winter's rhubarb

An icy cold and wet winter's morning.

Four layers of clothing and water proofs on top.

A knife each and a few black crates.

The rhubarb harvest.

A visit from my Mum. Some help snipping from Miss Jazzy.

Long red stalks. Lots of talk of the future. A growing pile of leaves that are poisonous.

Some photos. Some posing. Some silliness.

A few glorious rays of sunshine.

A taste and a realisation that rhubarb is only good when cooked. Yuk!

Freezing cold fingers working quickly, snip, snip, snip.

A couple of crates filled. 

And then up to the house to weigh out the bundles and tie them up with string. A few of my favourite things.

To market, to farmer's market in the morning. With apples and beetroot and rhubarb.

And then home again, home again to make crumble. Delish.

I hope your weekend is wonderful.

And delicious.

Have you got something fun planned?
Have you got a fave way to eat the rhubarb?
Do tell.

Bye xx

true love

I so shouldn't be writing this blog post right now.

Farmer Bren has gone into town to take the girls to school and I promised him crates filled with freshly harvested beetroot upon his return.

But I just cannot help myself. Sometimes the words in my head are desperate to be typed and blogged and other times, like this morning, it's the pictures.

These pictures sum up my life so perfectly at the moment. It's autumn. We're picking tomatoes, apples, beetroot, carrots, sunflowers, onions, basil, peas, beans, lettuce, rocket, plums, grapes and pears.

My arms and legs are achy, my hair is flat from being under my sunhat, my uniform is denim overalls or jeans, a black work tee, a huge straw hat, my battered old work boots and I have so much dirt under my finger nails that I've given up on trying to get it out.

As much as I do miss my girlies while they are at school, I am loving the hours in the orchard or the market garden with my farmer boy. Alone. Without being interrupted. Like a working holiday. Bliss.

The cool rooms are filling up. My freezer is filling up. The girls' tummies are filling up. The bowls of fruit and veg on the counter waiting to be preserved for winter are filling up.

This is it! This is the time of year we've been waiting for. This is the part that makes sense of all those hours spent irrigating and fertilising and composting and mulching and weeding and worrying. This is the time of plenty and bounty and beauty.

I'm off to pick the beetroot.

We're off to Collingwood Children's Farm farmers' market in the morning to sell our delicious, certified organic autumn bounty.

We'll rest in winter.

So what are you up to this weekend?

What are you growing or planting or eating?

Are you coming to see us at market?

I hope so!

I hope you guys have the most wonderful, delicious weekend.

Bye!

Learning curve

'Here's a remarkable thought: Among the world's children starting grade school this year, 65 percent will end up doing jobs that haven't even been invented yet.... 

The certainty of change, coupled with the complete uncertainty as to the precise nature of the change, has profound and complex implications for our approach to education. For me, though, the most basic takeaway is crystal clear: Since we can't predict exactly what today's young people will need to know in ten or twenty years, what we teach them is less important than how they learn to teach themselves.'

From The one world school house by Salman Khan pages 179-180.


This week my girls will head off to school.
This week will be Miss Indi's first at high school.
And Miss Pepper's first few days at school (sob).

This week I am questioning the school system like never before. The methods by which we are taught, the hours and hours spent in a classroom, the time wasted on discipline and admin, the classes grouped by age, the stresses that routine puts on my family and probably most importantly, the lack of not-tired hours left over for things like farming and family.

It seems that we are too far into the system to get out of it for now. My girls want to go to school. I guess it's up to us to find creative ways to deal with these issues and get around them.

I can tell you one thing for sure, and that is that my kids will not be the winners of the iPad prize for best attendance record.

Wishing you a wonderful learning year my friends.
May there be lots of time for getting our hands dirty and learning by doing.

xx

She's apples.

Once upon an Autumn, 11 years ago, we visited this farm for the very first time and the Jonny's were ripe on the apple trees. We walked the rows of the orchard and gave Miss Indi, then a four month old baby, a suck of an apple. She loved it. She made all sorts of excited noises. And we knew we had to buy this place and become apple farmers.

In the beginning it was just apples.

We have 1000 trees and about 40 varieties.

Then, after a few years of drought, we added the chooks, some more fruit trees and the vegies.

We pride ourselves that we are a mixed family farm.

That we have lots of chickens in our basket.

But we still have an apple on our Daylesford Organics logo.

We are apple farmers at heart.

And I have to admit, that when apple picking time comes along I am happiest of all.

I love walking down the quiet rows of the fruiting orchards.

I love the feeling of the apples coming off neatly in my hand.

I love the sound and feeling of emptying the filled picking bags into the crates.

I love how the newly lightened branches seem to bounce back so high after we ease them of their load.

I love how the apple is a symbol of health and happiness.

And of course I love having bowls and baskets and crates of apples in the kitchen and in the cool room.

We've been munching our way through lots of apples over the weekend.

We've been enjoying pies and cakes and compote too.

Not long now until cider making day.

I am not even slightly a religious person, but for some reason I never forget to acknowledge and thank the apple trees for their delicious fruit after we have picked it. To think about the work they have done for us and for the birds, and then to watch them lose their leaves and fall asleep.

I remember having an apple in my school lunch every day of my childhood, I love that my kids will remember growing and picking theirs too.

Do you love apples?
Did you have an apple a day in your lunch?
Do you have a favourite variety? A favourite apple recipe?
Are you a red or a green apple eater?
Are you on trend with the cider drinking thing?

Happy autumn peeps.
xx