I am one of the third age university postgraduates interested in research in their retirement years. My interpretive thesis contributes considerably to our understanding of midlife rural women and to the theories of adult learning and more specifically transformative learning. It contains the biographical narratives of six rural midlife women who needed more from life and wanted to make a difference in their communities and families. With the support of husbands and other men, they emerged from relative obscurity to become community leaders and change agents who transformed and revitalised their small rural service centres into thriving, vibrant and resilient 'can do' societies after years of drought, market driven economic policies and globalisation. The evocative accounts and richly descriptive portrayals of the lived experience convey a deeper, more complex understanding of rural society and women's midlife learning, personal growth and self-transformation through every day experiences and becoming involved in community life. As a former farmer's wife living in the region, I share the rural women’s more cooperative and collaborative feminism and slightly different perspective of rural women and rural society.