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

sixth

On the sixth day of the new year I have six random photos for you.

The first - is a photo I took six days ago when we were spending all our days in the apple orchards, brush cutting and netting most rows and trees. At night we'd come in and collapse and I'd knit stripes on my socks. Since this photo was taken I have knitted the feet, turned the heels and now I'm knitting up the legs.

This Trailing Clouds yarn is the best fun ever. There was a stage when I had considered only knitting with Australian or naturally dyed yarn this year, but after buying this stuff in a Facebook destash a few weeks ago, I left that resolution way behind.



The second - is a photo I took this afternoon while we were spinning six frames of honey we took from our bees yesterday.

I only took one photo of the bee visit itself on my phone, because as I took off my glove to snap it I was stung. Although it's probably been 20 years or more since my last sting, the second it happened I recognised that burning feeling and knew what it was. And although I felt awful for the loss of the little bee's life, I felt glad of the reminder to slow down, respect and remember who the real bosses are. Sorry bee. x



The third - is a cute little enamel egg cup my Mum bought for me recently for no other reason than she thought I'd like it. And I love it. So much so that as soon as I got it into my kitchen I gathered some old scrunched up brown paper and a dozen eggs and had a little photo shoot. So much fun - do you do that too?



The fourth - is a photo of the book I'm reading but not loving. I'm not really sure what to do about it either. I am such a loyal and monogamous reader that the thought of not finishing this book has hardly crossed my mind even though I am 200 plus pages into it and not loving it at all. What if something big is about to happen and I miss it? What if the whole first 200 pages are a set up for what happens next? And what did happen to Robyn anyway? But on the other hand what if nothing much ever happens?

I loved The Goldfinch so I feel like I need to give this one as good a go as I can. And there's a chance that I'm only not loving it because no book can ever come after The Poisonwood Bible. But what book should I read after this? Maybe I'll just read a bit more tonight before I decide for sure....



The fifth - is when Indi came home!! Yay!! Five days away and we missed her like crazy.



The sixth - was tonight's sunset. A beautiful end to a beautiful day (except that part where it took me AGES to work out what was wrong with the brush cutter only to find a mud wasp's nest in the exhaust).

Go gently my friends.
I'm off to make a pavlova and wrap my farmer boy's birthday prezzies.

Lovelovelove x

fifth

On the fifth day of the new year I haven't seen my Indi for five days and I have five copies of this awesome beanie knitting pattern to give away.

It looks tricky doesn't it.

The truth is that sometimes I give myself a hard time because I knit patterns but I never design patterns. Is knitting someone else's patterns really creative at all? But then I knit a pattern like this one and I completely understand why I don't.

This pattern takes something potentially tricky and makes it into such an enjoyable knit. This pattern is so much fun to knit that I could barely put it down. This pattern is so interesting and unlike anything I've ever knitted before that it's hard for me to work out how exactly Georgie even came up with it. And this pattern must have been so technical and so full of maths that I'd have no hope of working it out even if I wanted to.

This pattern uses only one colour per round even though it looks a lot more complicated. This pattern looks awesome in Spider-man red and black. This pattern is probably more intermediate than beginner but it is so beautifully explained that it wouldn't take a lot of experience to get it. And this pattern is called Woohlpooer, which my girls thought was the funniest name ever, but Georgie assures me it's pronounced wool-poor. It's the name of a place near the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia.

I knit my beanie in Tarndie Polwarth 8ply. It is the most gorgeous soft wool I think I have ever knit with.

So without further ado I'd like to announce that my Indi is coming home tomorrow, YAY!!

And let you know that Georgie has very generously given me FIVE copies of her brand new Woolpooer pattern to give to five of you guys. Just tell me something about knitting in the comments, anything you like, and I'll announce the winners on Wednesday.

The details of my Woopooer are here.
Buy the Woopooer pattern here.

You gotta be in it to win it and then knit it!!

Big warm headed love

xxxx


The giveaway on this post is closed.
Winners have been announced on the post on the eighth of January 2015.

fourth

Once upon a summer's eve we left the dinner plates on the table and skipped out the front door and down the hill. There was a hint of feeling like the days were flitting past too quickly and an urge to make this one stretch out just a bit longer.







The air was growing cool as the sun was disappearing but there was no wind and we felt free as birds. We picked berries, we watched the kangaroos, we searched for fish in the dam, we threw rocks, we made up silly songs and we blew handfuls of grass seeds into the sky.







And as the swollen full moon rose through the forest we watched in awe and felt ready to say goodbye to this beautiful day and head up the hill home.



I can't wait to see what adventures tomorrow brings.


So how did you spend your fourth day of the new year?

I hope your Sunday was/is a fun day.

xxxx

PS. Big thanks for all your gorgeous messages on my blog posts these last few days, I'm loving reading through them. I'm trying my hardest to reply to you in the comments but sometimes I run out of time.

PPS. This is my 900th Foxs Lane post, woweeeeeee!!!!

third

The first thing I did when the latest issue of Slow Magazine arrived in my post office box was scan the cover for any names that I recognised. The second thing I did, once I saw my own typed neatly there, was have a little self conscious moment.

Farmer - Kate Ulman

I knew that I'd written an article that would be inside the covers of the mag, but for some reason that description rattled me for a sec. Mother, wife, knitter, blogger, sister, grower, daughter, maker, friend, for sure, but farmer?

And then I looked down at myself in my dirty overalls, I put one hand in my pocket and felt the irrigation fittings and the tangle of hay band, I looked at my muddy, scuffed up boots and my calloused, dirty hands and I realised that a farmer I am.

For the past 14 years since we moved here I've mainly done the house and girl stuff and farmer Bren has mainly done the farm. Until last year when we changed our farm plan, said a sad goodbye to our farmer boys and Miss Pepper started school. Since then I guess I've been a farmer. I grow stuff, I mow stuff, I break lots of stuff and sometimes I even fix stuff (thus the irrigation fittings in my pocket to fix the drip lines I'd mowed through), I look after the animals, I make decisions, I watch the weather, I take directions and I learn stuff constantly.

So after a quick self evaluation and identity assessment I decided that Slow magazine was right, I am in fact a farmer.



The next thing I did when my copy of Slow magazine arrived, while still standing in the foyer of the post office, was flick through the magazine until I found a photo I recognised. There they are those girls of mine, sitting in the garden where they so often do, frying up a batch of mud-balls on the fire.



Next I drove home so my farmer boy could read me my article. It's so hard for me to really read anything I've written myself. I can see the words and skip through the sentences, but I can't separate myself from them.

Tim Baker, Slow's editor, had asked me to write a piece about our slow home. My intention was not to preach that our way is the right way, not to direct the reader or make it appear that we have it all worked out, but to share our story. To talk about how we do things here, what we prioritise, what rules we have put in place and to share some of the compromises we've agreed on and even some of our mistakes along the way.

As he read my words back to me I remembered them but I also heard them. I hoped that our story is interesting and perhaps even helpful in the way that reading others' stories sometimes is.

And of course the photo accompanying my article was taken by our gorgeous friend and photographer Tim Burder. A photo of us at our kitchen table laden with our produce, me knitting and him shelling peas, me looking at him and loving him. I love that photo.



And lastly I flicked to the front and found my new profile picture Tim Burder took for me recently. I felt a bit self conscious asking him to take it and I felt even more so while I was standing there posing, but it's such a great thing to have it now. Me and that camera shy chook. Everyone should probably have one photo of themselves that they like on hand, just in case, don't you think?

Enough about me, tell me about you:
Do you have a profile pic?
Do you have a title that describes you?
Are you having a slow start to the brand new year?

Lots of love and a gorgeous rainstorm at the end of a stinking hot day.

xxxx

second

I do four things while I'm knitting a pair of socks.

The first and most obvious is that I knit the stitches that create the socks. I love everything about this part from the shaping of the toe, to knitting the foot, creating a gusset, turning the heel, making a heel flap, knitting up the leg and finally creating a band up the top and casting off.

I listened to a podcast today where Jerome Sevilla of Grid Junky spoke of his love for knitting with very fine wool. He spoke of how the fact that it takes so much longer and so much more commitment to create something from such fine wool makes it more meaningful and more special and I totally get that.

The second thing I do is think a lot about the person I am making the socks for. I think about them wearing them and I also think about them and my relationship with them. I think the fact that socks take so long to knit makes them such a meaningful present and I love that I have that gift to give.

The third thing I do is carry them everywhere I go so I can sneak in a row whenever I can. This means my socks travel and become part of my life and my conversations and my memories. I cast on the green socks above at a birthday pool party. I knitted them throughout all the end of school festivities, they calmed and soothed me when we lost a friend far too young, I knitted them in the paddock while we had coffee breaks and at nights after the girls were in bed. I finally cast off those socks at another kid's birthday party which made me feel like I'd knitted all the circles and come full circle.

And the fourth thing I do while I'm knitting a pair of socks is think about how I'll photograph them finished. Years ago in my early times of blogging I used to read a knitter's blog even though I didn't knit. I loved and related to her posts about her family and her farming and her other crafts, but as I wasn't yet a knitter myself I used to skip over her knitting posts. It occurred to me some time later, that each time she cast off a project she'd drape it against her garden wall and photograph it. Every single time the same shot. When I finally did become a knitter I decided that I wanted to take photos of my knits that would be interesting and pleasing to non knitters and knitters alike. Sock knitting seems to have the added challenge of taking interesting, pleasing photos of something otherwise very mundane.

So as I knit each pair I imagine them against white walls, tucked up in white bed sheets, climbing up trees, sticking out of work boots, upside down and in all sorts of interesting and odd poses. I'm very lucky that so far I've had obliging models with pretty strong stomach muscles.

The details for the Diagonal Lace socks are here.

Do you do any or all of those things while you are creating too?
Or do you have other loves and means and ways?

I hope you found a little time to do something for yourself today.

Biggest love

xxxx

first

On new year's eve, just after last year became this year, our friend Melissa handed out white sage leaves from her garden and invited us to go around the bonfire circle, burn our leaf, smudge ourselves and take a moment to let go of the past year and speak of our intention for the next.

When it came to my turn I spoke of how last year around this same circle I had announced that I felt like something big was about to happen in my world and that I was just waiting to see what it was going to be and that not long after that I had had my breast cancer scare. This year I'm hoping for calmer seas and nothing quite so dramatic.

I remembered that last year I had a burning desire to learn how to knit socks and had decided that in order to feel like a real knitter I had to make that come true. In August last year I cast off my first pair and have been pretty much sock addicted ever since. This year I told the circle, I'd like to knit a fisherman's sweater full of twisty cables, the more complicated the merrier.

And finally I thought that I quite liked the word even to carry me through my year but I've since changed my mind and decided to use grow instead.

Today we've had the slowest day in months. We got up late, watched episodes of The Honourable Woman on my computer in bed, read pages of my book, knitted stripes on my socks and had two other families over who ended up shelling four crates of broad beans. It was a gorgeous, restful and happy day.

And at the end of the first day I feel like everything is open, filled with potential. Hopefully in 2015 we'll grow and preserve even more of what we eat, hopefully we'll make a start on the wool project, hopefully we'll travel overseas, hopefully our school will move and become bigger and better, hopefully our girls will continue to find paths that inspire them and fill them up, hopefully my farmer boy and I can work hard on the farm and still find time to follow our other creative dreams and hopefully, as my farmer boy said so well last night, we as a planet can realise that we are all connected and be kinder to each other and make movements towards peace.

And I wish you lovely friends, the sweetest, most creative, love-filled and peaceful 2015.

Do you have a word, a feeling, a project or a resolution to kick it all off, or are you keeping your options open and hoping for the best?


LoveLoveLoveLove

xx