Tucked away on the Bellarine Peninsula, you will find a large elephant statue greeting all those who enter the sheep farm of Corinna George.

You’re quickly met with an array of dogs and a warm, welcoming house built on the highest point of the property, the heart of the family’s home.

But this isn’t any ordinary elephant statue – if there is such a thing, it is also a memorial to Corinna’s late husband and her old “shadow”, her late rottweiler, Rhett, who is buried beneath.

Every day is different for Corinna, who lives life on the land with her eldest son, who she cares for with cerebral palsy.

“I have to get up and do all the lambs before I get my son up, because I got to get him dressed and fed and medicated,” Corinna says.

Life on the farm consists of the “run-of-the-mill stuff, checking the fences, fertilising the paddocks”, with the seasons greatly affecting her workload.

Yet, even at 68, Corinna’s passion for farming remains well and truly alive with a smile lighting up her face, reminiscing on her farming start.

“When I was 10 years old, I started hanging out at a dairy farm,” Corinna says.

At 18, her mother told her: “You smell like an old farmer, you don’t ever go and socialise.”

Corinna replied: “I love it, I get up at 5:30 am, I’m hanging out with the dog and the cows.”

Her mother, thinking her daughter was ruined for life, said there was a vacancy at Longerenong, “if that’s what you want to learn.”

So next thing Corinna knew, her mum drove her to the Longerenong open day and, within a week “or three”, she was packed up and moved out.

Corinna and her late husband bought their property more than 30 years ago.

Since then, she’s bred and sold Suffolk lambs. She admits she pefers sheep to cattle because she “can move sheep – sheep are not as destructive”.

But life on the land has tested her resilience in more ways than one, from personal loss to the ongoing impacts of unpredictable weather patterns.

From prolonged droughts to floods, each season brings a new trial to endure and to overcome.

“Floods and droughts have always been happening, and they will continue to do so,” Corinna says.

As Victoria’s 2024 climate science report warns, if greenhouse gas rates continue to rise at a medium to high rate, flood risk is likely to double in Victoria by the end of the century, a reality Corinna has already felt firsthand.

A couple of years ago, Corinna and her daughter had to run the sheep through the shed area and shut the gate on the slower sheep to treat them with antibiotics and hoof spray.

In that same flood, about “half a dozen trees died”.

“When it rains, you really want to get all your sheep and lift them up in the air for two weeks”, she says, explaining wet paddocks affect the sheep’s hoof, increasing the risk of lameness and hoof disease.

Yet, “Droughts are more harsh”.

“There was a time I was down to the last couple [of hay bales] and I thought if that runs out then sayonara.”

The life of farming also greatly depends on Corinna’s physical state, with injury being a great setback.

“About two months ago, I really trashed my foot”, Corinna said.

With a blue, swollen foot and unable to put on a boot, she continued on farm work wearing only a sock.

This setback marked not only a physical but a mental challenge. As Corinna explains, she continued her work much more slowly.

“Because nobody is gonna come out and make sure the chickens are locked up and got water and food.”

This story is part of a project exploring regional Victoria and the issues farmers are facing. See the whole collection here.