Avanell (25) and her three sisters—Haddie (30), Tabitha (27), and Clementine (23)—work together on their family’s mixed cropping and cattle farm, nestled at the junction of the Comet and Nogoa Rivers, where they have almost 2000 hectares of irrigated cotton. “We've been growing it our whole lives,” says Haddie. “If we weren't at school we were always helping. But we weren't forced to be out here, it was a choice.”
When RB Sellars visits, the crop has started to look like cotton as most people know it. Hard fruit called bolls on the lower reaches of the plant are splitting to reveal fluff-balls of fibre. "This is as good as cotton can get,” says Tabatha as she plucks a boll and stretches it between her fingers. “It’s bleachy white, perfect cotton that will eventually turn into the shirts we're wearing.”
- Avanell
It’s a crucial period of growth and the sisters are irrigating around the clock. “Water is the money maker,” explains Haddie. “Without it we don't have the yield. Without the yield we don't have the bales. Without the bales we don't have cotton at the end. So it’s everything.” The process is a delicate balance: too much water risks waterlogging the plants, while too little stresses them, reducing their ability to produce high-quality fibre.
All four girls had brief adventures away from the farm for study and travel, but were drawn home to live in houses a few hundred metres apart and work alongside each other every day. “We understand each other so well,” Haddie says. “We know each other’s flaws and strengths and just play off them.” She’s the go-to sister for livestock, while Clementine can fabricate just about anything in the shed and Avanell is the pilot and chief machinery operator. “We balance each other out,” Tabatha says. She provides a steady supply of baked goods while studying integrative nutrition remotely. “We turn below average situations into a laugh because what else can you do? In the end you're going to resolve it, so you just may as well make it lighthearted.”
Humour might just be the key to farming as a family and the Morawitz sisters reckon they’ve found a rhythm that works. “I genuinely feel like I’ve won the jackpot,” Avanell says. “Every morning we go to the shed and it’s: ‘Good morning — hey girls,’ and it feels like a fresh start. We honestly really don't fight because we just love each other.”
The western horizon darkens to the colour of a bruise, cracking and snapping with distant thunder, yet hopes for a downpour remain low. So many storms have fizzled out this summer but the girls don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing. “Because then you control when your water comes,”
Avanell says pragmatically. “You could irrigate, then get 100 mils of rain on top, and it’s waterlogged.” So the midnight irrigation shift goes ahead and no one seems to mind. Long hours are part of the life they’ve chosen—made easier by the company of their sisters.
