Mm.

And so she literally turned around, drove back up, um, turned down towards the town.

She's like, "That's uh, I'll just find somewhere to put the rubbish down in the town." She went down the road about 100 meters down the road, and then all she could see is like in the, the headlights, so this is like evening time.

She said she could just see this giant creature on the side of the road.

And she's like looking at this thing going, "Is that real? What is it?" You know, she's Aboriginal.

Again, we don't have, you know, giant dogs, you know, any of this kinda stuff.

Our kangaroos don't look like that.

Mm

Mm-hmm

... small.

[laughs] You know? We never do anything small.

Both her and I are just like, "Okay, here's this little thing here.

How can we make this platform for women?" And then this giant spreadsheet later [laughs] of like, "Okay, we can do this, this, this, this, and this." So it, it's really funny, 'cause now things are slowly getting ticked off on those spreadsheets.

[laughs] You know, everything from, you know, we want a library, a production company, a this or that.

You know? It's, it's all kind of coming into fruition.

[laughs]

What impact has it had on the school, all of the growing that's gone on here, for the children and the staff, and also for the parents?

Well, it's, it's amazing.

I've been coming in, doing regular, like, regular assemblies, and the staff have all been working on content.

They've been coming out drawing.

It's brought everyone, I think, a deeper sense of peace, um, and a deeper connection to nature and, and, and the whole growing process, which is such a beautiful thing.

I've had lots of parents messaging me saying, "Oh, my child came home telling me facts about mushrooms," or facts about the, the different plants.

And as part of the whole Growing Nature, I've been running, thanks to VINE and VON, the Vegan Organic Network, um, they funded a club at the school so the children can come for completely free, whatever children want to come, where we grow.

Mm

Hmm.

...

so we are frequent visitors back.

Um, but at the time, it was eight years ago, and my children were five and eight, and we lived very centrally, just two streets behind the high road, um, which was brilliantly located for me having a bus

Yes.

...

but it's part and parcel of proper country living.Um, so my husband had to work from home.

He had to ferry the kids to school.