Take a look inside our special Wool Issue, featuring AgriFutures award winner Carol Mudford, plus an outback flower farmer, CWA cookery judge and a pure-wool wedding dress.

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPH ALEXANDRA MACALPINE

CAROL MUDFORD WANTS TO GET SHEARERS TALKING

In Issue 45, cover star and shearer Carol Mudford tells us why she traded her nursing career for life in the sheds. “It was only supposed to be for a few weeks,” says Carol, who was caring for her terminally ill father when she started work as a rouseabout for her cousin, a shearing contractor based out of Dubbo, New South Wales. “But one day I asked if I could shear a sheep, just for a bit of fun. I then shore a few more, and I was hooked.”

Carol’s path took another turn when she heard news of three shearers who’d lost their lives to suicide. It was the beginning of Carol’s organisation, sHedway, which has been creating real change in the woolshed — and has just seen Carol named the NSW/ACT winner of the 2025 AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award.

“We all know that if we turn up to work on Monday morning with a dirty gear pot full of rusty combs and blunt cutters, we’re going to have a pretty horrid day… And that’s the same for our mental health. We need to make our mental health a priority.” — Carol Mudford