This week, I catch up with rural mum Kate Brow. From Canberra, to the country, Kate juggles her job working for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Motherhood the second time around for Kate was more of a shock than baby number one. Her second daughter was born prematurely at 35 weeks during raging bushfires across her region. We chat identity after becoming a mum, miscarriage, birth trauma and mental health. This is her story. SPONSOR: This week’s episode is supported by rural mum, cal...
Mar 07, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 70
This week, I catch up with rural mum, Annabel Curtain from the Northern Territory. Annabel lives a life on the road, travelling for most of the year with her son Harry and her singer, songwriter husband Tom Curtain. She's in the thick of it running their tourism business which showcases life on the land through horse training and working dog demonstrations, and live music.Annabel's introduction to motherhood and her journey since has been far from low key. This is her story. SPONSOR: This week's...
Feb 28, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 69
This week, I catch up with rural mum, and my sister-in-law Claire Trethewey. Claire lives on her Dad's farm in Victoria with her partner Mike and their twins Jack and Skye. Claire's motherhood journey has been an emotional rollercoaster. What started as an intense battle with endometriosis and fears of infertility, ended with an unplanned pregnancy and a sudden move from the city, to the country. This is her story SPONSOR: Billie & Grace is offering Motherland listeners FREE postage until th...
Feb 21, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 68
This week, I catch up with rural mum Lucy Prentice. Lucy is one in a million. Literally. With three young kids including twins, Lucy found herself in the fight of her life after being diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer. It all came not long after her and husband suddenly had to step up and take on the family farm. It's been one hell of a ride.This is her story. SPONSOR: This week’s episode is supported by rural mum, calmbirth educator and midwife Rosie Weatherly.Rosie is passionate about bi...
Feb 14, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 67
This week, I catch up with rural mum Shannon Crocker; farmer, boy mum, nurse, and businesswoman. She's navigated motherhood through droughts, given birth during harvest and quite simply adores her cattle. She's thrived on farm, but off-farm, has battled with self confidence and all the obstacles that motherhood has thrown at her. But a very unlikely business opportunity came knocking which has given her just what she needed...something to call her own. This is her story SPONSOR: Zoe Jackson runs...
Feb 07, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 66
This week, I catch up with Simone Kain, author of the much loved kids books, George the Farmer! She's a mum of three, including twins, and in many ways, lives the best of both words, living in town, while her husband drives out to work on the farm each day. Work/life balance is critical for her family, especially after Simone's battle with the 'motherload'..... when life and work and being a mum became too much, because she was doing too much. But, she took back control.This is her story. SPONSO...
Jan 31, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 65
This week, I catch up with rural mum Emily Riggs who lives on a sheep station in South Australia. You might be familiar with her incredible business, Iris & Wool. But behind the clothing brand is a hardworking woman who's also busy raising her two children, and her journey through motherhood has been far from picture perfect. After battling cancer herself as a child, Emily lost her mum to breast cancer when she was very young. And navigating motherhood without her around has been incredibly ...
Jan 24, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 64
This week, I catch up with rural mum Sal Bradford who lives on a cattle station in central Queensland. Sal runs the Rural SheEmpire and is passionate about supporting the mental health and wellbeing of other rural mums. It comes after her own silent struggle with postnatal depression which left her desperate for a natural solution to help her feel like herself again. This is her story. SPONSORS:Looking for a nanny, governess, home tutor, station cook or other help? Above Nanny Agency services al...
Jan 17, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 63
This week, it's Julie McDonald like you've never heard her before. Meet the woman behind one of Australia's biggest cattle operations and an incredible rural mum. Julie's husband Zanda died in a windmill accident in 2013. And in our very candid catch up, she opens up about their whirlwind love story and the heartbreak, including how she navigated motherhood on a remote cattle station, before she lost her husband, and then how she's coped raising them on her own.This is her story. SPONSOR: This w...
Jan 10, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 62
For the last episode of 2020, I catch up with writer and photographer Annabelle Hickson. The mum of three recently launched Galah, a beautiful magazine which shines a light on regional Australia. Annabelle grew up in suburban Sydney, and now lives on a Pecan farm in Tenterfield, NSW. As a former journalist for The Australian, giving up her dream job and swapping the city for the country was an enormous change on its own. But throw in rural motherhood, and her world was turned upside down more th...
Dec 20, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 61
This week, I'm thrilled to interview the face behind the Billie and Grace brand, Andrea. Andrea lives in the Hunter region of New South Wales with her husband and daughter Mabel. After battling with serious endometriosis, Andrea had an uphill battle to conceive Mabel through IVF. But from there, motherhood proved to be her biggest challenge yet.Mabel has suffered from several medical complications, one of which went undiagnosed for 7 months and was only addressed after she suffered multiple seiz...
Dec 13, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 60
This week, I catch up with rural mum Sarah Parkinson from Victoria. She opens up about life on the land, and the loneliness she felt throughout the early years of motherhood. Sarah's husband is a dairy farmer who works long, gruelling hours, as so many of our partners do. She struggled with postnatal depression during this time and soon realised she wasn't taking any time out for herself. So... One day she hopped in the car solo, took a leap of faith and enrolled in a weekend course that changed...
Dec 06, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 59
This week, I catch up with rural mum Benita Bensch who shares her incredible journey to start a family. Benita was consumed by her challenge to conceive. For four years she fought for the family she'd always dreamed of, then, navigated her way through an anxiety-ridden pregnancy and later a surprise set of twins. Her battle with infertility was so difficult and so dark, she kept an intimate journal which she later turned into a bestselling book. It also inspired her to launch her own business to...
Nov 29, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 58
This week, I catch up with rural mum Elizabeth Rosser who lives on a beef property in Western Australia. Elizabeth is very open about her battle with postnatal depression, and how isolated she has felt over the years as a mum. Amongst the chaos of raising three kids on the land, she's also moved interstate three times- the most recent change from Tassie to WA, all in the middle of a global pandemicThis is her story. SPONSOR: This week's episode is supported by Caroline Maxwell from Mumma-Be. Car...
Nov 22, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Today is a bonus episode with the beautiful Nikki McCahon, founder and host of the Dear Mama Project podcast, and matrescence educator. Nikki's work supporting and coaching women through their motherhood journey is incredibly powerful. In Episode 52 of Motherland, Courtney Walker and I touched on the word matrescence, something I am very passionate about, and the secret sauce that has helped me navigate my own struggles as a new mum.So what is it? why is it so important, and how can you embrace ...
Nov 18, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 56
This week, I catch up with rural mum Toni Nolan from Victoria. She's a mum to three beautiful children including twins, a family she never thought she'd be able to have. Just a couple of months before her wedding day, Toni was almost killed in a car accident, which split her pelvis in half and left her with severe post traumatic amnesia. She's a former body sculptor, and drew upon all the strength and perseverance she learned in that career, to get back on her feet. literally. This is her story....
Nov 15, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 55
This week, I catch up with Elisha Parker who was named Queensland's 2020 AgriFutures Rural Woman of the Year.She's our very own Erin Brockovich, working as a lawyer, specialising in asbestos related diseases. She also runs her own online cattle business, all while raising two young children. We talk motherhood, identity, career and marriage breakdown. How she does it all, I'll never know.This is her story. SPONSOR: This week's episode is supported by Billie & Grace. Enjoy free Express postag...
Nov 08, 2020•38 min•Season 1Ep. 54
This week, I catch up with Courtney Walker who lives on a cattle station in Western Australia. After moving to a remote town to teach at an indigenous school, life changed forever when she fell in love with a farmer.Courtney is unashamedly honest about how difficult she's found motherhood on the land. She's long battled to be what she thought she needed to be, the 'perfect' station mum, but it completely depleted her.In her quest to find more balance and happiness, she discovered matrescence...t...
Nov 01, 2020•53 min•Season 1Ep. 53
This week, I catch up with outback trucker Danyelle Haigh, a rural mum who's raising kids on the road... literally.Her and her husband travel 10 months of the year installing bores for drought stricken farmers. Danyelle takes us through her incredible battle to conceive her two kids, and what it's like being a mum while living in a shipping container on the back of a road train. This is her story. SPONSOR: This week's episode is supported by rural Queensland Mum Benita Bensch. Benita struggled w...
Oct 25, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 52
For Motherland's 50th episode, I catch up with Karen Brock, Tasmania's Agrifutures Rural Woman of the Year.She's known for her incredible work in the horticulture industry as a plant tissue culture specialist, but her personal story as a woman and as a mother has never been told like this. It's a deep and dark look into the domestic violence she endured in her first marriage while living on the land, plus her incredible motherhood journey, and how she turned everything around.This is her story. ...
Oct 18, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 51
This week I catch up with Libby Creek from South Australia. This Thursday is International Rural Women's Day, and Libby's story certainly has a global flavour. From Kangaroo Island to Kazakhstan- what she's seen and achieved in the beef industry is inspiring. She's juggled the demands of work with motherhood from across the globe and suffered enormous heartache along the way including losing her daughter to leukemia earlier this year. This is her story. SPONSOR: For many women, fertility and the...
Oct 11, 2020•50 min•Season 1Ep. 50
This week, I catch up with rural mum Phoebe Neuendorf from Queensland. For this Brisbane born beauty, her love affair with the land began when she swiped right on Tinder and met her match! Her and her husband have a beautiful one year old boy Angus who has achondroplasia; the most common form of dwarfism. October is Dwarfism Awareness Month and Phoebe is very passionate about educating more people about the condition, and how it's impacted her motherhood journey. This is her story. SPONSOR: Toda...
Oct 04, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 49
This week I catch up with rural mum Felicity Blore from Victoria, a survivor in so many ways. The mum of two had a terrifying near death experience after a car accident during the 2011 Queensland floods. When it comes to motherhood, both her girls made a very dramatic entrance into the world, and there's been hurdle after hurdle since. Felicity has also battled crippling postnatal depression, postnatal anxiety and OCD.She's an incredible woman. This is her story. https://www.instagram.com/mother...
Sep 27, 2020•52 min•Season 1Ep. 48
This week, I catch up with rural mum and dairy farmer Jo Morgan French from North West Tasmania. Jo spent 11 years in the army, with several overseas deployments including six months in Afghanistan when her first child was just nine months old. Her experience is a powerful one that smashes many female stereotypes. She's a woman who never wanted kids, or a big white wedding, and chose to leave her family and serve overseas. This is her story. SPONSOR: This week's episode is supported by rural Que...
Sep 20, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 47
This week, I catch up with rural mum Grace Dawn from the Northern Territory. Grace grew up just 45 minutes from Sydney, but now lives on a remote property 400km from Katherine. As a first time mum, she admits the isolation has been crippling at times, and she opens up very honestly about what it's been like navigating motherhood while battling anxiety.This is her story.SPONSOR: This week's episode is sponsored by A Mental Note. A Mental Note is a unique mental wellness service developed for rura...
Sep 13, 2020•49 min•Season 1Ep. 46
This week I catch up with rural mum Sallie Jones from Victoria Sallie is the co-founder of Australian premium milk brand, Gippsland Jersey... a business she's poured her heart into after losing her dad to suicide.Sallie is a huge advocate for rural mental health. She's also in the thick of the motherhood juggle, having had three kids in 3 and a half years years, and amongst it all, launching a startup to carry on her father's legacy. This is her story. Today's episode is sponsored by Benita Bens...
Sep 06, 2020•46 min•Season 1Ep. 45
This week, I catch up with rural mum Kerrie Robertson from South Australia. Kerrie is a mum of three girls, and a rural journalist with the ABC. Her motherhood journey has been full of twists and turns. After suffering three devastating miscarriages in a row, she welcomed her beautiful daughter Bonnie almost 18 months ago... her other two children are 12 and 10. So what's it like dealing with toddler tantrums and puberty at the same time?! You'll find out!Plus, Kerrie talks about the heart stopp...
Aug 30, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 44
This week, I catch up with rural mum Rosie Fowler from Tasmania.Rosie's motherhood journey was going very smoothly until a medical illness rocked their little family. So often we've spoken about mums with sick children. But what happens when you, the mum, the glue holding everything together is the one fighting for life? Last year, when her son was just 8 months old, Rosie was diagnosed with leukemiaLife on the land was quickly swapped for life in a hospital bed with her little boy by her side,....
Aug 23, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 43
This week's bonus episode is with mum of three Melissa Spilsted, the Founder of Hypnobirthing Australia. So if you're pregnant, planning to get pregnant, or are just interested in birth, this is for you.I've enrolled in their online course myself to prepare for baby number two, and I love it.Melissa is passionate about helping rural mums understand that despite geographical isolation or a lack of care provider options, you still have the power to change your mindset and have a positive experienc...
Aug 18, 2020•48 min•Season 1Ep. 42
This week, I catch up with rural mum from Victoria Kerry McKinnon. Kerry is well out of the motherhood trenches, with three older children who have all finished school. We chat all things life on the land with kids, including what the future holds for some of us such as schooling decisions, the sometimes tricky topic of succession planning, and what it means to be a woman in ag.I've had many requests for rural mums with older kids to come on the show and share their wisdom, so here's Kerry. Toda...
Aug 16, 2020•41 min•Season 1Ep. 41
