10 things

Hello and welcome to another Friday here at Foxs Lane.

I hope that this finds you warm and well and happy in the thought that you've got a little pocket of time to yourself.

I wonder if it's morning or afternoon where you are? If you're reading on your computer or phone? If there are people around or if you're all by yourself? I wonder if you have a queue of blogs to read? If you clicked onto my site or got this as an email? And I wonder how many Fridays we've spent together you and me, through the internet, over the years?

I'm so happy that you've joined me today. I know how precious your time is and it means the world that you're spending some of it with me.

So I thought that this week, to make some sort of sense out of my jumbled up mind, we'd do one of those 10 things about right now posts. Are you ready? Okay let's get started.

 

one

Along with almost everything else in the garden that's ripe right now, we're picking and podding the scarlet runner beans that grew up the outside of the tee-pee in our garden. I love how those dried out, rattley skins slit open to expose the most beautiful purple beans.

two
We're picking armfuls of basil for salads, sandwiches, pizzas, sauces and for pesto.

three

We had a terribly wet spring and then a dreadful apple season last year, so this season feels a little bit lucky and extra special. Walking up and down the rows, watching the apples on the trees sizing and colouring up, tasting them to see if the starches have turned to sugar, and then picking bags and crates full is an apple farmers dream come true.

four

Once picked, most of our our apples go on the road side stall at the front of our farm. If you're passing by you should totally pop in - Daylesford Organics - 19 Foxs Lane Muskvale.

Right now the stall is full of Cox's Orange Pippin, with Red Delicious and Jonathan coming soon.

five
We're picking a crate of tomatoes a day, saucing them and then bottling them for winter time.

I'm sure I write this every year - but even though it feels like such a lot of work to do now, in an already crazy full autumn schedule, I love thinking of the sunshine filled gift I'm giving to winter-us by filling these jars with tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs and basil.

six
We're renovating again. This paving out the front of the sun-room, on both sides of the front door is the start, and from here we're heading all the way across the front of the house to the right. We're extending the sun-room, we're making a wood shed and who knows what else will come up while we're at it.

seven
This is a picture of the first sleeve, but I've actually finished that one and now I'm knitting the second sleeve of my Mirehouse sweater. Gosh I really need to get it finished soon so I can start preparing for my toe-up sock knitting master class at Soul Craft festival.

eight
We're picking flowers. How cool is it that with most varieties of flowers the more you pick them the more prolifically they grow!! Now why don't fruit and vegetables do the same?

After I publish this we're going to pick some bunches to pop on the farm stall for the weekend. Apples and posies, sounds like the start of a beautiful weekend.

nine
I've got the door to the studio open and I'm listening to the birds calling to each other about the delicious grapes they've found growing over our back deck. I'm listening to the washing machine telling me that it's finished its cycle. I'm listening to the wind blowing through the eucalyptus trees. And I just listened to and loved the episode of Invisibilia called - I,I,I. Him. (I should probably warn you that I had to pull my car off the road for a bit because I was sobbing so hard.)

ten
A few days ago when I came to the end of the pile of books on my bedside table I found this copy of Picnic at Hanging Rock in the bookshelves. The kind people at Penguin sent it to me a few years ago when they re released it with this cute cover.

I actually can't believe I've never read it before, but part of me is glad I waited. The story is set in the area where I drive my girls to school every day so the descriptions of the the landscapes feel familiar and almost personal. Whenever I read a book I get completely immersed in its pages and in its world and this one is no exception. A few days ago Indi took me on a drive around the back streets of Macedon and part of the way up to Mount Macedon and although the book was set over 100 years ago in a time before cars or made roads, I could almost see the horse drawn carriage go past with a flutter of white summer dresses floating behind and hear the clapping of hooves on the ground.

From the very first page the descriptions of the flower filled, carefully cultivated gardens have delighted me. Sentences like 'Out in the gay green garden beyond the schoolroom the bed of dahlias glowed as if they were on fire, caught by the late afternoon sun' were written more than 50 years ago but could easily be used to describe the scene outside our sun room on any given February or March afternoon.

I am smitten by this haunting tale, the characters, the eerie mystery, the landscape, the history. If I finish reading it over the weekend I think I'll get my family to watch the movie with me.


I'll leave you with this little Buddhist thought my wonderful friend Melissa sent me a few weeks ago and I've found helpful this week. What we strain to hold - slips through our fingers. By opening our hands, things rest lightly upon our palms.

And that's me!
Tell me what you've been up to?
Where you've been?
What you've thought?
What you've done?

See you next week.

Bye!

xx

these summer days

Mostly these days I'm in the garden. I'm hammering in stakes and tying up the straggly plants. I'm weeding out the fat hen, the milkweed, the dandelion and something else that looks like it could be potted up as a succulent. Sometimes I'm listening to podcasts but most often I'm just sitting with my thoughts, listening to the bees and the birds and trying not to get stung by the march flies. I'm marvelling at the fully blossoming flower heads, admiring the different shapes and colours, encouraging the opening buds and wondering at those yet to come out, what will they become?

I am in love.

Even when I discover thrip, or bird, or slug, or Japanese beetle damage. Even when I find my fingers stained with squished cabbage moth caterpillar insides. Even when I lose my third tray of planted straw flower seeds to something unknown and unwanted.

Over the blossoming weeks we've given bunches of blooms tied up with bailing twine to all those who've visited. The feeling of watching people's faces light up as they turn their handfuls around, admiring each flower, is indescribable. The precious gift is mine.

One day I got up early and picked a bucketful. When the girls woke up I told them to make posies in jars for their bedrooms. Their delight kept me smiling for the rest of the day.

One evening we stayed up very late to drink champagne and do our flower farming course homework and make a vision board. As I started pulling out all the magazines that we have it occurred to me that the last time I bought magazines was way back in 2011 and they were all filled with craft. As we started flipping through them it became obvious that as the years have passed, so have our interests and inspirations. I found a few pictures of earthy toned knitting, a couple of botanical paintings and then had to wait for the next chance to visit the op shop for some gardening mags. Thank you to the dear gardener who donated my pile. Although I initially resisted the vision board concept, I now find myself stopping in front of it often to admire the garden cut-outs, the beauty and the bounty.

One afternoon we went to a local botanical gardens to watch and listen to my sister Emily play. On the way out I stopped to look at the plant stall and my family laughed at my flowering plant addiction while encouraging me to buy more and more. Later on when I discovered the girls reading the labels and asking me about perennials and annuals and biannuals, I wondered if the love affair might be catchy.

One morning as we were sitting in the shade in the garden and farmer Bren was making a vegetable seed order on his phone, he turned to me and asked if we wanted some flowering sweet pea seeds. I love that he's on this flower farming adventure with me. That our mixed family farm just got a bit more diverse.

Another day as the skies rumbled and threatened a summer storm, we all got out into the garden together and picked big bunches for tables, desks, mantels and bedsides. They asked me how to cut them, they exclaimed at each new discovery, they watched their father show them how to arrange them, then they thanked us for growing them and I swelled with pride.

We've planted a range of flowering plants through out our garden but so far the zinnias are the most prolific. In one of the flower farming course videos we watched during the week she called them the beginner flower. They're simple to grow, their blooms are bright and cheery and the more you pick the more they grow. I keep thinking how grateful I am that we stumbled on the page with their picture in a seed catalogue last winter. It was luck and I feel lucky and I know that they'll always have a place in my garden each season.

In other news, the poppy seeds our dear friends Mika and Jobbo gave us early last year have finally popped in the middle of the kitchen garden. Unfortunately their flowering days are definitely shortened because they are overhead watered each morning with the rest of that garden. But still, I love them and they make me smile.

I also love taking photos in the house direction these days. How pretty the green house and the sun room look as a backdrop.

We picked our first apple for the season. A Jersey Mac still warm from the sun and a bit too sweet for my taste, but still, apple season has begun and I'm excited.

We're still waiting for the tomatoes to ripen. Each lunch time someone remarks on how much better their salad or sandwich would be with a tom. Come on babies!

We are picking cucumbers, plums, potatoes, leafy greens, spring onions, cabbages, lots of herbs, and the last of the broad beans.

I'm reading March, which one of you suggested to me when I read Little Women last year. I found this copy in an op shop the other day and bought it without even opening it up to look at what it was. Thank you if that was you.

I knitted farmer Bren a new beanie (in a heatwave). I needed something mindless to knit while I watched the flower farm course videos and this pattern was perfect.

Ravelry details here.

We started harvesting our onions.

I swatched and then cast on the sweater I'm going to knit with the yarn my family bought me for my birthday last year. That there is the rib that goes at the bottom of the front piece. The yarn is delicious and I'm so excited to knit this and watch it grow.

And we cleaned out the green house ready for the autumn and winter seed raising. It hurts me a bit to think about the cold weather eating and gardening, but I imagine this year's cold months will be different than those that came before because of the new greenhouse and sun room. Hopefully.

Which brings us to now. The last Friday blog post of these summer holidays. While I've been writing this we've discussed the end of Indi's book, we've dealt with a friendship issue, we've admired Jazzy's new hairdo and her diary, Bren's sent me countless texts from town about visual diaries, I had to stop altogether to snuggle an overheated Pepper (she's sitting on the arm of my chair reading as I type now), I've okayed the girls' social arrangements and Bren raised his eyebrows when I told him I'd barely written anything after he came in after leaving me alone.

It's impossible to get in the zone and write words I'm proud of with all of these interruptions. And yet next week I know without a doubt that I'll miss them. The house will be quiet and there'll be no one coming in to play me a quick song, or show me a photo or ask me what I think. Oh my girlies.

I hope you've had a lovely week.

Are you more of a sweet or sour apple lover?

What's your favourite flower?

Are you watching/reading/cooking/growing/knitting anything wonderful lately?

I must hurry up and finish this, Miss Pepper is desperately wanting to go and have a swim in the windmill dam.

Until next week!

Love, Kate x

ps. Thank you Bren for the pics of me! xx
pps. Surely it's good luck to find a double headed zinnia in your patch (first photo)?!

the friday foxslane

Hello and a very happy Friday to you dear friends of Foxs Lane.

It's funny, now that Friday blogging is a thing, it's amazing how the pieces click together to make it so. I've started carrying my big camera around with me again (you should see how grubby it is); I've started looking at things as they happen and turning over phrases in my mind that I might use to describe them; my girls often refer to my blog and ask me if I'll be posting about this or that; you guys leave comments which delight me and inspire me to continue; and then, because they know it must be done, come Friday, my family leave me alone for the writing - which is no mean feat in week three of the summer holidays. I guess the fact that I now know that I blog on Fridays removes the guilt and the yearning from the rest of the week too.

Right now Bren's taken the girls into town to give me space, I'm sitting up on the daybed in our studio and I'm wondering what this blog should be.

I could do a rundown month by month of what 2016 looked like and felt like to me: including crafts, farm life, books, and family stuff. I could talk about the fact that we don't do Christmas and how much I love those few days of living in a bubble of exclusion. I could write about how some of my girls struggled with the no Christmas thing this year, and how we dealt with that and what that made me think about ritual and belonging and culture. I could tell you how much I've adored this past week -  it might have even been my happiest of the whole year - when all five of us worked together as a team to plant the tomatoes, cook the meals and clean the house. And then when the jobs were done, all five of us took walks around the farm, played music and sang songs, watched movies and just hung out.

Okay I've decided, after a quick check of my posts from this time last year, I think I'll go through what I wrote back then, about what I hoped to achieve in the year to come and see how that looks now in retrospect.

As well as blogging more regularly, this year 

Haha I guess I didn't exactly win in that department but at least I pulled myself up before the end of the year with my five Friday posts.

I'd love to buy a flock of sheep for land management and wool

That one I definitely tried but unfortunately rather unsuccessfully. We do have a lovely local farmer/fencer booked in to visit soon and hopefully put in some tougher, permanent fencing so we can try our hands at being shepherds again in 2017.

I'd love to play with natural dyes

I bought a book, I bought some natural sock yarn and I bought some mordant, but for some reason I never got to it. I'm not quite sure why. I'm thinking I might book into a class one day though as I might just have confused myself with all the options and possibilities and not know where to start.

 I'd love to work hard to find balance between work and play

Yeah, nah.

I must say though, that the house renovation and creation of our studio has helped with this one as it has made a space completely separate from the kitchen and garden where I can sit comfortably and read and knit while the dishes in the sink, the crumbs under the table and the unweeded garden are out of sight and out of mind.

I'd love to design a piece of knitwear

While this one is probably still a no too, I feel like I have made headway by taking a plain sock pattern and knitting a bunch of fair isle motifs into it. Counting stitches, choosing colours and selecting all the patterns hurt my brain at times, but gosh I loved knitting them.

What I didn't quite love was the sight that greeted me when I turned them inside out yesterday ready to darn in the ends!! Who would have thought there'd be such a hairy mane hiding inside. And there I had thought that they were practically finished when I cast them off. Goodness what a mess.

I posted a photo of them on instagram last night with the caption - the secret life of fair isle socks - because seriously, who knew?!

I'd love to work on being kinder to myself in my head

Let's just say I still have a lot of work to do on that one. I don't understand it and I don't like it and it would upset me so much if my girls grow up to be so self critical - but it's there and it's my truth. For now.

I'd love to find ways to get more involved with the causes that make me cry

Honestly I almost deleted this one because it makes me feel guilty that I haven't done enough. Not nearly. 

I'd love to knit a Lopi Icelandic sweater

Nope.

I'd love to unfollow a few people on social media who are not kind

I can tick this one off because I remember following through with it at the start of the year and how great it felt to have them disappear from my life. Out of instagram - out of mind. It's weird the way I let some very unkind, very preachy, very condescending, people dominate my feed for so long out of some form of misguided loyalty. On the very rare occasion that I come across their negativity now it is instantly obvious how little has changed for them, while over here I no longer have that sick feeling in my stomach and that tight feeling in my chest.

 I'd love to find some new recipes to add to our tired collection

Oh 2016 was not adventurous in the kitchen by any stretch of the imagination.

I'd love to play with some botanical embroidery

I love that I wanted to but I feel like these days posting beautiful botanical embroidery pictures to my pinterest page is much more realistic.

I'd love to teach

In 2016 I was asked by so many people to teach sock knitting, knitting in general, crochet and crafty classes but it never happened. Looking back I feel like 2016 was a year where I needed all my energy to gather and hold my loved ones with not a lot left over to spare. Hopefully next year?

I'd love to reacquaint myself with my sewing machine and sew some garments

Well, due to the renovations my sewing machine was stored in a shipping container up near the shed for a lot of 2016, but now it's set up on my desk ready to use. 

and I'd love to find a way to do a bit of housework regularly rather than leaving it until it's overwhelming

This one will forever be an issue for me. As anyone who knows me knows - tidiness and cleanliness are not exactly personality traits that I express liberally. Why clean when there's so many more fun things to do? Why scrub when its only going to get messy again? Why neaten - unless guests are coming over and I all of a sudden have a panic and see our house the way they will?

Yesterday morning though we tried something different. We divided the house into areas, allocated each area to a family member and spent the next three hours cleaning. Someone put on some loud music and we all scrubbed and vacuumed and mopped and washed and wiped. It was awesome. The fact that everyone in the house was working meant we weren't resentful at doing the job ourselves. The fact that we had time meant we could get into the nitty gritty. The fact that John Marsden allocates time each day for the students at his schools to clean their school means that our girls know how to clean and put value in the process. And the squeals that could be heard for the rest of the day as we each discovered another sparkly clean area were priceless. I hope to repeat the process each week of the school holidays and see how we can continue it into the school year.

I'm sure there's more but that's a start

Haha that's more than enough, wouldn't you say.


I guess the thing to do now is to repeat the process for 2017.

I'd like to be kinder to myself, to find one thing that is mine and pursue it, to learn how to drive a tractor, to learn how to spin and knit a garment from the yarn I've spun, to knit an Icelandic Lopi sweater, to fence some paddocks and keep a flock of sheep, to continue getting physically fitter and stronger (arm wrestle anyone), to push my photography further, to entertain more, to get involved with some of the causes that make me cry, and I'd love to write something other than this blog, imagine if my Fridays could be a whole day for writing...

I guess now I have to decide if I'll blog every day in January like I have for the past two years, or if I'll stick to the Friday blogging which feels like it's working a treat.


Happy last few days and hours of 2016 my friends.


Are you where you thought you'd be this time last year?
Do you know where you want to be this time next year?

See ya in 2017!

Lots of love,

Kate xx

fifth

Our Fox Lane family spent most of the fifth day of the new year in Ballarat shopping for jeans, and boots, and archery supplies, and art supplies and undies. It's wasn't a day that I had particularly been looking forward to but I have to say it went pretty smoothly and we actually even enjoyed ourselves. 

On the way home in the car my farmer boy asked me what I planned to blog about this evening and it occurred to me that I still had no idea. He suggested, jokingly, that I tell you all about our shopping trip. Lucky for you guys I didn't take a single photo and have no inclination to do so whatsoever. It did make me realise two things though; The first being that I am not the type of blogger to plan out or schedule posts but rather make them up as I go along. And the second being that my blog posts are still not speaking to me during the day and letting me know what to write about. I know that when I am deep in the blogging routine I often hear whispers of suggestions, themes, words and story ideas as I go about my day. I'll get there I'm sure but at the moment it gets to about six in the evening and you'll find me racing about taking a few snaps and then tapping out the words. Maybe I should write myself a little list.

So this after shopping post is a discussion of eight photos that I just snapped. Here we go.

The first is a photo of a quince, still a while off but beautifully fuzzy and photogenic. There aren't all that many on the trees this year but looking at them I can almost smell that sweet aromatic haze that hangs over the kitchen when I'm chopping them, cooking them, leaving them to drip through muslin and then cooking the rosey red liquid and ladling it into jars. It won't be long and we'll be back there again.

The second photo is of an article I wrote and a photo I took in the latest issue of Slow Living magazine. I wrote about how we use craft to help us through challenging times and I included a simple pattern for a crochet washcloth.

That photo makes me want to print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it....

The third photo is of a project I have planned. I really, really, really want to get back into sewing clothes. Especially after a big shopping day out.

Somehow I bought two copies of the Dottie Angel pattern, so keep your eyes on this space for a giveaway I'm putting together very soon.

The fourth photo is of a present that instagram sent me in the mail today to celebrate the new year. Crazy!! Inside that cute bag is a sweet animal calendar.

Maybe I should write out the story of some of my big instagram stories from last year and pop them on the blog. Maybe that's number one on the what to blog about list!

Sorry about the fifth photo I know it's a bit scary. Jarrah and Pepper were so inspired by the tree change dolls and their story that they wanted to make their own. First we took a trip up to the Daylesford Sunday market where they bought a few scary looking specimens, now they're stripping the paint off them and later they'll repaint them, do their hair and dress them like normal kids. Hopefully I'll show you the after shot in the next few days.

The sixth photo is for Reannon who asked how we trellis our tomatoes. But now that I'm looking at it I can see that my photo doesn't explain the process at all because I've cut out the important bits, and now it's getting too dark to take another. Oops!

Basically we bang in wooden stakes as we plant the tomatoes out into the ground. Then we use bits of old tee-shirts to loosely tie the middle, thickest, straightest stem up and that becomes the trunk. As the plant grows we tie the trunk up further up the stake. Does that make sense?

We're still waiting patiently for our first red tomatoes here. We were late planting because of our trip but still.....

The seventh is a plan I am desperate to put into action.

Oh and there's movement on the Daylesford Organics wool project. I'll let you know as soon as it's definite but it's all getting very exciting. Farmer Bren even sent me a text message today filled with tiny sheep. Eeeeeeep!! Or rather shEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!

And the eighth and last is of a granny smith apple. So close but yet so far.

And that's my eight on the fifth!

I hope you've had a gorgeous day. Or are about to.

Big love,

Kate xoxo

Craft report

And now for the crafty bits.

In the middle of all the apple picking, apple cooking, apple preserving and apple eating, I screen printed a whole bunch of bunting flags



to decorate our stall at The Lake House produce day last month.



I actually finished the farmer boy socks about two months ago but then apple season exploded and I never got a chance to blog them. The top four things about knitting these socks are;

1. The skein of yarn is split into two 50 gram bits so you know when to stop winding one and start winding the next and then you can't help but knit two identical twin socks.
2. The colours and patterns change so often which made them interesting and fun.
3. Somehow, I have no idea how, the yarn is dyed into those colours and patterns which means you get the cool designs without all the ends to darn in.
4. Farmer Bren LOVES them!!

Ravelled here.



Apart from the giving or wearing, the best part of finishing a pair of socks is adding a new colour into my scrappy sock blanket. It's still not very big, but I'm really loving it.

Raveled here.



And then there's Amanda.

As far as I can work out I have one button band, the neckband and the seaming to do and then I'm done. I still have no idea if it will fit me but it's getting to that stage where I'll soon find out.

I'm knitting Amanda in Tonofwool which I am LOVING!! It had beautiful stitch definition, it is super soft, it's Australian and I have a few samples that I'll be giving away soon - so watch this space.

Ravelled here.



Then there's the weaving kit that farmer Bren and the girls bought me a week before mother's day. I am busting to have a go but trying my hardest to wait til I am wearing my new cardigan.



Which brings us to the sweet Tea Mouse.

Tea Mouse is the cutest softie pattern designed and written by lovely Sarah from Chantille Fleur.

In Sarah's own words - The Chantille Fleur Tea Mouse has darling little ears with fabric lining, a matching love heart on the front and even a little knitted tail. She's a sweet little character with a lovely black nose which she just loves to point in the air. The Tea Mouse is a delight to look at and to create.

Sarah posted me the kit which meant all I had to do was find the right sized needles and get to work. The pattern was easy to follow and came together quite quickly. I had thought it might make a sweet gift for a new baby but it keeps disappearing into Miss Pepper's bedroom. Looks like I'll just have to knit up another one. Or two.

Sarah has very kindly offered to send a Tea Mouse kit to one of you guys, (Australian addresses only, sorry).

Tell me in the comments who you would give your little Tea Mouse to and I'll pick a winner on the weekend.

Until then check out the knitting kits here.
The Tea Mouse Ravelry page here.
Chantille Fleur facebook here.
Chantille Fleur on instagram here.



OK, that's me all craft caught up, how about you?
What're you making at the moment?


Big warm woolly love.

xoxoxoxo