There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. Somerset Maugham
English dramatist & novelist (1874 - 1965)

That was a somewhat cynical view of the craft of writing. Sometimes I feel like they are not too far off the mark.
Despite that, we can but try to work out what [...]

My home is situated on five acres (2 hectares) on the outskirts of a country town in South Australia. We have a small orchard, about two acres of bushland scrub and the remainder is open grassland. Many years ago it was used for grazing sheep.
We used to have five sheep, but they had an accident [...]