Monday 1 July 2013

Fresh Eyes

My sister came out to our block for a visit yesterday.

She's become really keen on photography and has some real talent.  Photography was, in fact, one of the reasons she finally made it out for a visit.  My parents were here about a month ago and were consistently in awe of all the fantails and swallows that clowned around near the house.  They raved to her about them and having a thing for photographing birds she got motivated to make it out here.

Unfortunately, most of the birds have gone for the winter.  There is still the odd fantail floating around, but not in the numbers that there were a month or so ago.

We still went for a long walk around the farm.  She got photos of a number of birds, but went into raptures over the creek.  We spent so much time finding the right spot, making sure it was safe to get to - there has been a lot of erosion after the heavy rain and flooding last week - and catching the sunlight sparkling on the running water or the layers of clay and stones up the cliff face.

My sister kept apologising for being a pain in the butt.  I kept telling her she wasn't.  It's nice to have someone who sees what I see.  Hubby would look at most of these photos and see the gorse - he would see work to be done, the amount of paddock that has been lost under the gorse and to the creek and miss the beauty of it.  The first thing I see is how much more land we've lost to erosion - it is a constant worry for me and something I'm working on - but I see the beauty too.  The wild rugged nature of untamed paddocks that were 'let go' sometime in the last 10 - 15 years.

Photo Credit to my talented sister - Tee Marie Photography (c)2013 All Rights Reserved.

Yes our block is a lot of work - we wouldn't have been able to afford one that wasn't a lot of work - and while I know there is a lot we have to do and I'm keen to get stuck into it (apparently you can only do one thing at a time) I also love it just the way it is.  Having my sister's fresh eyes has really made me appreciate that too.