A NEW CANVAS
LOOSE GRAVEL CRUNCHES under our tyres as we make our way up the driveway lined with pepper trees — once verdant, now a shadow of their former selves, the trees are victims of the ongoing drought. At the end of the drive, the Little Kickerbell homestead stands like an oasis, complete with towering palms, on the flat farming country of the Liverpool Plains in NSW.
Excited barking, quickly followed by the sharp snap of a door slamming, and Cathy Armstrong and her spoodle Dixie emerge from the house. Cathy’s husband Rowen Matthews materialises from the depths of the verandah, ducking his head under the eaves as he makes his
