island time

It's our last afternoon on the island. I'm hoping that these photos will tell their own stories of our week away so I can go and spend the last precious moments outside rather than in the air-conditioning tapping away on my computer.

It's been magical.


See you next week with stories from back on the farm.

LoveLove

xx

PS. If you have any tips for easy reentry I'd love to hear them. I hear it's cold and wintry back home.

just do it!

Hello honey bunches,

I hope this finds you well and happy, not too warm or too cold, and maybe, hopefully, enjoying a little pocket of time you've carved out just for yourself and nobody else.

Before I start I want to acknowledge that I'm learning how hard it is for me to get straight into the blog writing without a quick discussion of the process. (Please see the the first paragraph of my last blog post for more info on this). I think I know what I want to write about today but I don't know where to start, and setting the scene, describing my morning and talking about where I am at, feels like a short cut from here to there. But knowing that my mum will arrive in a few hours with her (metaphoric) red pen and draw a line through this paragraph on her way to changing my semi colons to colons and moving my commas around makes me wonder if I should try a bit harder or just do it, as the case may be.

Just do it - if there were a theme to my past week, that would be it.

Just do it began last Monday in our gym session, as so many of my big thoughts and blog posts do lately, have you noticed that? The session was actually about finding our wall. Our trainer smashed us. Push ups and sits ups and running and rowing, ropes and weights and squats and kicks and so much more. And then the whole lot again three more times. In the third round I found my wall but somehow got through it and went on. 

But the harder it got, the tireder I became, the more my head talk took over. 'I just finished my period so I don't have a lot of energy today', I thought, 'it's so humid and there's no air' I went on, 'we split and stacked so much wood yesterday so I'm too tired today', I tried, 'I can't concentrate on my breathing', 'I don't like this song', 'I feel weak', 'I don't know what's wrong with me', 'I can't do this'...

Some of them I kept to myself and some of them I puffed out loud to our trainer. 

Just do it - she replied.

And after she told me a couple of times I took it on and tried it. I stopped myself from making the same old excuses and turned inwards to get the job done. I didn't let myself feel the pain but tightened my core, checked my position and focused on the finish line. Over and over until I did it. And it was the best feeling.

All through the week I've tried to do the same. Stop the crazy amount of head talk, stop the self doubt and the questions and all the multiple choices, and just get the job done. I've carried enormous rounds of wood to the splitter, I've pulled up hundreds of meters of irrigation lines that had grass growing over them, I've dealt with daughters with extreme emotions, I've hung washing on the line in winds that almost pushed me over, I've squished a zillion tomatoes and processed just as many apples, I've shopped the city with two teenagers, and I've picked and carried crates and crates of apples and pears and quinces.

I just did it.

You know as silly as it sounds I've never really thought much about that brand's slogan - Just do it - they were only just words until I put them into action and felt them in my core. Now I feel like I could totally wear them on my tee-shirt.....just joking.

I've included the next few photos just for fun. Jazzy asked to borrow my camera while we were out picking fruit earlier in the week and I just did it. It was lovely to see her perspective, nice to be in a few photos for a change and interesting to see what I look like from the back and how farmery my hands are.

Then they all had a go.

Jazzy took this photo.

Indi took this photo.

And Pepper took this photo. I can't help but laugh every time I look at it at how she got everything in focus except for us. I love it.

And with that I have a few questions for you;

Do you read my blog on your phone, tablet or computer?
How do you know when I've updated my blog?
Approximately how many blogs do you read these days?
Do you read my blog for the craft, the family, the farming or something else?
Do you have anything you'd like me to blog about?
Are you listening to S-Town? (I'm up to chapter three)
If you had heaps of pears what would you do with them? (These look good)
Do you, can you, should you just do it?

Thanks and so much love,

Kate xx

baskets filled with hazelnuts + other miscellaneous chatter

Hello loves,

How are you?

It's Friday morning here, the girls are all off at school, Bren is somewhere outside (I think I can hear some kind of power-tool), and I'm sitting up on the green armchair in the corner of our studio, wrapped in a colourful crocheted blanket. The house is quiet except for the howl of the wind outside and I should feel calm and be able to concentrate, but instead I feel scattered and in a hurry.

Most weeks by the time it gets to Friday I pretty much know what I'm going to write about. Most weeks I have a bit of a theme of thoughts, so the writing is just a matter of getting them into some sort of order. I read in Rachael Treasure's book Down The Dirt Roads the other day that 'according to neuroscience expert Dr Joe Dispenza...of the thousands of thoughts we have per day - around 50,000 to 70,000 of them - 90 per cent are the same thoughts from the day before.'

Unusually, this week hasn't felt like that for me. This week I can't really pin point a point of view or a perspective that has dominated, but instead have found myself stuck in the practical world of picking and preserving and putting on a smiley face despite the sudden turn of the season, the house full of emotional girls and the fact that I feel a bit scattered and unsure at the moment.

So this morning over our porridge with honey I asked the family what they thought I should write about.

Bren said he'd like me to write about spurtles. 
Over the past few days he's gotten his pole lathe up and running and has a new found fascination with all the possible forms that he can now create. He said he'd like me to find out how they came to be, why they are round and why people use them instead of their spoons.

Indi asked me to ask you guys about your stress management techniques.
There has to be a better way to deal with life in her second last year of school than feeling constantly overwhelmed, teary and not sleeping. Unlike Bren and I at school, she has made a personal commitment to complete everything thrown at her and give it her 100%. It's tricky because she's starting to get a glimpse of the big wide world beyond school, and that excites her and makes her question what it's all about and for, but it doesn't free her from the stress.

Gosh I could write a whole blog post about how much I dislike the way the current senior school system robs our kids of the love of learning, with all the emphasis being placed on assessments and assignments and essays and exams. At 16 and 17 our kids are wide awake and open to the world, shouldn't we be encouraging them to fall in love with subjects, to follow pathways of their own interest, to ask all the hard questions and to challenge what they're taught? Shouldn't learning be about more than preparing for tests?

But in the end it's not about what I think. Indi has five school assessed courseworks (SACs) over the next few weeks and if you have a fave meditation app, herbal tea blend or breathing technique, she'd be ever so grateful.

Jazzy wants me to write about her.

When she saw that Jackie wrote this on my last blog post - 'When did Jazzy grow up? She has become a very attractive, elegant and tall young woman. That smile and those dimples are to die for. I haven't noticed many photos of Jazzy perhaps that's why it hit me so hard this time.' she was thrilled!! And then she proceeded to trawl my blog for mentions and photos and stories that she featured in. She wasn't impressed at the outcome over the past year.

Funnily enough, way back when I wrote my book, Vantastic, in 2013, my designer Michelle Mackintosh, herself a middle child, counted every single photo and made sure there were equal numbers for each of the girls.  

But in the present day, in my defence, our early teenage Jazzy has spent most of her home time in her bedroom rather than with us outside on the farm. And if you're not out in the orchard picking apples, then you're not in the photos of picking apple, then you're not on my blog.

Having said all that, since this is her bit of my blog I want to acknowledge how happy we are when she joins us around the farm, how she makes us all laugh like crazy, how much we love her stories, her ukulele playing, her outfits and hairdos and how lucky we feel to have her in our gang.

Pepper suggested I write about the first apples.
She wouldn't elaborate on what specifically she wanted me to write about the first apples, but I guess that living on an apple farm in apple season with fruit hanging from the branches, sitting in crates and baskets and bowls and stewing on the stove, it makes sense.

My mum thought I should write one of those blogs where I tell you what I'm reading, listening to, watching etc.
But honestly I'm really not a fan of the book I'm reading, I don't have any particular podcast I'm loving and I can't think of the last time I sat down to watch anything. Better fix that.

And me? 
I guess I'd like to mention the fact that even though we're having a pretty crappy fruit season, there's still so much fruit to be picked and preserved. I guess that's the great thing about biodiversity. Apples, pears, hazelnuts, nashis, tomatoes, they're all ready and ripe and filling up space around the place. Not to mention the vegetables.

Next, I'd love to thank you for your messages on my last blog post that came from everyone from mothers who felt like they had found themselves in motherhood and didn't feel the need to search for anything else, through to mothers who had a glimpse of their past selves and made a dash to grab hold of her and continue her journey before they changed their minds, and everyone else in between. I've had women suggest art projects that I might like to take on, books that explore this theme, and many expressions of feeling the same. I've also listened when people have told me that they felt like I do live an artistic life - 'The way you live, the way you raise your children, the way you write and photograph your experiences...' I'm taking this on, thank you!! I love this community in all of our various stages and phases.

And I suppose that over the past week, during the busiest time of the year on our farm, I've had to make do with finding art in the everyday: making small films on my phone of the dancing shadows on my bedroom door in the afternoon light, arranging cucumbers and herbs in the pickle jars and then spending time shaking them up and watching the herbs and spices fly around in the brine and then slowly settle like snow globes, gathering groups of colours of yarn for someday projects, dreaming of botanical themed water colours...

And then I feel like I should talk about the photos above. Last Monday I spent hours alone in the hazelnut orchard, stripping the trees of their fruit. Even though the sun often glared into my eyes as I looked up searching for the treasure, it was still a pretty idyllic way to spend the time. Just me and my basket and my pockets and my shirt to fill, podcasts to listen to and dreams of all the ways we could use hazelnuts in the kitchen in the months to come.

Later on, once I'd finished picking the three rows, the girls and Bren came down to help me carry them home. I snapped some shots of them and lucky I did, because they turned out to be the only photos I took all week.

So the hazelnuts are drying out, the photos are sitting here, and I've found myself going back to 2014 and another series of photos I took in that same orchard but that time under some quite difficult circumstances after I'd just found a lump in my left breast. Coincidentally, or maybe not, I'm booked in for an ultrasound and mammogram this coming Tuesday. Look how much my girls have grown since then. Oh and look Jazzy, there are lots of photos of you in that post too.

Oh gosh, and there I was thinking I had nothing to say this week.

I'd better sign off before I write another few hundred words.
And how about you? Has your week had a recurring theme? A problem to be solved? An idea to be built on?

Lots of love to you, honey bunches!
May you trust the process, and the people, and yourself.

Love Kate xx

PS To save you the work, Jazzy, I counted for you: Indi is in four photos in this post, you are in five, Pepper is in three and Bren in in two. x

spots on the apples

Hello honey bunches, or as Miss Pepper would call you if she were here - totally terrifically tempting toasted in the toaster twice pieces of toast. That's how she described my warm skin against her icy cold toes this morning as she climbed into bed with me for a cuddle. After that she stuck a feather in the back of her shorts and with one in each hand proceeded to spend the rest of the hour before school running around the house shrieking like the peacock whose feathers she carried. Goodness what a lot of fun and craziness a nine year old adds to a household. Not to mention the noise!

So here we are again on a Friday morning. The big girls are on their long drive to school with my mum, the peacock is already sitting in class in Daylesford, farmer Bren is either on his tractor or on his pole lathe and I'm sitting up in bed with my computer on my lap thinking of all of the places I've been over the past seven days, in my body and in my head. Where do I start? What do I include? Where do I go?

I guess the most obvious place to start is at the top. Late yesterday afternoon I clambered through the nets of an apple tree and dragged my basket in behind me. And there I sat for a while, still. Lately my gym teacher has been trying to encourage me and Bren to meditate together but we always forget. And the one time we did remember he said he floated away, but he left me behind panicking about my breathing and unable to stop itching and rearranging myself and my thoughts. I know meditation would help me immensely but so far, not so good. 

But yesterday once my basket and I were safely enclosed in the folds of the bird netting, I decided to try it again on my own terms. I leaned up against the tree's trunk and closed my eyes. I listened and tried to identify all the different sounds I could hear. Over and over I had to shift my mind away from the wetness of a smooshed apple I was sitting on, and away from thoughts of the march flies buzzing around my head trying to bite me, but I got there in the end. I heard the wind through the trees, I heard bird song, dogs barking, roosters crowing and I heard our pump far across the paddock. 

And then my mind wandered to the apples on the ground around me, dangling from the branches of the tree and smooshed under my bum. In most seasons, once the harvest starts it's go, go, go for a few months; checking and protecting and picking and selling. Not to mention the eating and preserving. The fact that this year's crop is small and spotty means that each apple feels a bit more precious. It gives me the time to sit under a tree for a few minutes to admire them and consider them. And it allows me to appreciate each bite, savouring the juicy flavours, remembering how lucky we are to have the opportunity to eat warm fruit straight off the tree, and to think and wonder and hope for next season.

These past few weeks have been hot and dry, the grass has browned off, the tomatoes are finally ripening and loads of washing have been drying on the line in the time it takes for the next armful to start and finish in the machine. Although the mornings are definitely darker, the days still feel long and golden and glorious.

We wear overalls and men's shirts and hats to protect us from the sun as we go about our farm jobs all day, we come in when the girls get home and go out again after dinner in tee-shirts without the layers, until the sun goes down and it's too dark to see. Autumn is when farming makes the most sense in my mind. There is fruit on the trees in the orchards, vegetables in the rows of the gardens, and wherever there is room new stuff is being planted for winter. The best feeling in the whole world is sending a hungry child outside to pick whatever she feels like eating.

During the week one of the girls was telling us about her friend who was grounded for misbehaving. When Miss Pepper asked for the definition of grounded she was told it's when you're not allowed to go out at all and have to spend all your time at home. "So you can't even go out to pick stuff from the garden!?' she cried incredulous, 'that sounds like the worst punishment ever'. Totally.

The next thing is going away. Anyone who's been reading my Friday blogs this year has probably noticed an undercurrent of me anxiously trying to separate a little from the girls and find a bit of space in the world that is my own. There has definitely been a bit of fear about leaving this comfortable place where I've been sitting for the past 17 years. Added to that is the knowledge that in just under two years Miss Indi will leave school and possibly home forever. Should I really be trying to find my own adventure when my time with her, as a family of five, is so limited?

The result is my recent baby steps. First I took a train to the city and spent an entire day doing exactly as I pleased. I skipped the school's Chinese New Year celebration in the morning, even though Pepper was at the head of the dragon, and came home after dinner, but just in time for bed. Then we left the girls at home and went to a party. I know it doesn't sound like much, but living on a farm in the middle of the forest, well mostly it's just easier if one of us stays home with the girls. And then I went away from home for three days and two nights.

Last Sunday one of my sisters, my mum and I, flew out of the mainland and down to Hobart for a few days. We stayed somewhere incredibly beautiful, we did so many of the things that three girls away from home do, and it was amazing.

On each of the three days we visited Mona. On the first day we walked all the way to the bottom level of the cave and I felt so giddy about my freedom and about the fact that I was finally at the gallery I had wanted to visit for the last couple of years, that I moved from exhibit to exhibit with a huge smile on my face sucking up all that I could and loving everything. I loved being in the ground surrounded by the sandstone walls, I loved the labyrinth feeling of it all and I loved the juxtaposition of the old next to the new, the religious art next to the art made from rubbish, and the themes of humanity and death and sex that seemed to come at you from all angles. I felt like I was being filled to the brim.

The second day was more difficult for me. For some reason on my second trip to the museum I took it all personally. I looked at exhibits and wondered about what specifically made them worthy of hanging and being called art. I thought a lot about the processes the artists would have gone through on their way to creating their works. Did they suffer self doubt? How did they justify their costs, and their time and their focus? Did they get stuck in their process? Were they worried about their reception? Were they so deeply involved they couldn't see out? How did they know? How did they get to the stage where they could identify as artists? And most importantly, how on earth did they balance their art with all the demands of the real world?

As I wondered and wandered, I watched and considered my process. I studied and made art all through my childhood and my schooling, I made and studied art at university, and I honestly believed I would create art for the rest of my life. And yet here I am an artless adult.

When this realisation hit me hard I was staring at an enormous wall covered in small artworks. I was moving from piece to piece studying it and thinking about its process, when all of a sudden I had to stop and sit and think about mine. I felt overwhelmed by emotion. The combination of being surrounded by art yet unable to create art made me feel claustrophobic and like I wanted to cry and hide and get out of there immediately. The feelings were immense, intense and I feared I'd never get out from under them.

We spent that afternoon swimming, eating last night's pizza for lunch and drinking champagne in the spa and I felt better. Like things shifted back to almost normal. But I felt like the realisation was an important one that should sit uncomfortably inside me until I really examined it properly.

On the last day we toured the gallery with its director. I was slightly hesitant to begin with but he moved and spoke fast and covered ground quickly. He filled in the gaps we'd missed and we were back up out in the sunshine before we knew it.

It occurred to me lying in my own bed that night that part of my fear of separating from the girls is what I'm bound to discover underneath that I've neglected all these years. It's scary and confronting and uneasy. I wondered how I could balance being a present mother of emotional girls with my own personal archaeological dig.

And honestly I'm not sure I can. In the three days I've been back I've worked so hard on the farm and I've been so present and involved in the girls and Bren and this is the first time I've allowed myself the time to bring this up again.

I do feel the need to express myself creatively, I do need to ask myself some hard questions and yet I also need to stay present and focused on life on our farm in our family. I'm scared to write this down because it feels a bit like a commitment to honesty and forward movement, but I guess the truth of it is I'll either do something with it or I'll read about it in my archives sometime in the future and feel a twinge. Time will tell.

And with that, the start of Emily's Bulldogs' socks, and a tiny seed of a thought of a drawing-a-day project, I'm out of here.

Oh and do let me know how you're travelling, I do love to read your thoughts, ideas and suggestions.
Are you enjoying the weather where you are? Are you up to date with your laundry? Do you have a burning desire to write a book? Record an album? Make an ice sculpture? Study Egyptian burial techniques? Brew your own beer? Start a flower farm? Go to Mona? Are you scared to discover who you really are? Do you meditate? Have you got anything fun planned for the weekend?

See you later alligator!

Love Kate xx

full of great and grateful

Hello my beautiful friends!

Well here we are again.

It's funny how these Friday blog posts book-end my week. Here I sit now - here I sat last week. Same time, same space, and then everything in between.

Last week just before I sat down to write, at the end of my gym session, my trainer told me she felt like my spark had gone out. I knew it too. Last week I felt like the world was sitting on my shoulders, like my skin was too thin to keep out the hurt, and like my body was tender and I was coming down with something.

Today, seven days after that, my gym trainer told me how strong I was getting and how much of a difference she had noticed in me in one week. Today I'm sitting here feeling calm and even, and even a bit excited, about what though I'm not exactly sure.

It's been a crazy week and I think that what got me through it to a place where I'm finishing it in a stronger state than when I started, is looking on the bright side. Very consciously choosing to see the good. Bringing myself back to the positive each time something threatened to knock me over. I know it sounds cliched, but it worked.

So although I feel like the whole grateful thing has been overused and is often a bit icky, for want of a better word, I've decided to make a list of all that I've been grateful for over my past week.

Here goes;



I'm grateful for wide open spaces, for a wet summer that has kept our farm looking lush, and for those apples, no matter how spotty, that have survived this difficult season and are growing and haven't yet been eaten by the birds.

I'm grateful for shady trees that give us cozy places to hang out and rest.

I'm grateful for family.

I'm grateful for the little vases of flowers I've been finding around the house.

I'm grateful that we've got plenty of water this year to irrigate.

I'm grateful that all the veggies we've been planting look healthy and strong.

I'm grateful for the wonderful medical care our Jarrah was given when she suddenly became very unwell last Sunday. I'm grateful to my dad, Farmdoc, for advising us, for the doctors, the nurses, the hospital, the tests and the medicine for keeping watch over her and making sure she recovered completely.

I'm grateful for our families for their support during this worrying time.

I'm grateful for knitting for keeping my hands busy while my heart was fluttering and my mind was panicking.

I'm grateful for the shower, because there is no better place to lose it.

I'm grateful to my mum for lending me her library book Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill which was such a perfect book to read next to a hospital bed.

I'm grateful for podcasts and my iPhone's battery that got me through a VERY long night of one-hourly observation checks and four-hourly meds.

And I'm unbelievably, ridiculously grateful that our Jarrah has recovered so well and that we have been allowed to consider it as something that happened, rather than something that happens.

I'm grateful to wonderful Sarah who left a comment on my last post advising me to spray icy cold water on my scarlet runner beans each evening because they need cold nights to set fruit. THANK YOU Sarah!! It worked. I've lost count of all the baby beans currently climbing the tee-pee. I'm so happy and relieved. I'm also grateful to you Peter Cundall for advising Sarah on the radio. And you, farmer Bren, I know you knew it.

I'm grateful for sun dried laundry.

I'm grateful for the train to Melbourne.

I'm grateful for the company of our dog and our cat.

I'm grateful for twilight, my favourite time of the day to wander and gather and water and weed.

I'm grateful for lemon juice and feta on everything.

I'm grateful for those first blackberries of the season that are hard and sour and the only ones I like to eat.

I'm grateful for sunshine and warmth.

I'm grateful for where I was born and how I can live.

I'm grateful for the physical and emotional closeness I share with my parents.

I'm grateful for health and strength.

I'm grateful for a family that values hand made.

I'm grateful that I cut and sewed a dress from an old bed sheet and could throw it in the rubbish when it failed, with no guilt at all.

I'm grateful for girls and their craft projects covering the floor of my studio.

I'm grateful for overalls and work boots.

I'm grateful for barbecues with new friends.

And you guys of course, I'm so grateful that you're here and for all that you add to my life.

I'm wishing you a wonderful weekend and if you'd like to tell me - I'd love to read your grateful list too.

LoveLove

Kate x