country dahlias two

It's a magical feeling to find yourself back in a place you visited exactly a year before and notice how much you've grown. Last year we visited Country Dahlias near the end of our first season as flower farmers. Jenny's two acre garden has Australia's largest collection of dahlias with 2,250 different types and over 20,000 bushes.

Last year we'd planted two rows of tubers; we'd staked them, irrigated them, made peace with their pests, picked their flowers, dead-headed them, sold them and given them away, and absolutely fallen head over heels in love with each and every plant. All in all it was a great first season and when we arrived at Country Dahlias all we knew is that we wanted more. We were completely overwhelmed. We loved the colours, we loved the shapes, we loved the pom-poms, we loved the huge ones and the mini ones, and we wrote a wish-list so long that it went over the page. This is the blog post I wrote back then.

A couple of weeks after we visited Country Dahlias last year we experienced our first frost and the end of the season. We let the plants die down, the weather closed in and we dug up their tubers in weather so cold and wet it hurt. We tried to keep the varieties named and separated but by that time the main thing was to get them out of the mud so they wouldn't rot. We brought them in and buried them deep inside boxes of saw-dust from Bren's lathe. We only had two rows but it felt like quite a big job and had us looking over lovingly at the rows of perennial flowers that were independently and quietly taking care of themselves.

By early spring we were itching to get our tubers out of the saw-dust and into the ground. We watched some YouTube and learnt how to divide them and then in November we planted them all. Five rows this time. And again they bloomed like crazy and we adored them.

This year on what feels like it'll become our annual pilgrimage to Jenny's I still had that same heart full of love feeling and I still felt so full of joy I could burst, but we also felt like more seasoned dahlia growers. We recognised so many of the varieties - some even by name, we thought a lot about practicalities - like stem length and strength, we tried to find gaps in our collection, and as always Bren was on the hunt for the perfect white. And this time we only ordered 10 tubers - I still can't believe we were so restrained.

I still can't believe we're so close to the end of this season. I'd really love to have each plant labeled with its name and colour and description before we lose them, but I've had the tags cut out stacked in a neat pile for weeks now and it still hasn't happened. There's always something more pressing to do. Maybe I'll get to it this weekend.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend my friends. Whether it's filled with matza or chocolate or something completely different, I hope it's delicious.

Lots of love to you wherever this finds you. Where is that by the way? And what will you be eating?


See you next week!

Love, Kate

xx

Dear Jarrah

Dear Jazzy,

Although I don't think you've ever read my blog before, as our middle child I know you'd point out the injustice if I didn't write to you like I did to Indi when she was off on her school adventure two years ago, and so I will.

Dear Jazzy,

Last Sunday night we took you to the airport for your six week class trip to France and Spain.

After weeks of preparation, after days of goodbyes, after breakfast pancakes and last minute adjustments, we five jumped in the car and drove away. In the car on the way there, despite your initial protests, I played the latest Heavyweight podcast - Rob, and you laughed the loudest. Of course you did. In our family you are 'the broken arm guy' and as our middle child, there's no way we'd be ever be allowed to forget it.

Sandwiched in between your sisters, our role as your parents is to make you feel and trust that your experiences are no less important and are valued and acknowledged equally. So we discussed your trip and tried our hardest not to compare it to Indi's. But secretly, inside my heart, I felt pleased with my own mum-experience. I knew what I was in for this time and felt a little more prepared to let you go.

At the airport you ran off excitedly with your friends, you posed for photos, danced and then we watched you as you handed over your passport and checked yourself in. It was impossible to feel overemotional when you appeared so calm, capable and ready.

We four drove home from the airport flicking through so many podcasts, but nothing fit. I think we were all a bit lost in the silence, thinking of what the Jarrah-sized hole would feel like in our lives.

On Monday, while you were still in the air, Pepper went back to school, Indi studied at home we worked on the farm and continued our attempts to use up the winter produce in the garden to make room for spring. Late in the afternoon we got a message letting us know you'd arrived in Paris with a photo of your first meal.

I wondered if you slept on the plane. I wondered if you watched movies or ate your meals. I wondered who you sat next to and what you did on your two hour stop-over in an airport far, far away.

On Tuesday we woke up with 15 year old you in our hearts. It was raining hard and I knew that if you were here you'd be bargaining for a deep bath. We put together the frames for three more bee boxes, we made Pepper's birthday party invitations, we weeded and planted and watered and cooked, and then late in the afternoon we called you and sang 'happy birthday!' Even though it had only been a few days, it made us so happy to hear your voice. To hear that you'd just been woken up with songs and cards. I love that you felt celebrated. I love that you are the 15 year old girl who wants an electric guitar for her birthday. And I hope you found all of our cards in your backpack.

On Wednesday the wind was blowing hard and unsettled everyone and everything. All of my plans to start planting out the market garden were pushed over and I felt on edge and annoyed.

On Thursday we woke up and the wind had stopped and everything felt still, thank goodness. I noticed that the first of the peonies that always flower on your birthday is out. I thought I might pick it and put it in a jar next to my bed but then I changed my mind and left it there to admire each time I walk past it to my studio.

On Thursday I also started spinning wheel lessons and dad finished his first bowl on his new lathe. He carved it out of a eucalyptus burl - a tree growth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner. It is commonly found in the form of a rounded outgrowth on a tree trunk or branch that is filled with small knots from dormant buds.

With all that tricky grain going in every direction it was quite a challenge for him to turn but the results are totally worth the effort. Such a beautiful piece.

Which brings me to today. It's the most magnificent spring day. I'm sitting on the couch in my studio watching the birds visiting the banksia tree outside, I can just hear the sound of John on his mulcher cleaning up the gorse behind the tractor shed and I'm contemplating trying to type and treadle the spinning wheel at the same time.

And of course I'm thinking of you. I love that your school cares about rites of passage and the transition through adolescence. I love how perfectly timed this trip is for you. And I love you!

It's 6.30am in Paris, I wonder what adventures your today holds for you.

So this is it, the first of my stories from while you're away. I can't wait to hear yours.

All my love

xx

twenty seventh

It's the twenty seventh day of the year and I'm sitting here with an anxious feeling in my tummy that won't go away. These photos don't really have anything to do with my anxious feeling except that when I look at them they tell the story of a simple life and my anxiety is that I'm about to lose all of that. I feel like our family potato picking days are numbered. That things are about to get crazy.

From next Tuesday my two big girls will start going to a school that is 50 minutes drive away from here. That's 50 minutes drive one way, which means that if I take them in in the morning and come home in between, that's four hours of my day spent in the car. Unfortunately from what we can work out none of the public transport available works.

I am incredibly lucky because my farmer boy and my parents are going to share the load. And without a doubt the driving is worth it because the school they are going to go to is going to be incredible, but still. Our life as a family is going to change. Our farm life is going to change. And Miss Pepper who will still go to school in Daylesford, her life is going to change too.

The other day at spinning group an older woman told me to embrace this change. To enjoy the challenges and opportunities that this new stage in life brings. She said that although it feels enormous to me now, that time will fly and soon we'll be in a different phase. My farmer boy keeps quoting her back at me. He likes Charlotte's way of thinking.

And I am trying. Another woman I met told me about the knitting group that runs in a nearby town on Tuesday mornings and then invited me back to her house afterwards each week for a private spinning class. I could also spend time in a local library writing my blog or notes I have for a book. I can think of loads of ways to pass the time if I stay for the school day so there's less driving, but then I'm away from here. And if I'm away from here then less farming will get done, less house stuff and cooking will get done, I'll spend less time with Pepper and in our community and with Bren. And if he does it then he'll miss out on all of that and me.

Not to mention the girls whose lives will shift. Home will remain here but their friends will all live further away and so their social lives will move further away too.

Mostly I feel positive and optimistic about what's to come. This school feels like an opportunity we cannot pass up. I sat through speeches by the principal, head of campus and teachers yesterday with tears in my eyes. This is going to be a really wonderful place to learn and I feel like it'll provide our girls with the best education we could hope for for them.

But things are definitely going to change, and part of me misses the simplicity and slowness and ease of now already.


xx

seventh

And on the seventh day we celebrated our farmer boy.

It was a day filled with family and love and cards (that one's Indi's) and kisses and coffee and archery and spoon carving and cake. So much love for our guy.

And tonight we're heading out on a birthday dinner date!! I'm so excited.

I'd better get dressed and get the girls to my parents' house.

Happy Bren's birthday you guys!

xoxox

The last of the apples

On Sunday we picked the last of the apples and pulled the nets off the trees.

It's been an incredible season, possibly our best ever and although I do feel sad at the thought that it will be so many months before I pick another juicy ripe apple from a tree, I feel happy and grateful for the season that was.

Our orchards are made up of 40 varieties of heritage apples to spread out the blossom and the harvest -  so we picked and we picked this year all the way from January through to late May. From the sweetest all the way through to the ones that make you wince with sour. From the ones that hold their shape when cooked through to the ones that completely disintegrate into mush. From the old faves like Granny Smiths and Jonathans all the way through to the interesting Mutzus and the Peasgood's Nonesuch and the Esopus Spitzenbergs.

It's been such fun!

And although we do wonder if the bio-dynamics and the nets made the season so great, we're most thankful of Mother Nature and the rain and the sunshine and the bees.

And the farm stall. How we love that stall. Opening her up in the morning, picking apples and filling the crates, writing cute notes on the blackboards for our customers, our gorgeous customers, and the thought that our apples are being munched and crunched in homes and lunch boxes all around the area.

So to finish on a high and to thank you for your love and support, we have dropped the price to $2.50 a kilo from now until we run out. Which will be pretty soon I think.

So if you are in the area - please come and buy some and take them home and eat them, bake them, juice them, dehydrate them, pop them in Fowlers jars, make stamps with them, stew them, brew cider with them, bob for them..........

And tell me - what's your fave variety of apple and what's your fave way to eat them?

Big love!

xoxo

Oh PS Alli you won the little Tea Mouse kit. Yay!! x

twenty second

On the twenty second day of the new year my farmer boy took me on a detour past the hazel-nut orchard but wouldn't tell me why.

I wandered up and down the rows chatting about how the blackberry vines needed to be cut back, how last year when we picked the hazels I had just gotten out of hospital and my world felt like it was upside down, and how we should make sure we finish eating the last crop before we harvest the next. But I had a feeling he was too involved in what he was doing to really hear me. That he had other plans.

After we found what he wanted we came back up to the house, I started on the laundry and then lunch and he disappeared for a bit.

When he returned he gave me a bunch of gypsy flowers he'd made from the hazel-wood.

I'm not sure who's getting more from this new wood cutting love of his. What a gift. What treasures.

I feel like when we made the almost impossible decision to minimise our business a year an a half ago, that this is exactly what we were hoping for. Time. Love. Passion. A focus inward rather than out. I feel like it took us most of that time to get here but it sure was worth it. I think I said this the other day but I have to mention again what an incredible thing it is to watch someone you love doing what they love. What an honour.

I look forward to seeing what happens next.

I hope you are feeling the love, my friends.

Bye!

xx

seventh

The seventh day of the new year is our farmer boy's birthday.

We tried to convince him to have a party, to go on an adventure, or to go camping, but he told us that all he wanted was a day off. A day where he did not leave the farm, was not busy, or productive.

We gave him a pancake breakfast, loads of hand made cards and prezzies, a pavlova lunch, and we gave him a set of wood carving knives.



And when we went down to look after the animals and clean the irrigation filters, we brought back up with us a bit of black wattle.



First he chopped it in half and then he got to work with his new tools.











After a while the girls got their knives out too.



It was such a gorgeous way to spend the afternoon, busy hands, snippets of conversation and curly wood shavings.



We'll finish the day with a movie and popcorn.

I feel like we gave our boy the happiest birthday and everything he asked for. Oh except the non productive bit, look at all those shavings.

Happy, happy birthday farmer Bren, oh how we lovelovelove you!!

I hope you guys had a great farmer Bren's birthday too.
Oh and I'll draw the five beanie winners tomorrow if that's ok, the movie is starting and I don't want to miss out.

xxxx