Balance is key to station life
THIS week in the Rural Weekly we learn what life is like on Attica Station with the Petfield family.
As they balance a grazing business, a fencing business and the ongoing drought, family is still the most important part of the operation at Attica Station.
Attica Station, near Augathella, in western Queensland, is run by the Petfields – Ric and wife Larissa, their three daughters Erika, 6, Clare, 4 and a half, and Annie, 3, along with Ric’s parents, David and Gay.
Larissa met Ric at a wedding and, six months later, moved out to Attica Station in 2007.
She had been around horses all her life and her parents owned a small property near Kingaroy.
Now her three daughters share the same love of horses and the land.
“Our eldest has just started mustering with us, she can ride independently now,” Larissa said.
“And Clare won’t back down from her horse and joins in also.”
“Annie would love to join in but she’s just a bit little.”
When she was 21 weeks pregnant, Larissa and Ric learned Annie had congenital heart disease (heart defects) and chromosome issues.
“She has Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome, Pulmonary Stenosis and an ASD they closed 12 months ago,” Larissa said.
“We were told that one side of the heart would probably never work.”
Larissa said Annie had her first open-heart surgery 12 months ago, five days before Christmas.
For this and more, get the Rural Weekly in tomorrow’s The Chronicle.