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

fourth

Farmer Bren is laughing at me because I just left the room to write my blog somewhere quieter and told him I'd be back in ten minutes. He obviously doesn't believe me so I'm going to put a stop watch on. 

GO!

Today, on the fourth day of the new year I got up really early and watered the garden. It was the most beautiful morning and I loved the time alone and the thought of setting the garden up for the day with a big drink.

Then our cousins from Melbourne came to visit and the skies opened up and it POURED!! It rained and rained and rained which was awesome because everything was so dry and the garden didn't mind a bit extra at all.

After the rains and after our cousins went home we went for a walk to admire how beautiful everything looked all soaking wet and lush. We had to take big, deep breaths of wet eucalyptus smell and walk around in wet, muddy boots, it was gorgeous.

First stop was the peas to pick a pocketful for the way.

Then we checked on the apricots, the plums, the potatoes, the berries, the pumpkins, the zucchini, the cucumbers, the beans and the sunflowers. We didn't get to the apples, under the nets in the background of this photo, but hopefully we will spend a bit of time in the orchard tomorrow covering more rows and checking on their progress.

Some of the sunflowers look ready to burst which is exciting. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll see some yellow action.

And then back up to the house to walk through the kitchen garden to pull a few weeds and tie a few trellises.

One of the old potato crates broke down recently, well actually I fell out of it while forking it and broke the side, leaving us a big pile of soil filled with potatoes. We ummed and ahhhhed for ages about how to manage the pile and in the end built a wall out of bricks. I don't love it as much as I love the crates in neat formation but it's growing on me. And the the spuds are growing really well in it.

A quick water of the hot house and a mental note to spend the next chance I get planting a lettuce succession and some winter veg.

And then home to do a few rows of my Artista shawl before the night time rituals begin. The Ravelry link to my Artista is here. My sweet instagram friend Lori sent me the yarn and the pattern so we could become shawl twins. I'm almost there, five rounds of pattern, then the tassels and I'll be wearing it.

And that's that. Our fourth has been a pretty and wet and fun day.

How about yours? What did you get up to and what's the weather like there right now?

See you tomorrow.

Love Kate
xoxo

STOP!!!! So I already had the photos loaded but the words for this blog took me 16.55 minutes to write. Not that much longer than ten.

PS Big thanks for all of your gorgeous messages on my blog these past 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 Indi is incredibly grateful for all the love you've been showing her, thank you. x

my story in eight

These are the last eight photos I took off my camera.

Mostly with photo taking, I take a bunch of pictures all at once and download them soon after and blog them not long after that. In those cases I pretty much know what to expect. And as the photos flash onto the screen, more often than not, the words that tell their stories come too.

Other times, my camera sits on the kitchen table or near the front door for days at a time, only picked up for a quick snap here and there. After these times the downloading is more of a surprise and more fun. Random snapshots that tell the tales of my life at a moment in time. 

As the eight photos in this post downloaded I was half looking and half eating a feijoa. As they popped onto the screen I noticed how autumnal their colour pallet is. I realised that I am so very obviously the Mum of school girls now as none of the photos has little kids in them. And I saw that although a huge amount more than these eight events has gone on in my life over the past few days, these photos do tell the story of my late autumn beautifully.

Photo one of the kitchen garden up there, tells the story of tiny little lettuces and spinachs trying to put on as much growth as possible while there is still sunshine and a bit of warmth in the air before winter really kicks in. Our kitchen garden is my happy place these days. I am always kicking my clogs on and picking some herbs or greens for a meal, doing a spot of weeding or transplanting or admiring. Yesterday we noticed the first few broccoli of the season which was cause for much excitement.

Photo two is of the loveliest, chunkiest wool I am currently using to knit my farmer boy a new beanie. I don't know about you but I find it very difficult to source really chunky, soft, pure wool. This stuff is from New Zealand, I bought it in Ocean Grove last week and now I'm thinking I should have bought more. Details here.

Yesterday I drove past farmer Bren on his tractor wearing two beanies at once, so I think next up once I finish this beanie will be a balaclava.

Photo three is of a marker for a seed tray filled with onion seeds in the hot house. On Tuesday we filled the hot house with trays of onion seeds and leek seeds. I'm hoping they grow big and strong soon enough to transplant them into the garden and leave us the space to start the tomato season all over again in August.

Photo four is of the bottle tree in Autumn. I love how that tree and its bottles tells a different story each season. After a summer of thick green foliage that practically hid the bottles from view, the leaves slowly turned golden and reflected in the bottles' glass. And now as the leaves fall to a carpet below the tree the bottles remain, swaying and occasionally clinking in the cool wind.

Photo five is of the basil seed we saved from this year's crop to dry out and plant again next year. There may not be any fresh, green basil leaves to flavour our cooking for some time, but our freezer is filled with containers of pesto for the winter.

Photo six is of the carpet of autumn leaves I mentioned above. I remember when I used to live in suburban Melbourne autumn was always filled with raked up piles of autumn leaves to be burned, composted and sometimes run through. The leaves on our farm are a bit more free range, blowing around, making a pretty mess and then disintegrating back into the earth. I think they are terribly beautiful and they make me happy even though I know that the leaves on the back deck and in the entrance way are a sign of my bad housekeeping.

Picture seven is of a big bowl full of green-manure seeds I mixed up before planting. Doesn't it look like soup mix! This mix of fenugreek, broad beans, peas and vetch went in where the tomatoes came out of the garden. Our garden worked super hard making the vines and fleshy tomato fruit over the past six months and this green manure crop will feed the soil and prepare it for next spring's plantings.

And picture eight I took a few minutes ago. Picture eight is of some gorgeous wool felt I bought off lovely Lizzie this morning at Mill Rose. I have book mark plans for this pile. Book marks with little vintage caravans parked on top. The publicity campaign for my book has begun and these book marks will be a part of it. I'm both excited and nervous. The release date is still a few months away but there's loads to do before then. Eeeeeeep!

I hope your week is telling a wonderful story.
I hope it is warm, delicious and pleasing to the eye.

Ciao x

a (Fri)day in my life

Yesterday.

After the girls were fed, dressed, braided and driven off to school, I started the day with a couple of batches of pesto. I put Lisa Mitchell on the stereo and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my back as I snipped the basil leaves off their stems and inhaled their delicious summery aroma.

After I had jarred the pesto and done the dishes I moved onto the tomatoes.

Thursday's tomatoes.

I cooked them quickly on the stove to soften them, moulied them, cooked them up with some onion, garlic, rosemary and basil and then I labelled them and popped them in two containers into the chest freezer.

Then my farmer boy came home and we drank coffee. Ahhhhhhh...

And we dressed in our white bee suits, lit the smoker and visited a few of our bee hives. We scraped a bit of their honey comb from their lids but nothing they would miss. And they looked good and happy so we left them to it.

Then it was time to pick up the girls. So we did. And we took them out for ice cream to celebrate Friday. Yay for Friday!

It had been a short week but a big week and our girlies were exhausted, so we came home and popped them in front of a movie with blankets and bowls of cut up apple.

And me and my farmer boy went out to prepare for the possibility of rain. First by chopping the stems off the onions and garlic we'd had hanging and drying and bringing them inside. It'll be soup season before we know it. Then we took the ute and a trailer and went out into the forest to collect a load of wood and kindling for the fire.

The wood we collected had been cut two years ago and was nice and dry and seasoned and will burn beautifully and keep us warm and cook our food over the next few weeks.

And then I picked Friday's tomatoes.

When the girls' movie finished we bundled them in the car and went down to the orchard to pick the Prima apples (my favourite so far) and the 20 Ounce apples (the biggest so far).

And somehow we lost track of time and to-do lists and stresses and dead lines and played for a while.

For a while, until it started to get dark and cold and hungry.

Then we came up to the house, rolled out some pasta, cut it into circles, filled each circle with last season's spinach and some ricotta, and then chopped up another tomato-ey sauce.

Home made ravioli with a bit of grated Parmesan and a few basil leaves on top....deeeeeeeeeeeelicious.

And then girls went to bed. Phew.

And me and my farmer boy got busy processing tomatoes again and making the first load of Fowlers for the season.

Then more dishes and a wipe down of the stickiest kitchen in town.

A vodka with ginger beer. An episode of Smash.

A shower.

BED!!!!

Autumn, you are bountiful and colourful and aromatic. You keep me crazy busy. My to-do list could fill a chapter book. And I feel happy.


How are you traveling lovely peeps?
What does a day in your life look like at the moment?
I hope your weekend is filled with wonderful.
I'm off to gather Saturday's tomatoes.

Happy travels x

My 'what makes me happy' to-do list.

Hello day before summer and very last day of November!!

What a crazy time of year you are.

I don't know about you, but I'm finding my days are disappearing in a sea of pick ups and drop offs, final this and preparing for that, make lots of this and rehearse for that. There's costumes and projects, and food shares and transitions and meetings and excursions and parties and inspections and reports and dead-lines and concerts and dances and assemblies...and there are three, tired, fragile children.

Yesterday I drove in and out of town nine times!!!!

And so being the disorganised person that I am, I've often found myself feeling like I am drowning. Overwhelmed and out of control. And that all the stuff I love doing, the stuff that makes me-me, gets stuck right down the bottom of the list.

So this morning, when I stepped back into my house after the first drop off of the day, and I contemplated the mess that needed sorting out and the list of housey chores that needed attending to, I decided to make myself a what makes me happy to-do list.

On that list I wrote things that I love doing, but that aren't exactly priorities. My happy stuff. The stuff that makes me feel passionate and inspires me.

I'm hoping that having this list will keep me more focused and motivated and on task. If I hang and fold all the laundry, then maybe I can do something for a little while that I love, like crochet a coaster or plant out some of the basil.

Like make a new type of bread or sew a dress.

Like thin out the lettuces or sew some bunting.

Like soaking and blocking my just cast off cardigan.

Like taking photos and writing a blog...

And you know what? It might seem small but for now I feel like writing that list has made all the difference to my day. I feel like the shoulds will be more doable if there are some loves in amongst them.

Oh after a bit of contemplation, I just deleted all the games off my phone too. I reckon I could have crocheted an entire blanket in the time I've been wasting lately.

OK here I go, off to tackle the kitchen with my rewards well in sight.

I hope you have the most fabulous weekend.

But before you go, I'd love to know a few of the things that would make it onto your what makes me happy to-do list.

Bye! xx