sixth

Our sixth day of the new year had been put aside for veggie gardening.

For days we had known that today would be the day for pulling stuff out, putting new stuff in, tying things up, weeding and planting and neatening. All week when I walked past the tomatoes and saw that they needed tying up I thought about Wednesday, when I saw that the rocket had gone to seed I thought about Wednesday, when I discovered that a whole lot of my seedlings had outgrown their plastic pots I thought about Wednesday, when I saw that the carrots needed weeding - yep, you guessed it, I thought about Wednesday.

And then when the sixth day dawned, so did the realisations that I hadn't done any laundry for a while and everyone had run out of undies, our farmer boy's birthday is on the seventh and we needed to go shopping to buy ingredients, Miss Indi is going away for a while and needed help packing and general encouragement, Miss Pepper slammed her hand in a door and needed round the clock loving,  Miss Jazzy needed help with dealing with Miss Pepper and then after all those distractions from the veggie garden - we discovered that if we didn't net the front two rows of the orchard the birds would leave us with no apples.

Luckily we'd netted a lot of the other rows in the weeks around Christmas and New Year, so we could get back into it quickly and finish it fast, but still not much gardening happened today. Maybe Friday.

After a few weeks on the nets we're a pretty well oiled machine. We each have a role and we do it well (and over and over and over).

Miss Indi drives the tractor.

Farmer Bren and my Dad are in charge of loading the rolls onto the machine, feeding the netting through and pulling it over the rows of trees to protect our apples from birds and hail.

My farmer boy keeps us all in-line on the walkie-talkie.

My Mum and I trail behind the tractor tying the nets to the trees using cable-ties.

Jazzy and Pepper sometimes come down to inspect our work and help with the cable-ties. There's a rule that anyone who stays at home has to clean up so mostly they're pretty keen to hang around.

Over the 15 seasons we've been here we've tried a gas gun, Cd's strung from the trees, some sort of reflective tape that made a noise in the wind, an electronic scarecrow, dogs in the orchard, disco balls, fake hawk kites and big eye balloons but none of it worked. Then we got a quote for $100,000 to permanently net the entire orchard but that wasn't feasible.

We started using this method of netting last year in desperation after losing so many crops to the birds. So far we couldn't be happier.

To be honest I always feel a bit torn when the netting goes on. On the one hand I feel relieved but on the other hand I much prefer the look of an orchard filled with glossy apples than one filled with veiled brides. But farming is not all about looks, is it.

Miss Pepper inspector is pretty happy too.

We had to come in a bit earlier than we'd planned because the blustery winds started trying to rain but that's not such a bad thing because we've got cards to write and a cake to bake for our almost birthday boy.


Did you have a plan for today?
Did you stick to it?
I wonder.

See you tomorrow lovely ones.

Love Kate xx

fifth

Our Fox Lane family spent most of the fifth day of the new year in Ballarat shopping for jeans, and boots, and archery supplies, and art supplies and undies. It's wasn't a day that I had particularly been looking forward to but I have to say it went pretty smoothly and we actually even enjoyed ourselves. 

On the way home in the car my farmer boy asked me what I planned to blog about this evening and it occurred to me that I still had no idea. He suggested, jokingly, that I tell you all about our shopping trip. Lucky for you guys I didn't take a single photo and have no inclination to do so whatsoever. It did make me realise two things though; The first being that I am not the type of blogger to plan out or schedule posts but rather make them up as I go along. And the second being that my blog posts are still not speaking to me during the day and letting me know what to write about. I know that when I am deep in the blogging routine I often hear whispers of suggestions, themes, words and story ideas as I go about my day. I'll get there I'm sure but at the moment it gets to about six in the evening and you'll find me racing about taking a few snaps and then tapping out the words. Maybe I should write myself a little list.

So this after shopping post is a discussion of eight photos that I just snapped. Here we go.

The first is a photo of a quince, still a while off but beautifully fuzzy and photogenic. There aren't all that many on the trees this year but looking at them I can almost smell that sweet aromatic haze that hangs over the kitchen when I'm chopping them, cooking them, leaving them to drip through muslin and then cooking the rosey red liquid and ladling it into jars. It won't be long and we'll be back there again.

The second photo is of an article I wrote and a photo I took in the latest issue of Slow Living magazine. I wrote about how we use craft to help us through challenging times and I included a simple pattern for a crochet washcloth.

That photo makes me want to print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it....

The third photo is of a project I have planned. I really, really, really want to get back into sewing clothes. Especially after a big shopping day out.

Somehow I bought two copies of the Dottie Angel pattern, so keep your eyes on this space for a giveaway I'm putting together very soon.

The fourth photo is of a present that instagram sent me in the mail today to celebrate the new year. Crazy!! Inside that cute bag is a sweet animal calendar.

Maybe I should write out the story of some of my big instagram stories from last year and pop them on the blog. Maybe that's number one on the what to blog about list!

Sorry about the fifth photo I know it's a bit scary. Jarrah and Pepper were so inspired by the tree change dolls and their story that they wanted to make their own. First we took a trip up to the Daylesford Sunday market where they bought a few scary looking specimens, now they're stripping the paint off them and later they'll repaint them, do their hair and dress them like normal kids. Hopefully I'll show you the after shot in the next few days.

The sixth photo is for Reannon who asked how we trellis our tomatoes. But now that I'm looking at it I can see that my photo doesn't explain the process at all because I've cut out the important bits, and now it's getting too dark to take another. Oops!

Basically we bang in wooden stakes as we plant the tomatoes out into the ground. Then we use bits of old tee-shirts to loosely tie the middle, thickest, straightest stem up and that becomes the trunk. As the plant grows we tie the trunk up further up the stake. Does that make sense?

We're still waiting patiently for our first red tomatoes here. We were late planting because of our trip but still.....

The seventh is a plan I am desperate to put into action.

Oh and there's movement on the Daylesford Organics wool project. I'll let you know as soon as it's definite but it's all getting very exciting. Farmer Bren even sent me a text message today filled with tiny sheep. Eeeeeeep!! Or rather shEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!

And the eighth and last is of a granny smith apple. So close but yet so far.

And that's my eight on the fifth!

I hope you've had a gorgeous day. Or are about to.

Big love,

Kate xoxo

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

third

On the third day of the new year I'd love to share our Indi's newish song with you; Are we there yet?

Indi and her singing teacher Geoffrey Williams and his partner George co-wrote it and Geoffrey produced it, recorded it and played all the instruments. When you have a listen you might just recognise some of the little stories from our caravan trip that inspired the lyrics.

It's a funny thing to think of what we really expect as parents when we drive our kiddies to their extra curricular activities each week. When we drop them off, hand over the money, and then come back an hour later to drive them home. 

I guess we hope they'll learn a new skill, that they'll enjoy themselves, that they'll be able to express themselves creatively, that they'll be inspired, build on their confidence, perhaps pick up on some of the passion of the teacher, and maybe, just maybe, fall in love and take that skill with them wherever they go.

I'm not sure exactly how long our Indi has been having singing lessons with Geoffrey but I know that I posted about them way back in 2010 and she'd been going for a while before then. And I know that over these years she's gotten all that and so much more. Once, in the middle of a bit of a difficult pre-teen patch I arrived a bit early to find him teaching her how to moonwalk and her laughing for the first time in ages. It was amazing. 

I'm a firm believer in the village to raise a child thing and I'm super glad we've got Geoffrey in ours.

And I'm super excited to share their latest song with you.

So here it is...Are we there yet?

(click on the title to listen)

Just for fun I thought I'd include the original of the cover photo that I took in our Airbnb in Santorini, Greece and a few others from that same incredible house. It used to be a sock factory you know.

I'm so proud of our kid. Every time I listen to that track I can't stop smiling.

I hope you love it.


Love Kate xoxo

second

You guys!!!!!!

This morning I sat up in bed and read all of your comments on my last post and I cried. From wondering if anyone would even see my blog, to over 100 blog comments, Facebook messages, and emails filled with such kind and generous words and sentences, I was and still am overwhelmed. From the bottom of my heart thank you, I can't tell you how happy you've made me.

It's funny, I always tell myself that it doesn't matter if anyone reads along, that I'm doing this for me and for the girls later on. But deep down I love to think of you all as I'm writing, checking in on my blog as you drink your first coffee of the day or as you're waiting for the pasta water to boil at night. I love to think of you rugged up under so many layers of clothing in the snow, or heading off for a swim in the lake. I love to think that the Internet and our blogs can connect us and make this big wide world a little bit smaller and friendlier. 

So let me tell you a little story about a crafty thing we got up to today.

Just after I came in from watering the garden this morning I got the feeling that everyone was feeling a bit stuffy and grumpy inside, so I grabbed Miss Pepper and we went for a walk through the forest and collected some sticks with deep V's in them.

Then we came home, set up a crafty picnic at the edge of the forest and called out to the others to join us.

We did some branch weaving.

We made some pom-poms. We drank ginger beer and ate some water melon.

We listened to music, talked about music, sang along to the music and we chatted.

It was pretty windy at times and bits of bark came flying down from the tall trees but we didn't mind, we just shouted louder to be heard and then waited for it to calm down.

We had a gorgeous day. A real summer holiday crafty day. I do hope there are loads more ahead of us this year.

I wonder what you got up to today. Was it windy? Was there singing? Did you feel better at the end than the start?


And thank you again, for reading along, for taking the time to let me know and for sticking with me through the highs and lows and the gaps and the glitches, you've made me the happiest girl in blogland.


Big blog love,

Kate
xoxo

first

Hello lovely blog, lovely blog readers and lovely blog friends.

It's new years' day. It's a warm, overcast Friday afternoon. My whole family are out, I've done everything that I absolutely had to do and now I'm sitting here on the little couch in my bedroom thinking about where I've come from, where I am now and where I hope to go in this brand new year.

It's so rare that my world is quiet enough and still enough to follow thoughts all the way through these days and already I've found half a dozen ways to distract myself from writing this post, but here I am. Alone and with the time to do this thing that I really want to do yet am struggling to do.

I've always said that the more you blog - the better you blog, and now that I've blogged so little for so long, I don't trust my words and feel uncomfortable in their lack of flow. But this feels important to me and so I will persevere.

I have no idea if people read blogs anymore. I have no idea if people will read this blog anymore but I do know that this blog is important to me and that I really need to keep it going. The feeling of accomplishment and happiness I get when I put together and publish a post, the joy the interactions with the community bring me, the sweet feelings of nostalgia that scrolling back through old blogs invokes and the sense of how important prioritising something that isn't farm or family related really is.

So to start off with a bang, the same way I did last year, my plan is to blog every single day this January and hopefully regularly from there.

January is bound to be a very busy month on our farm and in our family, but I'm going to try my hardest to snatch a precious chunk of time each day to take some photos and write some words here. I'm thinking about craft posts, gardening and farming posts, some stuff about the girls, maybe some blogs about parts of our trip I never posted here, hopefully some book reviews, some cooking and any other random bits and pieces that pop into my mind.

As well as blogging more regularly, this year I'd love to buy a flock of sheep for land management and wool, I'd love to play with natural dyes, I'd love to work hard to find balance between work and play, I'd love to design a piece of knitwear, I'd love to work on being kinder to myself in my head, I'd love to find ways to get more involved with the causes that make me cry, I'd love to knit a Lopi Icelandic sweater, I'd love to unfollow a few people on social media who are not kind, I'd love to find some new recipes to add to our tired collection, I'd love to play with some botanical embroidery, I'd love to teach, I'd love to reacquaint myself with my sewing machine and sew some garments and I'd love to find a way to do a bit of housework regularly rather than leaving it until it's overwhelming. I'm sure there's more but that's a start.

Ok, the pile of cucumbers on the kitchen bench aren't going to pickle themselves....

I guess I'll see you tomorrow, and in the meantime if by chance you are out there reading along I'd love it if you'd say hi, maybe where you are from, if you have a blog what's it about or maybe a suggestion for something you'd like me to write about.

Until then, wishing you a wonderful and sweet 2016.

Lots of love,

Kate

xoxo

PS The first thing I wrote on the first day of last year is here. And I'm proud to say that although I'm still working on some of the things I hoped to achieve then, I did knit that cabled fisherman's jumper.

procrastiblogging

I should be doing so many things right now that my head hurts. I could list them but I suspect that wouldn't help.

I thought spending 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer might help. So I got changed and hopped on and loaded a podcast, but then something happened and it didn't work so I had to get back down and turn it off at the wall. And now I'm sitting here in my exercise gear thinking it might have been a blessing after all, because wearing exercise gear makes me feel good and sporty, but exercising makes me sweaty and tired, and if I have any hopes of doing any of the things I have to do before the night is through, then tired is not going to help.

So while I'm here and procrastiblogging I want to talk a little bit about handmade. The giving and the receiving of handmade to be precise.

If you have ever read this blog before you'll know that I'm a bit of an obsessive hand maker. Despite the cost of the materials and the time it takes to make something, I'd rather make it a million times more than I'd like to buy it. And because I make stuff myself, I know how much time, energy, effort, money and love goes into handmade.

And because it does take all that, I love to make and give things to other people. I like to choose the project carefully, gather the materials together and then make the object with the giftee in mind.

Recently I knitted the socks in the top photo for a friend who I haven't seen in years and years. Good quality sock yarn isn't cheap and the socks took me a couple of weeks to knit but I loved every second. And while I made them I thought about my friend and how she's going through such a difficult time, and I felt happy that I could knit a bit of my heart into them and send them off in the post to her.

But then as I was knitting the last few stitches I started wondering about giving a handmade gift to someone who may or may not make things by hand herself. Would she understand what my socks and I were saying? Would she think a gift of socks out of the blue is a pretty weird thing? Would she even know that they are hand knitted?

Would she feel loved every time she put her toes in them and pulled them up over her heels? Would she be happy that although life might be a bit crappy at times, someone somewhere down south cares about her? Would she save them for special occasions, or would she wear them everyday?

And does any of that really matter because I loved making them and I loved making them for her and making them made me feel a tiny bit less helpless?



In other news, today the sock knitter, me, got a pair of socks in the post from another sock knitter, Donna from New Zealand. Up until the time that I opened the parcel I'd been having a pretty overemotional day, mainly due to the crazy list of things I have to do that I mentioned before. But that all changed when I pulled out those socks. Those beautiful socks.

And I noticed how they are made up of so many scraps of wool which means Donna would have had to darn in all the ends. And I saw that they are crazily beautiful and happy. And I felt giddy about all those stitches and all those hours and all those kind hearted feelings. I was, and still am, overwhelmed.

I guess I'm just interested in what you think.
Are you a hand maker and giver?
Does handmade have more, or less, value to you?
Can you personally feel the love in a handmade present?
Do you think I should write a note explaining that I knitted them?
Do you think I should stop this and get on with what I really should be doing?

I know you're right.

Goodbye!

xx

Oh and the socks at the top are raveled here.