simple

It's the first of December and the first day of summer and I have a head ache. I went to bed with it last night and woke up with it this morning. I'm not somebody who usually suffers from headaches and I'm unsure if this one is due to pmt, to the stress of the past few days getting prepared for the crazy amounts of rain forecast to fall this weekend, to some sort of barometric pressure (?), or if it's just here in my head telling me to slow down and have a quiet day on the couch. In any case it's really making it impossible for me to think straight, let alone type coherent sentences.

So it's another post that's heavy on photos - light on words from me today.

This week we pulled out a bunch of old tea pots that we inherited when we bought our farm. We filled them up with herbs and flowers and popped them outside the front door.

I spent a lot of time this week shuffling plants around the new green-house space. I made big colourful groups of pots, then I thinned them out a bit, then I stuck to the same colour scheme, and then I changed my mind and started all over again. I'm definitely a 'the more the merrier' type of plant lover, but I also want it to be easy on the eye. I guess I'll keep on moving them until they feel right and then I'll move on to a different corner of the room.

This week we found out that due to the impending heavy rains, our big girls were coming home from school camp a day early. Because I'd been busy in the garden, I'd left all the usual jobs I do for the girls when they come home from camp to the last minute, and so they wouldn't be returning to fresh bed-sheets and their favourite meals. Instead I made a mad dash around and picked them some posies for their bedrooms. Luckily they loved them. 

This week we finally made a start on the tomatoes. I forgot to take a photo but you can just see the patch between the bean tee-pee and the cubby. So far we've planted over a hundred plants with more to go in next week.

This week we tied up all the tall, gangly plants so they don't fall over in the rains.

This week our over-wintered carrots went to seed. I offered them to a local wedding florist who might use them for her functions this weekend, how gorgeous would that be.

This week we started eating peas from the garden.

This week I spent a lot of time looking out of these windows into the garden, and in these windows to the green-house. I still can't believe how much I love it every time I see it.

And this week we watched a few more episodes of Ozark, I started reading my sister Abby's review copy of Fen Stories, I finished turning the heels and began knitting up the legs of my tree socks, I was humbled and excited and slightly terrified when The Soul Craft Program came out and my talk and class are included, I picked and ate loads of strawberries, I didn't listen to any podcasts because I've lost my head-phones, I sat by the lake and watched the Daylesford kids swim, I hilled the potatoes and weeded the onions, I pulled some of the garlic and left the rest, I listened to Bren's tractor working in the apples until late every night, I loved Pepper's class play, I missed our big girls and I felt exhausted but oh so happy with the choices we have made that have bought us this life we live.

I hope you've had a lovely week.
Tell me a couple of things you've been up to. I'd love to read them.

Until next Friday...(can you believe there are only four more left for this year??!)

Love Kate x

the hungry gap

Hello dear reader and welcome to my last blog post of this year's August, this calendar's winter. I actually can't believe we've only got a week to go. And although I am realistic about the fact that winter here can last at least another month, there's something psychologically exciting about the official season change. It feels optimistic and full of opportunities and sunshine.

At this time every year on our farm, in our garden, and in our kitchen, we talk about the hungry gap. That time in late winter when the last of late summer's plantings have been picked and consumed, the last of autumn's preserved harvest has been eaten, and the first vegetables of the new growing year are still weeks away.

The low soil temperatures and the extreme crunchy frosts that we're still getting make it pointless to plant anything in the ground yet, and apart from a few rows of carrots and beets, some straggly leeks, spring onions, kale and brussels, and some lettuces and herbs, the garden is sitting still. There's nothing new out there to get inspired by; winter still has a firm hold on things.

I feel like we're in the middle of a hungry gap for blog content too.

While there are most certainly signs of spring out there, the almond blossom is budding, the daffodils are about to burst open, the wattle is about to explode any minute, the days are still icy cold and grey, the girls are all tired and fighting off colds and I'm at this point that I get to every late winter when I question what it is we do and why we do it.

I mean obviously I know that we look after the land and animals, we grow things and we prepare for other seasons but at the heart of the slowest season, it gets hard to sit still and wait.

Every year in late summer and early autumn as we are rushing about like crazy people madly hoping to fit all our jobs into our days, I remind myself that we have the winter months to slow down and rest and replenish, and although we most certainly are, I'm starting to feel impatient for what's to come.

I can't wait to blog about picnics and bonfires, baskets of produce, rows of colourful blossoms, bees, fruit laden trees and other sunny day adventures. I can't wait until buzzing activity fills the blog again. Until the hungry gap is over.

But in the meantime I am taking advantage of the rainy days by sitting by the fire and knitting rows of my colour-work socks. I'm on the home stretch now, four more rows of pattern before I start the navy rib at the cuff. I tried them on just before and they fit me perfectly, but I still haven't decided if I'll keep them.

Raveled here.

I bought some yarn grown and spun locally to make my farmer boy a bunch of new beanies. I used to make him some new ones every season but somehow this year he's done without. So far.

I'm reading this sweet children's book that a friend recommended. His friend wrote it and he spoke so proudly of her that I had to get my mum to order it from the library that afternoon.

This week I've fallen in love with the 99% Invisible podcast. So far I've listened to the Person in Lotus Position, and The Stethoscope  and I've downloaded a bunch of others for when time permits.

We finished watching season 5 of House of Cards.

Farmer Bren made some bowls out of apple wood and sycamore and experimented with drying methods. He also got excited when he spotted a pole lathe in the latest episode of Game of Thrones; did you spot it too?

And I'm still loving the four classes a week I'm going to at the gym, waiting for the cabbage sauerkraut we made to be ready, feeling irritated by the cold in my head, dreaming of a day when we don't have to light the fire, thinking about baking a cake for the weekend, wearing hand knitted socks that don't fit anyone, (they're baggy but they do the trick), yearning for the return of hanging washing outside days, wilting at the sight of another indoor plant that hasn't made it through the dark depths of winter, wondering what we should make for dinner tonight, watching the white smoke billowing out of the cubby house chimney, listening for the kettle so I can refill my hot water bottle, sniffling...

and hoping that your weekend is filled equally with cozy restful times and productive fun times.

Do you have anything fun planned?
Have you watched anything good lately? (My mum and dad LOVED Mr Gaga.)
Have you snacked on anything yum lately? (I just made myself four corn crackers with cheese and saurkraut.)
Have you ordered anything fun online lately? (It seems I have a flower seed addiction; bring on springtime).

And that's that, I'm outta here.

Lots of love,

Kate

xx

once upon a winter's day

For the first few days after I published my blog last week I felt like I was free-falling.  Going through my days without a small voice in my head telling me what else I could be doing felt disconcerting, like I was off balance, like something was missing.

As your comments started coming in and it became apparent how many of us are feeling the same way it occurred to me that we're conditioned to move forward and gather skills, possessions, degrees, jobs, stories, partners, friends, wealth, almost since the moment we draw our first breath. Standing still, being happy with what we have and not wanting more, feels almost unnatural.

Then after a while, as I reconciled your comments with the way I'd been feeling, the bossy voices in my head quietened down and I began to feel present and still. For as long as I can remember that voice has been nagging at me to hurry up and finish with the laundry so I can paint that mural on the studio wall, finish writing my blog so I can get going on that book idea, put down my sock knitting so I can design something fabulous, stop what I'm doing and learn something, teach something, work at something, get out there, make a difference...

Being free of this voice for the past few days has been wonderful. A few days ago I went into the forest for an armful of kindling and found myself on my hands and knees examining the moss and wild animal poo. Yesterday I sat in the chair next to the fire in Bren's workshop in the middle of the day and cast off my socks. And this morning I went for a walk with the sole purpose of looking for bulbs and signs of spring. I've listened to my girls' stories, I've watered and observed the progress of every single pot in the greenhouse, I stole 20 minutes to read my book in the middle of the day, and I sat by the campfire eating dinner and watched each of my people in turn, listened to their stories and felt lucky to know them.

And I've noticed that the lack of the need for progress hasn't meant that I haven't been productive. Not at all. As well as all the usual daily bits, I've started baking bread again after years of buying it from an organic bakery in town, I've planted hundreds of seeds in the greenhouse, I've prepared a garden bed for planting, I've taken on a knitting project for someone I've never met and I've felt calmer and more grounded than I have in ages.

I'm not saying that I'm all zen or anything, just a bit more at peace. And I have been sleeping better which might be a coincidence, but is definitely awesome.

I'm not convinced yet that this peace will last.

As much as that statement upset my farmer boy when I said it to him yesterday, I am aware that I am pushing up against 45 years of habit as well as bitter winter winds that threaten to throw me off balance and demand movement and new and change.

But from where I'm sitting right now (up against the heating panel in my bedroom), being content with my simple life, taking my cues from Mother Nature and enjoying and engaging with this stage and this phase and the right now, feels just right.

I hope you're feeling it too, I really do.

In other news I am in the middle of reading my sister Abby's copy of Idaho. It took me ages to settle into a book after finishing Eleanor Oliphant but this one, despite the fact that it's pretty bleak, grabbed me after the first page.

I am listening to and loving the second series of Homecoming, a psychological thriller in a podcast. It's so beautifully produced and scripted, I can't wait for the next instalment.

I am darning in the ends of the Bavarian cable socks. Unfortunately I ran out of yarn half way through the cast off and had to choose the closest I had, but hopefully you won't notice unless you put your nose on my ankle. Which truth be told would be a bit weird of you.

I am casting on a plain blue sleeve for someone and these soon to be very patterned socks for someone else. I might also knit some quick, chunky slippers because concrete floors and bitter winters do not go very well together.

And I am picking and cooking loads of brussel sprouts, planting broad beans and cabbages, sipping the most beautiful tea that gorgeous Tara from Nourish and Nest sent me as a present, aching from last night's body combat and pump classes, trying to drink more water, watching episode two of The Handmaid's Tale, feeling frustrated by how limiting dark winter days are for photography, splitting wood for the fire, hurting my foot with the wood splitter (so silly), contemplating a steaming hot bubble bath, thinking about how my dad is taking each of his daughters out for coffee separately and wondering if I should do the same, and hoping that the blizzardy weather on the weekend is not as bad as they're predicting, although by the way the wind is howling out there it feels like they might be right.

Oh and I'm trying to get back to each of you who has left me a comment, but sometimes I'm better at it than others. If you leave me a message on my blog, I'm trying to reply in the comments of that blog. Facebook and Instagram and Bloglovin', I'll reply there. And email for some reason is my hardest to get to, but I am getting there, mostly. And if for some reason I haven't, please know that I have read what you've written and have thought about it, it's just hard to get onto the computer sometimes. Blog comments are so important to me. It's so heartening to know that there are people out there reading and interacting. So THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for taking the time, I truly love and appreciate every single word. You guys are the greatest!!

And that's where I'm at.

How about you?
Are you slowing down and enjoying your simple life? Or are you not quite there yet?
If you shut your eyes right now what can you hear?
If you had a choice between meat or lentil Bolognese, which one would you choose?

I hope your weekend is kind to you.

Love, Kate

xx

simple

A couple of years ago we were sitting drinking coffee at a cafe in town next to another couple and their real estate agent. As we sat and drank our coffee it was impossible to ignore the conversation to our side as it was both loud and near. The couple had a plan. A huge project. And they were excitedly filling the agent in on the details while asking for his help. He was nodding, asking the occasional question and scribbling notes in a book.

And as they filled him in on the where's and how's and whats, we kept looking at each other over the tops of our coffee cups. It was impossible not to be swept up in the excitement, to get carried away with their dreams, to feel certain that big things were on their way, that the sky was the limit, that anything was possible, or indeed probable.

Later as we walked off down the street I told my farmer boy that I was a bit jealous of their grand plan. Not of the actual plan itself, but of that feeling of having a big idea that changes everything: it takes up time in your thoughts, in your actions, in your feelings and changes the way you see your future. The potential is exciting, the risks are worth considering, your dream is a trickle that becomes a stream and then a gushing, overflowing river and you are swept along for the ride.

Yeah I don't think so he replied.

I guess we already have our very own grand plan story.

We moved to the country all those years ago for the lifestyle. We wanted a simple life of growing and eating our own food, making things with our hands and having time for our family and for things that made us feel happy.

But then our little plan grew greater and bigger and took on a life of its own and became Daylesford Organics.

At its height we kept 2,500 chooks, we grew hundreds of varieties of vegetables and fruit, we had full time staff and wages and insurance, we had trucks carting our produce to fancy restaurants in Melbourne, we had cool-rooms and trailers and a logo made, we were in all the magazines, we sold at farmer's markets most weekends, we won awards, we wrote invoices and BAS statements and we kept records and made so many phone calls. We worked crazy long hours in the heat and in the icy cold. We put our girls in child care or left them in the house with a walkie talkie. We sent all the best produce out for other people to enjoy and then too exhausted for anything else, we fed our kids fish fingers for dinner. We planted, we collected, we irrigated, we weeded, we harvested, we hired, we worried, we felt like inadequate business people, we became managers with clean hands, we stressed, we realised that this life wasn't making us happy, and eventually we closed it all down. It was a grand plan but all we ever wanted was a simple life.

A simple life where we can prioritise growing healthy girls and each other above all else.

In the last few days since we've been home from holidays that conversation has been running through my mind. At first I thought that maybe it was because I wasn't satisfied and wanted something bigger in my life. But as the days have gone on I've realised that it's exactly the opposite. I am right where I want to be, but for some reason I'm questioning that. Is it okay to be content living in the moment without plans to move forward? Is it okay to spend my days looking after my family, doing house hold chores, working in the garden, working on the farm, making things and reading and writing? Is it okay to plod along or do we have to be going somewhere?

Farmer Bren likes to tell the story of a woman he heard interviewed on the radio a while back. She was a migrant who worked at a chocolate factory watching the Freddo Frogs come down a conveyor belt on the look-out for the imperfect ones. She spoke about how content she was. She had a job that earned her money that she could leave at the end of the day without any stress, and go home to spend the rest of her time with her family who she adored. It was a simple story and it moved him.

At times I do have thoughts about adding to the mix. About maybe studying or volunteering or working off the farm, but any shift will unbalance and complicate what is working so well here at the moment, so I have to make sure that it's something important to me. Having said that I know that if I do have a burning desire I will follow it and we will make it work. That's what we do.

After all where and how we live isn't a lucky coincidence, we've made choices all along the way.

So after much thought and wonder I'm choosing to appreciate and enjoy what I've got and where I am. It's the best place for me.

In my simple life this week we've been picking and eating carrots, beetroot, lettuce, spinach, rocket, leeks and brussel sprouts from the garden. Most of these we planted late last summer and they grew while there was still warmth in the soil and now they sit waiting to be picked.

We've been admiring a patch of fully grown cabbages that grew from the plants we harvested in autumn but never pulled out. I actually had no idea you could grow a second cabbage off the same plant. Hopefully these will become a batch of sauerkraut before too long.

I'm knitting up the ankles of my socks. It's interesting to note that I knitted six of those shapes in the five days we were away and only one in the six days we've been home. I'd love to have them cast off and being worn by this time next week. We'll see.

I'm reading this book and loving every page. It is surprising and interesting and quirky and clever and witty and dark and lovely. There's a quote on the back of the book that says A story about the very worst and very best that humans are capable of...Funny, brave and utterly devastating. I agree completely. This is a story that has the potential to be as depressing as a book can be, but is instead something quite wonderful.

I am grateful to the kind people at Harper Collins Australia for sending me a copy.

I am spending lots of time in the green house watering, watching and planting. To be honest it's still so cold here that planting seeds out now isn't really going to give me any sort of head start over those I plant in a month or so, but I can't help it, I love it in there and simply cannot wait.

I'm feeling very lucky to have received this beautiful parcel in the mail from my instagram friend Ainslee. It's such a wonderful thing to chat with someone online for months and months and then to hold a little piece of them in your real life. Thank you Ainslee, I love every little bit.

Check out Ainslee's store here and her gorgeous instagram here.

I'm also listening fascinated to Richard Fidler's interview with David Gillespie on How to spot a psychopath. Trying to drink more water. Aching from last night's Body Combat class. Wondering how we can be in so many places at once this Sunday. Splitting wood for the Esse. Watching nothing much really which is a bit of a relief after last week's indulgence. Deciding if I can get away without doing a load of washing today. Hoping that we can keep getting up a bit early and running on the treadmill and doing exercises next week like we did this week.

I'm reading through the Words In Winter website (try saying that six times quickly), book marking bits that sound interesting.

And I'm realising that Bren was absolutely right back then, I don't want to be anyone else with a grand plan, I want to be us. I want to work really hard in season and to take it a bit easy in winter. I want the freedom to be spontaneous with the jobs we take on each day. And above all else I want to be available for the girls. I want them to feel heard and appreciated and pushed and helped.
It's the simple life for me.

For now anyway.

How about you?
Do you have big plans for change or are you content to let things be?
Are you a cafe eavesdropper?
An everyday launderer?
Do you have time to sit and read a book under a tree?

I hope your weekend is both fun and restful.

See you next Friday.

Love Kate

xx