‘Women weren’t welcome’: Real-life stories behind Rachael Treasure’s eco-friendly new comedy

Behind uplifting new Aussie comedy Milking Time lie serious, even confronting, stories – and at least one of them will be relevant to you, reckons Rachael Treasure.

What would it take for you to truly wake up? To open your eyes each day and realise that every moment you walk upon this Earth is precious? What would help you to remember that your wellbeing is intricately linked to our planet’s health and her beauty?

For me, as aTassie bush kid, it’s something I’ve always known innately. But in 2021 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Like so many people, I endured the experience of hours spent in big blue chairs with clear toxin running through my veins and the frying of my body by robotic machines. My vitality and my flesh was stripped away from the inside out, but never did I stop writing my novel Milking Time because the essence of this book and what it has to say is so important.

Over my lifetime I’ve watched our land and water environmentally plundered and poisoned at an increasingly rapid rate with a greedy blindness that is sickening. Quite literally.

‘I likened my body to Russia’s radioactive city of Chernobyl’ … Rachael Treasure. Credit: Gracie Lee Jean.

Throughout the diagnosis and the treatment, I chose to go inward to really listen to my own Spirit and my breath – and oh, wow … what a Spirit I discovered within me!

After each dousing of chemicals I watched in wonder as Mother Nature stepped in to heal my body. My only job was to breathe deeply and consciously, to love, and to get my tangled mind out of my way. I saw clearly that I am nature and that nature, when left to her own devices, will connect to the life force that is within every living thing, and she will self-correct. She will heal.

I know how good Mother Nature is at healing, as over the last decade or so, I’ve been consciously working as a regenerative farmer to heal land that had been formerly devastated by similar toxic chemicals, so I’ve witnessed Mother Nature repair herself after adversity.

The more savage the disturbance, the more she thrives, even more vibrantly than before. Changed, but alive and functioning.

As I healed, I likened my body to Russia’s radioactive city of Chernobyl. Almost 40 years after its shocking accidental nuclear plant explosion, Chernobyl is now the most biodiverse place in Europe. Green plants, insects and animals are naturally healing that human-devastated place.

That old city is breathing again. That’s something our cities, suburbs, rivers and oceans and agricultural lands are no longer doing … breathing via plants managed by animals in a complex system based on nature herself.

‘A dairy farmer’s daughter who doesn’t fit in – anywhere’ … Connie Mulligan is the colourful lead character in Milking Time.

Our modern day scientific and technological arrogance and our misunderstanding of natural sequences led me to write Milking Time.

It’s loudly and proudly ‘Tassie-as’ via the quirky character of Connie Mulligan, a fourth-generation dairy farmer’s daughter who doesn’t fit in – anywhere. Banished from her university, she’s an outcast from her own family and her psychologist is insisting on medication. However, after meeting some colourful mainlanders in her town, and a trip to Ireland, Connie discovers an ancient practice of rebellion that she knows has the power to reclaim her family farm and regenerate her community to one of health and vitality.

The first moment when Connie was born in my imagination was at a cattle sale in Ireland in 2018. I had an abrasive encounter with an old gentleman farmer who distinguished himself as important with his silk cravat and gold topped cane.

Within that bustling sale yard, I was surrounded by gigantic genetically-wired cattle suited to the EU trade, but not the boggy, chemically saturated Irish landscape. The gentleman farmer ignored me but addressed my male travelling companion, by saying, “You won’t find ducks nor hens ’round here.’’

In other words … women weren’t welcome there. I looked around and sure enough, no women in the crowd.

The second incident I used to build Milking Time was in Queenstown on Tassie’s wild west coast. The Unconformity arts festival was underway.

‘About to show you her map of Tassie’ … here comes Rachael Treasure with a new novel. Credit: Gracie Lee Jean.

Outside the big old double story pub, a scuffle had broken when a local had chucked some meat at vegans manning an animal activism stall. The incident made headline news and prompted me to think about the misinformation so many of us live by when it comes to the realities of our food systems … meat, veg, or otherwise.

In an era of agriculture where the most common language is “profits and yield” and “technology is the answer” Connie’s journey shows us that mankind really needs “biodiversity (beauty) and nourishment (health)” and “biology” (life) to truly milk our time on Earth.

Today, with giant corporations continuing to arm us with chemical weapons to poison our Earth, it’s time for a system change and a reclamation … and that’s why I’ve written Milking Time. Connie Mulligan is about to show you her map of Tassie … and you bloody well will find ducks and hens around here!

Milking Time by Rachael Treasure is out now, published by HarperCollins. As our new Book Of The Month you can get it for 30% off the RRP with the code TREASURE at Booktopia.

T & Cs: Ends 31-May-2024. Only on ISBN 9781460757598. Not with any other offer.

Tell us what you think at the Sunday Book Club on Facebook.

Originally published as ‘Women weren’t welcome’: Real-life stories behind Rachael Treasure’s eco-friendly new comedy