"Hey! Are you two coming down for dinner or do I have to eat on my own?" Marcus yells.
" Keep your shirt on mate. Stevie just finished feeding the little fella." Alex states.
"Wanna beer Steves." Alex asks.
" No I'll just have a small glass of wine later Alex."
"Marcus? Need a refill?'
"No all good thanks."
Alex grabs a beer and sits at the dining room table, Stevie and Marcus stand leaning on the bench.
"Someone's at the door." Stevie says as she moves to answer it.
Marcus and Alex continue chatting about the harvest and the work needed to be done in the next few weeks. Stevie returns a short time later with a huge smile on her face she steps to one side to reveal Rose.
"Rose! It's great to see you." Alex states as he moves towards her and hugs her.
"How'd you get here?" He asks.
" I drove!" She laughs " I got my licence."
"Oh congratulations." He says.
"Hi Marcus." Rose smiles.
" Hey we're family now which means I get to hug you and you get to call me Uncle Marcus." He smiles as he hugs her.
Rose laughs and says 'Gee I'm gathering relatives at a startling rate. I now have two new Uncles, some new Aunties, a new Dad and a baby brother! Speaking of?"
"Oh Rose quick come with me he's upstairs." Stevie says excitedly.
"Don't be long Stevie, Rhonda is dishing up." Alex calls.
"Righto" She calls as she takes Rose's hand and heads out the door.
Dinner has been eaten and the four are chatting, drinking wine and enjoying themselves. The conversation turns to Xander.
"So Rose how's it feel to be a big sister finally?" Alex smiles.
"It's fantastic, he's beautiful. It's just a shame it took you two so long to get together. I'm old enough to drive him around now!"
They all laugh.
"There is something I wanted to ask you about though Alex." Rose says sounding serious.
Stevie can't read Rose's face and has no idea what's about to happen.
"Oh Ok fire away." He says.
She takes a deep breath and begins.
"Well I have a new brother which is fantastic and I've only had my real Mother for 3 years." She smiles at Stevie.
Alex looks at her thoughtfully and says "Right."
Rose looks at Stevie and then at Alex. "Well I was wondering." She hesitates.
"Go on Rose you can ask me anything." Alex encourages her.
"My brother will grow up to call you Dad and I'll call you Alex." She stumbles around trying to explain. Stevie sees where this is going and gets teary.
Alex stands up and moves towards her and says "Rose come here. Are you trying to ask if you can call me Dad?" She nods her emotions getting the better of her. He takes her face in his hands smiles at her and says "I'd love you to call me Dad."
He hugs her and kisses her forehead.
"Right!" Marcus says "I think we need champagne a new baby for Stevie , a new licence for Rose and a new daughter for Alex!"
They all laugh.
The evening rolls on and they have a great time. Rose is to work at Drover's for a few weeks so she heads off promising to visit often.
As she goes she yells. "Good Night Uncle Marcus, Night Mum, Night Dad"
" Righto I'm off too! Thanks for dinner" Marcus says.
" No worries mate anytime." Alex says.
As they head back inside they hear Xander crying "I'll head up Alex."
'Righto I'll just turn the lights of and I'll be there."
...
As Alex walks into the bedroom Stevie is lying in bed with the baby noisily suckling beside her. "Hey mate," Alex whispers softly as he gently rubs his son's cheek.
"Alex" Stevie whispers. "You were wonderful with Rose."
He smiles at her and says "Yeah she's a nice kid, I'd like to go one better Steves." She looks puzzled.
" How would you feel about me adopting Rose?'
"Oh Alex, Really? Have you taken the time to think about this?"
"Yeah, I have Stevie. All through your pregnancy I thought about our son and his sister?"
"Family is the most important thing to you Stevie and if I adopt Rose she can take my name and we'll all be The Ryan Family. What do you think Stevie?"
"I think I don't deserve you Alex Ryan."
"Great we'll ask her tomorrow." He smiles.
...
Tess and Nick are sitting on the veranda having breakfast discussing the work for the day. Grace has just sat down with her breakfast when Kate, Rose and Taylor walk up from the shearers quarters ready for breakfast, they disappear inside to get their cereal and return and sit.
Moira brings Clare and hands her to Tess. She's grizzly and wants a cuddle from her Mum. Nick speaks.
"Kate, are you and Grace right with organizing the tool shed? I thought Taylor can give you a hand once she has finished helping Moira feed out."
Kate sits thinking and then responds. "Yeah that would be great, I've printed out some signs and laminated them so we can sort, "Drover's", "Clearing" and obviously tip which we'll put in the trailer but I also put one for "Repair" which I'll leave for you to judge if it's worth fixing. I thought we'll pull everything out first give the shed a clean then replace only what will stay there."
"Excellent." Nick smiles."
"Rose I was wondering if you'd mind helping Tess with some office work until Moira's back. Moira will mind Clare while you and Tess come out to give me a hand."
Rose replies "Yes, no worries. What are we doing?"
"I want to do a running inventory of all of our equipment, like when it was serviced, how old it is? Which will eventually be accessible to Wilgul and Kilarney and we can perhaps have them serviced at the same time so all equipment is at its full potential when needed plus we may be able to wrangle a discount from the dealer." Nick says.
"Oh right so we have a running picture of everything. So that will stop things like shearing plants breaking down as we're about to crutch?" She asks.
Nick smiles, he loves that she gets it, understands where they're heading. "Exactly, it won't always work, because things just break down sometimes but hopefully we'll minimize downtime."
"I like you're thinking Nick." Kate grins.
"Righto any questions?" Nicks asks.
"Yes I do who's here for lunch?" Moira asks.
"I think everyone should be." Tess responds.
They all nod.
...
Marcus, Riley and Patrick have already started dragging stuff out of the sheds when Stevie walks over to them.
" Good Morning" she says cheerily.
"Are you guys ready for breakfast?"
"Yeah, I'm starving!" Patrick says.
Riley and Marcus agree.
"Righto we'll have it on the veranda." Stevie offers
." Where's Alex?" Riley asks.
"He's still asleep." Stevie calls over her shoulder as she returns to the house.
...
Rose and Tess are in the office and Clare is happily playing with her toys.
"So what are your computer skills like Rose?" Tess asks.
"Yeah really good I got top marks at school."Rose replies.
"Right you can type and I'll read out the data to you."Tess giggles.
"Ok do you want this on a spreadsheet?"Rose asks .
Tess laughs and says "We haven't even started and we're stumped."
" It's ok I'll ring Uncle Nick." As Rose puts the phone down she says "Yes, Spreadsheet colour coded. He said there's a piece of paper with the codes he wants on the bureau."
Tess rises, looks and says "Yep got it."
They begin to work and it's all going smoothly they get into a rhythm and the work goes quickly presently Tess pauses and asks."So Rose what do you think of the new baby?"
Rose stops typing and smiles at Tess. "Oh Aunty Tess he's beautiful. I finally get to be a sister. It's a pretty nice feeling."
"So you're not jealous of the attention on him?" Tess asks.
Rose laughs loudly. "Oh God no they have more than enough love for me, Xander and a dozen other children."
Tess smiles at her." I've never thought of it like that Rose but you're right."
Rose continues. "I even asked Alex if I can call him Dad and he said he'd love that. So I feel very much a part of the whole thing." Rose says smiling.
"That's wonderful Rose." Tess says.
"Yeah, at least when Xander starts to talk and call him Dad I will too. We'll just have different surnames." Rose smiles.
...
Marcus, Stevie, Riley and Patrick are almost finished their breakfast when Alex finally appears, crying baby in one arm, breakfast in the other. "Oh about time you surfaced Alex." Marcus quips.
" Yeah he fathers a child and turns soft." Riley quips
"Ease up fellas'." Alex leans over to kiss Stevie and hands her the baby.
"Morning beautiful, our Bull has started to bellow for his Mummy." Stevie takes the baby and kisses him.
"Yeah, Stevie's the one that did all the hard work and she's been up for hours." Marcus laughs.
Stevie has quickly and discreetly put Xander to the breast but he's drinking noisily and it is very obvious but everyone is trying to be polite and ignore the gulping, swallowing and snuffling sounds. Eventually Riley laughs "Bloody hell, he's noisy."
They all laugh including Stevie.
Alex smiles and says. "Yeah, he is but once he drinks for a little while he'll quieten down."
Quickly the noise disappears and the conversation continues.
"So, what are you fellas' up to today?" Alex asks.
"Well we've started clearing out the sheds. Nick wants an inventory done on all equipment, service dates and age ect. So we know what we have and what we need to update." Marcus offers.
"Certainly makes a lot of sense." Riley adds.
Stevie, remarks. "Funny, it makes great sense but not one of us thought of it before. Nick says it will save on downtime and we might get a discount when all three farms equipment gets serviced together."
"So what have you and Stevie got planned for today?" Marcus asks.
Alex replies, "I'll take my lead from Stevie, so we may even venture out later to help you guys or we may have a nap." He laughs.
Marcus quips. "A nap bloody hell mate you just woke up!"
They all laugh.
" No seriously we're going to take a spin over to Drover's around lunch time for an hour or so but other than that not a lot?" Alex says.
"We need to go to the health centre too." Stevie adds.
"So if you guys need anything in Gungellan let me know."
"Beer lots of beer" Riley laughs adding "We'll be dry as by the end of the day these sheds are dusty"
" Righto Beer." Stevie says.
...
The morning rolls on quickly Tess and Rose have finished the office work Moira has returned and Clare is down for her morning nap. Moira is off preparing lunch.
Kate, Grace and Taylor are making great progress with the shed and Rose Nick and Tess are busy taking soil samples from each paddock on Drovers.
Over at Kilarney Patrick, Marcus and Riley have finished over half of the shed inventory and have stopped for Lunch.
Marcus says" Once we've finished this we need to get out and get these soil samples Nick wants."
"What does he want soil sample for?" Patrick asks.
"Well if we know exactly what soil types we have we can either add nutrients or a particular soil type might be best suited to a particular grain or crop."
"Oh so if we test them all instead of just putting in what we normally do we'll have better production." Riley says.
"Yes, that's right" Marcus states.
...
Stevie and Alex have rung Moira to let her know they'll be there for lunch. They have picked up plenty of beer for the boys and some other supplies.
"Well the health centre was an interesting experience Stevie." Alex offers.
She smiles at him and says "Yeah I don't think they get many men in there."
He laughs.
"Well our Bull is doing well!" she says.
Alex laughs loudly" You could say that. He's well above average height and average weight and he's averaged 9oz a week since he was born. At the rate he's going by the time he's 3mths old we won't be able to pick him up."
Stevie grins at him.
Alex smiles at her and winks then says. "Puts a whole other meaning to your nickname Cowgirl."
Stevie laughs and flicks him "Alex that's not very nice."
"Well little bulls always do better feeding from their mothers."
He laughs as they turn into Drovers.
...
"Hi, anyone here?" Stevie calls as she enters the back porch.
"Yeah in here Stevie "Moira calls from the dining room.
" Hi, Stevie. How's our little man today?" Moira asks reaching in to grab Xander from the capsule.
"Yeah good but he's not so little any more. We've just been to the health centre and he's 12lb 4oz." Stevie grins.
Moira is kissing Xander and says" Thanks great Stevie you've obviously got a great supply of milk."
"Moira I could feed two babies and still have leftovers."
They both laugh.
"Alex said it puts a whole new meaning on my nickname Cowgirl!"
Moira laughs and says "That's a bit unkind."
Stevie laughs and says "Yes that's what I told him."
...
"Hey Kate." Alex calls.
Kate turns and says " Hi Alex, how's Stevie and bub?"
"Yeah all good they're down at the house. We're here for lunch."
"Where's Rose?" Alex asks.
"Um she's out with Nick and Tess getting the soil samples they should be back soon"
Grace and Taylor walk back to the shed and both greet Alex.
"Hi girls Stevie and the bub are down at the house."
" Oh great we can have a cuddle at lunch." Taylor says.
Just then Nick, Tess and Rose pull up.
"Hi guys" Alex calls.
They chat for awhile about the soil collection and then Tess says" Righto lets go and get some lunch."
As they go to walk off Alex calls to Rose. "Rose can I just talk to you for a minute."
"Yeah no worries what's up?"
"Well you know our conversation we had last night." Alex begins.
"Yes." Rose says looking worried.
"Have you changed your mind?"
"Oh, God no." Alex says "It's nothing to worry about."
He smiles.
"Oh ok."
"Rose, Stevie and I were chatting last night and I asked her a question. This is something I've thought about right through the pregnancy but you sort off surprised me last night."
Rose looks very puzzled.
"Rose I want to formally adopt you!" Alex States.
Rose looks shocked.
Alex continues" It makes perfect sense to me, you are my wife's daughter and my sons sister this way you will legally be my daughter too and you can take my name so we'll all be Ryan's. A proper family always."
Alex stands waiting for a response.
Rose just stands there.
Finally she speaks."But aren't I too old to adopt?"
"I don't care Rose I just want to be able to say you are my daughter."
He looks at her and she smiles. "I'd love to be your daughter."
He moves towards her and hugs her.
"So I guess that's a yes." Stevie says smiling at the two of them.
They turn and Rose says "That's a big yes. I'm going to finally have the same name as my family"
She hugs Stevie. "Righto lunch is ready"
