Hello, Steph.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hi, nice to be here.

It's lovely to have you.

I went to press record just a moment ago and I'm like, look, it's okay to have sounds of the surroundings of the field days, but you know, we've got a helicopter like literally behind us.

And I said, let's just wait for that.

And you just said this beautiful little story behind a helicopter and the field days.

Yeah.

So my husband actually proposed to me at the helicopters at field day.

So took me up in a helicopter and had spelt out, will you marry me in my parents vineyard.

So we flew over and I actually didn't believe it was for me.

I was like, oh my God, we've flown over the wrong paddock.

I'm just going to pretend I didn't see that.

So the pilot actually had to say, we've got a question, like, do we have an answer?

So it was quite a nice memory.

Oh, what a romantic.

There is a part of me that thinks, why don't men work together a little better in that way and collaborate and use the same sign and sort of get a few of them and get their money's worth.

Well, that's it.

I know if there was any others pilot could be like, ah, it's already set up.

We could just drive over, fly over this paddock.

So is that as business women, we just look at ways to collaborate.

That's it.

Yeah.

And I think that's probably, you know, a lot of the field days.

There's a lot of amazing women here who are doing just that.

And Jenny, who I'm here with today, who's another sheep breeder, we just met by chance and now she's president of Baby Doll Sheep Breeders Australia and I'm secretary.

So, yeah, we just end up collaborating.

Why don't we start with the actual field days?

Tell me a little bit about the town and what special connection you have with it.

Yeah, look, I love Morrumbateman.

It's my hometown, so grew up here on a winery.

So my parents have a winery called Helm Wines and I learned to make wine when I was nine, which is always a bit of a shock to people.

But, you know, you grow up on a farm, you learn how to muster sheep or no drive tractors.

I just learned to make wine.

It was just part of my upbringing.

And Marin Bateman, I went to school locally and, you know, still have friends here that have come back and we kind of all get drawn back to raise our families.

Like I lived in Canberra for about eight years but my husband and I really wanted to come back to the country and we ended up buying a little winery and vineyard about 10 minutes away from where I grew up.

So tell me a little bit about your winery.

What does it produce?

Why do you love the industry so much?

Again, this industry, particularly in the Canberra region.

Look, we're not as well known as some of the other wine regions, but we really punch above our weight.

So we have world class wineries here.

So, you know, my dad's wines are really well known, so he's very well known for Riesling.

We've also got Clonakilla Winery, which is known around the world for Shiraz as well.

And we're all family owned small wineries.

So you come here, you generally are meeting, you know, the winemaker or the person looking after the vines.

I've got my kids here today and they're usually running around the winery as well.

So it's still a really lovely, like we're making these premium wines, but still it's not commercial, it hasn't become big and removed from the process.

So it's a bit more of a sort of artisan type culture here.

And I mean, it must be amazing to have your dad there as a mentor, as someone that you can tap into for that advice.

It is, it is.

It's good we have our own domains though, because sometimes the advice is welcome and sometimes I'm like, ah.

I did actually go to university and study this as well.

Dad didn't actually study it, so he learned it from practice and he was an ex CSIRO scientist, so he came at it from a different angle.

But then I went away and did wine making at Charles Sturt.

So sometimes there's a bit of conflict with the new and the old, but generally we always get together and taste all our wines at the end and give each other advice.

And dad still asked me to go taste his wines as well.

So it's been really nice, I think in a way, I mean, sometimes you can work with family, but I think for us it's worked nicely.

Having our own domains but still having each other there for support.

Now, this region, as you said, it is a region for wineries.

So as I was coming in, there's a sign that says premium cool climate wines, but when we talk about climate and weather, it's not always great.

No.

Tell me about a time when it hasn't been so great.

Oh, look, unfortunately being, and I think everyone who's got a small business understands this as well.

But you can try to Be sort of as resilient as you like and spread the risk.

But when you're smaller, it is a lot harder.

So a lot of other wineries have kind of overcome challenges of climate by having one vineyards in different regions kind of not as possible for us.

We can't just be going and buying up a whole lot of vineyards.

We don't have that kind of capital.

And so we are kind of reliant on the climate here.

And as that I grew up here, so I've seen, you know, I guess, yeah, 36, 38 vintages, I guess so it's been something I'm used to, but it's definitely had a bit more of a toll on us in the last few years.

So we had smoke tape from the bush fires in 2020 where we lost the entire crop.

And that wasn't just this region, it was most of the east coast.

And then we've had hail storms where that used to be something that we didn't really worry about so much.

We're having a lot more severe storms, so we're getting hail.

We had a frost last year, so a late spring frost in November, which again not something.

Even though we're cool climate, we expect to have a really cold winter and then spring.

It wasn't.

This sort of late frost was not something that we expected.

And I heard that I think the Barossa has been hit by frost this year.

So again, it's not something that's unique to our region, but it's definitely like all farming.

It's something that's really challenging and unfortunately we've just been hit a lot in the last four years.

So we're hoping for a bit of an easier run.

So fingers crossed.

Now I was talking with another side holder and they have a winery, they're really fresh in the industry as well.

And you know, for them they went and made some paste.

So you know, just diverse that paste.

We, we go and buy that all the time.

My husband loves that.

The Shiraz paste.

Yep.

That's the one from Vineyard 1207.

I actually bought some too because it's delicious.

But for you, you've diversified as well.

Yes, but into the four legged kind.

That's it.

So one of the things, I guess we realized, you know, that one of the unique things in this region obviously is that it's an experience for people too.

So we were sort of thinking about, you know, ways that we can capitalize I guess on the fact that we want to be more sustainable.

So we want to reduce herbicide use but Then we were also like, know it helps if you've got a cute little attraction for people to see when they're coming to the vineyard too.

So when I started looking into how we could reduce the herbicide use, I was looking at machinery that was going to cost a lot and it wasn't really going to be very practical.

It'll also lead to, you know, more soil compaction because you're running through the vineyard more with heavy machinery.

So I started doing some research and it was during the pandemic, so it was my kind of pandemic project, and realised that a vineyard in New Zealand that I came across was using these baby doll sheep.

So I started researching and discovered that actually New Zealand had imported them from a breeder just over at Cootamundra.

So I got in touch with Jenny, who I mentioned I'm here with today, who's just about half an hour away from me.

So that was incredible to find her, found some other breeders and started building my own flock.

Because when I first said to Jenny, can I just buy 20, she laughed at me and said, they're not that readily available yet, so they are still a rarity in Australia.

So I basically had to breed my own.

So we.

We bred them up and as I said, they are super cute, which was a huge bonus.

And so now they've become a little bit of an attraction at the winery as well.

So we run farm tours, so we've got the sheep and we also, along the way, I've also, you know, acquired some goats and some deer and some cattle just to add to our menagerie.

And it's a nice sort of experience for people to come out and we talk through about how we use the sheep in the vineyard.

I have two sort of separate blocks, one that's been managed still traditionally with herbicides and the other with sheep, so people can kind of see the difference.

And so, yeah, it's been a really fun project and just added another element to our vineyard.

My gosh, it's so clever.

And especially when you just said that you've got the two different crops so that people can see, you know, how it is.

So it's almost an education piece as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that was part of it, because what I'm finding is I'm now selling these to other vineyards.

And so I've had a couple of rams, that one ram that went to Western Australia last year, but then one that went to Mornington Peninsula, you know, and a few vineyards down there.

So it's something that other Vineyards are starting to look at.

And basically, I mean, I can't sell them if I can't kind of hand on heart, say that they work as well.

So being able to show people how they work and it isn't just as simple as set and forget.

So it is sort of saying, look, you will need to have some infrastructure for handling.

You do need to think about the height of the vines.

So they are very short and won't reach up.

But sometimes some of our older vineyards were made for people that were, I guess, more my height.

I'm quite short.

So.

But also they're a little bit easier for the baby dolls to reach up.

So the modern day vineyards are a little bit higher.

So they're perfect for them.

So it's sort of talking to people about what their vineyard setup is and being able to kind of adapt the sheep and yeah, have those examples on our own vineyard about how they work.

So with this episode, I actually get to sit in your little tent back here, which is really nice, and watch everyone just flock around the front of the sheep.

You also got this beautiful view of so many people coming past.

I mean, this must be quite good for you to have a look at because you're very well involved in field days.

Yeah.

Yep.

So the Murrumbateman community, this field days is just amazing because it's all community run.

So I'm part of the Murray and Bateman Community association as well, and my father was involved in starting this up.

My brother and sister and my mom all volunteered here as well.

So seeing it still going after 45 years is pretty amazing.

And it really is a showpiece for people that, you know, most people have never heard of Murrumbateman.

And it's an opportunity for people to come and discover the region and realize that it's not just, you know, about visiting Murrumbateman when the field days are on, that we've said, there's the wineries, there's farm tours, there's a great group that is called the makers of Murrumbateman, which people can look up, which have all the kind of artisans that I was talking about.

We've got pottery people, we've got the meadery down the road.

They have bees and stuff you can go and look at.

You've got alpacas and you've also got some great local businesses.

We've got cafes and bakeries.

Clementine Bakery is amazing if you can pop over there.

So it's really not just about coming for the field days, but coming To Murray Bateman.

Yeah, it is actually quite incredible.

And I mean, even just the drive, and whether you're coming from, I suppose, Melbourne or Sydney side, the drive is just easy.

But it's beautiful, just the rolling hills.

Yeah, it is, and that's why I love it.

We've still got, you know, a lot of bush as well.

Like, we've got the mountains, we've got, you know, views out to the Brindabellas, but then we've got this lovely kind of country agricultural feel too.

So it's.

Yeah, it's a nice blend of both worlds.

And then we're half an hour from Canberra, so you can always pop into Canberra and entertain the kids and stuff at Questacon and such.

If they.

If the country's not enough for them.

It should be enough for them.

You seem really busy.

I mean, you've got your vineyard, you've got the sheep, you've got little kids as well.

Why do you volunteer?

Like, obviously it's something that you've seen your family do, but, you know, why is it important?

Because I don't think that's something that our next generations are doing.

Look, that's a really interesting one because it is definitely tricky to get new volunteers for the community association.

I think when I first joined, it was a lot of retirees because people there who have the time, and they kind of all gave me like a clap when I came in because I was so excited to have some young blood in which.

We've got some more now.

But it's tricky and I think it is because we're all so busy, you know, like, I've got the young kids and stuff, and, you know, you're trying to run the business and you just want to, you know, sit down when you're at home, you're not like, oh, I want to go to a meeting and volunteer, but you just get so much out of it.

Like, I've made so many.

Even though, you know, this is my hometown, I've made so many more friends and, you know, people that, you know, when I've been sick or the kids have been sick, they'll drop off food round for me.

These are all people that I've met just through volunteering.

So I really think it's something that we need to, you know, still try to keeping our busy lives.

Try to carve out a little piece of it.

For volunteering?

Yeah, absolutely.

Just to wrap us up.

What are your plans for the next 12 months?

Oh, next 12 months.

Well, the vines are just starting to.

To shoot so they go dormant over winter.

So we have a little bit of a break to do lambing, basically.

So maybe not a break.

So we've got.

The vines will start really kicking off.

So we've got harvest in February, March, so that's our busiest time of year.

That's when we'll pick all the grapes and then be making the wine.

And it'll be bottled in about June, and then we'll start joining the sheep in autumn and have lambs in sort of August.

So that's kind of our cycle of life at the moment.

But it's a pretty nice one.

It sounds beautiful.

I don't want to mention the word, but there is Christmas coming soon, so there's also that, isn't there?

Yeah, I forgot about that.

I better.

My daughter's looking at me as we're talking, so I better.

I better start thinking about Christmas.

Yeah, yeah.

Get those Santa lists in.

Start counting down.

Thank you so much for being a guest.

It was so good just to listen to, obviously, your connection to the region and obviously how you've been brought up with your dad and how that's just influenced what you're doing now.

But also giving back to community, like, it is so, so special.

And I know you know that, but I hope people tell you.

Thank you.

Like, well done.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, no, it's great.

And I think.

Yeah, I do think it is something we just need to.

To try to keep doing.

We're all, you know, very busy, but volunteering is what really, I think.

Yeah.

Makes you feel.

Feel a little bit, you know, soft and sweet and happy inside.

So.

Yeah, it's good karma.

Thanks, Steph.

No worries.

Thank.

Hello, Leonie.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm very good.

Now, I know this is all a bit of a surprise for you.

You were running back to your stall because you'd got a text message from your husband, Brett, telling you that you were needed.

And here you are thinking that it was going to be flat out, but it was to be a guest on the podcast.

So, yes, a Ran.

Ran.

Flat chat.

But, yes, here you are.

Here I am.

So tell me a little bit about your business Vineyard 1207.

Even just that number, 1207, where does that come from?

It's quite simple.

It's just our road number.

We're on 1207 Nanama Road, which is about 12K's east on the way to the coast.

Yeah, we're just a little boutique winery.

We've got about six acres of vineyard.

Yeah.

We just do it all ourselves and run the vineyard and pick the grapes and make the wine and stick it in a bottle.

You make it sound so easy.

I feel that there's more to it than just that.

So in terms of the foundation of that business, how has it come about?

Is that something that has been on your dream wish list forever?

No, no, not really.

But both Brett and I grew up on farms, both intensive farms.

He grew up on a flower farm and a dairy farm.

I grew up on a sheep, wheat and intensive piggery.

We always said we'd never buy a farm and, you know, something turns around, you go, oh, actually, yeah, we could do that.

So, yeah, we bought a vineyard because it'd be easy.

Won't be too much hard work.

And is it easy?

Is it too much hard work?

No, it's not easy and we were very naive.

Yeah, no, it is a lot of hard work.

It's a lot of time, it's a lot of components to getting wine into a bottle, but you just get in and do it.

How do you learn that, though?

There's got to be a way that, like, I just, I don't imagine that you pick the grapes off, you stamp them in some sort of bucke and then you pour it in.

Like there's gotta be some chemical things or some really fancy science that goes behind it.

How have you learnt that part?

There's gotta be a way.

Yeah.

You know, there's lots of people that will help.

Brett's doing his wine science degree, so he's doing the wine side of it.

There are tocal College up at Mudgee, they run lots of courses.

So I've done a pruning course and a weed management course and you know, you ask the region, other makers, other wineries in the region learn as you go.

I had an old lady who came, she did the original pruning on the property before we bought it back in 2018.

And she'd been pruning there for a couple of years and so she came and pruned the first year we owned it and we just pruned with her and learned lots of stuff along the way.

We still talk with her and if I had any questions I could ring and ask her.

But yeah, those first couple of years I did it by myself.

I'd send her photos and which one am I supposed to cut off?

And her catch cry was always, well, don't matter.

It doesn't matter.

If you cut it off, it'll grow another one next year, so it'll be Right.

You go, okay, all right.

That's almost a life lesson in there that just have a go.

It doesn't matter what happens.

It's almost like tech.

Just press whatever buttons.

You can't do anything bad.

Yeah, no, you're right.

And sometimes I, you know, sometimes I have a win and you go, oh, yeah, we got a good crop.

You must have pruned well.

And other times I go, I don't know what's wrong with that plant.

And then Brad will go and do a bit of investigation and find out what's wrong with it or what disease or what do you need, what chemical or, or vitamin he needs to give it, or whatever.

So in terms of the vineyard, is that your full time job?

No, no.

Unfortunately the farm doesn't make enough money yet to support either of us.

So we both work off farm.

I work in education.

I've been a preschool assistant teacher's aide for 30 plus years now.

It's a good gig because I'm home in the afternoons.

I've been home in the afternoons with all with my kids, so the kids have been at school with me.

And you get to school holidays off.

And it's quite uniquely timed in that the holidays are in April and our harvest is in April.

And sometimes they have to take some time off to do vintage and harvest, but usually you've got April to recover and clean up and tidy up and so forth.

And then July holidays hit and you prune all holidays.

And then October holidays hit and you do the field days or the moving feast and the big festivals that we have here.

And then summer's in when you're watering and thinning and all of those things.

So yeah, you just keep going.

Is there some transferable skills from teaching that you've been able to bring over to the business, like anything at all?

No, very, very different.

The vines don't talk back and you don't have any behavioral issues with vines that you do with four or five year olds.

Yeah, so no, very, very different.

It is actually quite nice to hang out in the vineyard where nobody's talking to you or there's no demands on you.

You just, you know, potter along at your own pace and prune stuff.

Probably the only thing would be when we're selling and you've, you know, you've got mum and dad and if you can keep the kid entertained, you continue to get the sale.

So, you know, the kids are grumpy so you give them the picture of the dog and you point out their nice hat or whatever and I have that ability, I guess brings to it.

But generally they're pretty very vastly different worlds.

Now in terms of the wine industry, it is quite a traditional industry.

I was talking to Brett about the wine club and the subscription based model that he has and he was quite excited about it and just how that is challenging the traditional stereotypes.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

The wine club, for us it's an income without having to stand at a market stall and sell it.

We don't have a cellar door yet.

Hopefully soon we'll have that.

But at the moment we, you know, we pack up a car, we drive to a market we set up, we spend four or five hours there talking to everybody and getting lots of knockbacks, but lots of sales as well.

But the wine club is a consistent sale.

You know that I'm going to send a shipment of wine out to that person every three months or six months and I've got that income almost guaranteed.

In our wine club, we've decided that just to ease our burden because we're so busy and there's so much stuff going on that if the wine is due all at the same time, then you've got too many boxes to pack at the one time.

So if we can send out five or six boxes a week, or 10 or 20 boxes a week, then that's consistent income as well as consistent work.

It's not quite as daunting as packing up 50 boxes every spring, whereas if you're sending out 20 boxes every month, then better for the cash flow and it's easier for us to manage.

We only have a small shed.

We have a catch cry in our house that need a bigger shed and it costs you a dollar.

Someday we're going to fund the new shed, but not yet.

Yeah, so we run on a pretty tight.

Everything needs to be in its place.

And yeah, if we can get wine out monthly, then that's easier than every six months.

Now I've got a long drive ahead of me, so just not able to have a taste.

However, Brett did sort of push in front of me these beautiful pastes and that is all you.

They are like jam on toast every day for me.

They were delicious.

Yes.

So we have a Shiraz paste and a Chardonnay paste.

So we bought the property in 2018.

2019 was our first vintage and we did a red and we were just so naive and we literally made the wine.

We had electric blankets around the barrels to keep them warm, to make them ferment because we didn't have power.

On the shed.

We didn't use our Chardonnay because we couldn't make white wine because we didn't have power.

Yeah, we made a Shiraz and a cab sav.

Literally, it was generators.

We'd get up in the morning and you'd fill the generator and run it for the day.

And then you'd come home from school and fill the generator and run it for the night just to keep the wine warm because you got to ferment it.

And then 2020 were the big bushfires down the coast.

So the smoke tank from the coast, which sounds ridiculous, but we could actually see it come rolling up our hill.

We didn't know whether we could make wine, but nobody else was making wine.

And since it was our second year, we went, well, if nobody else is making it, then we're not making it because they know what they're doing.

So we didn't make wine.

But I got a Beamer bonnet.

There was this.

All this fruit.

And whilst it was great that it was feeding all the birds that were coming up from the coast, I went, I gotta do something with this.

And somebody had given me some of Maggie Beer's pear and cabernet paste or something for Christmas in a Christmas hamper.

And I went, oh, I could do that.

And so I picked about 10 kilos at a time and I did about seven different batches and pressed it through sieves and various different things until I came up with something that I liked.

And then I made, you know, half a dozen batches and gave it away to friends and family and everybody loved it.

And so the next year I went, well, I better do this a bit better.

And now we leave our Shiraz fruit for our estate wine, but I buy in an extra half a tonne of Shiraz grapes to press, and we press it off like a.

Like we do a wine, like a white wine, and we crush it and press it first.

And so then I've got about 200 litres of juice.

I rent the commercial kitchen in the Murrumbateman hall.

And, yeah, I process about.

I try to do two days straight, so I get about 600 jars in two days in seven litre batches.

And, yeah, buy my jars from Sydney and bottle it up and put a label on it.

And now I sell, yeah, about 1,000 jars of each a year at the moment is what I'm sitting at.

Yeah, it is so delicious.

And the other part of it is that it's adding this extra stream of income for you, for those that you may not drink wine or just that add on, really, you know, buy the wine.

But here's a little add on.

And I didn't even look at the price and I probably wouldn't because it was so delicious.

And that's probably the whole idea of it.

But, you know, as all businesses, we're all looking for that add on and with wine, I suppose you're probably thinking, like, gosh, what could we do?

But here, you found it.

Yeah.

Farming is very much about diversity.

You've got to diversify your stuff and make sure that you're covering lots of different avenues.

At lots of markets we get lots of people who say, oh, no, I don't drink wine or I don't drink alcohol.

Another catch is that, well, try our paste.

And also lots of markets start early in the morning, 8 or 9 o'clock, and it's a bit early to try wine.

Many people have put off wine till at least 10, sometimes later.

And so the paste is a good sales point early on in a market.

We're in a couple of shops now, but not too many, but that doesn't worry me either.

But it's also, I sell quite a lot at this time of the year in bulk to hampers and things, so that's nice.

Like I did a sale of 25 of somebody's Christmas hampers in one of the businesses in Canberra.

That's just money for jam, literally.

It is.

That's a great little way to say it.

I love it.

Tell me a little bit about this community because this is where you've lived for a very long time.

Your kids have gone to school here.

What is so special about the community?

But what is also really special about the field days.

We moved to Cambrian 22 or three years ago and we moved out here 20 years ago just because we like country as opposed to the city.

We've always lived on property.

We lived in Central Victoria there for a while.

Yeah, Murrumbean.

I mean, it's grown huge in the last 20 years.

There's a lot more houses, but it's just got a really good community feel to it.

The kids went through preschool here.

We were highly involved in the Scouts and the Cubs and so forth here.

But the community that we've come across in the wine industry is different again and there are a few crossovers.

There are, you know, a couple of families that you go, oh, yeah, kids are at school together and stuff.

But mostly it's a different realm, but it's equally as community based.

So the makers of Murrumbateman is A community run group here in Murrumbateman by, I guess, small businesses and big businesses.

Mostly.

It started with the makers.

So mostly wineries and most of them are wineries here, but we've got the meadery and a potter and the alpaca farm and the chocolate shop that we're next door to, Murray and Bateman Chocolate Company.

We will work together to like, our biggest festival in town for us is the Moving Feast.

And you know, where all the wineries open up and they have food and wine and everybody travels around for two days and eats and drinks and everybody's merry.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Love it.

Yeah.

Except it's a really hard weekend for us, but it's also a really profitable weekend.

But it's that community group that we have that are there for you.

Whatever.

Like one year we ran out of glasses and I rang somebody.

Oh, yeah, we've got glasses.

Send somebody around.

But it's not just that, you know, we're helping to promote each other, but it's the, there's something wrong with my vineyard, there's something wrong with these plants, you know, and you ring so and so at one of the vineyards and they say, well, yeah, have you tried this?

Have you tried that?

Or, you know, bread will ring and say, you know, my rose or my shiraz has got this funny smell.

You know, what have I done?

Is there something wrong?

How do I fix it?

And generally they're easy answers.

But for somebody who's only been in the industry for five or six years, to those that have been here in the industry for 20 or 30 years or all their lives, they've got the answers, they've done the tests.

Why reinvent the wheel?

Just, you know, find somebody else who's had the same problem and see what they did, what they fixed it, how they fixed it.

So, yeah, you can pick up the phone and talk to any of the makers and they'll help you solve a question like lots of them had when we were doing the wine club, you know, oh, don't do this, don't this.

You know, they've all been there, they've done that, you know, get their answers, get their, get their ideas or their help, because it's there, it's an untapped resource.

What a beautiful little group that you can tap into and the camaraderie around that.

And obviously, rather than competing against each other, you're complementing each other, which is just beautiful in that.

Could you share with me some of the businesses that we need to Know, Know more about.

Oh, there's so many.

I should have brought them out so I could pin them out.

We work closely with the Murrumbatement Chocolate Company next door.

They are literally next door.

We share a fence line.

Murray Bateman Chocolate Company is run by Yasmin Ko and she has a couple of brands.

She has Sweet Pea and Poppy.

That's all over the country.

And she's an amazing woman who has wonderful ideas.

Yeah.

So we do lots of things, collaborative things together.

Angela out at Blackwater Yarn and the Alpaca Farm.

I've done wine tasting there with her for Mother's Day.

There's just a good collaboration between the groups.

I just can't think of all the businesses, but they're all there to help and do stuff together.

And as you said, there is a map, so you could grab that map, come out here and just do a little tour.

So, in terms of the next 12 months, what have you got planned for Vineyard 1207?

Hopefully, we've got our DA approved from the yes Council to build our cellar door.

So hopefully.

Brett rang the builder the other day to see, you know, when we could fit it into his schedule, and he's just had a baby, so he said, talk to me in February.

And we went, fair enough, fair enough.

So hopefully early in the new year we can get that built.

A continual question that we get asked at every market by lots of people is, can we come and visit you?

Where's your cellar door?

We have amazing property that is very steep, but we have amazing views.

Amazing views.

So once we get that cellar door up, I mean, we'll probably only open weekends, Friday, Saturday, Sundays, but that's probably our next biggest plan.

So we'll push that and continue with the markets to build the customer base so that we can, you know, bring them to the cellar door.

Maybe one day I can stop teaching counting down.

Look, school holidays aren't far off.

We're all in countdown mode.

Look, I couldn't think of anything better than coming to visit your vineyard, your cellar door, and to take in those views, because if they're anything like what you see when you're driving down the Hume highway towards Canberra, they're just sensational.

And there's a point of me where it's like, my gosh, when am I getting to a point where I have a chauffeur and I can just sit and enjoy the views instead of holding on for dear life as I drive my van down the Hume beside the big trucks?

But I would just like to Say thank you so much for being on the podcast.

I'm actually going to go back to your stall and grab some of those because they were absolutely delicious and maybe drop in before I head off for a quick taste.

But I suppose just one last thing before I let you go.

Tell me, what is your favourite wine in your range?

Being a hot day, it's the Pinot Gris.

It's got a beautiful citrus zesty zing to it.

It's clean, it's crisp, it's beautiful.

With a nice fresh salad or a calamari salad.

Sounds delicious.

Well, thank you, Leonie, for being a guest and enjoy the rest of the field days.

Thank you.

Hello, Jenny.

Welcome to the podcast.

Hello.

Thank you very much for talking to me.

It's my pleasure.

You've got the cutest site here with the little baby doll sheep.

They're just delicious.

They're so cute.

And you've got little lambs and tell me a little bit about that.

Just to start with, what is a baby doll sheep?

Well, a baby doll sheep is based on Southdown genetics, but we work with the smaller sized ones and we've brought back the woolly face that's been there in Nabri.

And also we're adding colour so they work beautifully in vineyards and orchards and as organic lawnmowers.

I was pretty naive before when you explained that they are great for vineyards.

But why, why would someone want some sheep on a vineyard or orchid?

Ah, well, if you want to get off your lawnmower, you can use sheep instead to do the mowing in your vineyard and also do your sucker pruning.

And that's one job you then humans don't have to do and they're on the job 24 7.

So tell me, how did you actually get into this?

Is this.

Is sheep something you've always done in your career?

No, I was a landscape architect and we were.

We live on 25 acres and I was looking for a way to manage our pasture because I was very interested in sustainability and sheep seemed to be something that we could do that I could manage numbers and there's a bit of food comes out of it, us and a lot of entertainment.

So we're looking for a small one that was easy to manage and I read about baby dolls and we bought a couple of crossbred baby dolls and then I got interested in how to breed really good baby dolls.

And in terms of it, are you the only breeder in Australia?

Oh, no, we have quite a large group through.

We've got a breed Society called Baby Doll Sheep Breeders Australia.

And we have about 60 registered breeders across Australia now.

And in terms of the popularity of them, how popular are they?

How many people want these?

Oh, a lot of people want them.

We can't breed enough to meet the demand that we have at the moment.

So we're gradually building up the size of our flock and we're getting there.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, they're such a great thing.

And as you mentioned, like you've got your site here, but then you're next door to the Baby Doll sheep stud.

And I just said to you, like, normally that would be seen as competition to have two together, but not so much.

We work really hard.

It's something I take great pride in is running a breed society where we actually cooperate.

And so Osbourn Ridge has worked quite closely with us for a long time.

We share things like veterinary products.

So because when you're running a small operation you have to buy big packs of stuff.

So we'll share them between us and we'll share ideas about what to do when things are getting hard.

So rather than competition really complementing each.

Other, I think so.

And we have slightly different niches and that's good that we can all be doing our things separately but together.

Now you did mention before that you're a landscape architect.

That would have been quite a male dominated industry back in the day, wouldn't it?

It was going out as a landscape architect onto work sites, construction sites and sometimes people don't like taking instructions from women, but I found as they got to know me, they would become a lot more respectful and then start to listen and we could actually.

I think I probably work in a different way in the way I say things and it would take a little while, but generally after a while they'd be fantastic.

Do you have any tips for those that are working in those types of roles where they're dealing with men all the time?

Like, is there a way that you found speaking to them and giving instruction that really helped?

Now that's a good question.

I mean, I was told that I have a much softer approach, but I'm very obstinate and definite.

But I think probably my success came from listening and evaluating and not just having a fixed position and having no room to move.

It's very easy as a landscape architect to use that authority to just say, this must be when the people doing construction can know that you, you're actually saying something really dumb.

So being able to actually have those discussions and reach a successful conclusion for everybody.

I think then they're happy that that's happening.

And then you get much better working relationship.

You know, you've been in your career as a landscape architect and then here with the Baby Doll sheep, you're obviously very passionate about it, so much so that you're the president of the Baby Doll Sheep Breeders Australia.

It's, tell me, what's that journey been like for you?

Did you go straight to that president position or work your way up?

Well, we had a group of breeders and we decided that we wanted to start a breed society and develop a new breed in Australia.

There's all sorts of complicated sheep politics that we don't want to know about, but basically we wanted to just do it as well as we possibly could and do it in a friendly, inclusive way.

And I'd done rural leadership training through local land services, where they actually taught me that I actually was and could be a leader.

And that gave me the confidence to actually lead that group.

And we registered an association.

We have people on the committee from all over Australia and thanks to Covid, we all learnt how to do ZOOM meetings and so we can actually run a national association from all our living rooms and it's just grown and people just like what we do.

And so more and more people are joining.

When we talk about boards.

For you being a president, what attributes are you looking at for people that sit around that table?

Well, I look for diversity.

I think if you have everybody on your committee with the same views and only one idea, you won't get much creativity.

And so I deliberately look for people from a range of different backgrounds and also a range of different locations across Australia because that trying to build something national from local, you've got to get that buy in.

And then also people that will work together respectfully and cooperatively rather than in competition.

If you've got something where everyone sees it as a competition, you don't make good decisions.

I really love that answer.

I think the more that I'm progressing through my career and sitting on as a state chair for the Agrifutures Rural Women's Award for Vic, like, it's just been such a learning experience and I'm very young and green, whereas some of the ladies have been on other boards and have done leadership courses and I suppose I'm so interested in what people are looking for and how you get into it.

And when you're at the table, is it okay to have a voice and voice your opinion and.

Yeah, is there a better way to do those things?

Do you learn how to do that.

I think time and having groups that work together well that show you how it can work, or that you just build experience and you get more confident.

You've just got to do it and give it a go.

And I think the other thing to know is if you find yourself in a really toxic environment, you're probably not going to do anything useful there because that sort of thing stops you and just get out and go do it better.

And it's not so much a reflection of you then in those situations, but just maybe that environment.

Sometimes there's people that are there for all sorts of reasons that don't work.

And I think life's too short to waste your time in those situations.

Tell me what the next 12 months looks like for Rugali Farm.

Well, we've been lucky enough to get some adjustments, so we're actually building up our flock size so that we're hoping we can breed more baby dolls so that we can start to sell flocks to vineyards.

Up to now it's been, you know, selling sheep, you know, two or three at a time.

But we know we have lots of customers that want to be able to buy more and so we're trying to build up to actually serve that market.

And in terms of the Murrah Bateman Field Days being here, what does that mean for your business and what do you hope to get out of it?

Murray Bateman Field Day is totally important for us for establishing that we are here locally.

Babydoll sheep are well known through social media, particularly from the United States, and which is where the idea of baby doll sheep started from.

But so we're actually saying, look, we're here, we're in your backyard and we like to sell locally and we keep in touch with all our local customers, so they just become part of the baby doll family.

I suppose that sounds awfully cliche, but it is.

I mean, you've got a flock of people coming here, obviously looking at them, talking about them.

You've got some baby doll with some colour in it.

I mean, for those that have been in farming a very long time, the colour is probably what we didn't want in our flocks.

But you were telling me before, they're probably the most expensive ones to have.

Yep, the coloured baby dolls are totally sought after.

And that's thinking of the next year.

What we've started this year is some different types of coloured baby dolls.

So this year I have lots of white lambs on the ground carrying new color patterns and they're all white.

But next year I'll start to actually get some of these colored lambs that are all a bit like a Siamese cat.

My sister calls them the Burmese baby doll.

And they have sort of shades of grey and white and black on them and teardrops and moustaches and all sorts of fancy markings.

So that's all part of dreaming and exploring.

That's fun.

Now you are on the socials, so people can obviously have a look at them and, you know, if this is what they need for a vineyard or even just as a pet.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, find you on a website.

Yes, certainly.

We're on Rugali Farm, both on Insta and on Facebook.

So we.

There's lots of sheep photos, especially lambing, going on there all the time, just letting people know what our sheep look like.

Tell me, what is the inspiration behind that name?

Rugaly Farm?

Where has that come from?

Oh, well, that was my kids when they were younger in the backseat going home, and we were saying we need a name for our new property.

And because it was just a patch of 25 acres and there were lots and lots of kangaroos there, and it was sort of fairly undulating and the name just got made up.

I love it.

But at least there's that little story.

There's a beautiful family connection behind it.

And yeah, what an incredible business you're building.

Thanks very much.