by Krista | Aug 18, 2015 | Winter
The weather has been stunning this week. Cool, crisp mornings that become gloriously warm, sun-drenched days.
It does my heart good to wander the farm spotting tiny wildflowers and clover emerging from the dry, brown fields, to stroll through the gardens seeing all sorts of plants coming to life.
Peas are my favorite late Winter vegetable with their crunchy, sweet shells that go so well in salads and stir-fries, or just eaten as a snack while I’m out working.
I’m excited about today because I’m finally back writing after taking a necessary break during the spider bite adventure. It feels so good to get cozy in my armchair, sip on tea and hot chocolate, and type away at various articles. I’m back doing what I love.
I’m also taking photographs again, and that is lovely too. There are so many gorgeous things in this world, and I love having a camera again to capture them. Like this tiny strawberry blossom. I learned yesterday that if I add coffee grounds and pine needles to my strawberry patch, I’ll be rewarded with a bumper crop. So that’s what I’m doing this week. I do so love garden fresh strawberries.
Over the weekend I finished weeding four out of my five gardens. Phew! Such a huge job, but it’s marvelous to see the tiny seedlings flourishing without weed-y competition.
My artichokes are growing beautifully, and I’m so excited to have my own artichokes in a few months. After living in California for seven years, I’m a devout artichoke lover. Especially with a small bowl of creamy homemade mayonnaise to dip them in.
There’s something so hopeful and inspiring about Almost Spring. Seeing my world come to life again rejuvenates my own spirits and renews my dedication to doing the things that lead to wholeness, peace, and well-being. Difficulties that seemed insurmountable a few weeks ago have glimmers of possibility now as I face them with increased strength and resolve.
The change of seasons always seems to give second chances, the opportunity to take a deep breath and try again. I like that.
Now it’s time to feed goats and ducks and chickens and four dogs and a turkey, and check on the broody geese to see if we have any goslings born yet.
What do you like best about the change of seasons? xo
by Krista | Aug 15, 2015 | Winter
It is bliss to feel good again. I woke Monday morning and thought, “I’m back!!!” It is wonderful.
I can think clearly, the pain is gone, I’m no longer agitated, and I can’t begin to describe how lovely that is. My only remaining symptom is fatigue, but I think that’s just my body relaxing after fighting that dratted venom for so long. I get to rest now, and I sure have been, sleeping 11 hours a night with rests during the day. I don’t mind though. I’d rather be tired any day than the pain-riddled, agitated mess of a girl I’ve been for the last five weeks. Life is very, very good.
With my renewed energy I’ve been spending nearly every day outside, bundled up during the frosty mornings, basking in warmth during the sun-drenched afternoons. It’s been glorious.
I’ve dug holes and planted trees and bushes – lemons, quince, oranges, blueberries, goji berries, elderflower, lilly pillies, and roses. I’ve hauled goat manure up from the paddocks to spread over gardens and pots, planted silver beet, radicchio, beetroot, spinach, Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, morning glories, rhubarb, aloe vera, mint, and a pot of basil for my sunny kitchen window, then spread hay mulch over everything. I’ve got aching muscles, blisters, bruises, scrapes, and cuts, rosy cheeks from the sun, and I couldn’t be happier.
Thursday and Friday I emerged from my hermit gardener ways to spend time with lovely, lovely people. I can’t think of anything better than good visits with kindred spirits after a rough time.
I visited my new friend, Sally, a prodigiously talented potter, gardener, cook, painter, and free spirit who never fails to make me laugh hard and feel that life truly is a gift. I stopped in to chat with another new friend, Kathy, who invited me to join her fabulous gardening group and who never ceases to amaze me with the things she grows and makes. I love wandering through her gardens and greenhouses and learning all sorts of new things. She never lets me leave without a big hug and an armload of seedlings, cuttings, seeds, and all sorts of inspiration for home and garden.
Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon with my dear friend, Oma, who invited me over to pick bush lemons from the massive tree in her garden.
The weather was stunning, with cool breezes blowing while hot winter sun warmed our bones and bronzed our faces. We chatted away as we navigated thorny branches and plucked the fragrant, knobbly fruits.
Bear gave me an extendable branch trimmer to use, and it was brilliant for reaching the tip top branches that always seem to have the most fruit. It did double duty for us, bringing fruit within reach while allowing us to prune as we went. Most of the time the branches fell gently within reach, but we had to dive for cover a few times as the thorn-covered branches hurtled straight for us. We emerged laughing but unscathed.
The bush lemons are a bit smaller this year, but still juicy and with delicious zest that makes everything from shortbread to scones to lemon sima taste absolutely exquisite. One day this week I’ll set up on the veranda and zest, zest, zest, freezing my bounty for baking in the months ahead.
After the bush lemons were picked, Oma and I went for a walk around her property, checking on the olive and peach trees, sharing our dreams and goals for our gardens and produce. We had tea and ginger beer as we swapped tales from our week, then headed down to the cellar to taste Oma’s latest batch of plum wine. It’s hands down her best yet. We got it mixed and tasted some more until it was just right, then bottled it up to age a bit longer.
Then we watered the wormwood plant I brought her from my garden, and loaded up the horseradish and spider lily plants she gave me from hers. We made plans to butcher ducks and chooks together on Monday, hugged each other tight, and waved good-bye.
It was a lovely day.
Now it’s Saturday morning, quiet and sunny and peaceful, time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with Bear before heading outside to plant my last two orange trees and start digging a plot for my raspberries. Oh yes, and laundry. Mustn’t forget the laundry.
What are you up to this weekend? xo
by Krista | Aug 7, 2015 | Winter
It’s been a rough month. Truly. Some days I had to have a good ol’ cry because it all felt, as a dear friend put it, “too much of a muchness.”
That spider bite really knocked me flat. Yep, it sure did. One of the stranger side effects of the bite is what professionals refer to as “agitation.” For us mortals that means “Feel Anxious All The Time For No Reason.” Dreadful. Nothing takes it away. Not rest, not writing in a journal, not going for a walk or breathing exercises. Nope. You just have to let it do its wretched panicky thing, week after week, and try not to take it personally or give it validation or let it send you on fruitless rabbit trails of introspection trying to get to the heart of the anxiety.
Thankfully, on Tuesday this debilitating fog of pain, exhaustion, and anxiety finally began to lift. Instead of stumbling along through my days just trying to do the next thing before I keeled over, I could actually think again, focus again, and, the best part of all, feel peaceful and happy again.
I wanted to run to the nearest mirror and shout, ” WELCOME BACK!!!”
Each day the symptoms ebb a bit more, the peaceful state lasts a bit longer, and I’m so very, very thankful.
Before the ebbing began, I was quite discouraged, frustrated, and plain ol’ tired. As I wrote out to a friend what I was feeling, I typed the words, “So I’m just trying to take heart and do good.”
Take heart and do good.
Even as I typed them out I began to smile. This pain, this awfulness, it wouldn’t last. I knew there would be an end one day. And in the meantime, I could just focus on doing good. Good to me, good to Bear, good to our animals, good to the people I came across.
Funny how these things come to us just when we need them most.
They came to me the day I took Bear in to the hospital for surgery. After I got him signed in and kissed him good-bye I thought, “What good can I do right now?”
It was 7 a.m. on a winter morning and I knew immediately what I needed to do. I needed to get outside. To see beauty and breathe fresh air and just be.
So I drove to Queen’s Park in Toowoomba, packed up my breakfast, book, and journal, and went for a walk.
I could not have asked for a more exquisite morning. Out of nowhere, Spring had arrived. There was no frost, no icy wind, just clear blue skies and a world flooding with light as the sun crept up through the trees casting magical shadows and giving a rich, golden hue to everything it touched.
I found a bench bathed in sunlight and settled in to watch the park wake up.
Joggers, walkers, and cyclists hustled past on their morning constitutional, nearly always accompanied by dogs who made sure to trot over to me for an ear scratch and a hello.
Magpies and galahs toddled about in the dewy grass looking for morsels to eat.
But me, well, mostly I just soaked up that glorious light, basking in the warmth and delighting in the novelty of not being cold.
I tucked in to my own breakfast – boiled eggs with salt and pepper, tomato salad with lime Dijon dressing – and figured that the only thing that could possibly make this moment more perfect would be a hot cuppa. I’ll remember that for next time.
In between bites I read a bit more of my book and scribbled away in my journal, marveling at how wonderful it was to have no deadlines to meet, no appointments to make, just time alone in luminous beauty. Even spider-bite-anxiety is no match for such utter gloriousness.
In time, when all the words were written and the pages read that needed to be read, I packed up again and strolled back through the park, my spirits restored.
On my way to pick up Bear I knew just what I wanted to “do good” for him. I stopped at a deli and got fresh bread, triple cream brie, Italian salami, and unsalted butter, some of our favorite things to celebrate his successful surgery. He loved it. We had a scrumptious picnic in our motel room, then settled in for a cozy afternoon of movies and naps.
Take heart and do good. What a difference they make during hard times.
xo
by Krista | Jul 29, 2015 | Winter
I’m sitting in a golden patch of light on the front veranda, soaking up warmth from the Winter morning sunshine, wrapped to the gills in Bear’s clothes which always seem to be warmer than my own.
Luna is busy exploring, tail wagging ferociously as she sniffs out mice and lizards and anything else that takes her fancy.
Bear and I just finished feeding hay to the goats, laughing at the crazy antics of the babies as they leap and cavort around the paddock.
Now it’s time to rest.
That’s how life needs to be for me right now. Work a little, rest a little.
A redback spider bite causes all over body pain, headaches, nausea, fever, shakes, dizzy spells, exhaustion, and it lasts for weeks. Anti-venom doesn’t help, so you just have to soldier through, waiting for the yucks to run their course.
When you’re feeling awful, rainy days seem to be a gift, a permission slip from the universe to go to bed, take naps, watch marathons of NCIS and Murdoch Mysteries, read a little, and drink copious amounts of tea and soup. I’m so glad we’ve had a few days like that recently.
I love how rain changes our sun-burned world. Bare rocks are suddenly ablaze with color as dormant lichen surge to life.
Old bits of wood are suddenly sporting curly flourishes of lichen as well, light dustings of moss peeping out of rain-soaked crevices.
Bleach blond bits of fallen tree pods take on a golden hue when the rain hits them.
But it’s the old wood I like best, darkened whorls and swirls frosted with lichen of all sorts, looking like something out of Ireland or Washington instead of sun-drenched Queensland.
The sunshine has returned and we are happy to see her again, dancing along fluttering poplar leaves, glistening on the glossy lemon trees, streaming oh-so-warmly through our windows.
Now it’s time to rest again before putting in a load of laundry and cozying in for some hand-sewing while I listen to an audio book from the library.
It’s going to be a good day.
How does your world change when rain falls? xo
by Krista | Jul 27, 2015 | Winter
Sometimes life goes a bit wobbly. The last couple of weeks have been difficult ones with my body reacting badly to a redback spider bite followed by a virus and then migraines. Good grief. I looked at Bear this morning as we relived the gong show that has been our life recently and laughed, saying, “You just can’t make this stuff up!”
Thankfully, all is not dreadful. We have twelve baby goats toddling about our farm, and it is not possible to stay discouraged with their cute little selves making us smile.
We had luscious rain this weekend and all my gardens are thriving. Even in the middle of winter we’re harvesting radishes and tomatoes, lilly pillies and blueberries, rocket and fresh herbs.
The last couple of days have been especially painful for me, but today I perked up a bit and decided to make the most of it by baking and cooking. I made a huge pot of chili, dark chocolate brownies, and two loaves of spelt bread. It smells marvelous in here, and it’s a relief to know that even if I get sick again, we’ll have good food to nourish us and keep us going.
This afternoon I was able to get out for a little walk with Luna. It was glorious. Such wondrous skies and rain-washed air and excited greetings from all the dogs as we strolled around the farm.
Even when life is hard, I feel so lucky to live in this beautiful place with my Bear and our menagerie.
What keeps you going through wobbly days? xo
