a few days ago

A few days ago we walked down the path at the back of our farm to collect armfuls of daffodils from the forest floor. Every year we visit this patch to admire the golden flowers and yet we have no idea who originally planted them. They're just outside our back gate and across a forest track with no other house or property in sight. Just miles and miles of Wombat State Forest. Sometimes it feels a bit eerie being in the middle of the forest, just on dusk, with the wind whispering through the trees, but then it also feels quite comforting to know that someone once lived there or passed through there in an autumn gone by and planted fat bulbs to flower for ever more.

We picked three bunches and left the rest for the forest. The girls laugh about how they'll one day tell their kids how they were always being photographed for my blog, but I know they love it. Moments like these feel like a gift to our future busy selves; laughing, dawdling, exploring, wondering, bickering, dreaming, singing.

A few days ago I filled up the tank of the brush cutter, pulled the cord at the top of the driveway and started making my way down. Usually I listen to my headphones while I do this type of work but this time I didn't want to waste the time it would take to find them. As I swept down the hill and around the bend I started remembering the story of a family of a boy on the autism spectrum who spent his days running around his backyard dragging a belt. It was strange but I could almost hear the father's voice telling his story and I could feel all the emotions I had connected to the story, vividly. 

It took me a while but eventually I realised that the story was a podcast interview I had listened to the last time I had cleared the gorse and blackberry and bracken from the same spot. My brain had connected the podcast to the position without me even knowing it. As I continued further down the driveway I remembered another story about a family of girls whose father had died. Without thinking I could feel their love for him and their great loss. Another podcast, another place.

I often worry about my brain. Coming from a line of Alzheimer's disease sufferers I guess it's inevitable. Sometimes I give myself little memory tests, sometimes I panic when I forget words or even how I've arrived at places, and then mysteriously my brain does something quite remarkable like connect entire stories I've heard to the places I heard them. What a mysterious organ.

A few days ago Miss Pepper got on a bike and taught herself to ride. I do know that ten is pretty old to be learning that particular skill, but somehow living on an unmade road in the middle of the forest way out of town, it just never happened. It did amaze me how quickly she took off though. It was like she decided, she wobbled a bit, fell off and grazed her knee and elbow, and then that was it, she was off. And has been riding around tractors and cars and mowers, up and down the driveway, ever since.

A few days ago Facebook told me that this time last year Indi was in Montenegro, this time last year I was swearing about all the rain and desperate for some sun, this time four years ago we caught a bee swarm, and this time four years ago I was on ABC radio's Life Matters promoting my book Vantastic and talking about life on the road.

A few days ago I had my hair cut into a long bob that just touches my shoulders and I love it. It feels fresh and easy and while it doesn't quite all fit into a pony tail anymore - I was so sick of wearing a pony tail every day anyway.

A few days ago we finished watching series four of Transparent and while I definitely didn't love it as much as I loved the first series, I really enjoyed it. 

A few days ago we started planning the celebrations for our Jazzy's fourteenth birthday. The year I started this blog she turned six and had a cupcake party and my dad wrote this comment that included an email Bren wrote just after Jazzy was born, under my post;

farmdocOctober 9, 2009 at 3:15 PM

Here is an email I received on 13.10.03:

Hi all,
I'm sitting here with my beautiful baby girl on my lap, listening to her tiny hiccups and watching her wonderful facial expressions.
She is just divine, an angel, a fairy.
She is 5 days old now.
She was born at 2.40 on Thursday 9-10-03 and was 7 pound and perfect.
Mum and baby are doing really well. They got back home last night and we are getting on with life with 2 kids.. WOW..
Indi is coping really well and will make a very good bossy sister..
If you didn't realize from the subject of this email we have named her
JARRAH ULMAN EISNER.
Jarrah is the Aboriginal name for the majestic Eucalyptus marginata, native to western Australia.
Hoping you are well and as happy us we are..
All our love
Bren Kate Indi & Jarrah.

If Jarrah brought joy back then, now she brings a million times more. To every one who knows her. Happy birthday to you, darling Jarrah. xxxxx

Gosh the other comments on those 2009 birthday posts bring back so many memories of sweet blog years gone by.

A few days ago on a long drive somewhere we stopped at a petrol station to use the toilet. As I passed through the fast food restaurant and saw the huge, plastic playground to the side it occurred to me that unusually, I'm okay with the approaching birthday season this year. I'm okay with everyone growing that little bit older and I'm okay with not having babies and toddlers anymore. I spent years and years in those toilets with my little girls, trying to distract them on the way back through from the sugary treats and then waiting for tedious hours while they yelled at me to watch them as they climbed up the plastic structures and slid back down again. Although I adored those chubby little toddlers, and although the teenage years are anything but straight forward and simple, I do feel better equipped to deal with them. I feel like a better mum for them. I really enjoy parenting them. And most of all I love closing the door of my own service station toilet cubicle on them.

A few days ago Bren and Jobbo pulled down the ugly carport that's been shading our house. They then took all the wooden beams from it, put them through the thicknesser and then bolted them to the kitchen wall. Since then we've been pulling things out of the pantry and filling up those shelves. Our clever architect friend Annabel has been trying to convince us forever to pull down our pantry next to let even more light in, but I'm just not sure if we're neat or minimalist enough.

A few days ago we spent the entire day clearing up around and inside one of our old sheds so we can use it again for storage and shelter. All day long we pulled the long vines of blackberry from the rafters and burnt them in the fire, dragged old treasures out, sorted through them, neatly stacked some of it back in again, gave some of it away and took the rest to the tip. Some seasons it feels like we're so crazy busy that we're only ever running trying to catch up, for some reason this year feels different. The orchards are looking good, we have lots of seeds planted, a new renovation under way and still time left over to catch up on long forgotten bits of the to-do list and maybe even tick some off.

I love how during the cleanout we all found own roles. I was in charge of blackberry removal and burning &%$#, Bren took charge of all the old farm bits and pieces inside, Indi was away, Jazzy came out occasionally and sang to us, and Miss Pepper made musical instruments out of old bits of pipe and built the cart above.

A few days ago I looked at four skeins of wool that Hannah from Circus Tonic Handmade sent me about a year ago and cast on a cardigan. My thoughts were that 400 grams probably wouldn't be enough yarn, but I could always make it a bit mixy matchy with something else once I ran out. So I downloaded a pattern that only went up to an eight year old size, cast on, added a few extra stitches here and there to try and make it a 10 year old size and off I went.

Looking at it now I think the front could fit well once the button band is knitted, but the back seems all kinds of boxy and baggy. Now I can't decide if I should continue and hope for the best or pull it apart and knit something more risk free that is graded to her correct size. Ahhhhh what would you do?

And that's me from a few days ago all the way through to now. About to post this and then take the girls to get haircuts, about to grab a couple of rice crackers for lunch on the way out, about to swap my gym clothes for town clothes - not in that particular order.

How about you? How have your last few days been?
Could you get rid of your pantry and live with open shelves?
Would you continue knitting something that possibly may not ever fit?
Would you feel sad if your long haired girls wanted to be medium haired girls?
Do you have anything fun planned for this weekend?

See you next week.

Love Kate x

The Esse 900.

She's here!!

Our Esse 900 is in our kitchen, all plumbed in and looking mighty fine.

But I guess her once upon a time story began almost 11 years ago when we first moved here. Way back then was when my farmer boy started talking about her. But I wasn't ready. Adding another fire to the house meant more work, more dirt and dust and that the cooking process would be slower and less exact. I just wasn't ready.

But as time went on I could see the merits of using wood as a fuel when we live on 20 acres of forest (self sufficiency and all that), I could see that slow is often a good thing and I was ready to take the next step with our cooking. Apparently a wood cooker cooks like nothing else on earth. And to be honest, I love the look of those big, English ovens and wanted one of them in my kitchen.

And so began the research process. The hours on the Internet, the showroom visits and the quizzing of anyone who had ever owned or used a wood fired cooker.

Eventually we decided on the Esse 900 because she has a huge firebox, she has a reputation for being fabulous for cooking, she could push hot water to radiators and heat the rest of our house and is very efficient and clean burning.

So after a three day installation. After two plumbers turning up at eight every morning and not leaving until six. After ladders and piles of tools and mess and drop sheets. After a massive headache from the first firing and the chemical burning. After issues with air in the pipes. We finally fired her up and started cooking.

Farmer Bren's sourdough went in first. On the floor of the top oven. Oh my.

We've since made soup, apple cake and banana cake.

And the results so far have been AMAZING!!!!!

The very same recipes we have been using for years taste better, moister, richer.

And the puppy is pretty happy with his new spot next to the cooker too.

I guess the only problem is the ugly rubber pipes feeding boiling water into the radiators in all the bedrooms and bathrooms. In my head I had imagined they would be copper pipes or something equally industrial. But they are not. They are ugly and squishy and they move as the water moves.

But I have a plan.

And as you crafters know, there's nothing as exciting as a brand new crafty plan.

Knit, knit, knit, knit..............
Cook, cook, cook, cook..............

How about you?
What have you been cooking lately?
What do you cook on?
Do you dream of your ideal cooker?
Are you hatching a crafty plan?

Bye! x

Jammin'.

While we were far away on our road trip last year, sometimes I'd try to visualise my life back home. I'd try to imagine what I would be doing and how I might be feeling. And for some reason I always had the same picture in my head. I always imagined myself right in the heart and heat of preserving time.

I imagined myself in my kitchen, wearing an apron, surrounded by buckets and baskets of produce, stirring pots and peeling and coring and deseeding fruit and vegetables and slowly filling jars and containers with summery goodness.

I'm here. That picture is now. Right now, my life is almost all about preserving. Preserving summer so we can feel it's warmth and abundance in winter.

Life right now is picking and gathering the fruit and berries from the orchard. It's about washing and weighing. It's about freezing and cooking and dehydrating and pureeing and straining. It's about jams and relishes and chutneys and syrups.

There are lots of preserving books on our kitchen table. Some recipes and techniques we know by heart from years gone by, and others we are learning as we go. We are not experts. Far from it. We've had a few mishaps already this year, but plenty of successes too. (Who knew you could only use those Fowlers preserving rings once?)

These are the books we've got on our kitchen table at the moment:

The River Cottage Family Cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Secrets of Successful Preserving by Fowlers Vacola.

Fowler's Method of Bottling Fruits and Vegetables by J. Fowler.

Wonderful ways to prepare preserves by Ayers and James.

Preserves by Pam Corbin.

The cook's companion by Stephanie Alexander.

The Permaculture Book of Ferment & Human Nutrition by Bill Mollison.

Homemade Jams and Preserves by Family Circle.

The River Cottage Year by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Home Freezer Cook Book by Good Housekeeping

My life right now is sticky and pink.

And man, I do love preserving! I love how wholesome it feels. I love the connection I feel to history and to those who have been doing this in some way or another since we began. I love that the produce I am preserving is homegrown, certified organic, local, no food miles. I love the thought of opening these jars and bottles I am now sealing in the cooler months to come and enjoying their contents. I love that preserving food now for later is thrifty and frugal. I love company in the kitchen and I love doing it alone. And I really, really love the process too. It's such fun.

Are you right into preserving season at the moment?
Are you making jam or bottling tomatoes?
Are your fingers stained red?
Or are you on the other side of the world, dipping into your stores?
Do you have memories of preserving with your parents and grandparents? Pulling the elastic bands onto the Fowlers jars and clipping on the clips?
Do you love the look of jars filled with colourful jarred produce as much as I do?
Don't you agree that a gifted jar of homemade jam is the best present ever?

Or is preserving something you would like to try but haven't? If this is the case, then please do. It is such fun. Get some books, pick some produce or buy some from your local farmers' market, get your hands on some jars and get right into it. You'll love preserving, I'm certain. We sure do.

Happy, sweet days.
xx

ps. funny how in my preserving fantasy my kitchen was sparkly clean, the dishes were always done and my apron was frilly and spotless...reality, not so much.

Kitchen table creations.

Its all happening at the kitchen table this morning.

I know I said I would sew fabric bunting to decorate the farm shed shop, but I really wanted to see what crocheted flags would look like.

I know, I know, I have a crochet addiction and will make up any excuse to get hooking. But seriously, with three kidlets desperate for my attention, having my back to the world on the sewing machine is out of the question at the moment. So I figure I'll make up a set of these and when the girls go back to school and I have more time, I'll sew up some fabric ones.

Bren just came in and said he's not mad on these ones anyway.

I also crocheted the last buttons on and sewed in the ends of this jug cover this morning.

Indi is weaving a pot holder.

She told me that one day soon when all mine go up on the wall, hers will too.

Indi is interspersing her weaving effort with a bit of coiling.

Jazzy is cutting hearts.

And Pepper is cutting shapes out of play dough.

She's also wearing undies for the first time this morning which has been the cause for much celebration.

I hope your Monday is a funday!

My place and yours - wherever I lay my hat, that's my home.

I must admit, Tania's My place and yours theme this week, has not been a straight forward decision for me.

Earlier this year Bren rang me when I was picking up the girls from school, to tell me that there was a raging bushfire heading right for our place and what did I want him to take from our house.

The photo albums were already at his parents' house in Melbourne, as were the computer back ups, he had already thought of the girls' treasure boxes but what else? Crazy things ran through my head like my Camper boots and the girl's artwork but not much more.

I had my girls in the car with me and a promise from Bren that he would set our place up, drive up and down our street helping anyone who needed it, and then he would meet me in town.

I kept on running through my house contents in my head, trying to work out what I really needed until I realised that I had my home with me.

We were extremely lucky that the wind changed and drove the fire into the bush just before it reached our place. It would have been devastating to lose our house, but I had my family with me and that's really what home is about.

This is our kitchen table. When my Mum and Dad built their Tassy house a few years ago it didn't fit into their new kitchen so we were lucky enough to inherit it.

Our kitchen table is where so much of the good stuff happens here. We eat, discuss, play, cook, craft, computer, entertain, plan...I could go on and on.

Although we would never be able to evacuate with it in an emergency, our kitchen table is the center of our home.

To check out what make's other people's houses their homes head over to Pip's.