Country Style

welcome letter

Am I a country girl or a city slicker? It may sound trite, but I admit to having given this quite a bit of thought. I was born in Kyogle, NSW, and grew up in different towns around NSW as my father was a bank manager with what was then the Rural Bank, later the State Bank of New South Wales, and we moved every two years. But we never owned a farm, never grew sugarcane or reared Merino sheep like some of my school and university friends, so am I really ‘country’? During my first year at UNE in Armidale I was told by a friend whose family owned a cattle station that I was a “coastie”, which was probably accurate having spent most of my time up until that…

homewares out now

in this issue... OLIVIA BLACKMORE Meet the talented food stylist who has the enviable job of styling Steve Cumper’s delicious recipes for our Country Cook feature each issue (see page 98). Olivia grew up in Sydney’s Little Manly and completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts, majoring in sculpture, and an Advanced Diploma of Fashion Design. Styling was a natural progression, as it combines her feel for design with her appreciation of textures. “I love that my job brings unique challenges and allows me to be creative. Every. Single. Day,” she explains. “I’m getting paid for something I truly love to do.” When she’s not working, Olivia and her partner head to the NSW Southern Highlands to recharge. “I like the silence, the smell of burning wood and the slowness of it all. I…

your page

HOPE GROWS Today,I’m calling it: the drought is over. For us anyway. I am mindful that the awful dry remains for some, and we are all many months from any income, but I recently made my first ‘non-essential’ purchase in almost three years: a subscription to Country Style. About 18 months ago, during my lunch hour, feeling sad and fed up with the relentless dry, I happened across an old copy Country Style and found myself spellbound with Meaghan Willis’ garden (July 2018). After that find, any spare time not at work or feeding stock was spent daydreaming and planning on how to recreate something similar when the drought was finally over. Simply, it gave me hope when all around us were shades of brown and tan or the vast deep grey of…

getting up to steed

IN THE YEARS before her death in 1954, the Australian writer Miles Franklin — most famous for her sizzling debut novel My Brilliant Career — wrote a slender childhood memoir. By then in her 70s, she recalled, “The rhythm of horses came to me earlier than walking. In those moments … when the sense of actuality has been slightly loosened ... there recurs for ever, like the movement of a stream or the pattern of leaves flickering in a zephyr, the sensation of a well-bred horse being released, or about to be released, into action.” The manuscript published after she died was called Childhood at Brindabella. I was a history student the first time I read those words and they snatched me back to my own childhood, where the only place…

hallowed ground

AS YOU WALK closer to the rows of vines you see the thick gnarled stumps twisting up out of the earth. Planted in 1891 by Thomas Hardy, considered to be the father of South Australian wine, they are now under the care of his great-great-grandson Andrew Hardy, a fifth generation winemaker. Thomas not only planted these vines, some of the oldest in Australia; a gravity-fed winery with open slate fermenter was also built during his time at the 141-hectare property at Upper Tintara in McLaren Vale, SA, which in its heyday was home to 360 residents who helped tend to the grapes. This land has been in Andrew’s family for 149 years; it represents a connection to his ancestors and the past, becoming something of a driving force for Andrew who, after…

july

INSPIRED BY A REQUEST for a large print of Waldo the orphaned joey that graced the cover of Country Style’s Spirit of the Bush issue in February, I launched a personal project that has seen me travel across the country and raise funds for our precious wildlife carers. These dedicated individuals give so much to our native animals, and I want to support them. I called the project Prints for Wildlife, and the concept is simple — I visit wildlife sanctuaries when I have time in between shoots, take a portrait of one animal in care, and 100 per cent of profits from each sale of that fine art print will go directly back to that wildlife sanctuary. The funds are used to look after the animals in their care, to…