winter one

Hello sweet peas, welcome back. 

Another week has passed, another season has begun. And while I'm not looking forward to the coming wintry months at all, I guess the sooner they start - the sooner they finish. Someone told me there are 93 days until spring-time, let the count down begin! Let's get on with it.

I'm pleased to report that my past week felt so much better than the week before. It could be the fact that I had a couple of five hour sleep nights in-between the insomnia ones, it could be the fact that I spent a good part of three days off the farm in the big wide world, it could have been the generally improved emotional tone of the house, or it could have even been the moon. Who knows. I'm just so relieved to be able to follow a train of thought and to have a spring in my step again.

It has been very interesting to me to read of your sleep difficulties. Until this past week I think I assumed that most of the world slept through the eight hours, cozily tucked into their beds, dreaming their fairy tales. Now when I wake up in the night and lie there staring out into the darkness I no longer feel as lonely. It's probably not a good thing, but it helps.

may twenty six - part a

Last Saturday we spent most of the day splitting and stacking firewood. These photos are of my parents but it was a team effort. Bren's dad on the splitter, me loading logs onto the splitter, Bren on the chain-saw, Bren's mum burning the heads, and my folks building the stacks.

may twenty six - part b

While we were hard at work on the fire-wood, Indi was cutting and pasting her photos up and around the farm for her year 12 art project. She pasted Bren hanging from a shipping container, arms reaching around hugging a tree, an arm reaching under a door, a Jazzy popping up out of an old drum, and the arm above holding the ornamental kale bed. 

It's the most incredible feeling to be inspired by your child, I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

may twenty seven

I finished my Merricks shawl. I didn't get a chance to block out that beautiful lacy edging this week but hopefully will soon.

may twenty eight

This will be the view from my big studio window. 

may twenty nine

On Tuesday we took my car into Ballarat for a service and spent the few hours watching Breath at the movies, drinking coffee and wandering around a garden centre looking at, but not buying plants.

Late in the afternoon I visited the sunflower patch in-between picking Pepper and a friend up from their face painting class and rushing off to gym. This close to winter they're definitely not looking their best, but there are still enough glowing golden faces in amongst them to make me smile.

may thirty

I spent the entire day on Wednesday in Melbourne with Jazzy doing jobs. We walked a hundred miles, we ticked a heap off things off my list, we ate yummy food and I learnt what a difference a properly fitted bra makes. It's miraculous!! Later on when we got home I took off my old bra that was full of holes and had long ago stopped supporting me, and I chucked it in the fire and burnt it. Good riddance.

The big lesson I learnt on that day was that it's probably not a great idea to share a changing room while bra shopping with a teenager. Let's just say that even the most body confident among us might feel a little wobbly at the sight of and memory of what once was and what now is.

The delicious box of yarn samples from Rosabella was waiting for me when I got back home.

From their website -

Ethically grown kid mohair, cruelty free fine Australian wool and fair trade silk blend together to create mohair yarns like no other...

The inspiration behind Rosabella is the desire to maintain the threads of traditional knowledge and the skills that are passed down through the generations.

Sustainable farming practices, care for the environment, cruelty-free animal husbandry and ethical trade are the values woven into every skein of yarn we make.

Sounds, and looks, and feels pretty wonderful. I've been sitting here squishing them and dreaming up a project that will showcase the gorgeous colours whilst making the most of the incredible softness. I'm thinking a pair of spotty socks, or a patterned beanie, or long arm warmers....

may thirty first

Yesterday Jobbo and Bren made the window frames for my studio. Hopefully next week they'll pop them in.

 june first

Today. The first day of winter. Sitting in the lounge-room with the door to the sun-room open to bring in the fresh air. Frankincense, wild orange, lemon and peppermint oils in the diffuser for invigoration. Five hours sleep last night. Wondering how many little socks I have to knit before I feel confident enough to teach other people how to knit them. Trying to remain calm at the thought that my talk and class at Soul Craft Festival are only one week away! Looking at pictures of people's beautiful bulb plantings in neat, straight rows and laughing at the fact that I am a messy flower farmer who chucks random handfuls around and digs them in where they land. Hoping to get the rest of the bulbs in by the end of the weekend. Listening to season 2 episode 8 of Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo. Drinking the coffee my farmer boy just brought me. Feeling happy that Indi has agreed to interview me on stage for my Soul Craft presentation. Wondering how many of you guys will be there on the day? Busting for a wee. Thinking I should probably press publish and go and do some outside jobs while the sun is shining.

So how are you anyway?
Have you been sleeping well?
Are you wearing a bra that fits and supports?
Are you a neat row gardener or a wild and random one?
Can you imagine lying on the bed on the mezzanine in my studio looking out at the forest through one of those windows?
Too exciting!

Sending love and good, restful sleep to you wherever you are.
See you next week.

Love, Kate x

May days

Gosh, what a week hey. Sitting here alone in the same place I sat alone a week ago reflecting on the last seven days makes me realise what a crazy emotional flood we've been swimming through. I don't actually know if emotions can flood but whatever this past week was made of feels thick and heavy and honestly at times I'm not even sure the swimming we're doing is even getting us anywhere.

Throughout the week I've found myself looking at the unseasonal weather, at the full moon and at the time of the year for excuses for the intensity, but I'm still clueless. I guess it is what it is. And what it is is a jumble of four people's accumulated stress, needs and experiences and my desperate attempt to be the best partner and mother I can; to guide, to take over, to be there, to listen, to distract, to support, and to comfort. AND to try not to get swept along and be overcome by my own emotions in dealing with theirs.

Unfortunately none of the stories belonging to the emotions are mine to tell so I understand that this discussion of emotional overload might feel empty. This is one of the weeks where I definitely considered starting an anonymous second blog to discuss my secret life of raising and living with teenagers in order to get it out and make some sense of it all. But I do feel completely confident that everything we're living through is normal and some sort of rite of passage. Text book normal even. We'll get to the other side and be stronger for it.

In the meantime April turned into May and I remembered that last May I took a photo or two each day and then posted them on my blog every Friday. If you like you can click back to this post for the explanation. I liked the way it forced me to find one moment every day to capture, I liked the way it showed me how diverse my days are, I liked that it got me out of the rush around on a Friday morning, to be a bit more mindful over the whole week, and I loved the way it helped me to see the beauty in my everyday.

So I'm going to do it again. In fact I already started last Tuesday I just haven't told you yet. 

Let's get going then.

May 1

I took this photo of some pots of chrysanthemums on the first but the story they tell is from the days before. Last Sunday evening we drove through the forest and picked our farmer boy up from his time away. It was beautiful and emotional and our hearts felt full. The next few hours were filled with stories and tears and love. On Monday morning not wanting to be separated again so soon, we drove the girls out to their school together. On the way home, alone for the first time in what felt like forever, I couldn't stop looking at him and touching his face.

It had occurred to me the day before that I deal with my life the same way that I deal with a complicated knitting pattern - one line at a time. And that life line started with the preparations and discussions about his trip and ended with the drive to pick him up. One by one I had dealt with everything in between that I had to; I got the girls fed, dressed and ready for school, I did the drop offs and pick ups, I dealt with emotions and crises and tears as they came up, I looked after the farm, I prepared the meals, I picked crates and crates of apples and bunches and bunches of flowers and baskets and baskets of tomatoes, we all went together to a friend's 50th, we set up and sold at the farmer's market, came home for a quick lunch and then we drove an hour past Castlemaine. 

And the same way that I don't let myself look ahead and over complicate things in my knitting, I didn't look ahead in my life. And then all of a sudden when we were driving the wrong way through the forest, worried about being late, it occurred to me that we were going to bring our boy home. His trip was almost complete and then he would be ours. I immediately got excited, impatient butterflies in my tummy. One bit was ending and I could hardly wait to begin the next.

And then the next morning there was that magical, sunshine filled drive home from school. We told stories, we listened, we said so much mushy stuff, we stopped for coffee in a tiny nearby town and when we walked past a little buggy by the side of the road selling potted chrysanthemums - of course I bought them.

May 2

Until Last May we had an ugly poly-tunnel like hot house attached to the side of our house. On the ninth of May last year we pulled down that hot house that had been there since we  first moved here in 2001. On the fifteenth of May last year we concreted in three massive old bridge posts and started the construction of the green house at the back of the photo above. And on the 23rd of May the hot house was finished just leaving the shelves and table to be completed. (Click on any of the links in the sentences to visit those posts).

Exactly one year later on May the second, the sub floor, insulation and then floor of my studio went in and down.

Even though the hot house is predominantly my space it's still family owned and used, even though I am quite vocal and adamant when I decide that I want a recycled brick floor for the sun room, open shelving in the kitchen, and to decorate all the spaces my way, I still can't believe that this new build is only for me. Every piece of wood or window, every nail and screw, every jackhammered hole, all of it has been carefully chosen and designed, and banged and dug, and drawn and discussed, for me. I am definitely crazy excited, but I am also overwhelmed. So much time and effort and money is being spent on something that will be mine alone. I can't really get my head around it.

Watch this space, if I know anything at all I know that it's going to be pretty special.

May 3

On May third, yesterday, rain threatened and I made comfort soup from the garden for my gang and thought about how important beautiful spaces are to my state of mind. One year on and it's hard to imagine life before this greenhouse with it's beautifully big windows and purpose built shelving and table. It feels like it honours the growing work I do and enables me to be better at it.

I also took that photo of the sign I'm halfway through painting because seeing it there yesterday amongst all the golden leaves was the first time I really felt like it was autumn. There was a chill in the air, crunchy leaves underfoot, the air smelt smokey and we were preparing for rain. It's time.

May 4

Today. I always say that I can survive almost anything if I have a good book to read and a lovely pattern to knit. At the moment I have one of each.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Abbe who I met years and years ago at a craft thing when she was a quilter and I was a crocheter brought her three gorgeous boys to visit me at market. It's been years since I've seen her, possibly even since her wedding, but in the intervening years she's moved over from the fabric to the yarn side (yay!), and fallen deeply in love with knitting and dyeing.

It was pretty cute watching her three boys sitting beside our stall munching on apples. It was pretty exciting when Abbe gave me three skeins of her gorgeous hand dyed yarn to play with.

Abbe has teamed up with Kylie from Whiskey Bay Woollens who has designed a gorgeous shawl called Merricks to showcase the dyed yarns and together they are offering packs of yarn and pattern for sale. Click over to Abbe's instagram page for all the different yarn combinations she has available.

That's the start of my Merricks shawl up there, I'll pop all the details as I go on my Ravelry page.

The book next to it, Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover is the book I'm about to finish. I've loved it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in beautifully written, powerful books about family, fundamentalist religion, mental illness and Mormonism. As Angela M, a reviewer on Goodreads wrote - 'Difficult to read. Impossible to put down.' 

And the last photo is the scene that greeted me just after I looked up from taking the photo above it. On the way to school, hot water bottle against the cold, happy to be in grade 5 again after spending the day at the local high school yesterday.

And that's my May so far
How about yours? How's it going?
Do you have a creative project on the go?
Are you swimming in a thick sea of emotions?
What's your trick to getting through times that are overwhelming? (I've been going to the gym most nights).

See you'se next week lovely ones!

Love, Kate x


ps Our farm gate stall is still open and full of delicious apples...just sayin'

the antidote

The other day I was walking Miss Pepper down the hill into her school. I think we were just on time with not a moment to spare. We were both wearing overalls, we were holding hands and she was skipping along beside me, pulling me forward, chattering away about something or other. Along the way we greeted other people, asked them questions and answered theirs.

At one point when we passed two teachers from her school, one of them remarked on how easy I make parenting look. We took a few more steps until I realised what she'd said and turned back to thank her. She elaborated a bit, I told her briefly about my experience with the woman at the festival the week before, and we all agreed that I would use her kind words to cancel out the other's nasty ones. Like an antidote. Or anti-venom. 

Then I skipped Miss Pepper out into the school garden to play, and went about my day.

Hours later when I met my farmer boy in the kitchen for coffee we filled each other in on the stories of our mornings. He'd driven the big girls to school and I'd bumped into a friend in the fruit shop. As we were finishing off and about to leave I remembered the kind words the teacher had spoken to me. 

A week before when a complete stranger criticised my parenting I took it straight to heart. I agonised, I cried, I couldn't get it out of my head, I felt terrible and I couldn't let it go. Yet when someone I know and trust, someone who sees so many parents with children, someone who is in my day to day life, compliments me on the same things, I feel happy and then promptly forget about it.

When you look at it with a bit of distance, there's something about that story that isn't quite right.

I should have nodded politely at that woman at the festival, been upset for a few minutes and then dismissed her as a cuckoo and gotten on with my day. And then a week later I should have felt thrilled with the teacher's comments. I should have taken them into my heart, replayed them over and over, told them to everyone I met and used them to feel good about myself and my parenting.

Why am I so quick to believe a nasty stranger and so quick to dismiss a kind friend?

I keep asking myself if deep down in my heart I felt like the stranger saw my truth and was exposing me for the terrible person I am, but I know that's definitely not true. Not at all. In retrospect I think her tirade was possibly more about her and less about me anyway.

Bren thinks it might be in the delivery. If the stranger had made a rude comment and then left me to walk away and the teacher had shouted compliments at me for two whole minutes, then my response might have been different. Makes sense.

I don't know the answer but I am happy to sit with it for a while. Happy to try harder to take compliments deep into my heart and deal with criticism appropriately. Happy to report that two weeks after the verbal abuse at the festival I feel over it and that although I'll probably tell the story when it comes up for weeks to come, it doesn't hurt me anymore. 

This is the only photo I took on my big camera on our four day trip to Sydney for my birthday. Miss Jazzy in a vintage shop in Newtown trying on Converse runners.

We also went to markets, watched Beautiful the Carol King musical, ate out, drank lots of coffee, visited my cousin and his sweet family, visited the Opera House and the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, watched a movie, caught buses and trains and taxis, looked at the Bondi - Sculptures by the Sea, listened to all the noises of the people in the apartments above and beside us, squirmed with embarrassment and horror at some late night loud activity above, tried to laugh (and debrief) about it the next morning, thought longingly of the acres of space surrounding our house back home, op shopped, wool shopped, book shopped, and came home feeling happy and celebrated.

We were only away for four days but gosh it was wonderful to wake up on Wednesday morning and see our place with fresh eyes. All the colour and growth and beauty. All the mowing and weeding that needs to be done too.

Over the past week these two toes are all that I've crafted. The other night I knitted a few rows of a pattern into the next bit but then I undid them because they didn't feel right. I'm not sure where to go from here. Part of me wants to decide quickly and get on with the knitting part and the security of knowing that I've got a project on the go and another part of me is enjoying the design insecurity. 

I always feel happiest when I have a good book and a good knitting pattern to turn to at the end of the day, it's strange to think that I've been working such long hours lately that I haven't had much time for either.

And this is the birthday present I bought myself in Sydney last week. It's going to become a sweater before too long. It was hard for me to move away from the blue and grey section, but Miss Jazzy really loved this brown and the photo that goes with the pattern I plan to knit is this brown, so I chose it and so far, I'm pleased I did. Watch this space for updates.

Oh and farmer Bren chose that black on the right for a new beanie. Black is also something new for him, I'm interested to see how we go with it.

And now I'd really like to thank you guys - for your kindness, for your birthday wishes, for your sweetness, and for your sunshine. You guys fill my life with so much wonderful and I'm ever so grateful.

I hope your weekend is great, I hope the people you meet up with are kind and I hope that someone surprises you with a compliment and that you take it into your heart and use it to make yourself feel strong and awesome. 

Love Love

Kate

xx

a bit a this and a bit a that

Happy new week, month and season you guys!!

There's a crazy amount of stuff going on here at Foxs Lane at the moment, so I think that instead of inundating you with photos and stories right now, I'll try and get a few blog posts up and out there this week. Try being the operative word of course, but my intentions are definitely good and that's what really matters right? I hope so anyway.





So let's get to it.

Lately, I've been;

HARVESTING - and double podding and smashing on toast, frying into felafel and making fritters, out of broad beans. There are still heaps left on the plants but we probably should get to freezing some to eat later and drying some to plant later, soon.



READING - and adoring The Poisonwood Bible. I always thought I had read it before, but now that I am reading it I don't think I ever have. I'm not really reading a lot these days, eight or ten pages at night in bed before I can't keep my eyes open, but part of me feels happy because that will make it last longer. What an incredible piece of writing.

And I do have to mention that although I was excited to go back to a real paper book after my first on the Kindle, I do miss the back-light and the lack of weight. But I can read in the bath and that is a total winner in my book. Ha!



LOVING - our kitchen garden. The smells and sights and flavours of late spring/early summer are just delicious. Some evenings after dinner I pop out into the garden with no other purpose but to walk from bed to bed admiring the new growth. I have been known to compliment certain plants on their daily developments too. Such a luscious joy is the garden at this time of the year when the days are warm and long and there is enough water to keep things green.



KNITTING - the same pair of socks. There's not much sitting on my bum knitting time these busy days.



PLANTING - so many seeds in trays, seedlings in the garden and also this new market garden up near the house.



BUYING - other people's yarn on buy/swap/sell sites. How gorgeous will these guys be as socks and then in my sock left-over blanket.





STICKING - and swapping and chatting about stickers.

Maureen from Pipsticks runs a sticker subscription club and sent us a couple of packets to play with and we're having so much fun with them.

As soon as they got over the excitement of getting envelopes filled with stickers in the post, my girls spent ages examining each sheet, picking favourites, swapping them, sticking them on their own drawings and then organising them into collections.

There's something so simple and easy and fun about stickers. Stickers encourage kids and their parents to be creative. Stickers are great things to collect. An envelope of stickers enables a Mum to make dinner in peace. AND stickers totally take me back to my childhood and my carefully curated boxed collection of scratch and sniff, puffy, sparkly, Hello Kitty and hologram stickers.



WATCHING things grow. Grass, the fruit on the trees, the baby birds, the veggies in the garden and our own children. Pepper's tee-shirts barely cover her tummy these days, Jazzy is growing out of her shoes once a month and Indi started year nine today. Year NINE!!!!! It's all happening so quickly at the moment I sometimes struggle to keep up.



RELISHING - togetherness. I don't know how long this happy to hang out together stage will last, so I'm noticing and appreciating every second while it still does. Sisters are the best!




LISTENING - to our Indi's new song she recorded with her music teacher Geoffrey Williams.


So that's me mostly caught up, how about you?
What're you harvesting, reading, loving, knitting, planting, buying, sticking, watching, relishing and listening to?

I hope you find exactly what you've been looking for.

Lots a love,

Kate xx

This is not a tutorial.

The first part of our weekend was all big city, bright lights, late night, family, friends, fun, fun, fun.

Today we've tried to take it easy. To spend time together at home. To ground ourselves. To have a slow day in preparation for the fast week to come.

We spent a bit of this afternoon making decorations for our kitchen garden. Prettying up the pea and bean stakes. Wrapping wool around sticks.

It was good simple fun.

A great way to use up all the colourful yarn scraps I've been amassing.
Fun time together as a family.
A crafty activity suitable for young and old.
A way to marry wool and nature (I love that combo).
A way to really be together, winding, talking, telling, singing.

We tied a knot with a strand of wool and wound around and around and around.
Simple.
Some liked neat wraps and others prefered big gaps.

We could probably use beads and bells and sequins and other crafty bits too next time.

I'm totally in the mood to wrap now.
I've been walking around the farm looking at all the potential wrap situations: trees, the uprights in the garage, chairs, stools, bits of the chooken houses, mobiles...

And the newly colourful bean patch makes me so happy every time I walk past.

I have no idea how long my kids will be happy spending a few hours like this, but while they still are, I'll certainly be making the most of it.

I hope you've had a great weekend. Have you done anything special?
Have you been wrapping?
Do you think you might?
What do you think you might wrap?

I hope your week this week is surprising and fabulous.

Bye! x