every day in may

Hello honey bunches,

How's your week been?

I'm happy to report that after our bumpy homecoming, things here have been really good. It helps that the sun finally came out. And although it's still much too cold for my liking, we've had some bright, still, autumn days that have made my heart sing and my body happy to be outside and moving.

Last Monday morning I drove through the forest on the way home from taking Indi and Jarrah to school. The girls had been gorgeous in the car, I knew that Bren and Jobbo were meeting at home to plan the rebuild of the hot-house, the sunlight was streaming through the trees and I felt overcome with the feeling that my week ahead was rich with time and possibilities. It's the best feeling. I wanted to grab onto it and really feel it and take it home and make stuff happen.

At the same time I was listening to Sara Tasker's podcast interview with Xanthe Berkeley about the power of creative projects when it occurred to me that a creative project is just what I need. And with the start of May, the month that sort of rhymes with 'every day', the timing felt perfect. So I started auditioning projects in my head: a crocheted granny square a day, a water colour painting a day, one of those blankets people knit where each row is a reflection of the weather or the mood of the day, a blog post a day, a short film clip a day, a hundred words in a diary every day, a hexagon quilt project, an embroidery stitch a day, a hand written letter, a new recipe, an instagram post a day, a charcoal drawing...the possibilities felt endless and endlessly exciting.

In 2012 and 2014 I crocheted a different motif every day in May and loved it.

Then I arrived home, listened to the plans the boys had made, drank coffee, cleaned up the breakfast dishes, took some laundry off the line put it away and hung out some more, went to gym for an hour, came home and pulled the last of the irrigation lines out of a bottom paddock, checked on the olives, picked some flowers, brought in a load of wood, got Pepper from school and took her to her singing lesson, picked her up from her singing lesson and brought her home, took Jazzy to her dancing class and then came home to find Bren and Pepper making pasta for dinner.

The entire time I'd been wondering about my personal creative project: what form it would take, what skills I could hone or learn, and what materials I would need. Late in the day it occurred to me that the real question was when would I fit it in?

My project had to add creativity but not stress to my life.

As I watched them break the eggs and mix them into flour I decided on a capture project rather than a create project. As I watched them stir the two ingredients into a dough I chose my big camera over my phone. And as they rolled the dough out into long sheets and then skinny noodles I decided that I would document one moment of every day. One moment with a few photos.

Not the most special moments, not the most photogenic moments, not even the moments that have stories that I would usually blog, just the small moments that make up our days this May.

Ideally I'd like to push myself out of my comfort zone and take more photos indoors, I'd like to capture some tiny unposed moments, I'd like to be brave and play around with composition and settings, and I'd really love to trust myself more and not have to take 20 photos just in case the first 19 don't work.

I plan to publish them here on my blog with a short explanation or story. I thought about posting them every day but I don't want to break with this Friday thing that is working so well. And even though this might not feel any different to you than my usual style of blogging, it does for me - in its everydayness, it's making me see my world a bit differently, and its encouragement of risk.

I hope you like it - here goes.

On - May first - Bren and Pepper made made spaghetti for our dinner. Most afternoons I drive out to pick the big girls up from school and those two spend the time playing and making dinner for us. It works really well for them to make and bake and hang out, and then it works really well for us as a family to come together at the end of the day, to share a meal and catch up with each other's news.

On - May second  - we picked the last of the outside tomatoes and cabbages and basil before the predicted frosts arrived the next morning. This year we harvested, cooked, preserved and ate so many fewer tomatoes than in any other year I can remember, but still I'm happy to see the end of them. The last ones of the season always smell too strong and are too floury for my liking. This crate we picked on Tuesday is still sitting by the front door; there's a chance I'll cook them all up over the weekend, but it's more than likely they'll get fed to the chooks.

On - May third - we finally lit a great big fire and burnt all the heads of the trees that we cut down for firewood late last year. I know that my farmer boy mourns the carbon and would much rather mulch them and feed the land, but burning sh#@ is one of my favourite parts of autumn farming and happy wife - happy life, hey.

On - May fourth - we suited up and visited our bees. All of our hives seemed madly busy stockpiling for winter as the season is so obviously changing. And because our bees had a rough winter last year we were really careful and only took a few honey frames here and there and only where it looked like they had plenty. Taking honey from the bees always seems like such a gamble at this time of the year, but then the thought of that spoonful of honey in our porridge and in our tea makes it too hard to resist.

On - May fifth - literally five minutes ago, we picked some beetroot to go with our veggie burgers for dinner tonight. As I type this they're cooking on the stove. I think we'll make a rocket, feta and beetroot salad with lemon juice with some of it and slice the rest.

And that's my May so far.
How about yours? How's it going?
Do you have a creative project on the go?
Are you looking for one? Do you want to join me?
Do you do something everyday already?
Do you have something fun planned for the weekend? I hope so.

Oh and thank you so much for your feedback on my coping with winter post. I guess my every day project and the way it'll hopefully help me look for the photographable moments is part of the way I hope to deal with it a little better this year. That and a bunch of other things I've written down from all of your suggestions.

See you in a week my friends.

Love Kate xx

Twenty third

On the twenty third morning of the new year I took my camera into the kitchen and snapped six shots.

Well actually that's not entirely true, let me rephrase it. On the twenty third morning of the new year I took photos of six little scenes in my kitchen. Some I felt happy with just the one shot, but others I had to take from a few different angles just to be sure. You know, one from above, one from down low up close and one from the other side of the table. Thank goodness for digital I say, I am such an indecisive photograph taker.

Anyway as I was saying, my kitchen, this morning, six photos. And yes, I did sweep the floor and wipe down the benches first.

Photo one - one massive jar of honey we took from our bees last week and two jars of granola my farmer boy made last night while I was writing my blog. There was a third jar of granola but it was gone by the time breakfast was done.



Photo two - an upside down plum cake. I used the recipe from this blog post, can you believe how small and cute my baby once was.



Photo three - I have a little nest up the far end of the kitchen table filled with craft odds and ends I'm working on, bits and pieces I'm reading and other random collections I'm not yet done with.



Photo four - bowls filled with the fruit we picked on our walk in the orchards last night. I love this time of year, and this is just the beginning.



Photo five - a bunch of roses I picked from Bren's Mum's garden last night. I don't know much about roses but it feels like every time I think they are over for the season, they come back and get better.



Photo six - and of course no scene would be complete anymore without a collection of knives and spoons. The big club on the left is a salad server in the making, the piece of wood is something Miss Pepper is working on, the knife is one of a collection of old butcher knives, and the three spoons are beautiful.


Just out of curiosity, do you take one shot of what you're focused on, or several from different angles like me? Oh and then once I think I've got it I have to start the process off again with my iPhone for instagram. Do you do that too? What's with that anyway?

Love to you guys, I hope your light is just right.

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

Spinning honey

There are some days where me and my farmer boy frantically rush through the farm jobs all day long hoping to have them done before school pick-up so we can slow down then and enjoy the afternoons with our girls. Then there are other times when we save jobs for when the girls get home. When we plan their after school activities carefully looking forward to sharing these special tasks with them.

Last week we had a few frames of honey to spin, it would have been quicker and easier to get the job done then and there, but there was no way we could resist the thought of the girls' excitement at watching the sticky frames become jars of delicious gold.





The first step we took to extract the honey from the frames was to uncap the honeycomb.  Using a heated uncapping knife we carefully scraped the surface of the comb to remove the wax lid of each cell of honey.



Then we placed the frames of uncapped honey in the extractor,

and we cranked the handle which using centrifugal force spins the honey right out of the comb and onto the sides of the extractor.



We took turns turning and spinning, and spinning and turning, until the frames were empty and the bottom of the extractor was full of honey which had dripped down the sides.





Then we opened the valve at the bottom of the extractor, let the honey pour out into a honey strainer and then into a big bowl at the the bottom.





After that all there was to do was wash all the sticky fingers and bits of equipment, pour all the honey into jars, eat spoonfuls straight from the jars and then some on toast.



And then later on I baked this cake.

I know I'm writing this blog as if we did all the cool stuff but really we all know that we just took the baton on the last little leg of the honey journey. It's really the bees that live here at Daylesford Organics with us who do the real work pollinating our fruit and veggies, providing our spring soundtrack and not being too cranky when we take a tiny share of their honey now and then.

I feel so very fortunate to have cool activities like honey spinning to share with our girls, to watch their excited faces as they play their parts and to see how proud they are of themselves and how much more connected they are to their food source as they spoon big spoonfuls of golden honey into their porridge each morning.

What a fascinating, exciting, sticky, delicious, buzzy world.

Bee good my friends.

Big sweet love to you from me.

xx

watching a bee hatch

Late yesterday afternoon while visiting one of our hives we watched a bee hatching.

It had been one of those messy mornings when the girls wanted to do anything else but farming and be anywhere else but outside, and I felt disappointed and took it personally and found it difficult to give up the idyllic picture I'd had in my head of how we'd spend the day. But eventually I did give up and after an hour or so of broad-bean picking and shelling, we went our three separate ways; one into town, one to my parents' house and us three to visit the bees.

Even though we've had our own bee hives now for a few years, I still mostly feel like a beginner bee-keeper. It's like when we put on our suits, light the smoker and crack open the first hive, we enter a whole other world. And even though I'm not really scared of being stung, I am constantly aware of doing the right thing by the bees. Often I don't even realise until we come home and get our bee gear off how filled with adrenaline I've been. Bees are buzzy and their hives vibrate with activity and by opening them up we are exposing them and you can feel their tension. And we've noticed that different hives seem to have different personalities. We have one particular one that always feels frantic while some of the others are much calmer.

Late yesterday afternoon we visited one of our calmer hives. We cracked open the lid, slowly pulled out a few frames to see what was going on, and on one of the frames closer to the centre we found a bee hatching out of its cell.

It was such an incredible experience to see it nibble its way out of the capping. First came the feelers, waving around and then the head. After a bit more wriggling it went back inside and turned around and tried again from a different direction. And then the whole bee wandered out. A brand new, light grey coloured bee.

What a buzz!! It felt like such a privilege watching that bee's story unfold.

All three of us were so excited about what we had just witnessed as we closed the hive up, collected the honey frames we had swapped from another hive and drove up to the house.

And later on as I heard Miss Pepper tell the story of the hatching baby bee first to her grandparents and then to each of her sisters, I realised that it was OK that they hadn't wanted to come along. This is their world, they are SURROUNDED by bee keeping and veggie growing and bio dynamic stirring on all sides. It makes sense that they need some time out, that they need to find their own passions, and it makes sense that they just want to socialise on their weekends too. I just hope Miss Pepper remains our farm loving, animal cuddling, bee-keeping girl for many years to come.

Check out this link if you want to see some great pictures and info about the bee's life cycle.

And may your news be good news.

Lots of love

xx

Who influences you?

 A little while ago I was lying in bed the night before a magazine interview trying to guess the questions and plan my answers.

It was a magazine I have a lot of respect for so I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about and sounded a bit interesting, a lot thought out.

But, as almost always happens, the later it got, the harder the imagined questions got, the more rambly my answers got, the more worried I got, the less I made sense, the less chance I had of getting to sleep, the more pointless this middle of the night exercise became.

But I kept asking, and answering, and stressing. For hours.

And for some reason one of the questions that kept popping up in my imaginary interview was: Who and what are your main influences?

Sounds simple right? But over the course of that over-night interview I discovered that I don't have main influences. I don't have one place, or person, or style to turn to to turn me on. Did that make me shallow?

And the more I thought about that fact, the more worried I became. 

My influences come from everywhere: a quote in a book I'm reading, a song we listened to on the radio on the way to school, the way Pepper's teacher tied her scarf, something that we did when we were kids, a link on Pip's blog, the colour pallet in a shop window, the recipe I hear someone describing to someone else at the fruit shop, a picture of a garden layout on pinterest, the angle or exposure of a photograph, what needs to be picked or planted or preserved in the garden, the colourful balls of cottons in the corner, the pattern in the bits of honeycomb scraped off the roof of a bee hive yesterday, a skirt with cute pockets I saw and a pile of pretty vintage fabric I thrifted, a washy painting Indi did and the water colour pencils she left lying around, this season's stunning shiburi dyeing and all my stained whites, an instagram picture of a mini quilt and mine half made, the new and varied patterns I am learning while knitting my way through Nicki Trench's 201 Knitting Blocks, Projects Ideas, a salad recipe I saw somewhere and my rumbling tummy….

My influences seem to know no bounds and are ever changing. Often changing.

And as the sun came up I finally became comfortable with my answer.

But of course the question was never asked.

So now I'm asking you.
Can you name your influences?
Do you have people, places, times or  quotes that guide you? That you turn to? That fill you up and help make you you?
Or are yours ever changing like mine? Like the weather? Like the days of the year? Like the patterns the wind makes as it blows its way over the long grass in my parents' paddock?

I wonder.

xx