by Krista | Mar 23, 2016 | Autumn
One of the loveliest things about living in the country is how everyone shares at harvest time. Whenever we meet up with friends it seems that we never arrive or leave without arms laden with tomatoes, jars of preserves, just-picked fruit, a loaf of bread, or a bottle of homemade grog.
It’s such a friendly way to live and I love it.
This week a kind friend of ours told us his olives were just beginning to ripen and we’d better hurry in for a harvest before the birds snitched them all.
We were delighted to oblige.
There’s something quite peaceful about harvesting.
At first everything’s a bit of a blur as you unpack buckets and containers, affix hats and boots, lug the ladder into place, and climb up the rungs hoping you don’t topple off.
But then you start to pick and the whirling world begins to slow down and slides into the gentle rhythm of pick, drop, pick, drop.
The morning sunshine was deliciously warm and the wind sighed softly through the olive branches as we steadily picked. We caught ourselves grinning when we spotted a particularly productive branch dripping with fat, dark olives. It’s like finding treasure!
Bear rigged up a clever picking system for us. Rather than hauling around cumbersome buckets that are easily kicked over, he strung lengths of string through holes in old ice cream buckets and hung them around our necks. This left our hands free for picking olives, pulling down branches, and stabilizing ourselves when the ladder would go wobbly. He even made the straps adjustable so we could arrange them to suit ourselves. He’s a clever fella.
They worked brilliantly, and seemed to be magnets for falling olives that would otherwise have tumbled to the ground and disappeared into the undergrowth.
It was gorgeous out there, the sort of Autumn morning you dream of all Summer long: sumptuously warm yet with a nip in the air that reminds you Winter is coming.
We took turns climbing the ladder and scrabbling around under low-hanging branches to find ripe olives, nabbing a few not-so-ripe ones along the way. I just love the colors, so rich and earthy, like wine and plums and grapes and shadows.
Neither of us have cured olives before, so we’re rather excited to see how they turn out. We’ll be following a Greek process, soaking them in fresh salt water daily for 10-12 days before marinating them with garlic, lemon zest, dill, and whatever other things we come up with.
I’ll let you know how they turn out.
Now I must finish my tea and head to the market. I have a serious Mexican food craving and need to pick up some oranges to make carnitas.
Are you an olive fan? If so, what is your favorite way to eat them? xo
by Krista | Mar 21, 2016 | Autumn
I’ve learned that healing is more than just rest and medicine, it’s also doing the things that soothe and restore us in body and spirit.
Pain, exhaustion, nausea, all these things are debilitating enough on their own, when you add loneliness and isolation, they are much worse. So when my body has its down times on its path to healing, I try to incorporate the things I know are good for me and make me smile: extra sleep, simple food, good movies and books, and time spent in nature with lovely people.
I’m not up to driving yet, but Bear has kindly stepped into chauffeur position and takes me for little drives to keep my spirits up. Sometimes it’s just through the country to look at mountains and rainforest, others he takes me to a new thrift store for a bit of treasure hunting or to a favorite cafe for something decadent and delicious that neither of us have to cook. It’s been so nice and makes the hard things much easier to bear.
This week he drove me to the city to meet up with a dear friend for cuppas, chats, and time by the sea.
The skies were beautifully stormy as we drove to Sandgate with our friend Elizabeth. She’d invited us out for lunch at the tiny but bustling Doug’s Seafood Cafe set right across the street from acres of sand, wind-tossed palm trees, and seagulls hoping for a handout.
Elizabeth always has lovely surprises for us when we visit her, and this time she pulled from her bag a fully chilled bottle of Prosecco!!! How utterly delightful.
While Bear poured us glasses of bubbly, Elizabeth hustled off to place a secret order, so excited to surprise us.
And boy, did she!!!
A whole platter of oysters on the half shell, delectably fresh, tender, and delicious.
Another platter of fresh prawns, plump and meaty and wonderful, with a little bowl of lemon water to keep our fingers clean.
And the food kept coming! Crisp coleslaw, sweet corn and mixed lettuces, fried Barramundi, and plenty of hot, salty, chips.
It was marvelous, and we laughed with delight like kids viewing Christmas dinner.
It was so nice to sit and visit and eat and enjoy the view and people watching, our faces cooled by misty sea breezes wafting in.
After our sumptuous feast I headed to the beach to soak up scattered rain drops, gusty winds, and the exquisite beauty of the ocean at low tide.
It was mostly deserted, pools of salt water looking like swirls of paint on the canvas of the dark sand. I found a seat on the rock wall and watched dogs gallop through the water, their owners strolling contentedly behind them.
I love the ocean. Especially when it’s dark, stormy, and there’s hardly a soul to be seen. I find these moments deeply peaceful, my scattered thoughts slowing down to the gentle cadence of distant waves and the rustle of palm fronds overhead.
I sat for a long time, soaking it all in, breathing deeply of salt-tinged air, closing my eyes and letting the wind play merry havoc with my hair.
Then I went for a little stroll too, my eyes roaming the sand for treasures like this wonderfully weathered bit of driftwood.
I watched seagulls swoop and toddle and bob along at their private swimming hole.
I found a couple of shells in dusky shades of rose and rust, their surfaces mottled and roughened from a long journey tumbled about by waves and sand.
I marveled at the beach, it’s surface dotted with tiny balls of sand created by sand crabs.
And I took pictures, so many pictures, so I can return to this place any time even if I’m tucked up in bed.
It was a beautiful day, and we returned home to our farm with light hearts and good memories.
Do you have a favorite place to go that always lifts your spirits? xo
by Krista | Mar 18, 2016 | Autumn
Things have been rather quiet around here lately. I came down with a bad virus and had to step back from everything for a while to rest, rest, rest. I’m doing a bit better this weekend thanks to good medicine, but we’re still waiting on test results to figure out what to do next.
Before things got really bad, I was able to spend a day with some of my Viking friends. I’ve been waiting all week to tell you about our adventures learning how to dye linen with indigo, red and brown onion skins, and ferrous.
It was a wildly stormy day so we decided the best thing was to start with a cuppa.
Then we organized our gear: powdered indigo, bags of dried onion skins, little pots of ferrous and various powders. We set out all our buckets and stirrers and recipes, and submerged our unbleached and bleached linen pieces in vats of clean, cold water to get thoroughly saturated
My Dutch-Aussie friends, Mieke and Kate, are old hands at dyeing. They’ve been dyeing fabrics for years and have the most gorgeous collections of things they’ve made, from a woolen blanket dyed with bits of old iron and turned into a cozy cloak, to billowing sheets of silk dyed in luscious earth tones with eucalyptus leaves before being wrapped around a rusty iron bar, drizzled with salt water, and left for a few days until the rust dyed the sumptuous fabric in mesmerizing patterns.
We chuckled at ourselves looking like witches of old as we poured powders and mixed concoctions and stirred bubbling pots over the fire. Mieke was the chief witch, measuring out everything just so for the indigo dye, stirring gently clockwise and watching carefully for the telltale coppery sheen and flower at the center of the mixture that told us it was ready.
While the indigo dye sat for a bit, we got busy at the fire. One end of the fire was for cooking lunch – a succulent roast lamb and root veggies – the other for pots full of onion skins, alum, and hot water. We were excited to see what colors the different onion skins would create.
The brown onion skins turned the linen a rich buttery yellow.
The red onion skins, amazingly, also turned the linen yellow, but a brighter, clearer yellow, not so rich.
I like them both.
As we worked, the scent of fire-roasted lamb wafted enticingly by, making us ravenously hungry. Soon it was time to sit down and everyone left their jobs – making leather shoes, stitching a woolen garment, squirting brothers with squirt guns – and clustered around the big table for a mighty feast.
I’ve never had such good lamb – moist, tender, full of smoky, garlicky flavor. It went beautifully with the assortment of root veggies also cooked over the fire.
We added thick slices of fresh bread, plump olives, savory sun-dried tomatoes, fruit and nuts, and a glass of red wine, and ate and visited while the rain poured down. Wonderful.
After lunch we tackled dyeing with ferrous. Unlike the onion dyes, ferrous is done in cool water and goes through a couple of stages.
The first stage turns the white linen a muddy sort of gray.
The next turns it a chocolate brown.
And when you expose it to the air – the magic happens. The brown disappears and the fabric gets lighter and brighter until within a few minutes…
It looks like this. Isn’t it gorgeously sunny and wonderful?
After it dried awhile, Kate double-dipped the fabric and it became a richer, deeper shade, almost a rust. So beautiful.
Our final project of the day was dyeing with indigo.
Indigo is pure magic to me. The name conjures up images of exotic Bedouin women swathed in layers of luscious indigo robes billowing in the desert winds.
Unlike the onion dyes which could be stirred vigorously, or the ferrous dyes which involved squeezing and swirling the fabric, indigo dyeing is a slow, methodical process. The fabric is carefully lowered into the vat of dye and gently submerged and oh-so-gently stirred to avoid any air bubbles.
When the linen is brought up from the indigo dye bath, it’s not much to look at, the color a rather insipid blue-green.
But as the air hits the fabric, the chemistry happens, and before our eyes it transformed from sickly green to gorgeous turquoise to…
…a rich indigo blue.
Learning to dye linen was an incredible experience. I’ve wanted to play with natural dyes for a long time and I loved learning from Mieke and Kate.
I drove home that night in the pouring rain, inspired to experiment with things growing in my gardens, orchards, and our woods and fields. I want to try red cabbages and fennel fronds, gum leaves and mulberries. I’m especially looking forward to a dyeing project with my friend Mim, who is going to teach me how to dye with madder.
The pieces I dyed with Mieke and Kate are going to be turned into a medieval quilt to keep Bear and I cozy on our medieval camping trips. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
Have you ever used natural dyes? What color would you like to learn how to make? xo
by Krista | Mar 9, 2016 | Autumn
I love trees.
New, springy saplings and old, weathered stumps, good climbers and great shade-ers, ones that rustle dreamily in the wind and others that burst into scent when the sun warms them.
And I especially love ghostly ones that shimmer and shiver ominously and look stark in the moonlight.
My friend Sue recently took me to a spot filled with such beauties, Underwood Park. Just down the road from the Buddhist Temple, it is a gorgeous pond/swamp that looks delectably mysterious on dark, overcast days.
At first glance the area seems empty and eerily quiet, but the longer you look the more you see until it is veritably teeming with wildlife.
Oodles of birds make their homes here, Purple Swamphens and Australasian Grebes, Dusky Moorhens and Little Black Cormorants. Sue and I stood for ages watching them paddle, swoop, and float, amazed by some of their otherworldly markings that look straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
Other creatures live here too, vivid green tree snakes and terrifying brown ones. We met a lady along the boardwalk who told us about a particularly aggressive brown who chased her husband the other day when he was out for his run. Yipes!
Before we heard that charming tale, I was blissfully unaware, thoroughly delighting in the deliciously creepy surroundings, peering into the murky waters to see what I could see.
I was just saying to Sue, “This water looks like it would be full of life…” when this fellow popped up from the depths and startled me half to death. A man on the boardwalk came over for a chinwag, (they’re a chatty lot, these board-walkers) and informed us that he, the lizardy chap, was a water dragon. I was delighted. Especially since he stayed right where he was and only blinked at me.
On we walked, loving the darkly medieval feel of the place yet keeping a weather eye open for any bad tempered brown snakes that might be lurking nearby. It reminded me of that scene in the old Disney Swiss Family Robinson movie when the two brothers and the girl they rescued are wading warily through a similar swamp, only to be accosted by a massive anaconda. Shiver.
Thankfully the snakes kept themselves to themselves and we had a terror-free stroll through an exquisitely beautiful place, watching Spoonbills and Ibis sun themselves and look for breakfast beneath the rippling surface of the swamp.
Where is your favorite place to go for a morning stroll? xo
by Krista | Mar 7, 2016 | Autumn
“When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
So a man who is seeking to eradicate violence does not belong to
any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system;
he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.”
J. Krishnamurti
I have a tricky relationship with religion. And politics. And organized belief systems of any sort.
Being part of a faith system for many years that happily tromped over the rights and worth of anyone who was not deemed acceptable has made me leery of anyone or anything claiming to know The Truth. I can’t fathom how it is possible for anyone to know The Truth. We can’t even fully understand ourselves or each other let alone our Deity (or lack thereof) of choice, so it’s baffling to me that any of us have the hide to say, “I know. I’m right and you are wrong.”
I do believe, however, that we have the incredible privilege of muddling along through life trying to figure it all out. And what a gift that is. To be able to go through life observing and reading and studying and experimenting and discussing and thinking as we find the beliefs that make sense to us and help us navigate this world in a braver and more loving way.
I think that’s a marvelous adventure.
Over the weekend my friend Sue took me to a Buddhist temple near her house. It is a stunningly beautiful place set in the middle of the bush, surrounded by trees and gardens and kangaroos nibbling on the grass.
I know next to nothing about Buddhism, so it was rather lovely to wander around without any preconceived notions to influence my experience.
The first thing that caught my attention was the color. Isn’t that orange marvelously vibrant and full of life? And such incredible workmanship in every detail, from roof lines and door lintels to pathways and gardens. So much love and work has gone into this place.
The second thing I noticed was the practice of removing shoes before entering the temple. I don’t know the reasoning behind this, but it delights me. How I would’ve loved going to church barefoot when I was a girl. As an adult I found that it instantly reminded me of my humanity, of my equal standing with all those around me, and I must say the cool marble underfoot felt wonderful on a hot day.
I really loved the courtyards and gardens that fill the temple and grounds. Their serenity gives me the same feeling I experience at the Japanese Gardens I visit regularly. Wandering the pathways was so calming and soothing, especially with the accompaniment of tinkling bells and incense wafting out from the temple.
Carefully clipped hedges were festooned with vivid orange berries and lush purple flowers, and the paths were carpeted with crunchy fallen leaves, the first harbingers of Autumn.
Tucked among the rosemary, flowering bushes, and pebbled pathways were statues of Buddha at various stages of his life. This one was so jolly and carefree I couldn’t help but smile.
I’ve always liked elephants, finding them such incredible examples of controlled strength. This beauty and his twin guarded the entrance to the temple, and I think he looks rather fetching in his flowered headband and the richly decorated blanket over his back.
Frangipanis (known as plumeria to my North American friends) never fail to delight me. They represent all that is wonderful about the tropics – beauty and warmth and heady scents on soft breezes.
We wandered through a more woodsy part of the garden and spotted this fellow who looked so lovely with a lion cub playfully licking his face.
Turns out he is the “man of cats” – a one time lion hunter who later converted to Buddhism. After he attained enlightenment, a tiny lion cub trotted up to him. Onlookers believed the cub was thanking the man for giving up the killing of lions which had spared the lives of his family. Since that moment, the man of cats and the lion cub were inseparable.
I think that’s beautiful. A gorgeous reminder that no matter what we’ve done in the past, we can become loving and kind people now.
It was a beautiful afternoon in a beautiful place, and we returned home with peaceful and full hearts. xo
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