It’s quiet on the farm just now. Bear has run to town after working on a medieval project all morning, the dogs are snoozing after their morning exploration of the farmyard, and the goats and sheep are meandering peacefully through the paddock after filling up on the greens I threw over the fence. A pot of roasted garlic tomato sauce is simmering on the stove, almost ready to be bottled, and outside the sun is shining beautifully with lusciously cool breezes billowing gently through the trees and through the open doors of our farmhouse.

It’s almost spring.

Although winter is my favourite season in Queensland, spring is a close second with its verdant life and warm days and cool nights. With my symptoms from a 9 month bout of Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome steadily lessening, I’m overjoyed to finally have strength and energy to be outside in the gardens, orchards, and fields, getting our land ready for spring.

With five gardens and three orchards to manage, there’s always something to do, and after being terribly sick for 18 months, the to-do list to catch up on things is rather monstrous and totally overwhelming. So I break it down into tiny, manageable chunks and celebrate each bit of progress.

Over the past two months I’ve worked through four gardens, digging up beds, spreading and digging in compost, pruning existing plants that need it, setting up my worm farm and compost pile, and planting seeds and seedlings. Today I start on the last one, the hardest one where the beautiful natural black soil ends and the gravelly brown stuff begins. The weeds cling tightly to rocks wedged in earth so dry and packed that each bit requires a thorough soaking before anything will budge. It’s slow, tedious work, but I’ve come to love it. It slows me down, putting me into a gentle cadence of soak, dig, pull, soak, dig, pull until suddenly I look up and instead of a rock hard weed patch there is lovely, soft soil ready for bags and bags of compost to be worked in so it becomes productive land.

It is healing work for me. Some people write or paint or cook or exercise. I garden. I cannot stay anxious or fearful or sad in my gardens, for they drag me away from the news and the pandemic and the myriad sad and horrible things in the world, and connect me to that which is steadfast, beautiful, and something in which I can actually do something to make things better. The slow gentleness of the work also slows my thoughts down, clarifies what I need to do next and what I need to let go of, provides a safe place for my anger, grief, and frustration to be expressed. It reminds me to breathe, deeply, and to rest, often, and to always take time to delight in what I’ve done and learned. Bear grins when I burst into the house with a fistful of asparagus or a bowlful of peas. He knows how much it means to me to have a place that is just for me to grow and learn and create and fail and try again and succeed and forget and remember and learn some more. It has been the greatest classroom for letting go of perfectionism, for even though there is always something wonderful in a garden, it is never, ever, ever perfect. And how I love that.

This morning we decided to celebrate the end of winter with a spring breakfast. Bear went out and collected eggs and I headed to the gardens to collect the veggies of spring: baby carrots, sugar snap peas, spring onions, and asparagus.

I gently fried the carrots and spring onions in ghee until they were soft and lightly caramelised, then added the asparagus and peas just until they were glossy and warmed through. I scrambled the eggs with a bit of curry and topped them with the veggies and some homemade fresh cheese. Delicious. It makes us smile so big when we eat a whole meal from our farm.

Now it’s time for a cuppa and a rest with a good book. Soon enough chores will beckon and sauce will need to be bottled and wood-burned items will need to be finished, but just now, I get to read in the almost-spring sunshine and celebrate this beautiful last day of winter. xo