A move to Orange led to an unexpected career change for Whitney Spicer

The 31-year-old lives at Karuah, a 40-hectare property on the outskirts of Manildra in the Central West of NSW, with her husband Tim and their three sons: Finley, eight, Teddy, six, and three-year-old Darby. It’s the third house the pair have renovated or built since they moved back to Orange 10 years ago. “It wasn’t even officially on the market but we were driving past on our way to Peak Hill one Sunday when Tim said we should stop and have a look as he had heard that it might be available,” she explains.

It didn’t take long for the young couple, who were living on two hectares at the time, to see the potential of this bigger property with its array of outbuildings, including a beautiful old shearing shed. “I just loved the shearing shed immediately,” she says. “That was a deciding factor.”

Tim, who has an earthmoving business, had grown up in the area and wanted a similar life for his family, while Whitney, who had already made the move from Queensland to Orange, was initially not sure about moving even a tiny bit further west. But, today, she has absolutely no regrets.

“It makes me so happy to see the school bus drive up the dirt road every morning. My boys wait patiently at the gate for their bus driver to pick them up,” she says. “We are so lucky to live here, and I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else.”

The boys spend their days helping their dad — who also runs sheep on another 200-hectare block just down the road — and looking after their poddy lambs Tiny and Curly, all with Tuck, (the ‘Houdini’ under the tree), by their side. Still only 18 months old, the dog is so devoted to them that Whitney has had to get onto the school bus to retrieve him, much to the delight of all the local kids, after he thought it was a good idea to go to school as well. “He is a great friend to the boys and has been known to attempt a ride in the school bus… I have seen Finley walking him back up the driveway many times while the bus driver patiently waits,” she explains.

Originally trained as an accountant, the move to the Central West brought about a career change for Whitney, who now spends as much time as she can painting canvases that are sold at Jumbled in Orange and online through Fenton & Fenton.

“I have always loved to paint, but didn’t think I could make it my career. Following the path I took in accounting has been so valuable in our small business and even with my own art practice. But practising accounting and studying for my CA [Chartered Accountant] was not a happy time for me, and I developed anxiety,” she says.

“Painting gave me something to look forward to and a real purpose. I think my anxiety was due to the stress I put on myself to be successful in accounting, while painting gave me the opposite. It was something I knew I could do, and it was pure happiness! I feel like I have found my place.”

A key part of finding that place has also been family and the local community — one clue to just how important they have been is hanging framed on the wall just as you walk inside the back door. The spidery scrawl is a little hard to read. Written in black biro on a thin sheet of lined paper, is a recipe for Tim’s grandfather Reg’s ‘Ripe Tomato Relish’.

“You couldn’t visit Tim’s grandfather Reg without being given a jar of tomato relish, which he made from his own homegrown tomatoes. He loved that I wanted to try to cook it myself, so he wrote the recipe out for me,” explains Whitney. “It took quite a few attempts to get it right; each time I made it, he would tell me I needed a bit more of ‘this’ or ‘that.’ It was something that couldn’t be taught from a recipe, just practice and words of advice.”