Hello from a very hot, steamy and sunny, tropical north Queensland everyone! My name is Jess Fealy and I am lucky enough to have been invited on board the Country to Canberra team this year as the Blogging Team Director! This week our blogging crew kicks back into action with the first of our posts for 2016. We have a terrific group of country teenage girls back again this year, ready to share snippets of their lives, their dreams, their thoughts and passions with us. I’m super excited to be working with these girls – I know you are going to love getting to know them and will find their posts really interesting. Before we start posting away, I thought I’d better tell you a little bit about myself, I’m a blogger and a social media lover so I’m prone to oversharing 🙂 but I’ll do my best to keep it short and sweet here!
I was born and bred on the Atherton Tablelands and grew up in a little country town called Malanda, well known for it’s milk factory and my family were one of the many in the district who were dairy farmers. With the benefit of age and a little bit of wisdom I can now say I loved growing up on the farm with my parents and two sisters, but as a teenager I couldn’t wait to leave home, to get away from all the farm work chores and ‘tied-downness’ of having to be home to milk cows twice a day. So I literally skipped off to university to study Commerce/Law at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW.
Fast forward ten or so years, I finished my Commerce Degree, became a qualified Chartered Accountant, married a very lovely boy from my hometown, had three kids in four years, living in Brisbane, and all of a sudden it just didn’t seem to be the right fit! So – my husband and I packed up our house, sold most of our things, bundled up the kids and headed off to travel around Australia in our camper trailer. This is where my love of blogging began as I started writing to share our travels with our family and friends. Our trip was amazing, but ended up being cut short to take up the opportunity to become farmers! 
Skip another couple of years, add another baby into the mix, and you will now find us living and working in Far North Queensland on our family owned mango, avocado, lime and passionfruit farm called ‘Blue Sky Produce’. 
I love rural Australia. There is no place I would rather live and raise my family. I believe that our regional communities need better representation in high level policy making decisions. I believe females living in rural Australia are grossly under utilised and need to be empowered to seek out leadership opportunities and encouraged to pursue careers in politics and executive level positions. Our young, country women are the perfect candidates to speak out for rural Australia. Country to Canberra facilitates all of these things and I am thrilled to be a part of the team!
Stay tuned for some great posts on the Country to Canberra blog this year – look out Australia – the country gals are coming at ya! 
Jessica Fealy joined the Country to Canberra team in 2016 as the Blogger Team Director. Jess grew up on a dairy farm in Malanda, Far North Queensland before heading off to study a Bachelor of Commerce/Law at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales.
Jess is a qualified Chartered Accountant who worked for many years in Brisbane as a senior accountant in wealth creation and self-managed superannuation, before deciding on a ‘tree-change’ and heading off to travel around Australia with her young family, which is where her love for blogging began.
Now Jess and her husband Matt, and their four young children, live and work on their family owned mango, avocado, lime and passionfruit farm in Mareeba, Far North Queensland. Jess is a member of the Queensland Rural Regional and Remote Women’s Network as well as a steering committee member for her local ‘Resourcing Women of the North’ Group. She is passionate about rural Australia and ensuring the young, country women of today, have their voices heard.
Jess blogs about family, farming and fun in Far North Queensland at her blog “Are We There Yet?” http://www.fealyfamily.com/