by Krista | Nov 20, 2019 | Spring
With bushfires 30 km away and the drought continuing unabated, I have found much comfort and happiness in creating an oasis on our farm. Everywhere around us is crumbling dirt, dead grass, and air filled with dust and smoke, but here, in my gardens, it is shady, cool, and green.
It’s especially wonderful before sunrise when all is dark, the drip hoses send a fine mist over the plants, and for a few precious moments, I can linger in a wonderland of thriving plants, scurrying lizards, and singing birds.
This morning I was out at 4 a.m., the dogs galloping happily around me as they dashed from one end of the farmyard to the other to check on the chooks, annoy the geese, and make sure the goats and sheep were in their yards. I didn’t mean to get up that early, but I woke myself yelling from a particularly bad nightmare. The experience left me rather wobbly, so I went out to water and wander in the gardens knowing that such things never fail to soothe rumpled spirits.
It was so beautiful and quiet. The rest of the world was sound asleep and I got to bask in the novelty of cloudy skies and no sun as I picked asparagus and cherry tomatoes and eyed the artichokes that I will harvest for lunch.
I found baby pumpkins with bright yellow flower hats, large ears of corn with gossamer tassels, red okra, purple beans, and leeks getting tall and sturdy again after the goats munched off their tops in a lightning raid they launched when I accidentally left the garden gate open earlier this week.
I refilled the water troughs for the goslings and before I was even finished they were in there splashing about and making a ruckus.
I returned to the gardens and smiled so big to find flocks of tiny fairy wrens swooping and dancing in the spray from the drip hoses and scurrying about under the beans, tomatoes, and capsicum looking for bugs to nosh on for breakfast. By putting out bowls and pots of water each day, our farm has become a haven for birdlife. Bear and I love sitting on the back veranda and watching so many different varieties stop by for drinks: pink galahs, vibrant rosellas and grass parrots, bright blue, lime green, and double bar fairy-wrens, willy wagtails (our favourites), magpies, crows, tawny frogmouths, kookaburras, and big white cockatoos. It is amazing.
Soon the sun began to rise, eerie yet stunning as it slipped between layers of smoke and clouds. The plants glistened and shimmered, the dirt smelled wonderfully rich and mulchy, and the dogs were ready for their morning naps. I prepared the drip hoses for their mid-day duties, cuddled the dogs, then went inside to put the kettle on.
It’s going to be a good day. xo
by Krista | Nov 14, 2019 | Spring
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places;
but still there is much that is fair,
and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief,
it grows perhaps the greater.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
I’ve been thinking about the land so much this year as drought ravages and bushfires destroy. Some days the grief of it all overwhelms me and I weep in sadness and frustration and fear. This week has been especially discouraging as the air fills with dust and smoke turning our eyes red and weepy, making our voices sound like we’ve been smoking for decades, giving us hacking coughs and runny noses. The wind howls across the paddocks withering the last of our grass and sending great clouds of dust billowing over the landscape. There’s no rain in the forecast, not for us, just hotter temperatures and endless dry days.
It can be overwhelming. I won’t lie. But that overwhelm, that discouragement and grief, it leads to something, to that glorious question that is at the beginning of every good thing worth doing:
What can I do?
I can’t do much on the grand scale of things. I have no money or power or influence to make sweeping changes to environmental policy. I can’t stop the bush fires or conjure up rain or infuse hope into dehydrated, dust-covered souls.
But we have 40 acres that we are responsible for. 40 acres where we can make a difference.
So we’re trying.
Bear started it all years ago by ensuring we had a deep bore and numerous rainwater tanks. He dug ditches and channels to make sure that every drop of water that falls here is collected and directed to places where it can be used well. In this land, water is life.
We practised rotation grazing with our herds of goats and sheep so that our paddocks weren’t eaten down to the roots. This has saved us. Even now our paddocks still have edible grass in them, without any irrigation, long after most paddocks in the region are dust.
We grow herbs like wormwood and mugwort and these keep our herds healthy and strong with little need for worming even in the worst drought in recorded history.
These are all good things, but going forward we need to do more to accommodate the changes in our climate: higher heat, less rain, fiercer winds.
So I’ve been studying, a lot, seeking answers to so many questions:
How can we help our land be resilient in even the fiercest climate conditions?
How can we help our land thrive with little water?
How can we create a habitat where both our domestic animals and wildlife can flourish?
How can we grow food and medicinal plants in ways that are sustainable and productive?
This path of study has given me more hope and courage than I can express.
Two books, in particular, stand out as being incredibly helpful: Grown & Gathered by Lentil and Matt Purbrick and Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe.
In the first, I was introduced to the revolutionary idea of watering gardens in the middle of the day. This has transformed my gardening. It is based on the idea that the purpose of watering is to help plants avoid stress. With traditional morning/evening watering, the plant is left to its own devices in the hottest part of the day, resulting in stress, wilting, and the need to constantly recover from stress instead of putting all its energies into production. When I first read this, my jaw dropped. It made so much sense and I immediately implemented it. Much to my delight, it has resulted in the healthiest, most productive garden I’ve ever had. I use less water, spend far less time watering, and my plants are strong, healthy, and productive, even in the searing heat, fierce winds, and utter lack of rain.
In the second, I had my Australian worldview turned on its head. It is a magnificent book shattering the myth of Aboriginal hunter-gatherer history and revealing their brilliant and wise land management skills that kept Australia lush, verdant and thriving. I have loved learning how they worked with the Australian environment instead of against it, finding ways to successfully grow crops, enrich the soil, harvest and store grains, vegetables, and meat without any of our modern conveniences. I am so excited to begin trying these methods on our property.
One amazing opportunity that has come out of the heinous weather we’ve had this year is the ability to observe our land, our gardens, our orchards. In spite of everything the weather has thrown at us, there are trees, plants, and herbs that are positively thriving without any water at all, and this has provided an excellent classroom for us to know what to plant in the future.
In our bush, gumbi gumbi trees are not just surviving, they’re reseeding themselves and new starts are everywhere. The Aboriginals used their leaves in tea as a medicine for centuries.
In our paddocks, the ground is parched and dry, but there’s still plantain growing bright green. The young leaves are beautiful as a salad green and are loaded with iron and other vitamins and minerals. You can also eat the young shoots and the seeds. With just a little bit of water, I also get purslane, dandelion, lamb’s quarters, and stinging nettles, all of which are edible and nutritious.
In our orchards, many of our fruit trees have died, but the olives, pomegranates, apricots, citrus, and quince are doing beautifully in spite of no water at all. This is due in part to us allowing the grass to grow around them rather than pulling it all out. This provides a natural ground cover and mulch, retaining water and keeping the roots cool.
In our gardens, the vegetables and herbs that thrive are those that do well in similar climates to ours: Italy, Spain, California. With daily drip watering during the hottest parts of the day, I have a steady harvest of artichokes, tomatoes, asparagus, chillies, and beans. Soon I will have eggplants and capsicums and later, pumpkins and corn.
As we look to the future, these are the things we will focus on planting and nurturing. Trees, plants and herbs that will help the environment, our land, and provide food for us, our animals, and local wildlife.
Things are dire here, but there is also hope. And I’m clinging to that. xo
by Krista | Nov 8, 2019 | Spring
I look outside and the air is filled with smoke and dust as the wind howls across the land.
I walk outside and underfoot the ground is dry and cracked, some cracks big enough to easily slide my hand into.
I knock on the side of our last rainwater tank and it is barely half full.
I stand in the last paddock and see dead grass and clods of dirt where once there was grass waist high filled with wildflowers.
And I wonder how long until the water runs out, the grass withers away.
We’re doing everything we can to hang on. We shower once a week, flush toilets once a day, wear the same clothes over and over again to limit laundry to once a month.
Kind friends in the city, Shaun and Stacey, fill water bottles for us so we always have drinking water, and when we visit, they give us stern instructions to bring our laundry and take the longest, hottest showers we want.
I use our precious bore water to keep my gardens going so I can give our animals something green to eat each day. Some lettuce, silverbeet, and sorrel, a handful of weeds, some asparagus fronds, the bottom leaves of the artichokes.
We stay close to home except for work trips and devise our own entertainment so we can save every spare penny for water, power, and feed for the animals.
Most of the time our spirits are good. We give thanks every day that we have enough water for us and our animals, we delight in the wild animals and birds that come to drink out of the water troughs we set up for them, and we try to make life extra nice for each other with special meals and working together on projects that matter to us.
But other times it all feels too much. This week was a too much week. So I cried. A lot. And we were extra kind and gentle to ourselves and each other. We bought fresh blueberries for me and avocados for Bear, put on movies where snow falls and rain buckets down and the world is lush and green, and sat on the back veranda with our coffees and talked about how much we love our farm, our home, even in this desolation.
And one day, when the wind died down and the air cleared and we could breathe well again, I went outside at sunset to see if I could find beauty.
I did.
It’s a different kind of beauty. It’s quiet, small, easy to overlook.
But somehow, in that quietness, it is all the more wondrous.
As I looked I also found life. Pomegranate trees I thought long dead are dotted with tiny green leaves, a lime tree covered with white blossoms when all its citrus neighbours were dead, olive trees looking as if they’d never been healthier or happier. Amazing.
I returned to the house with my hope restored, my spirits lifted, my focus shifted.
We will keep holding on. We’ll keep looking for innovative ways to care for our animals and our land. We’ll keep hoping for rain.
Courage, dear heart.
by Krista | Oct 4, 2019 | Spring
Sometimes Bear and I look back on the past 8 months and just laugh. Other times I have a good old cry and he holds me, kisses me on the forehead and says, “I know, babe.”
It has been dreadful. Awful. Scary. Painful. Overwhelming. Frustrating. But also, somehow, one of the most treasured experiences of my life.
One day my friend Peter, a lovely and inspiring cancer-warrior and life-embracer, asked me, “Do you feel this experience has changed your life?” I didn’t even stop to think before responding:
“Yes, it has changed me deeply. I feel like I no longer fit in the life/habits/beliefs/thoughts/coping mechanisms I held before. I feel cracked open, in the best possible way, with all the unnecessary stuff spilling out. I told my husband I feel hollow, scoured, quiet, and I’m in no rush to fill up again. I’m reading and writing a lot, observing my reactions to things and just sitting quietly with them, waiting to see if these things are “me” and something to embrace, or just something to observe and let float past. I feel very hermit-y, like I need to protect this time of healing and change. There’s a lot of letting go, a lot of deep breaths, some bouts of anxiety when I get scared about where all this change is leading, yet also underlying peace that even in this upheaval, I am safe.”
I’ve read those words, my words, so many times since then. They’ve been a touchstone for me, a grounding place of truth that helped me accept, face, and deal with my entire life skidding to a halt, the removal of everything that normally comprises life to me, everything that made me, Me. No medieval events, no herbal workshops, very little writing work, no social life, no farm work, no art or cooking or creating. In one fell swoop, everything disappeared and I was left with silence and solitude. For the first time in my life, life was stripped away and I was alone with myself.
It has been the greatest gift.
At the beginning of all this, I pledged to myself that I would go through whatever I needed to go through to heal the deep things, the dark, festering, hidden things, to let everything come into the light once and for all. And I did. The tidal waves of emotion that accompanied that journey were epic. And gutting. And exhausting. And glorious. Anger, rage, fury. Loss, grief, agony. Anxiety, fear, terror. I let it all come, welcomed it, wept and screamed and slept, then sat in the incredible silence that followed. I really do feel scoured, as if an emotional hurricane has hurtled through me, obliterating everything in its path, leaving me feeling rather dazed and battered but beautifully clean and empty.
I feel whole. Connected. Grounded. Strong. Filled with deep love and forgiveness for my dear, weird, wonky, and rather lovely self. And the love I feel for my loves? Well, it’s so much nicer because it comes from a healed and healing place. I will never cease to be in awe of how much better we love others when we love ourselves beautifully.
This week I had a dream. Robbie appeared as a silvery ghost, shimmery and shining, and said, “Babe, it’s time to join the world again.” He gave me a hand up and as I stood, all the things that had anchored me before exploded in a spectacular fireworks show. There was no grief in it, no destruction, no loss, just a beautiful, celebratory ending of what was, and a glorious, light-filled space ready to be filled with the new. I woke with the biggest smile. That afternoon I was told that the surgical incision on my head that had not closed or healed after 8 weeks, had finally sealed and would soon be healed. That made me smile too.
I don’t know what comes next. I’m just taking each day as it comes, doing something good, something creative, something kind, and trusting that the next steps will take care of themselves.
by Krista | Sep 1, 2019 | Spring
I was cosy in bed reading this morning when I heard Bear holler from the other end of the house, “It’s the first day of Spring! Time to turn on the Christmas music!”
I burst out laughing and thought to myself, “He’s such a good bloke.” You see, dear reader, Bear doesn’t get remotely excited about Christmas. Give the man a ham and some Christmas pudding and he’s completely satisfied. He doesn’t need a Christmas tree or ornaments or pressies or traditions of any kind to make his Christmas pleasant.
But he knows me.
He knows that few things put a smile on my face faster than Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters crooning Christmas carols, hauling out all my favourite ornaments to dangle from door handles and lamps, and pouring over Scandinavian Christmas cookbooks to plan the pastries, cookies, and boozy things I’ll be making for the holidays.
And when I forget, he reminds me.
So today we’re having a little Spring Christmas. Ol’ Bing is crooning jauntily and I’m sipping hot chocolate whilst leafing through magazines and books for all manner of holiday inspiration.
I took out homemade pastry dough from the freezer to thaw for a berry tart and am making a big jar of Spiced Hawthorn Wine to start steeping for Christmas.
When it’s time to rest again this afternoon I’m pulling out old British murder mysteries because nothing says Christmas holidays quite like genteel murders in gorgeous old English manors where everyone dresses beautifully and partakes of sherry by the fire while snow falls heavily outside.
It’s a pretty good way to celebrate the first day of Spring. xo
by Krista | Nov 29, 2018 | Spring
This morning started out as most mornings do on our little farm: waking up early and starting the list of things that need to be done each day to keep hearth and home running smoothly. Smoothly-ish.
I wound the cuckoo clock, fed and cuddled the dogs, called the sheep and goats out to pasture, then headed to the gardens to see how they’d fared after the ferocious wind storm we had yesterday.
The winds were both awe-inspiring and scary. Massive gum trees swayed like saplings, leaves, bark, and branches hurtled across the yard, furniture toppled, animals huddled behind walls and water tanks, and the power flickered and died, over and over again. We had to close the house up to keep from choking on the great clouds of dust blown in from out west.
This morning only the gentlest of breezes whispered through the leaves, cooling my skin as I wandered from garden to garden. Some things were worse off than others, leaves withered and drooping, a few branches broken and battered, but everything survived. I knew that a good drink of water would help things bounce back quickly, so I turned on the pump and hooked up hoses and soon water was cascading over the cracked ground and thirsty plants.
And suddenly, just like that, my parched little world became a fairyland that took my breath away.
The rest of my chore list was postponed while I stood there in the early morning light and sighed in sheer happiness at the spectacle of glistening water droplets and shimmering spray.
Such moments are transporting, for they make magic out of the mundane.
Like when the afternoon sun illuminates glass cups in the drying rack and suddenly washing dishes is a golden moment, or a stray sunbeam breaks through the clouds and sets dust motes dancing and suddenly it doesn’t matter that you haven’t dusted in weeks.
I’ve been thinking a lot about magic lately. Not in terms of casting spells or making things disappear, but in how I go through daily life, my mundane, considering ways to make them a bit more magical.
This morning I have two candles burning while I work, one in a teacup made by a dear friend, the other spiced with apples and cinnamon to make my summery Australian world feel a wee bit Christmasy.
I picked a handful of sweet peas and stuck them in an emerald green goblet I found at a thrift store, and it’s sitting on my desk next to a Christmas mug full of rosemary tea to ease the headache I’ve had since all that dust blew in.
My desk is something utterly mundane that to me, is magical. Bear made it for me. It’s a lap desk made of simple pine plywood, nothing flashy or posh, but I love it so very, very much for it allows me to work with ease and comfort.
I can set it up in my armchair so I can hang out with Bear while he watches a movie, or in bed so I can look out at trees and fields while I write articles or work on my next book or manage social media accounts for my clients.
On especially hot days I can take it out onto the breezy veranda, Fezzik curled up beside me, one paw resting on my leg to make sure I don’t go anywhere.
It’s a simple object, but it makes life so much nicer.
One of the best things I’ve done to bring more magic into my life is to work specific hours. Instead of leaping into action at the first hint of something needing to be done, I don’t even think about work (or try not to) until 9 a.m. This gives me 5 whole hours to do simple but lovely things that make me happy.
This morning Bear and I had coffee and a chat on the veranda, I made a batch of elderberry cordial and he made breakfast, I wrote in my journal, rode my bike, picked flowers and herbs, and took pictures of my magical garden. Just little nothing things that make all the difference.
Soon the cuckoo clock will chime 9 o’clock. It’s time to work.
What are ways you bring a bit of magic into your mundane? xo
