We run Coolawara and Storybook Alpacas.

Alpacas are kind of like cats, they have such a curious personality about them.

We've had probably 10% of our annual rainfall.

And it's made you feel a bit more anxious than normal. Almost having no power to do anything about it
straight away, it's a gradual thing. Things with drought get better gradually, not all at once and I think that's
difficult to deal with when you're young.

You know, you have your choice - you either lay down, or you know you go off our
philosophy, which is, you know, seven times down eight times up.

It's good because it's taught you to have a couple of moments where you can have a little a little shock moment when you're a bit
stressed, but your ability to get back up.

But I think that's what resilience is, resilience is actually not just like, you know, you have to be able probably think
differently.

With Ruby doing her Year 12 this year you were down...

Oh yeah, we were down a damn good stock person.

It probably impacted my final year of school a bit more than I wanted to.

I felt like in some subjects areas I had to not aim as high as I would've, still taking into consideration that there's still work to
be done elsewhere.

You know, you think the HSC, it only goes for... I think she had 16 exams over ten days, but it's the time leading up to that and you're
trying not to be selfish and saying you, "do you need a break? Do you need a break?"

With Year 12 it was just about maintaining that sense of balance with it all.

The good thing about us is that this the farm is half an hour away from where we actually live so once we get home we can we can be separate from the farm 
and we can have that time to be with each other so we'll do little things like we watch TV - we're  watching Big Bang Theory at the moment.

We'll do little things and those car ntrips we spend together, like, we usually all come down in one car and you listen to music or you chat 
about what's happening and it's just all little stints that are different from what we cope with all the time that
helps keep the communication open.

I'm a total book nerd. Going to bed half an hour earlier just to read a chapter or things like that, it's all little things
you just do to keep yourself happy.

If you can cope well with adversity or if you can cope with something like a drought, there's not much you can't
really not do then if you put your mind to it. Like, if you can cope and keep a thousand
animals healthy in these conditions you can get through that math exam or you
can punch the BAS or you can do the tax, if you can manage this, you can manage
anything.