snippety snippets

So the holidays are over and we've hit the ground running. It's springtime in our part of the world and although it's not quite tee-shirt weather yet, I feel like things are changing and I'm going to have to move fast and spend my time carefully to keep up.

I feel like we've had a great rest. I feel like I've had the time to really work out my priorities and I feel ready to work hard for and at the things I love and the things that inspire me and make me happy.

I feel like I've got loads to share with you here too, but before any of that let's do a quick catch up. Here are some of the early October snippets of my life.

ADMIRING the peony roses. We are generally a bit useless when it comes to growing anything that's not edible, but the peonies seem to take care of themselves. Each year they flower for Jazzy's birthday and each year I am astounded by their beauty and make a mental note to plant more. More roses and more flowers in general. We can't eat them but they certainly feed us in other ways. They make me happy, they make this place beautiful and they make me stop for a bit and be in the moment admiring them. Love!



Technically I'm not CROCHETING anything but I have plans. I'm searching Ravelry for a hat pattern for my cold headed, awesome friend Andi who shaved her gorgeous raven locks to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. Pretty great hey!!

And I'm also queuing patterns for my Softie For Mirabel softie. I'm thinking I might make a kitty this year. Or a bird. Are you making one too?


I'm READING this book. Oh my goodness how I want to be a shepherdess. And a spinner. And a natural dyer. And I want to sell a Daylesford Organics yarn to people all around the world. And I want to work out if there is a way we can do it all from here in a certified organic/biodynamic way.

I'm a little bit obsessed but I feel like our probable plans to travel next year are putting the brakes on this new direction. Or maybe it's making me change the direction of our travels into woolly research. We'll see.



I'm SMELLING all of the blossom. I'm fighting for space to get my nose in deep with the bees. And I'm dreaming of quinces and plums and almonds and apples and nashis and berries. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.....



Unfortunately we're still LIGHTING the fire for warmth. I had hoped that our days of collecting, splitting, hauling, stacking, lighting and cleaning would be over for another season by now, but I should have known better. Hopefully soon we'll be down to overnight burns only. And by then it'll probably be fire season.



I'm still KNITTING my love heart socks. Knitting time at home is so much scarcer than on holidays.



And I'm MISSING little holiday bare legs and arms photobombing my pics.



We're EATING kale on everything, in everything and around everything. We planted a ridiculous amount this year and now I want the space back.



I'm incredibly GRATEFUL for this beautiful 100% natural Polwarth wool that Tom from Tarndie Heritage Sheep Farm sent me.

Tom's great-great grandfather developed the Polwarth sheep on their farm in the 1800's to better suit the southern climate and now 100 years later they are still farming the sheep and now they are selling the wool on their big cartel site. Imagine what Tom's great-great grandfather would think of that?! Amazing!!

I haven't had a chance to knit with the Polwarth yet but I can tell you that it is soft and squishy and the colours are gorgeous, all the most important ingredients in a good yarn I think.

And finally, I'm EXAMINING our wisteria vines as they naturally weave themselves into the roof of our carport. I think I need to make some time for some basket making, and wreath making and weaving soon before they wake up and sprout leaves and flower. I think the clock is ticking on my big basket dreaming, maybe this weekend the sun will shine and I'll get out my secateurs and get to work.

And that's me, all caught up and ready to press go.

How about you?
What are you admiring, crocheting, reading, smelling, lighting, knitting, missing eating, examining and grateful for?
Let me know in the comments, or perhaps you'd like to make a blog post of your own?

Until then, I hope some fun stuff is happening in your world.

Big love

xx

This week you might like to....

VOTE for My Bearded Pigeon in the Etsy Design Awards.

I met Cath, Ms My Bearded Pigeon, online a few years ago right after we had both just started blogging. Each Thursday we, along with a couple of hundred other craft bloggers, would share our creative spaces and what we'd been up to.

I liked Cath straight away. I loved her creativity, her parenting and living style, the fact that she'd also moved from the city to the country and I really admire the fact that she always stands up for what she believes to be right, always supports other people’s projects and is always enthusiastic, encouraging and kind.

A few years ago Cath came up with a gorgeous organic cushion design which she handmade in her lounge room at home and then started selling on Etsy. When the world fell in love with her cushions and she found she couldn’t make them all herself, she employed other mothers in her community to help her with the cutting and the sewing. Other mothers who could sit up at their kitchen tables stitching and still be there when their kids woke up or got home from school. I think that’s pretty awesome.

I also think it’s pretty awesome that Cath herself juggling motherhood, running a household, going to work, being a constant and supportive friend, fighting copyright issues and copycats, has grown her business, come up with loads of new designs while always sticking to her ethics.

Voting for Cath puts her in the running to win a mentoring session with Clare Bowditch and also a trip to New York.

Voting is quick and easy, it’s free, it gives you the chance to win a $250 Etsy gift card and it would mean the world to Cath.

Vote for My Bearded Pigeon here.

Sponsor Pottymouth Mama to wear a dress each day in October and raise some much needed funds for ovarian cancer research. Every cent she raises goes to the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF).

Currently there is no early detection test for ovarian cancer and the OCRF relies completely on the support of the community and business. 

Here are some stats I found on Lexi's blog;

• Every ten hours, one woman dies from ovarian cancer in Australia
• Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death of all gynaecological cancers
• Unlike other cancers, there is NO early detection test
• Over 50% of the community incorrectly believe a pap smear diagnoses ovarian cancer
• Ovarian cancer has a lower survival rate than both breast and cervical cancer
• When detected and treated early 80-100% of women will survive beyond five years compared with only 20-30% when diagnosed at a late stage

This is Lexi's third year of participating in frocktober and it would be great to help her make it the biggest yet.

Please sponsor Lexi by clicking this link.

READ this little interview I did over on Kellie's blog.

MAKE a soft toy for Softies For Mirabel

I love this one. Each year for the past eight years, Pip and the Meet Me At Mikes crew have encouraged crafters all over the world to make and donate a soft toy for The Mirabel Foundation, an organisation that cares for children affected by parental substance abuse. 

As an obsessive compulsive crafter myself, the thought of something I have created with my own two hands making a small difference to a child's life, warms my heart.

Softies can be stitched, crocheted, knitted, woven or felted. Above is the softie I made back in 2010, you can check out all the others in the flickr group.

I still haven't decided what form my softie will take this year but I think it's probably about time I took a break from my sock-a-thon, don't you?

Keep up to date with the softies project over at Meet Me At Mikes.


I think that's it from me for now.
So tell me, are you going to vote or sponsor or read or make?
Were you a creative spacer or have you made a softie before?
Do you have anything going on that you think I should know about?

I hope you have a wonderful week.
I hope your sun shines and that you find the time to do something that you love.

Big love

xx

tropical exhale

Each year we try to take a few weeks off between the cold, quiet months of winter and the start of the spring growing season. Each year we try to go somewhere far away from our farm. To have a proper break from the everyday chores, the ever growing to-do lists, the routines and the expectations.

The further we go, the more perspective we can get on things back home. The more the landscape changes, the more the flora and fauna and day to day life differ, the more we can really see our lives on the farm. And the longer we are away, the more decisions and changes and plans we can make and put in place.


It's amazing what early morning walks on the beach, tropical fruit breakfasts, sea breezes, slow uninterrupted chunks of time, clear blue skies, the sound of the waves, bare feet, afternoon siestas, and beach salty skin can do to refresh and revive our visions.


We've done our seed order, I've read Looking for Alaska and Crazy Rich Asians, Farmer Bren has been doing an online ukulele course and has spent hours perfecting his strum and accompanying Indi's singing.


I've cast off another pair of socks, I've walked/jogged 7,000 steps before breakfast, we've spent a good chunk of time with family and bumped into friends and we've hardly ever driven anywhere, which is always the best sign of a holiday for me.

(Jazzy's socks ravelled here).


We've eaten too much, we've thought more about next year's adventure, we've swum, we've been constantly amazed by the crazy beautiful tropical wild and bird life, and we've talked about life at home on our farm. We've felt alive and exhilarated and refreshed.

We've breathed in  enormous gulps of holiday air and we've felt grateful beyond measure.

And in the weeks and months to come when life builds up and speeds up and piles up, we'll have these few weeks away to remember and ground us. Hopefully we'll be able to hold on to and recall the pillowy feeling of the the warm wind as it swirls around us, the fizzy tingle of the waves that have just crashed over us and the sweetest tastes of pineapple and passion fruit and strawberries in our mouths.


I wonder if you have a warm and sweet place to go to in your heart when things get too crazy on the ground? I wonder if yours is tropical and laid back like mine, or in the middle of the hustle and bustle somewhere exotic? I wonder what bird songs you can hear, what the market food tastes like and how tall the mountains on the range are?

I hope you can go there.

Big love

xx

Socks from scratch

I'm obsessed with knitting socks!!

I know that that's not news for anybody who knows me in real life as I'm always pulling that long, skinny needle and a couple of balls of fine yarn out of my basket to knit a row or two. It's probably nothing revelatory to you guys who know me online either, as my last few yarn purchases and crafty projects have been all about the sock too.

But as well as the click-clacking, I've been thinking a lot about this new love too. Trying to turn it over and inside-out, attempting to understand it and trace it back to where it first began.

A long, long time ago, when I was in my early teens, I used to learn the clarinet off this wonderful woman called Anna, whose family ran a shop that sold roses on Wattletree Road. During my lessons Anna used to knit these long, colourful and heavily patterned socks. They were incredible. I remember them being knitted up with a different pattern each strip working up the sock. A house with a garden, a sky with butterflies, flowers, trees and birds.

The fact that they impressed this non knitting teenager says something and the fact that they have stayed in my mind all these years makes me wonder if I should credit Anna with my love of the knitting of the humble sock. What I wouldn't give to hold one in my hands right now and reconcile my memories with sock truth.

(Miss Pepper's blue socks raveled here.)


Fast forward thirty or so years and finally I'm knitting socks of my own. Not nearly at Anna's level of complication, but there's time.

About four years ago when I picked up the needles and googled 'how to cast on', I think I probably had socks in my mind as the end game. (Check out Miss Pepper's cute cheeks in my first knitting post).


Knitting socks just makes sense to me.

I love that I can play with the cutest, craziest, most colourful yarn that I would never be brave enough to experiment with on a larger piece of clothing.

I love that I can make something that we actually need and wear everyday. If life as we know it ever ends, my family will still have cute socks to put on.

I love how portable the sock knitting project is.

I love the anatomy of a sock. To date I have knitted nine and a bit socks and I never cease to be overwhelmed with admiration for the person who first broke it down and designed something that covers that tricky bit of the body and fits it so well.

I love all the different patterns and choices available from the utensils, to the yarns, to the directions, to the cast ons, to the gussets, to the heels, to the patterns, to the lengths, to the cast offs.

I love knitting two socks at a time, on a long circular needle, from the toes up.

I love that sock knitting is a slow and meditative craft.

I love that sock knitters are like members of a secret club. Three or four times over the past few months strangers have approached me while I was knitting and chatted sock techniques. It's almost like finding someone else who speaks your language when you are in a foreign country.

I love this book.

And I love clicking on the sock knitting hashtags on instagram and scrolling through what everybody else is making.

(Bren's Farmer Boy socks ravelled here.)


Yep, I'm hooked on socks!

How about you?
What are you hooked on right now?

Happy equinox you guys!

Big love

xx

a big bunch of daffodils x

For some reason my blog seems to be stuck on this post.

I took the photos on fathers' day a few weeks back and I loaded them into my blog not long after that.

At first I think I thought it would be a blog about spring. About how a little sunshine, an extra few minutes in the day and some pretty yellow flowers make the whole world feel like it's opening up with a zillion possibilities.

Then when I didn't write that post I think I planned to write a bit of a story about each of my girls. One at a time. Where they are, what they are thinking, loving, doing, hoping, and dreaming about.

And then when that didn't eventuate I think I intended to write something a bit more farmy. Something about how we are feeling about this growing season, about seeds and biodynamics, and chooks and sheep.

But obviously I didn't write that one either. And for some unknown reason the tab of this blog post has remained open but the text part of this blog has remained empty. It's been like that for a few weeks now. And every time I take any new photos off my camera and think about writing a different blog post, I keep coming back to this one and I get stuck all over again. I can't seem to leave this post behind It's like I'd feel guilty to cheat on it.

So basically what I'm doing here is pressing publish so I can push forward.

Hopefully I'll be back in the next day or two to talk about all that other stuff. We've got so much to catch up on, I can hardly wait.

In the meantime I'm off to try this cast off on a little blue pair of Pepper socks.
What're you up to today/tonight?

Big love - speak soon.

xx

My Fridays on instagram

I sometimes wonder a bit about how much my online worlds interconnect. If I post my new knitting project on Ravelry have you seen it before I get around to tweeting it? If I tell you a funny story on Facebook is it doubling up to blog it too? And if I write about something that is going on in my life as the caption to my Instagram picture, can I assume that most people who are interested in my goings on will have read it as a bite sized chunk and so there's no reason to tell it anywhere online again?

I have no idea.

But just in case you didn't see this on my instagram, and if you did I'm sorry to be repeating myself, there's this cool thing that I'm taking part of that I thought you might like to know about too.

A few weeks ago 10 Melbourne instagrammers were contacted by The Centre of Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Melbourne, inviting us to take part in their inaugural instagram competition. And I was one of them, can you believe it?!! I certainly couldn't.

The rules are that each participant must post a photo each Friday for ten Fridays using a one word prompt provided. Other than that we would be free to use instagram however we liked.

At first I felt honoured and humbled and majorly overwhelmed to be included amongst such incredible photographers. I think I even jumped up and down a bit too. And then I promptly panicked and wrote back an email stating the ten reasons why there was no way I could play along. The first one being how incredibly talented and professional and arty the other nine photographers are. I thought I would feel silly taking my usual photos of wool and chickens and children alongside their masterpieces.

But then after a good long think, and a few kind pep talks from my peeps, I decided to play along. But I would be trying my hardest not to be intimidated, not to second guess myself and not to try and recreate anyone else's style. And I would post iPhone photos only, edited on my phone only, taken on or as close as possible to the same day as posting only. 

So each Friday we'll be posting our pics using the hashtag #ccp_australia. Each week there will be a different theme and each week I'll be hyperventilating while I work out what to post and hope to goodness that I don't make too much of a fool of myself while doing so.

The first theme was BEGINNINGS and my photo was the springtime one up above.

I think the first one was the hardest because I didn't know what to expect from the others. But around lunchtime as I was gathering veggies from the garden for dinner and flowers for the table, I had the brainwave to lay them out on the ground like that.

I tried doing the writing with seeds, then with petals before the chalk. Our dog ran through it a few times and I panicked as the others started posting their clean, stunning pics. But eventually I took a big deep breath and posted it. It's earthy and messy but then again so am I.

The second week's prompt was TEXTURE.

We moved all our flocks of chickens through the forest that Friday morning and I considered every wood-pile, every fallen branch, every bit of moss and every other interesting textural bit of forest I came across, but in the end I decided I wanted something brighter.

So at about five o'clock, just when I thought the light would be just right, I carried a chair and a pile of blankets I'd made down the hill to the back of the bottom shed. But no matter how I tried I couldn't get the shot I wanted.

I spent the next ten minutes running up and down our hill chucking those blankets on things, against things and underneath things before coming home and snapping the picture above. Sometimes simple just works better.


Last Friday's word was LIGHT.

All week I'd imagined something to do with feathers - light as a feather and all that. And it just so happened that last week our pullet flock started losing their baby feathers and I amassed quite the collection.

But out of the three, this last photo is the one I am least happy with. Although it has light and feathery light, and although it is earthy and farmy, I still don't think it is me. I feel like I tried something and it didn't quite work.

Luckily I've only got a few days before this Friday's entry to make myself feel better.

You can click on the #ccp_australia hashtag to check it all out for yourself and if you like you can even play along using the #diyccpsalon hashtag. Come November all the 100 photos will be printed out and hung as a proper exhibition and you can go along and see them there too. Wow!

Oh and these three photos were taken on my camera, but if you want to have a look at the proper instagram versions, please come and find me, I'm @foxslane over there too.

Anyway, enough about me, how about you?
Do you have your own rules for your instagram posting?
Do you feel like everyone's just repeating themselves, repeating themselves all over social media?
Do you think you might like to play along with this Friday's CCP prompt too?



I hope your light is just right.
Happy snapping!

xx

bits and bobs

Hello!! How are you? Happy springtime!

Long time no blog hey. Possibly the longest time since this blog began, possibly too long for me to even remember where we've been and what we've been doing.  But that's OK, I'm here now with twenty minutes before I have to go and pick up the girls from school, and that's all that matter's right.

So a little while ago the clouds finally parted, the sun came out and we've been busy bees in the garden, in the kitchen, on the farm, at school and everywhere else in between - ever since. I've barely opened my computer in weeks. But I have been taking photos here and there and so I thought I'd just catch you up quickly on some of the highlights.

We've been picking daffodils. Always one of the very first signs of spring around here.

One sunny day Miss Pepper woke up very early and wrote a list of everything she wanted to do that day. It looked like comic strip with a drawing of her doing the thing and a description underneath. Pick a basketful of daffodils was the very first thing on that list. So we did. And now we have jars full of yellow happy flowers throughout the house.

I'm so excited that spring is finally here. Last night it occurred to me that I've now survived 14 Daylesford winters. That is a lot of very cold, dark months and I am so relieved to see the back of this past one. Phew!

I'm reading another Miss Mogantosh book suggestion.

It's interesting to read a book that is so similar to the one I always thought I might write. Leaving the city for a life of organic farming, the steepest learning curves, the never-ending jobs lists, the dirt and mud, the cost of things, the joys of farming, the taste of food grown with love, the interesting characters along the way, the live-stock and dead-stock, the love of a farmer boy...it's all there. But in this case it's in America with the added bonuses of real deep snow, encounters with the Amish, maple syrup and draught horses.

Our stories are so similar and yet vastly different. I'm really enjoying Kirstin's tale and bookmarking so many bits to chat with my own farmer boy about when I get the chance.


I'm still loving my wool craft classes at the girls' school.

I've been thinking a lot about holding some workshops here on our farm over the warmer months, teaching, making and sharing. I love the thought of passing on the knowledge and skills that we have to people who don't necessarily live the same sort of life as we do.


We've been making our coffee on a little burner out in the paddock in the sunshine, eating snacks of dried nuts and fruit and knitting a few rows here and there. Ahhhhhh there's nothing quite like the feeling of breaking after a hard morning's work, sitting with the sun warm on our backs, counting how many different bird songs we can hear, while sipping sweet cardamon coffee.


I worked out that every Saturday for the past few Saturdays, I've cast off a sock and cast on another sock. Last Saturday I finally finished Miss Indi's fairy bread socks and she loves them! She actually took them off me and wore them straight away!! It has been a long time since my teenager has worn anything I have handmade for her and seeing her love those socks as much as I loved knitting them for her was the biggest buzz ever. Hooray!!

Socks ravelled here.


That same Saturday I cast on a pair of socks for my farmer boy.

A few weeks ago he was on a boy's only trip to Melbourne when he popped into a wool shop, asked for a ball of sock yarn that would be knitted on size two needles with graduating colour and chose this. Amazing right?!

I could hardly wait to cast them on.


I should probably mention that when our local craft shop didn't stock the one meter long, size two circular needle I'd need for knitting two socks at the same time, I was forced to shop online and by accident lost my web-shopping virginity on these beauties.

I bought them from Tangled Yarns who had the best customer service and I can highly recommend.

I always thought that I needed to actually squish the yarn myself before buying, but I've been proven wrong. There is something so exciting about getting a parcel of delicious wool in the mail, it's almost like a present. I'm pretty sure I'll be online buying again before too long.


Of course we've been taking advantage of the warm, windless days by spending time in the kitchen garden, the market gardens and the orchards weeding, forking, tidying, planting and getting ready for the growing season.

And we've been planting bucket-loads of this gorgeous looking mix of Burrum Biodynamics green manure seeds. Giving back to the soil that gives so much to us.

And that brings us up to now, to this week when the weather has closed in and is cold and wintry again. At other times this might have made me miserable but instead I'm feeling glad for the opportunity to slow down for a bit, to catch up on some inside jobs and for the rain that is watering in the seeds and hopefully filling up the dams and water tanks before summer. It feels like a big, deep breath.


So tell me, if you feel like it, what you've been busy with. What you're making and baking and growing and reading. I'd love to know.

Be well my friends, I hope your shoulders feel strong enough to take on your load.

Big love

xx