I’m feeling all ‘Elizabeth Regina’ this morning as I prepare to travel north to officially cut the ribbon to open Afest 2009. I’ve done my speech, found some clean clobber to wear and am about to jump in my V8 red throbber.

Agfest, a premier agricultural field day, starts today and runs until Saturday and is the best farming shindig.

What’s inspiring about it is, its run by Tasmania’s brilliant Rural Youth organisation. If you are not a member… join up.

After I’ve opened the event, and while my family and friends enjoy Agfest, I’ll be in the hotel room, scratching my way through the final edit of The Cattleman’s Daughter.

I’ll be back to feeling all ‘Cinderella-ish’ while everyone else is having a ball! I hope the mini-bar is stocked!

I’m in mid-edit of my next novel and it’s all-consuming. However, unlike some lucky authors who can shut themselves away, the rest of my country life doesn’t stop!

Last night after slaving over the manuscript, I had to slave over the slow cookers for a Levendale Hall Fundraiser.

Today nearly 50 members of Probus will be noshing on our local tucker. I had no time to go to the supermarket so I rummaged in the freezer to find some of our home-grown steak, grabbed a pumpkin in the vegie garden and swedes down the paddock.

Then I cracked open a bottle of wine to throw in with it all and drank the rest. Voila! Yummy tucker that unfortunately looks a bit like a dog threw up!

At least I’ve grown plenty of parsley to chuck on the top of it to make it look slightly prettier.

This week I helped our Woodsdale/Levendale Museum give a group of city children a taste of our country life.

We dress the little ones up in old style school clothes and treat them to old games, damper and ink wells!

My job was to teach them about the wool industry, past and present. My sheep dogs were a hit and it was great to teach the next generation about the beauty of wool!

We are all happy chickens today at Levendale! Premier Bartlett has announced he won’t be closing out school this year!

I’m ecstatic as I know a country upbringing is a gift to children. Who needs Playstations and portable DVD players when you can have a chook to be your mate.

If you would like to move your family to an area that is strong in old style country values and community support, contact Su at Falls Real Estate on (03) 62347 038.

We only have 15 children in our school and we need to grow that number to 25 so come on down and give your kids a country start in life!

Our Levendale Farmers Market was a huge success last Sunday.

I was not much use on the day as a kick to the leg by a horse has rendered me very lame, but you can see more pics of the market by clicking here.

It seems our direct sales of lamb to customers was very popular and we are still catching up with orders!