Life in Lockdown: Sarah Pihan - Ruffy Farm, Euroa VIC

Where abouts’ in Victoria are you located?

Ruffy - about 20mins from Euroa - In the beautiful Strathbogie region.

What 'bush business' do you operate? How long have you been doing this?

Holiday rental accommodation that has the unique partnership with many other wonderful local producers and businesses to offer our guests a true rural experience when staying with us.

How are you coping with Stage 3/4 lockdown? How has it impacted you, financially? Mentally & physically?

Surprising not too bad. It's super tough though.

We are currently in Melbourne and given we spend most of our weekends and school holidays in the bush we are missing our horses and all the other things we love about being in the country and the great outdoors in general. But there are many people who are worse off than us and focusing on that is helping us to stay strong mentally..

Physically - well it's got a bit tougher given it doesn't feel terribly safe to exercise outside the home anymore in Melb - so we've talked ourselves into loving online fitness classes!

How do you feel your wider community is coping? What is the general feel around your area?

Most people in my group of friends are doing ok. I have friends who own businesses that will be lucky to survive and will spend the next 10 years repaying debt caused from this pandemic. But we are blessed with amazing friends, family and people in our lives and it makes you aware of the fact that this is all that's important in life.

Is there anything you are doing day to day that you find is helping you get through, that you would like to share with others?

Try to make the most of all the opportunities that this lockdown has given us. There is good in nearly all bad. We are trying to not worry about the things we can't change. Sadly people are getting sick with Covid19 and all we can do is follow the rules and do our bit to reduce this and look after our community.

Other than that I am enjoying every moment from my first coffee to movies with the kids at night. We've been treating ourselves to more relaxation time than usual.

Looking forward to when you can finally re-open, what are you planning to make the experience of visiting & staying in the bush even more exciting for our city friends?

The house is amazing so we are going to focus on connecting our guests with all our wonderful local produce and local businesses to create a true bush experience that will leave people feeling the love for our community as do.

What are you most looking forward to on the other side of lockdown?

Eating out - we're going to support as many local businesses as we can and eat out at least once a week. I think the positive to come out of this time is that Australia's now have a greater focus on supporting other Australian's and in particular rural businesses.