Cattle Yards

Kim works in town during the week and on the family farm on weekends. Her family are trying to keep some of their cattle alive during the drought. Resilience is a complicated business. It is the quality of bouncing back, surviving or thriving, and is revealed in hard times. Kim is the embodiment of resilience. She brings love, hope, commitment and loyalty to the work of emotionally sustaining her family through a drought that is slowly killing their stock. She doesn't avoid emotional pain, standing side by side with her son as he has to put down the animals. She nurtures a small patch of lawn so her husband and son have something green to see when they return home from paddocks that are nothing but dust and dirt. She finds ways to sustain herself as well, one of which is choosing to tell her story as part of the Creating Space Project. Kim understands the power of witnessing. Just as she stands witness to her son in the fields, supporting him in his work, she talks here to allow us to bear witness to what she is carrying. "I like to think someone's heard what I've said and actually acknowledged what I've said."