a slice of my life

Hello lovely ones,

How are you feeling? How's your week been?

I'm sitting on the couch in our new sun room. It's quiet except for the sound of the birds and of Jo-Jo snoring next to me. Bren is away, the girls are at school and although I looked forward to this time all week and felt excited at the thought of having the house to myself, now that I'm here I'm finding it hard to sit still and focus.

It's funny, even though everyone who knows me understands that I struggle with the cold, wet and grey, I'm finding this crazy long growing season that we're having exhausting. We still haven't had the Autumn break, the first frost, or any decent rainfall, so we're frantically busy with all of the late summer/early autumn jobs. We're still picking tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, apples, beetroots and carrots, we're still picking and dead-heading the flowers, we're still planting and weeding and preserving and collecting seeds. And in between all of that we're making the most of the sunshine and stacking firewood, watering the garden and wondering if the seeds we plant out now will have any chance of growing.

And that's all great, especially the fact that the days are brilliantly sunshiney and warm BUT usually by now things are starting to slow down, the summer crops are beginning the next part of their cycle as they rot into compost and there's time for catching up on the indoors jobs, for crafting on the couch, and for introspection. Instead we're still working outside from first thing in the morning until dark, our list of things to do feels like endless, and I'm feeling overwhelmed and stretched, and tired.

Our garden is full of frantic looking bees at the moment, buzzing between the flowers, desperately trying to  collect all the nectar to make honey stores for winter and I can relate to them. I also feel a bit buzzy and frantic going from job to job trying to be everywhere at once. I don't wish for the season to be over, not at all, but I would love a little break. A little slow down. A little knitting time on the couch.

Oh gosh, when winter does come closing in I'm going to regret those words, aren't I.

So what else have we been doing?

I listened to and loved The Habitat podcast. 

I've been eating cut up granny smith apple, with muesli, and nuts, and seeds for at least one but mostly two meals a day.

We sold apples, garlic, flowers and tomatoes at the farmer's market and loads of apples from the farm gate stall.

When Bren went away for a few days we were asked to present him with one gift, and we gave him three. Pepper knotted him a bracelet using his favourite colours. I knitted him a love heart to represent the place he holds in our hearts, how much we adore him and all that squishy stuff. And we gave him a rusty nail that I found in the garden while I was digging up the potatoes. The nail represented our land and the food we grow, those who passed through here generations ago on their hunt for gold, and his new skills as a builder.

That bag of sunflower seeds that we found at the back of a drawer and took a gamble on and planted waaaaay too late in the season, grew taller than me and started to open up their beautiful faces and stare at the sun. The birds have started nibbling at them so I'm going to have to be quick if I want to pick some bunches, but what a way to end the flower season.

I filled up my last pot and started the hunt for some more.

My farmer boy ploughed me up a long strip of ground to plant my bulbs in, but now I can't decide if I should mix all the colours and varieties up like a field of wild flowers, or if I should grow type with type and colour with colour.

We picked the four pumpkins we grew this year. I don't eat pumpkins but I love growing them so it was a struggle to hold myself back to one plant but hopefully this lot will be eaten by our two pumpkin eaters in the next few months and there'll be no mouldy puddles of orange disgustingness for us to deal with as there have been in other years when I didn't hold back.

We bought this framed print at our friend Leah's garage sale and hung it on the wall of the sunroom.

I thought a lot about trying to grow potted colour in the sunroom through winter and whether or not that's even possible.

I started thinking about the best way to teach sock knitting to my class at Soul Craft Festival, (which is only six weeks away YIKES!!)

We picked so many tomatoes.

One of us suffered a broken heart and felt it so deeply that it made the rest of us weep.

One of us learnt how to use a tricky maths formula that had been elusive for quite some time and then just stuck.

One of us read a book about playing chess from cover to cover in one afternoon.

I finished Eliza Henry Jones' new YA novel P is for Pearl. I am such a big fan of everything Eliza writes and have been so curious to read this book that she actually wrote as a teenager and put away in a drawer thinking it wasn't good enough. It most certainly is good enough and I'm so happy that she was convinced to pull it out and publish it.

It's a beautiful and also terribly sad story of a teenage girl coming to terms with her family's history while trying to find her place in the present and plan for her future. Eliza writes characters and relationships so well that even though there are no big events in her book, I still couldn't put it down.

I feel like the themes of mental illness, blended families, teenagers planning for their futures, small towns and friendships are so relevant in the world we live in and this story deals with them all so well. I  really look forward to discussing it with my girls after they've read it. I'd also love to ask Eliza at some stage about the changes she had to make to bring it up to date after it languished in her drawer for 10 years; was there outdated language, gadgets, trends? So interesting.

Bren and Jobbo dug the holes and laid the foundations for my studio. I know it doesn't look like much now, but if all goes to plan, there'll be a floor on those stumps by this time next week.

I learnt that at the very end of their season, dahlias pop their centres as they open to encourage the bees to pollinate them, and their stems become weak and bendy. I keep holding myself back from dead heading them so I can collect some seed to grow some different ones next year

There was this one day, maybe it was yesterday, when I felt ridiculously emotional and unable to focus so I took myself into the garden and dug up the last row of potatoes. It was so great to work hard, to get out of my head and into my body and to let the dirt drugs do their thing.

And that's my blog for this week. I don't know why it was such a hard one to write but it was. I feel like I've used every single procrastination tool in my tool box and still I'm sitting here at 5.30, my girls are about to get home and I haven't even thought about dinner.

Have you?

Have you had a nice day? Have you got something to look forward to on the weekend? Are you reading a good book? Growing something new to you? Feeling grumpy, or overwhelmed, or inspired?
Do you have a link for something cool on the internet? I've been trying to work out how to post that video of Princess Charlotte waving at the the media just before going in to meet her new baby brother but I can't work out how. In any case, it's pretty sweet.

See you next week.

Love, Kate xx

the second week

sixth

When I decided to do a photo a day in May project last week one of the rules I imposed on myself was to not always capture the prettiest moments, but to challenge myself to look for the interesting and the gritty too. The two photos I took last Saturday are heading in that direction.

It was a freezing cold, wet, windy day and we'd called off all of the girls' activities and were bunkering down inside instead. There was one point in the late afternoon where I looked around at the cozy scene wondering what to capture. If I didn't get my shot then, I'd lose the light and miss my day. The fire was roaring, the house was a mess of papers and computers and musical instruments and girls, but nothing called to me. Then I looked outside, onto the back deck and decided.

I slipped on my clogs, quickly slid open the back door, snapped two photos and dashed inside again.

Leaves from the grape-vine that cover our back deck and give us shade in summer, grapes at the height of autumn, and then a sludgy mess as they decompose into winter.

seventh

Miss Pepper helping me out by searching for scarlet runner bean pods inside the tee-pee.

eighth

Knitted with love for my kitty cat obsessed, youngest. She loves them but did not love me dragging her outside into the cold and pulling up her leggings, as proven by her goose bumps.  

It's a free pattern I found on ravelry, you can find the details here.

ninth

Last year we grew a paddock of pumpkins. This year we didn't get them in til so late that they didn't get a chance to really get going before the days started to cool off, so we gave up on them and eventually pulled them out. The compost it seems had ideas, and seeds, of its own and grew this load. It's probably more than enough for us for the season anyway.

tenth

One of the first things we built when we moved to our farm back in 2001 was this hot house onto the side of our house. Using bits of poly pipe and greenhouse plastic, but without the help of YouTube, farmer Bren and my dad constructed a place for me to raise seeds and shelter some sensitive plants.

It's hard for us to remember where the idea for the plans came from. It's hard to imagine if we thought it would be a temporary fix or a long term solution. It's crazy to think about who we were back then: a couple with one baby girl and no farming experience.

And here we are all these years later pulling it down. Cutting the pipe, slicing at the plastic and digging out all of the soil. It's served us well over the years. I'd guess it's grown hundreds of thousands of plants.

And now it's time for an upgrade. We've drawn up the plans, we've gathered some old windows, we're starting on Monday. Watch this space.

eleventh

Rushing outside last night to catch a photo of the flame tree glowing in the afternoon sun, it occurred to me that I could take the shot from what until the day before was inside the hot-house. Four steps to the right gave me another perspective. Makes me pleased to know that the new hot house will have opening windows. And how about that tree hey!

twelfth

My current knitting project is a Guernsey wrap for Miss Indi. Remember when I told you a few weeks ago that Pepper had a list up on the door where family members could place their knitting orders? Indi ordered a scarf.

The thought of that scarf and the meters of knit stitch or purl stitch that would be involved in the making made me shudder. A more tedious project I couldn't imagine. That is until we sat on Ravelry for a while and looked at the endless possibilities of stitch combinations.

We chose this pattern because it was a mixture of textured patterns found on traditional fisherman's sweaters which would keep it interesting for me and yet was a simple long, rectangular scarf for her. I know I've barely even started, but so far I'm loving knitting it, long may it continue and grow.

The ravelry details are here.


And there they are, my seven (plus a couple) photos of the week.

It's been a bit of a topsy-turvey week for me. One afternoon I cried three separate times on the drive home from school at the sheer magnificence of the show that mother nature was putting on for us, the next day I heard a friend's difficult news and felt so weighed down by the weight of the world. Nasty, short sighted comments on a friend's Facebook shocked me and hurt my heart, but then a brother and sister raised over two million dollars in five cent pieces to kick cancer where it hurts and smash a world record. One of our girls got a role in a local production of The Three Lost Children and we were all thrilled, but then she has this bit of eczema that makes her so uncomfortable it hurts. Some of the olives were hit by frost, but the carrots are sweeter than ever. Up, down, up down. I'm blaming PMS and the full moon. And I'm hoping for clear skies and calm waters ahead. And sunshine of course.


I hope you've had a gorgeous week.
I wonder if the leaves are growing or falling off where you are?
If the days are getting longer or shorter?
If you use circulars or DPN's to knit your socks and sleeves?

Happy Mother's day!

Love Kate xx

pumpkin patch

Hello dear reader, how are you?

I'm afraid that it's been so long since my last blog ramble that I don't know where to start.

In the past month since I've popped in here we've harvested hundreds of crates of fruit and vegetables, we've preserved jars and shelves and cupboards full for winter, we've pulled crops out and put more crops in, we've weeded and irrigated and forked and fenced. We've felt elated with our successes and grieved our failures. We've felt proud of our beautiful produce and I've cried when I've lost the fight with the birds over the spinach and cabbage.

We've put a lot of stuff off but we're getting there.

We've thought and talked a lot about what being certified organic means to us, the future directions of Daylesford Organics, farming and living an even more sustainable life, an environmental building project, passing on our passions, more ways to be generous, our eating habits and ways we can grow as a family, as a couple, and as individuals.

In the past month since I've been here we've driven hundreds of kilometres back and forth to the girls' new school. Although the school days are much too long for my liking, our girls are thriving and growing and being inspired and challenged and I feel so happy with that decision.

Although at times it felt exhausting learning the culture of a new school, dealing with difficult personalities, too much homework and not enough time with Pepper, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I often tell people that I feel like our girls have been switched on. That their minds have been opened and that they are looking at and engaging with the world in a whole new way.

Over the summer when we were making what felt like an enormous decision to rip our girls out of their community and send them to school almost an hour away I kept saying that I'd make my mind up for sure after one term. Sitting here now 10 weeks in I am relieved to discover that there is no question.

In the past month (and a half) since I've blogged I've read and loved Ilka Tampke's Skin. I got so swept up in the story and Ailia's journey that I didn't really think about how complicated it must be to write historical fiction until I'd finished it. Researching and then keeping the languages, the culture, the religions, the traditions, the stories and the costumes accurate for the time in history makes my brain hurt.

After that I started Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies but got interrupted when my Mum leant me her library copy of Tegan Bennett Daylight's Six Bedrooms that had to be returned by the Friday.

Next I read Olga Lorenzo's The Light on The Water which I read quickly and liked a lot. I mostly gobble up those stories that offer me a what if version of my own life. What if I lost one of my own precious girls? What sort of mother would I be to a child with autism? How would I deal with living alone? Divorce? Parenting a uni student? Gaol?

After that I started the John Marsden's Tomorrow When The War Began series and this morning I opened the sixth book. I seriously cannot stop reading them. Many times I've made excuses to go into my bedroom to get a jumper or put something away, only to return 50 pages later with no jumper and no memory of what I'd gone in there for. I'm not a great lover of short stories because I love getting to know characters intensely and follow them through their stories slowly, it makes me happy to know that I've still got another book after this in the series and then two more in The Ellie Chronicles.

Deep inside these books I am looking at the world a bit differently at the moment too. Last week I saw a story about a petrol tanker spill in the news and couldn't help but think it might be the work of Ellie and Homer and the gang, and I must admit that I do have a tiny freak out for a second every time a chopper goes overhead. I also feel like our girls need to learn to drive lots of different vehicles, and survival techniques, because you never know....

And most of all I really, really hope that my girls get to learn story writing from John in the years to come, what a genius story teller.

I'm afraid that even after all your brilliant, generous and thoughtful messages on my spinning post, I haven't had another go. Crazy Autumn just doesn't feel like the right time for me to learn this new skill. So I've given my borrowed wheel back and I hope to have another go when the days turn cold and wet and windy and sitting by the fire turning a handful of fleece into yarn is the only place in the world I have to be.

I haven't really knitted much either. I finished my Bracken sweater but haven't had a chance to photograph it properly yet. And I'm up to the cuff ribbing on a looooooooooong pair of socks for my farmer boy.

And other than that I've been waiting patiently for this very moment that is now. The big girls are on holidays and doing their own thing, Farmer Bren is outside carving a spoon, Miss Pepper is at school and I'm sitting here on the couch for a bit, typing these words to stop the little voice in my head that's been telling me that the longer I neglect my blog the harder it will be to get back to it. And it's right of course.

The days are getting shorter but I can feel that the season is slowing down and it's time for me to get going on some of the things that I've been putting off for so long.

I've missed you my friends and it's so very gorgeous to be back.
I hope you've had a great month, what have you been up to?

Hopefully I'll see you SOON!

Love Kate x



PS I just realised this was my 1,000th post!!

baskets full

I loaded these photos into my blog exactly a week ago.

I took these photos in the two weeks before that.

According to the calendar now it's autumn but then it was still summer, although with the extreme heat wave we've been having one could beg to differ.

Last week when I loaded the photos of the pumpkins and the sprouting seed and wondered about the birds who make nests in impossibly high places, I was sitting with my Mum at a cafe nearby. She was  handwriting a chapter in her novel and I was loading photos, trying not to talk to her, feeling a bit guilty for sitting down when there's SO MUCH to do right now on the farm, and in the end instead of writing the words that go with the photos, I wrote a looooooooong to-do list instead. No all that creative but sometimes quite necessary.

Monday morning one week later and the photos are older and the stories that go with them more out of date. But still these are the things that are filling our autumn days.

Apple picking, pumpkin gazing, cucumber collecting and fermenting, tomato harvesting and preserving, spinach, cauliflower, zucchini, cabbage, lettuce and carrot weeding and eating, watering, watering and more watering, planting the winter veg, mowing, netting and fencing.

It's a fabulous time of the year. It's the time that makes all the rest of the farming months make sense. It's crates of fruit in the doorway so you have to walk sideways into the house, it's bowls of tomatoes and boxes of cucumbers and baskets of apples, it's pots of bubbling produce on the stove waiting to be poured into jars, it's colourful bottles filling every available bit of bench space there is, it's books lying open all over the table with new recipes to try, it's rings and clips and lids and crocks, it's a washing machine load of aprons, it's a sticky mess on the floor next to the stove, it's a sink FULL of dishes, it's this crazy time when we are living in one season but trying to provide for the next, it's the part of the year that I feel most tired, most alive and the happiest.

Happy new season my friends!

What's it looking like where you are?


I hope yours is bountiful and delicious.


So much love,

Kate x