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Lyndee Severin - it takes all of us to make it work

By Lyndee, ABC Open contributor

Lyndee Severin - it takes all of us to make it work

I'm writing this in the first person - the Invisible Farmer project is one that can have your own words - not only words from those that view you through their own eyes.

I'm married to Ashley Severin. Ashley and his father Peter Severin own Curtin Springs, located on the Lasseter Hwy in the NT.

We are a highly diversified pastoral and tourism business. Although my name is not on the mortgage and the business is owned by 'the men' this is not an issue for me and I often joke with visitors, the men may be the owners, but be under no illusion as to who is the boss!

Any successful family business is about everyone - I certainly cannot pull out my contribution and hold it separately to my husband, the children, our staff, my amazing father in law or my mother who comes to help in all times of need.

It takes all of us and many others to make it all happen.

Does someone need to be in the drivers seat. Absolutely.

Does someone have to drive all the time? Usually yes.

Is that always me? Mostly yes. Why is that?

You know how you shake the container to make things fit together, settle, and to find a way for all the bits to sit more easily with each other? Well, that how we make it happen.

We have found the rhythm of our lives and the different roles we can play and then we play to our strengths.

We work extremely hard. We run two 24 hour a day, 7 day a week businesses.

We are in a position to be able to share our story with a lot of visitors.

How we run two very different businesses hand in hand. How the strength and commitment of our relationship with the land we are responsible for is the basis and foundation of all that we do?

How do we run production with protecting the land? How do we produce protein on a million acre station and still retain pristine environmental assets to share with the tourism sector?

How do we live in a remote location? How do we raise a family here? How do we run a business here?

In many ways we are fortunate to be able to share our lives with such a large audience and hopefully influence how they see the desert landscape, how intricate it is, how productive it can be and our intimate knowledge of and commitment to it.

I'm the one who makes the lists. I'm the one who sets direction. I'm the one who pushes. That is my strength.

But it takes all of it to make it happen. My first relationship is with the man I wake up with every day and I know his is to me. He trusts and believes in me and I him.

I might write the list, but he is the one who makes the lists happen.

Not always perfect, but pretty damn close.

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