Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

BART wishes all a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

BY AYESHA JOY CLIFFORD ©

I'M looking forward to a colourful and creative 2014.

2013 marked the sixth year in NSW for two dust-loving Queenslanders who moved to the green and wet of the rainforest from our dusty home in Central Queensland.

This year has heralded the end of FIFO farming for the Cliffords and been our year of the sheep. Welcome Bart!

After almost four years of my gorgeous husband calling in from mine sites in places as diverse as Woomera in South Australia and Telfer in the remote north-west of WA, I have had a husband home on farm. Praise the end of the super-commute from the Northern Rivers to the Pilbara...every 10 days.

Super commuter ... the super FIFO husband hangs up his miner's hat but not before a Telfer New Year partying with the dingoes in WA's spectacular Pilbara.

I won't even begin to explain the innovative things I have done with fencing, cows and pipe repairs in the absence of one amazing multi-skilled FIFO farmer.

Necessity is the mother of invention and my innovations have raised a few eyebrows as they have been uncovered and upgraded in the past six months.

Perhaps it has been the past few years of FIFO farmer's wife anonymously tinkering away on our farm or the power of a woman in her forties - whatever, after a bit of time off-the-record, 2013 has been the year to get back to my creative heart.

WISHING all a 2014 as colourful and creative as Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers.

2014 will mark 25 years since I was first launched on an unsuspecting public as a cadet journalist in Rockhampton.

I never suspected I would still be writing and creating and enjoying it 25 years later. I never suspected I would be a FIFO farmer's wife chatting to cows and a sheep daily either...

Our green haven is a world away from the deadlines and pressures of mainstream media and I doubt many of my former colleagues would understand my passion for our farm, animals and the quiet life - which is actually anything but quiet and produces urgent life-and-death deadlines of its own at times. 

Thankfully the Internet has given me an opportunity to keep writing and enjoying the best of both worlds. Something I am very much looking forward to sharing and expanding in 2014. 

So here's to the wonderful achievements on our little farm in a big country in 2013 and looking forward to a colourful, creative and productive year in 2014.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.