A Drought, 3 Kids, & 10 Years Of Love!

Brad found the girl of his dreams on Farmer Wants A Wife, and he and Stacie are more in love than ever

Brad Crane knew from the first moment he met Stacie Marmion that she was The One. “I remember telling the producer, “I am going to marry that girl”, and he turned and said, “Not yet, we have another 10 shows to go first,’’ Brad says, laughing.

The couple, who met more than a decade ago, on the 2009 season of The Farmer Wants A Wife, fell for each other within moments of meeting – and even moved in together while the series was still being filmed.

At the time Brad, 40, had been living in Lithgow, NSW with his parents, while Stacie, 37, was from nearby Bathurst.

When the show finished, the couple married and went on an 18,000km trip around Australia in 18 weeks, town-hunting as they went. They fell in love with and bought a property, the 485-hectare Iona Downs near Gunnedah the following year. Three gorgeous girls followed – Darcie, now aged six, Bobbie, four, and Frankie, two.

HARD TIMES AHEAD

And then so did the drought.

Like so many farmers, the couple has been hit hard and the past three years have been the worst of the lot. At a property that usually sucks up 600mm of rain every year, the gauges have only recorded 190mm this year. They were still handed feeding their cattle until March, when they sold the remaining short horns, despite doing everything in their power to hold on.

“We might get a shower but the cattle were weak – they would drop to the ground and you couldn’t get them up,’’ Brad says, who heartbreakingly had to put down a lot his livestock.

“I honestly think I put down 40 cattle. They could have been worth $1500 each. That’s $60,000.

“One day I realized, “You have three cracking looking daughters and a gorgeous wife, it should not be this stressful. It was getting too stressful.’’