at the
end of the documentary it very much said you very
much encouraging people to shop small, to you know, buy
from local farms, buy from region farms. Understand what it
is is that very much what your average person can
(36:06):
do to.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
I think, you know, I think it's that sort of
understanding that if you are an environmentalists, if you are
concerned about the way we're headed climate wise and diversity wise,
and just the way our souls are blowing away, I
think you have to make the connect between the food
(36:29):
you're eating and the way you want people to farm
and region farmers are on fire. There's a lot of
people turning, and there's you know a lot of farmers
really care for their land and do the best they
can and use minimum, you know, cutting back on the chemicals.
I think a lot of people are sort of beginning
to understand that. But unless we can reach the consumer,
(36:50):
and unless the consumer can go, Okay, you are farming,
you are putting. You can't carry it alone, you know.
We have to be with the consumer because it's much
easier to do it the other way. It's much easier
to spread out a field and whack in some seeds
for winter.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So care about where your food rong shop small if
you can.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, just go and always ask, you know, where is
this food from? I mean the moment is a little
bit inconvenient because you have to make a bit more
of an effort to find where who's farmed this?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Is there chemicals in it?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
You know?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Is this from a person who's really trying to do
the best by their land? And if we don't get
that response, they'll go. And not only will they go,
you know, it will become this.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
I just think, you know, we only.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Have to look at Europe and look at America the
disappearing small family farms.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
They're all going.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
So the whole structures of you know, of rural life
will go. And I don't think that that people are
making those connects, you know, and I think there's a
huge movement with the with the World Economic Forum and
all of those sort of bodies that people are try.
It's all about scale and efficiency, and people want to
(38:05):
get rid of the small farms. They want big industrial
size farms that are that are that are basically run
by corporations.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That maybe that's what we want.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Maybe the next generation just goes, just give me efficiency
and give me the cheapest meat you can. I don't care,
but there is definitely a section of our society that
doesn't want that and at the moment we can't really
get it because of the food chains, and particularly when
you understand at what cost. I think that's the thing
is it's easy to comby the meat from you know,
(38:37):
the cheapest source, but once you begin to understand the cost.
I need to bring it back to dung beetles before
we finish Rachel where I started, which is in their documentary.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
If you don't understand the jaw, how happy somebody can
be to see some insects crawling around in a cow
pat as we used to call them in England cow pats, Yeah,
then they need to watch this documentary. But it's a
sign that what you're doing is working.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Of the health of your land. Yes, So if.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Your soil is dead and it's been blasted by chemicals
and over farmed, then it's dry, lifeless.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, So the.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Dung beetle was a sign of joint You call me
and you're like.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
There's a family of It's actually I'm almost more excited
by the worms. The worms are you.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Know, when you've got dry, when you've got dirt, not soil,
there's no worms in there. And you know, and I
think really what's made the difference with my land and
most regenerative farmers is the coverage on our soil we've
all got.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
That's the main thing you have.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
You do not want bear soil because then the sun
just bakes it and dries it out and everything goes,
all the micro or all the microbes, everything just goes.
So you need to keep it as moist as you can.
It's like putting compost on your on your gardens. Obviously
it makes absolute sense. But obviously in places it is
(39:58):
it is hard to keep coverage on your grass. But
that is our number one priority, really is getting coverage
on our soil.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
So that means no tilling, so you're not churning underground
you're keeping.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
You're keeping this, You're keeping the roots in the soil,
long healthy roots that dig down for the for the
micro for the nutrients. And the more you use the chemicals,
the shorter the roots become. And it's only really with
that long growth and not tilling and.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Not you know, using too much chemical. You need you
need to make the grass work.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And there we leave Rachel Ward with worms and dung
beetles and the challenges and joys of life.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
On the land.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
I hope you've enjoyed the special bonus episode of Mid
with Rachel Ward, who became a farmer when most people
are retiring. Actually becoming a farmer is a dream retirement
for some, although I think Rachel's story tells us why
it's certainly not the cruisy option. In these special bonus
episodes of Mid, we're talking about that next phase of life,
(41:04):
that post work era, and about how whether you're thinking
about dung or literal cruises, being prepared gives you choices.
Follow the link in our show notes about Aware Super
for more about that. The executive producer of this episode
is named Brown. The senior producer is Grace Rufrey. The
(41:24):
producer is Charlie Blackman, and there's been audio production by
Jacob Brown. I'll see you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.