2018 HOT HITS!

Hello friends,

I have to start this week by thanking those of you who have written to me from near and so very far to tell me what my blog means to you. Honestly when I sat down to write my blog last week I quickly typed out a list of about 16 things that I wanted to write about - my blog break was number one.

But then somehow item number one went for so long and took up so much space that I decided to leave it at that. I'd included that bit about feeling sad that nobody even noticed my blog posts had disappeared even though it made me feel terribly uncomfortable, I'm all about  messy reality after all.

If I ever doubted that my blog was read and received and appreciated, I certainly don't anymore. Thank you for writing to me, thank you for being so understanding, thank you for not being demanding of me, thank you for reading along, thank you for telling me about all the things you love about my blog and what it means to you, and seriously thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking my family into your hearts and being so kind to us, it means the world.

So before I use up all my blog time and space again this week I'd better move along to my 2018 highlights reel. I've never actually done this before, I don't think, but late last year and early this, as my social media feed got filled up with other people's highlights I decided that it would be fun to do the same. 

As an added  bonus, scrolling through last year's 51 posts has convinced me further that I have to stick around. What a great record of a moment in time. Even the posts that I remember struggling with, feeling like I had nothing to say, are interesting to me now from a distance.

So without further ado, here it is, my 2018 hot hits!

January

2018 went off with a bang when we celebrated our farmer Bren's birthday with a big beautiful party. The night started with fancy cocktails and a communal feast in the garden and ended up many hours later with a bit of table top dancing. Quite a contrast to his birthday celebrations this year, a few days ago, which were much more low key, but still just as special.

Happy birthday my love!

January was also filled with a lot of talk about becoming a flower farmer. It's interesting to read my confident words of a year ago and to think of how much more I know now, yet how aware I am of how much learning I still have ahead of me. The more you know - the less you know. Feels like a bit of an ongoing theme with me.

February

The girls went back to school and started year 5, year 9 and year 12.

I wrote a blog post that included this chunk of text - '"I think I'm happier now than I've ever been in my whole life" I blurted out as we drove past the newly planted sunflower patch. "I feel like I'm more authentically, honestly me than I can ever remember being. Like my skin fits and I feel comfortable wearing it.

And I didn't mean that kind of happiness that is short lived, giggly joy. I could have called it satisfied or honest, but it felt bigger and more worthy than that. It was more of an underlying positive feeling about where we live and the way we've chosen to live. It was about nature and love and creativity and time.'

The days were warm, the garden was full of flowers and our baskets were full of produce.

March

March saw us harvesting baskets and bowls and picking bags full.

We started farmers marketing again. We opened the farm gate stall. And the Fowlers machine, the freezer and the dehydrator started humming away, preserving the bounty.

April

Reading through April's posts I remember struggling at the time to write them. I remember questioning myself about how interesting they were. Feeling certain that I was just repeating the same seasonal stories from the past nine Aprils, and running away from the computer as soon as I'd pressed 'post'. But this morning I loved reading back on what I was preserving, learning, picking, pickling, listening to and feeling. I'm positive there's a lot of repetition from year to year on this blog, but that's living with the seasons for ya.

May

The temperatures plummeted and the season started to change in earnest. We pulled the tomatoes out, we picked the last of the apples and we started seriously stacking wood.

In May my insomnia peaked and I wrote that it was - frustrating exasperating and scary

And very excitingly, my studio build began.

June

In June my studio build continued.

The mornings were frosty and the days were cold.

We pulled nets off the trees, pulled out the annual flowers, dug up the dahlia tubers, planted spring bulbs and loads of flower seeds.

AND I conquered my monster fears and gave a 45 minute presentation about my crafty life and taught a bunch of awesome crafty women how to knit socks from the toe up at Soul Craft festival.

July

In July I wrote my first blog from inside my studio. A room of my very own. I can still remember the feeling of walking in and closing the door behind me for the first time. The only thing I can compare it to is driving down a highway alone after I first got my driver's license.Freedom, independence, space and opportunity.

Farmer Bren started turning the most beautiful bowls.

And we spent quite a bit of time staying in the mountains close to the girls' school so they could go to their early and late classes, musical rehearsals and be part of the social scene.

August

In August I started painting from nature as a way to reclaim my creativity and give myself permission to continue with something even though I wasn't great at it.

We took Pepper and some friends on a Goldrush adventure through the forest.

And then finally my insomnia defeated me - I cried all the tears. I scraped the bottom. It terrified me.

September

In September, the spring equinox, the daffodils and wattle came out and coloured our world golden.

And then my all time knitting hero/guru Mary Jane Mucklestone came to Australia and Felicia brought her to our farm for lunch!! How cool!!

A few days later I attended my first ever craft retreat - The Craft Sessions where I met loads of wonderful women, learnt heaps of new skills and shared a room with Mary Jane. I still can't stop smiling when I think of those few days and nights, the late night conversations, the giggling and the story telling. Definitely a 2018 highlight for me.

October

In October our Jazzy went overseas with school for six weeks and turned 15. Our Pepper turned 11 and had a treasure hunt party. I stressed about the jungle-y state of our farm and my farmer boy calmed me down by talking about living with nature rather than trying to tame her.

I planted and planted and planted seeds in the greenhouse.

I started spinning lessons with Rebecca from Needle and Spindle who I met at The Craft Sessions and I fell in love. The apple orchards tried to blossom in a week of rain and wind. And farmer Bren made a bowl from a eucalyptus burl.

November

In November Indi started and finished her final school exams and then turned 18. Our Jazzy came home from her overseas adventure with so many stories to tell and songs to sing.

The giant foxgloves flowered, my spinning obsession continued, we harvested the garlic, divided the dahlia tubers and Bren and I spent three glorious days alone at the beach celebrating my birthday.

December

There's only one post in December. It was a month of finishing school and the commutes there and back, planting out the gardens, picking flowers, starting to pick veggies, time alone on the farm with Bren while the girls spent time with their grandparents at the beach, getting used to a slower pace, working til 9.30 at night, and the mad scramble to find new podcasts while all of my usuals take summer breaks.

In 2018 I knitted - five beanies,  one sweater, one shawl, two pairs of slippers, two cardigans, two pairs of socks, countless blanket squares, some swatches and I'm currently half way down the body of another cardigan knitted using my very own hand-spun. If you're the knitty-type, you can find all the details on my Ravelry page.

According to my Goodreads tally in 2018 I read 52 books comprising of 16,448 pages (insomnia will do that to you).

We survived our first final year of school and were thrilled to learn that Indi was the dux of her graduating class. I didn't eat processed sugar for 365 days. We grew food and flowers, Farmer Bren renovated his workshop (that post is still in my drafts), we drove 1,000's of kilometers, we cleared a track around our property to start fencing it for sheep, we watched a few series, I learnt stuff and taught stuff, there were boys, lots of written and played songs, lots of trips to the gym, some new friends, lots of emotions, tears from laughing and crying, some wonderful celebrations, some great memories.

I can't wait to see where 2019 takes us!


What are your stand-out highlights of 2018?
How have the first eleven days of the new year been for you?

See you soon!

Love, Kate x

wild and woolly

Well hello there, it's so nice to see your beautiful face this stormy Friday morning.

So another week has passed and another set of emotional waves has landed on our family's shores. It still amazes me that in one family five people can deal with their troubles so differently. We span floods of tears and the constant need for direction and reassurance, all the way through to guitar melodies and faint strains of lyrics behind the firmly closed bedroom door. And everything in-between.

And it feel like the weather has come to the party. Since yesterday the temperatures have plummeted, crazy winds, hail, sleet and rain have battered our little farm and it feels like the only safe place to be is sheltering indoors. I've filled the fire box, I'm sitting with my back up against a heating panel, I have a hot water bottle on my feet and a hot cup of tea sitting right next to me. I'm all set to go.

So let's get to this week's photos.

May 5

Late Saturday afternoon we gathered in the garden for what might have been the last market posy pick of the season. Zinnias, Dahlias, Sunflowers, Chrysanthemums and Eucalyptus leaves filled out our bunches. The end of the season was obvious and it was a challenge at times to find decent sized flowers with strong, straight, long stems, but the air was crisp and the skies tuned golden and it felt like a pretty magical place to be.

May six

We spent half of Sunday at the Daylesford Sunday Farmer's Market. It felt like a real family affair with us and our three girls, my parents and Bren's parents. I'll really miss the social aspect of the market when the seasons's over. Especially since our girls who grew up at the markets are now taking charge which allows us to sit back and drink our coffee while it's hot. Winning!

And in the late afternoon I spent time amongst the sunflowers photographing Jazzy in my recently cast off Mirehouse sweater. When I posted one of the photos on instagram I wrote next to it - 'My family bought me the yarn for this sweater when we went away to celebrate my birthday late last year. Together we carefully chose the colour and the pattern to suit what I wear and my farming lifestyle. In January I wound the skeins into balls and then knit, knit, knitted every spare moment I got for the next three months. I'm writing notes at the moment for a talk I'm giving at the Soul Craft Festival on my life with and love of craft, I feel like this sweater tells the story better in stitches than I'll ever be able to in words, I just hope it fits me.'

The Ravelry details are here.

May seven

We picked through the last of the tomatoes. After that we pulled out the vines, rolled up the fences they were trellised to, scattered a green manure crop and then ploughed it all in. Done!

May eight

Poor Jojo had to stay inside because Bob (@trees_to_timber) and John were spending the week at our place cutting down some big trees that were getting too close to the house and blocking out the sun. Look at that log flying through the air just after Bob split it. That'll be my job for the next few weeks...and then to stack it all neatly to cure.

May nine

Jobbo and Bren started framing up my studio. It's progressed a bit since I took that photo. The four walls have been framed up and the entire box is covered in a tarp to protect it from the rain. I spent some time in there yesterday afternoon and then again this morning looking out of the future windows and imagining what it'll feel like within.

May ten

The wood shed is now at the very end of the sun-room which means you don't have to go out side anymore to bring the wood in. It's one of my farmer boy's clever design ideas and so far it's working brilliantly.

On that day I spent a few hours in the forest collecting kindling and bringing in wood and stacking it. Apparently Bren squealed with delight when he discovered the pile. Later that afternoon he told me that for him that was definitely a Love Language . I wonder if I should write to Gary Chapman and tell him to start writing his new book The Six Love Languages; receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch AND split and stacked wood and piles of kindling.

May eleventh

WILD and autumnal in the garden.

I'm reading my sister Abby's copy of Demi-Gods by Eliza Robertson. Abby recently interviewed Eliza at the Sydney Writer's Festival. It tells the story of Willa and her odd bunch of blended family and particularly focuses on the six times she meets her step brother Patrick over the course of many years from childhood into her twenties. I can't pin point the exact reason why I'm enjoying reading this book so much. I think it might be the fact that Eliza writes in a such a dreamy, detached way about unsettling events. I'm not sure. I look forward to reading the rest and seeing where it goes.

And I'm still knitting long rows of my Merricks shawl. The rows are 249 stitches long now and I'm hoping that a colour change is coming soon. Whatever the way, Abbe's Noble Fox yarn is a dream to knit with and Kylie's pattern is easy and just complicated enough to keep it interesting.

Which brings me to now.

There's been a lot of talk in our house lately about finding those things that you love doing, those things that make you feel a little bit better when you haven't been feeling your best. And then making time to do them often. Mine are growing flowers, working in the garden, picking bunches of flowers, knitting, reading, spending time with the people I love, listening to podcasts, drinking coffee... how about you?

See you next week lovely ones.

Love, Kate x