This month, Motherland celebrates the positive impact our charity partner, the Isolated Children’s Parents Association, continues to make for families just like yours everyday. Their wonderful volunteers together have created branches throughout rural Australia - and their ‘relentless and always on’ advocacy continues to build and grow better educational outcomes for our kids. To bring this incredible work to life, today’s episode features one of their own, Steph Cowper. Steph wears many hats bu...
Nov 17, 2024•38 min
Nicole Sandland was about to move to Germany to further pursue her professional dancing career when she fell in love with a bloke from the land. She went away for three months but came home, and what happened next was a whirlwind romance. Nicole and Luke packed up their life in Adelaide and moved to Jamestown in regional South Australia, near Luke’s family farm. The pair opened the town’s first gym, and then moved onto a property out of town, and then COVID hit. But unlike a lot of people, Nic r...
Nov 10, 2024•59 min
Felicity Burton, a keen horsewoman from the age of five, is an exceptional camp drafter, and always knew she wanted a career on the land. And life on the land with kids has certainly had its ups and downs. Felicity was in the early stages of her second pregnancy, with twins, when she took her 20-month-old son Kory on a quad bike ride. They’d fed the horses. Put the dogs away. And we’re just moving a few sheep into the next paddock when they had an accident. With broken ribs and a shattered colla...
Nov 03, 2024•51 min
What’s it like seeing someone else grow your baby? That’s a question I couldn’t help asking today’s incredible guest Jade Cooper. As you're about to hear, Jade hasn’t had the easiest of lives, but that hasn’t stopped her from going after the things that matter. Jade was just 18 months old when a lump was discovered on her kidney. The next three years involved countless trips to Brisbane for chemotherapy, radiation and checkups. Jade went into remission at just three years old, and her childhood ...
Oct 27, 2024•55 min
Nicole Seekamp always knew she wanted to be a basketball player. But a goat farmer? Well, that wasn’t part of her plan. When she was 14, she left her hometown of Renmark in South Australia and moved across the country to Canberra and the Australian Institute of Sport. Over the next 20 years, she played for not only our national team, the Opals, at the Commonwealth Games, but all over the world. By 2019 she was on track for her first Olympics. But as the 2020 season drew to a close, Nicole knew s...
Oct 20, 2024•51 min
I was speaking at the Rural Women Unite event in Charters Towers last month when I met Lisa Hodgkinson, a mum of 4 from Clermont in central Queensland. Lisa met her husband Glen when she was 18. By 19, the couple were married. And 2 weeks after they tied the knot, just as Lisa turned 20, she found out that she was infertile. It took 3 years, two pregnancy losses, and two more cycles, before their eldest daughter Mia was born. They continued to try for more kids, all via IVF. With their fourth ba...
Oct 13, 2024•55 min
Melissa McGilvray knows a thing or two about her world turning upside down. Because on two very ordinary days, nearly 20 years apart, that’s exactly what happened to her. Mel’s husband Garth went to chop some firewood, when the unthinkable happened. The tree he was cutting fell on him, and he died. As traumatic as it was, Mel knew she had to go on, for her, and for their little boy Oli. And then, a few years later, the universe weaved its magic, and Mel fell in love with Oli’s godfather, and one...
Oct 06, 2024•1 hr 2 min
When people go on a reality TV show to find the love of their life, it doesn’t always end in a baby announcement and a full-blown commitment to each other. But when Clare Hockings decided to try to find her life partner on Farmer Wants A Wife in 2023, well, things kind of ended that way. Clare was raised in Scone NSW, Australia’s horse capital. And later in the country music capital of Tamworth. She worked in childcare and the local stockyards and spent her weekends with her horses. So she knew ...
Sep 08, 2024•49 min
I met Deb Frecklington at Beef Week in Rockhampton this year at a cocktail party, and before she knew it, I’d roped her into sharing her story for the first time like this. Deb is a proud Queenslander who grew up on a cattle property. She’s worn many hats throughout her career including producer, and, politician. Amongst it all, she’s a mum to three girls. Deb has served as the Leader of the Opposition, and the Shadow Minister for Agriculture just to name a few roles. She’s currently the State M...
Sep 01, 2024•48 min
Meredith Boddington, or Merry, as she likes to be called, went through her 20s and 30s looking for Mr Right. Raised on a sheep farm near Naracoorte in South Australia, Merry trained as a teacher. Her work took her across South Australia and into Victoria. But still no Mr Right. And then she met Wayne. A farmer who was also from Naracoorte. It turned out the person she had been looking for for all those years was a bloke from her country town! Merry and Wayne hit it off instantly, and after they ...
Aug 25, 2024•36 min
Belle Baker grew up on a property in the South-East of South Australia. She loved working with the cattle and sheep and dreamed of a career on the land. But when the time came for her to decide what she was going to do with her life, her dad told her to go and get a real job, because the farm wasn’t going to be an option for her. After years of travel overseas, and studying in Sydney, Belle returned to South Australia. In her mid 30s, she became a mum and a single parent to her son at the same t...
Aug 18, 2024•45 min
Stephanie March was 17 she met her husband Cameron and they got married a few years later. Life was good. They went on what Steph describes as a ‘killer honeymoon’ and fell pregnant very easily. Not long after, their daughter Lexi was born, and then their son Bill. And that’s where everything changed for their family. Bill was born with his heart on the other side of his body. He was diagnosed with an incurable, rare and lifelong condition that affects the respiratory system as well as organ pla...
Aug 11, 2024•47 min
Milly Taylor grew up near Paris. And she never intended to live on a farm, let alone a farm in Australia. But while on a University exchange to Melbourne where she was studying aero-space engineering, Milly met Michael Taylor. Michael was also studying engineering, but he had always planned on returning to his historic family’s farm, Taylors Run, located in Kentucky, New South Wales. They were living in Melbourne when they welcomed their first child, and still there when they fell pregnant with ...
Aug 04, 2024•56 min
Sandra Knowles is the wife of Tasmania’s Premier, Jeremy Rockliff. But that fact is the least interesting thing about Sandra. Her career has spanned law, postings overseas working in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, helping run the family farm and now, as the Director of Tasmania’s Farm Innovation Hub. On top of all of that, Sandra raised 3 daughters on the land, born within 4 years of each other, while her husband was away... a lot. It’s been quite the adventure, and not always easy...
Jul 28, 2024•49 min
Kim Peake is a mum of three who grew up in rural New South Wales, so when she fell in love with a stud cattle man, Nick, her world didn’t shift that much. Kim and Nick were married during one of the worst droughts the district had seen in 50 years and they welcomed their first daughter, Ruby, not long after. A few years later, Holly was born, and then Kim found out that she was pregnant with their third, a boy, Barney. Each child was born with the same rare disease that required major surgery in...
Jul 21, 2024•45 min
Kate Rose has lived a truly extraordinary life. She's been a pastry chef in London, owning her own business and working for some of the biggest hotels in the city. She’s also been a soldier in the Iraq war. She was deployed when her two sons were just 9 and 4. And when she came home, she had two little boys who were terrified she’d leave them again. Kate also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and heartbreakingly, her marriage ended. After moving home to Australia, and 10 years in the ...
Jul 14, 2024•41 min
When Kaia Wright fell in love with the croc-wrestling, helicopter-flying, outback wrangler Matt Wright at 24, she had no idea what the next stage of her life would entail. While all her friends were spending their weekends at cafes or the beach, Kaia and her top-end husband Matt were chasing pigs, wrangling crocs or spending time in remote bush camps. By all accounts, Matt and Kaia appeared to have it all. A successful business, a top Netflix show, and two beautiful kids, Dusty and Banjo. But in...
Jul 07, 2024•56 min
Today's episode is special for two reasons, firstly, it's our last episode of our Autumn season, proudly sponsored by Nutrien Ag Solutions. Secondly, you're about to hear Emily Mealey's story, and she's a Senior Account Manager in Insurance at Nutrien, and a mum of two. She's based in Dubbo, and met her husband at the tender age of 18 after having a minor car prang! Financially as a young family, things were tough, really tough, but Emily and her husband made it work. A few years later Emily fou...
Jun 09, 2024•40 min
Chris Bath has been a much loved and respected journalist since the late 80's and many of us, including myself, grew up watching her on our TV screens. She's interviewed Presidents, Prime Ministers and popstars, and pushed herself way outside her comfort zone when she carved up the dance floor on Dancing with the Stars! Chris met her husband Jim Wilson at work. The news anchor fell in love with the sports anchor, it's like something out of a movie, and very funny! In 2015, Chris resigned from Ch...
Jun 02, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Tara Parchert lives in the Lockyer Valley in Queensland, and runs a vegetable operation with her husband. She's busy raising two little girls, but has given birth to four. Tara fell pregnant with identical twin girls. After some pregnancy complications, she delivered them at just 26 weeks. Everything seemed to be going okay until 5 weeks later, when one twin got an infection... she didn't make it. Tara and her husband Had to grieve one child, while support the other one who was still fighting in...
May 26, 2024•48 min
Rebecca Gilchrist is a clinical psychologist who has a passion for supporting rural women; and she's pretty well placed to do that give she's also a rural mum and a farmer based on a 6th generation sheep and cattle station. Bec had her first baby on a plane; yep, on a plane, mid air when she was just 33 weeks pregnant. It was a very traumatic experience for her, although at the time, no one else knew that. In our chat, you'll hear about how her professional training has helped her, particularly ...
May 19, 2024•54 min
Ella Palmer is a nurse, and a mum of three who lives on a cropping and sheep farm in South Australia. Her motherhood journey has been heavily impacted by what happened to her when she was just 10 years old. After weeks of ongoing sickness and a misdiagnosis, Ella was in the fight of her life after her dad checked on her in the middle of the night to find her nearly unconscious. Unbeknownst to everyone, her appendix had ruptured three days earlier. Little Ella was in the fight of her life, with a...
May 12, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Raechel Whitchurch writes songs about things that matter. Her childhood was spent performing in her family band and instilled a connection to rural Australia. She spent most of her early years living in a caravan while travelling and performing, before establishing herself as one of Australia's most promising new country artists. Her debut album ‘Finally Clear’ debuted at #1 on ARIA Australian Country Charts, and her highly anticipated sophomore album, ‘what a time to be alive’ will be released ...
May 05, 2024•55 min
*A quick heads up, this episode contains some coarse language, and also discusses mental health and suicidal thoughts. If you or anyone you know needs help, contact Lifeline immediately on 13 11 14. Sophie Love runs a small farm near Port Macquarie in New South Wales. She bought it herself aged 40, while single, and childless. She never thought she wanted kids, until, well, she did... after meeting a man she went on to marry. Soph has always dreamed of running her own property, and against all t...
Apr 28, 2024•55 min
Kate Mitchell fell pregnant with her first child just six months after meeting her husband in a rather unique way, while playing lawn bowls! They now have three children, and their third, their little boy Darcy, changed everything. As far as they could tell, he was a happy and healthy toddler, when at 16 months old he suddenly had a seizure on their sheep farm on the south coast of WA and nearly died. Kate had to give her own baby CPR as she desperately phone for help, with the phone signal drop...
Apr 21, 2024•53 min
Some of us know Kaitie Nash from Instagram, she proudly calls herself 'the first time farmer', and is part of a growing number of farmfluencer mums online, sharing real, relatable and often hilarious content about life on the land. But farm life hasn't always been a laughing matter for Kaitie. She moved to her husband's family property in the middle of a drought, while still adjusting to motherhood with two very young kids. Her mental health plummeted and in our chat she opens up about her very ...
Apr 14, 2024•48 min
In 2016, Lisa Booth designed and built an eco-friendly home on a tight budget, on a small block of land. A couple of years ago, after her social media exploded, she quit her job to help other families build the same dream through her business - Booken Blend. Lisa's life looks picture perfect on Instagram, but she is an incredibly down to earth and authentic woman with rural roots that have both broken her as well as pushed her to rebuild after rock bottom. Lisa was born on a dairy farm, grew up ...
Apr 07, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Laura Robson is a mum of two and is originally from the UK, but found herself marrying a farmer and moving to a remote cattle station near Boulia, Queensland. Laura’s journey on the land has been full of twists and turns, and the RFDS (Queensland Section) have been a constant support to her and her family in times of need. Given how isolated they are, they've relied on access to an RFDS medical chest, and Laura was extremely lucky to survive a traumatic car accident in the bush, and was flown to...
Mar 17, 2024•46 min
Kate McKittrick is based in Mudgee, NSW, and has three adult children (including twins). As her kids were growing up, her focus was on supporting them through boarding school, until one day it was Kate who needed all the support. After taking some very common over the counter medicine to help with the cold she thought she had, she had a severe allergic reaction. The outcome was catastrophic. A rare immune response caused her skin to blister and peel, and she spent 3 weeks in the burns ward, but ...
Mar 10, 2024•52 min
Jo Mahony who has worked for the RFDS over 20 years as a Nurse Manager at their Charleville Base, one of 23 national Flying Doctor bases around the country. Jo is also a rural mum, and her story provides a special insight into the work that RFDS nurses, doctors and clinicians do that directly impacts so many of rural families. Countless rural women and their families utilise their vital aeromedical and primary healthcare services as they navigate life on the land. Today, Jo gets to do something ...
Mar 03, 2024•44 min
