There’s always an image in an issue that lingers with me. This time it’s the picture of Lilla Oehm feeding her chickens on page 49 by photographer Abbie Melle. I think it’s because it brought back

memories of the hours I used to spend when I was her age making sure the eggs still hatched when one of my hens grew tired of sitting on them. A night under a reading lamp on my desk usually was enough and then I’d rush to the chook shed to gently put the chicks back under their mother. After having a childhood like that myself, I can understand why Lilla’s father Scott wanted a country upbringing for the nine-year-old and her brother Jack, 12, and made the move to Mayfield, a 2000-hectare property in the foothills of NSW’S Warrumbungle Range that has been in the Oehm family since 1911. Another wonderful family home featured this month is the magnificent bluestone designed by prominent architect Charles Webb and built in 1861 at Mount Mitchell on page 52. With a four-hectare garden and a ballroom among the 14 rooms of the main house, the once derelict building is now home to Kate Tol and her family. “We live in all the rooms; it’s not a museum, and we don’t want it to be precious,” she says. Our Melbourne editor Virginia Imhoff’s story about brumbies, on page 18, is one very close to her heart for she has four of them in her paddock at home. A little dark mare called Matilda and Banjo, a grey weanling foal, have recently arrived after narrowly escaping ending up as dog meat — sadly a fate many of our brumbies face. “It was touch-and-go for Banjo during his first week here, as he was so traumatised and sick from his capture and separation from his mother. He is strong and healthy now and to see the trust he has in me when I ask something new of him, is the most amazing and rewarding feeling,” she says. Life in the country has its challenges at times, but in the end it’s those challenges that make it even more rewarding. I hope you enjoy the issue,