salmon rose

Hello honey bunches!

Well wouldn't you know it? We've spent the very last blog Friday of the year netting the apple trees in the old orchard and I haven't had a chance to write my blog.

I've thought about it all day, and I've even taken some photos for it, but sometimes the stars just don't align and the farming has to come first.

So if it's all the same to you, rather than push through and start writing now at 6.52pm, I'll post these photos of Jazzy with the zinnias that I took the other day, I'll go and make the girls some dinner, and I'll post a proper blog post tomorrow or Sunday.

Thanks for being so awesome and understanding.

What did you get up to today on the last Friday of the year?

See you so very soon.

Love Kate x

mid summer meanderings

This is always a funny little time of the year, don't you think?

The girls are on school holidays, the days are warming up, things seem to be speeding up and at the same time getting ready to slow right down. There are parties to go to, jobs to finish, gardens to water and weeds to pull. Finally the veggie garden feels like it's starting to give back to us, but we're still a long way from fruit. Part of me feels like I'm on holidays - reading in bed in the mornings, watching episodes until too late at night. And part of me feels like it's time to gear up - this is the beginning of crazy time on the farm and the more I get done now, the better I'll feel later on.

So in order to capture this moment in time and make some sort of sense of it all, I'm going to borrow an oldie from such a goodie - Pip at Meet Me At Mikes - the Taking Stock List.

Here we go.

(photo at the top is of Indi's 17th in the new sun-room)

(Indi's 17th once they had left the table to go and dance on the deck)

Drinking: iced coffee with lots of ice and no ice cream...right now even...yum! 

Reading: The Woman Who Fooled The World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con, and the darkness at the heart of the wellness industry. Gosh what a crazy story.

Next read: My Mum's library book - Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. And then maybe Indi's VCE literature books.

 (the corn flower crown I made for our birthday girl)

Waiting: for some lettuce seeds to germinate. I've had such a bad lettuce season this year.

Disliking: cabbage moths and caterpillars. Leave my veggies alone!!

Playing: the best of 2017 play lists that Spotify is making me.

(our birthday girl)

Bookmarking: ideas to investigate when I start my flower farming course and have more knowledge.

Opening: packets of flower seeds and getting butterflies in my tummy.

(here comes the packing crate deck)

Giggling: at the study timetable on Indi's wall and wondering where she came from.

Enjoying: long sunny summer days and feeling a teensy bit sad that after today they start getting shorter.

Questioning: whether I've planted everything, and enough of everything, and if there's still time for more.

(the first of the two bits of the deck)

Feeling: that old familiar guilt that arrives on school holidays when the girls want to play with me, but I have so much farm work to do.

Looking: at the new deck along the front of our house and wondering where I can find some beautiful outdoor chairs for lounging about, reading books and sipping cocktails.

Admiring: the new deck and feeling so proud of my farmer boy who saw some old packing crates on an instagram page and had the foresight to imagine them as something beautiful. 

(my parents celebrating 50 years of marriage)

Making: knitted crowns for my Mum and Dad. The Ravelry details are here.

Deciding: on my next knitting project, either a pair of socks or a cardigan.

Considering: buying myself some sock blockers. Should I?

Wondering: if I should start a new macrame plant hanger instead.

(my sisters and parents at our golden 50 year anniversary party)

Wearing: my uniform - work overalls and a tee-shirt

Needing: to write up the notes from the interview I did yesterday before I forget the context and can't read my writing. 

Pondering: recording my next interview, so I can capture more detail.

Knowing: that I have four stories to write and that despite my best intentions, I'll probably leave writing them til the very last minute.

(the zinnias start to pop and add some much needed colour to the market garden)

Thinking: about how beautiful the garden will look when it is filled with colourful flowers.

Buying: geraniums for my hanging baskets.

Liking: mowing the orchards and getting ready to net them.

Hoping: for a really good apple season.

Waiting: to open the farm gate stall again, it feels like it's been forever.

(oh my goodness! oh my goodness!)

Following: lots of flower farmer accounts.

Cooking: broad beans in butter, with garlic and herbs on toast.

Hearing: the crash of cutlery being put away and hoping that it's one of the girls doing it and not Bren.

Snacking: on the fresh currants we picked a few nights ago.

Wanting: to go and pick more before the birds discover them.

(the prettiest little dahlias I bought from our local botanical gardens plant sale recently. I should have bought more)

Marvelling: at the magnificence of the flowers as they open up in the garden.

Watching: last season of Australian Survivor - don't judge me.

Cringing: at having to admit that's what I'm watching. I'm calling it research tho as we have a few friends who are auditioning for the next series.

Next watch: I don't know. Do you have any suggestions?

Noticing: the soil on the leaves and petals of the flowers in the market garden and wondering if watering them from above might not be the best thing for them.

Smelling: the next flush of roses.

Coveting: the fabulous photos of dahlias coming up in my instagram feed and wondering how the 20 tubers I planted are going to perform.

(farmer Bren's favourite thing in the garden at the moment - the leek flower!)

Loving: the flowers on the vegetables in the garden; the tomatoes, the potatoes, the leeks, the beans, the peas, the cucumbers and the rocket. It's such a beautiful and exciting time of the year.

Sorting: the seeds and pulling out those that need to be planted in mid summer.

Getting: ready to start braiding the garlic harvest.

Wishing: for a safe, exciting, inspiring and love filled new year for us all.


And that's that! 

If you want to make your own list you can find all the prompts on Pip's blog here.

Or if you feel like telling me what you're snacking on, hoping for, marvelling at, making or any of the other ...ings, you can type your answers into the comments section of this very blog. I'd love to read them.

Wishing you and yours a fabulous summer/winter solstice, a merry Christmas, a fabulous weekend, and enough time.

Lots of love,

Kate xx

in the forest at dusk

The other day I got an email from Goodreads with my 2017 reading tally. The year's not finished yet, there are still pages to be turned and books to add, so I'm not going to link to it just yet, but it did make me think about all of my 2017 accomplishments. All those seeds I've planted, all those miles I've driven, all those weeds I've pulled, all those lunches I've made, all those podcasts I've listened to, all those words I've written....

2017 feels like it's been a productive year. Despite my wish for a simple life, growth just happened. I guess that's what being alive is all about. Moving forward, trying to do better, trying to learn, trying to teach, trying to grow.

I look forward to thinking about and blogging some of the tallies and some of the things we achieved in the past 12 months over the next couple of Fridays as the year comes to a close, but for now these photos are of the girls modelling the two wraps I knitted this year.

I took these photos to add to my Ravelry projects page to try to work out my knitting tally for 2017. (My desk might be a crazy mess, but at least my Ravelry page will be neat and ordered.) These photos were taken last Sunday evening straight after a trip into town to the supermarket, but a bit before the bugs started biting. One of the wraps was knitted for Indi and worn to school all through last winter. And the other was knitted for my mum and only given to her last Monday.

I love that my Mum saw her granddaughter in skinny jeans, Blundstone boots, a linen shirt and her wrap and decided that she wanted one of her own.

These photos make me so happy because they remind me of the origins of this blog when it was purely a craft record. Each time I'd finish something I'd get the girls to model it for the photos. Long before high school and long commutes and homework and boyfriends.

The details for Indi's wrap are here.
The details for my mum's wrap are here.

As well as traipsing through the forest at dusk snapping photos of girls in knitwear, this week I watched and really loved My Mother's Lost Children.

I also watched and cried my eyes out at this short film called I have a message for you.

On Tuesday we celebrated 18 years of marriage!

On Tuesday while mowing the middle apple orchard I listened to all three parts of 36 Questions - a musical in a podcast. A few years ago I'd heard a Modern Love podcast about those same 36 questions and was somewhat intrigued.

So on Tuesday night when we went out for dinner to celebrate our anniversary we asked each other and answered Arthur Aron's 36 questions. Well most of them anyway. It's one thing to use them to fall in love in the first place, and quite another to ask them of someone you've loved and lived with for almost 21 years.

This week I've been reading Roxane Gay's Hunger and thinking a lot about my perception of my physical body and also about how much space people take up.

I cast off my tree socks, ravelled here.

I opened a box full of information for my flower farming course starting early next year.

I ordered some cord to further my macrame obsession.

I bought and planted a couple of rows of flowering plants.

And I ate strawberries, and salads, and broad beans and peas.

This week we're celebrating our three girls who have had wonderfully successful school years.

We're loving the thought of six weeks off from the school commute.

We're planting and weeding and watering.

And while I'm hiding in our bedroom typing this Bren and Jobbo are putting the finishing touches on the deck that comes out from the sun-room and goes all along the front of our house (photos soon)(check my instagram story if you're too impatient to wait til next week), Jazzy and Pepper are painting on face masks and Indi is vacuuming the carpet for her birthday party tonight. I'd better hurry up and publish this so I can go and help her with the preparations.

I hope you have a beautiful weekend my friends.
Can you believe there are only two Fridays left for this year?
Are you starting to think about your bests, and worsts, and tallies for 2017?
Do you want to come and help me make a flower crown and string up the fairy lights?

Big love to you lovers!
See you next week.

Love Kate x

let the sun shine in

It feels a little superficial and silly to say that a living space has changed my life, but our new sun room really has. When it's wet and windy outside - it's protected and warm inside, when there are dishes in the sink and the laundry waiting to be hung - you can literally close the door and turn your back on them, when it feels dark and gloomy in the house - it's bright and airy in the sun room, when you want to jam with your sisters, clean and sharpen your knife collection, darn in the ends of your socks, drink your morning coffee, make plans for your birthday party, grow plants that are a little fragile, read your book, do your homework, practise your instrument, chat on the phone... the sun room is the place to be.

Bren promises me that he'll never get sick of me gushing about how happy I am with that space, but surely 50 plus times a day must be pushing his limits.

This past week Bren and Jobbo continued paving outside the laundry. Hopefully by next week there will be an undercover clothesline and a big door at the end to close it all off.

The paving also continued to make a landing out the front door to to welcome you from the garden into the house. It's almost time to plant some grass seeds out the front and plan where the new veggie gardens will go.

This week I spent a lot of time weeding the garden, staking some plants that got knocked over in the storm, planting and harvesting.

It looks like the first of the zinnias might burst into bloom any day now which excites me no end. I've actually enrolled in an online flower farming course starting in the new year. It's something I've been thinking about for a while now and when the opportunity arose I took it. At this stage I have no idea what it means for the future of Daylesford Organics but I do love the thought of growing rows and rows of colourful blooms. I also really love the fantasy of dressing my girls in linen aprons and sending them off down the rows to pick armfuls of flowers at dusk for my photo shoots. Watch this space...

In the meantime that wild jungle of a self-seeded corn flower bed that I've been threatening to pull out for weeks now is a vision of green and blue and providing us with the prettiest posies.

The cat is still playing hide and seek and jumping out at me from all the most unexpected places.
 

I've been knitting up a couple of child sized socks for my master class at the Soul Craft festival.

In my class I'll be showing you how to knit a sock just like this. Using a circular needle we'll cast on the toe (pale blue), knit up the foot (red), increase for the gusset (navy), turn the heel (pink/green), knit up the leg (grey), rib for the cuff (yellow), and finish with a stretchy bind off. 

If sock knitting is something you've been thinking about trying for a while, if you've knitted socks cuff down and want to try toe up, if you want to ditch the DPN's for circs and the magic loop, then this class is for you. Imagine the fun we're going to have. I'm so excited.

Please click on this link for more info on my class.

Please click on this link to book for my class.

Please click on this link to check out the amazing program of speakers and demonstrations and masterclasses on offer. (If you book into my class on Saturday the 9th June, your ticket includes entry to the festival, the speakers and demonstrations, a curated market, community projects, craft dating (I'm not actually sure what that is - sounds interesting), lots of spaces to sit and make, delicious food and opportunities to connect with other crafters. Sounds cool, right!

And other than all of that I've been planting cucumbers, eating broad beans, going to all of the end of year performances, reading Morris Gleitzman's After, counting down til the last drive of the school year, wondering if we should pull the rest of the garlic out, hoping for a bit of weekend sunshine it's freezing today, looking for some inserts for some old wire hanging baskets, feeling all of the feels about our girls going into grade 5, year 9 and year 12(!!!!!) next year and listening to my tummy grumbling I think it's time for lunch.

I hope you're doing really well my friends.
Has a space ever changed your life?
Do you ever feel like you're on top of the weeding?
Are you going to come and hang out with me at the Soul Craft festival?
Do you have plans to start something new next year?
Do you have something fun planned for this weekend?

I hope you have a great one!
See you next week.

Love Kate x

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