by Krista | Jan 16, 2018 | Summer
The geese are splashing about in the water trough, splattering my kitchen window and having a marvelous time. Down in the shed I hear the whirring of the buffing machine as Bear works on my helmet, modifying it to be a medieval Kipchak one. It’s looking so good and I can’t wait to wear it.
It’s wonderfully fresh and cool this morning, with good, strong breezes that send our windmill whirling, filling up our tanks so we have plenty of water for animals, gardens, and orchards. We just finished breaky – toasted triple cream brie and strawberry jam sandwiches – and finally got to taste-test the cherry port and peach sherry brews we made last week. They are delicious!! Fruity and fragrant but not too sweet. We strained and bottled them all and now have lusciously boozy fruit to spoon over vanilla ice cream in the days to come.
Last week was a rough one as I dealt with viral conjunctivitis in both eyes, and a venomous insect bite that made my right foot swollen, fiery, and painful. There’s nothing like not being able to see or walk properly to slow life down and give me treasured time to rest. So I did. Naps and snoozes, audio books and time to simply lay there and think. It was just what I needed to help me refocus for 2018, and clarify what I want to do and learn and experience this year. As my eyes cleared up, I got back to my writing and my art, jotting down lists and ideas, sketching out plans for gardens and projects. Sometimes I think that half the fun of things is the planning and anticipation.
By the weekend I was feeling almost human again, so Bear and I got in the car and drove to visit our friends, Doug and Avis, and pick up a load of hay. I swap hay for weeding, which is such a great trade. I get hay to mulch our gardens and orchards, and I get to spend hours chatting with Avis while we yank weeds and chop unruly grasses that try to sneak in.
Doug and Avis never let us go home empty handed, and this time was no different. They gave us a whole box of pickling onions, massive bulbs of Russian garlic, beetroots, cucumbers, and zucchini. Avis and I scoured the tangle of bean vines and emerged with a bucket of tender green beans. Such wonderful gifts.
My favourite part was heading into their fig orchard and picking one perfectly ripe fig after another. They’re so beautiful and fragrant and I’m excited to make Chia Seed Fig Jam, Roasted Figs with Mascarpone, and Fig Frangipane Tart. Mmm, mmm.
Sunday we got to drive over the mountains and spend the day at the Brisbane River with a bunch of our Viking friends. It was a hot but gorgeous day and we had such a great time swapping stories, reminiscing, and sharing plans for the new medieval season. The food was amazing, roasted sausages and all sorts of delicious cold salads, and it was such a great way to kick off the 2018 medieval season.
On the way home we stopped at a roadside market having a super deal on gorgeous cherries and super sweet watermelon. We stocked up and have been treasuring every delicious bite.
Yesterday was my day off, and it arrived with a break in the heatwave that’s been knocking us flat. It was sheer bliss to wake up to cold air blowing in the windows, and I celebrated with a mug of hot chocolate while I kept warm under a quilt.
I spent some very happy hours in the gardens, pulling out old plants and giving the others a good soaking. I found all sorts of self-seeded plants – borage and feverfew, tomatoes and hollyhocks – and I’m excited to see them flourish.
Today is a Use Up All The Harvest day, grating zucchini and freezing it to add to soups in Autumn, thinly slicing cucumbers for Scandinavian-style pickles, roasting beetroot and sweet potatoes, frying up leeks and freezing them to add to eggs, fried potatoes, and salads.
I’m so thankful for all this bounty, such good things to nourish and fortify us for the work we have to do.
What are your favourite summer fruits and vegetables? xo
by Krista | Jan 11, 2018 | Summer
Summer afternoon. There’s something so peaceful to me about those words.
It’s my time to stop working on the farm, to come inside and rest in front of a fan with a cold drink nearby. I get to bask in the glow of completed work with animals and plants, then turn to my other work of writing articles, editing photos, and finishing up wood-burning orders.
Those words are also lovely to me because they mean that sunset is almost here, and during summer, sunset is my favourite time of day.
It’s our time to stop work completely. Animals are all tucked into their pens and settling in for sleep. Gardens and orchards are watered, veggies harvested, and writing work submitted.
We step out onto the back veranda, hoping for the first of cooling breezes to curl around our legs and fan our faces.
I never fail to be struck by the view. Nearly every day I turn to Bear and say, “I love our home so much.” And he smiles and nods, because he does too.
It’s hard work running a farm and working several jobs and managing a medieval reenactment group, but we love it. With every fiber of our being, we love it.
We get up ridiculously early and collapse into bed each night in that giddy exhaustion of doing what we love with people we love.
And when things break down and wild creatures eat our animals and hail or floods or heat destroy our gardens, we are still grateful because this is our crazy, beautiful life, and we know that even the hardest of times, the worst of weather, they will not last forever. Rain will come again and paychecks will start arriving and things will grow and babies will be born and, to quote Mrs. Rachel Lynde, “the sun will go on rising and setting whether I fail in geometry or not.”
I’m so thankful for that sun rising and setting.
Last week I found a grocery store selling out the last of their Christmas special European sausages, and there, in the pile, were packages of knackwurst. My favourite. I can never say that word without affecting a German accent.
Knackwurst makes me happy. It reminds of Germany, especially when slathered with strong mustard and topped with crispy fried onions. It makes me think of my German friends and our many adventures together and puts the biggest smile on my face. And when you find a food like that, it’s really best to go ahead and eat it whenever opportunity knocks.
Thankfully, knackwurst also makes Bear happy, which is why we’ve been eating it for dinner every night this week.
The great thing about living on a farm with gum trees everywhere, is that we never, ever have to buy firewood. It’s all around us. Each storm or gale of wind sends a flurry of branches, dried leaves, and strips of bark fluttering down to the ground, and all we have to do is pick it up.
There’s something rather wonderful about lighting a little fire each day, mesmerized by the dance of smoke and light as the sausages sizzle and pop.
It is impossible to be stressed at such moments. If the goats were vexing or weeds had run amok, if I’d had a brain freeze and couldn’t string a sentence together to save my life, well, those little stresses don’t matter anymore once I’m outside. The cool breezes wash away the last of the day’s heat, trees rustle and dance, smoke billows across the yard, and all seems right with the world.
All too soon the knackwurst is smoked and cooked to perfection, beautifully browned with lovely crispy charred bits. Bear has the bread toasted, buttered, and mustard-ed (for me) or ketchup-ed (for him), and cold drinks are poured.
It’s time to settle in on the veranda and watch the sun disappear in a dazzling display of light and shadow.
Yes, I do love summer afternoons. xo
by Krista | Jan 3, 2018 | Summer
2017 felt like an inordinately difficult year. Not your usual a-bit-of-bad-but-mostly-good year, but a truly, outrageously, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me sort of year. One where you look back and think, “I’m not even going to attempt describing what happened this year, because nobody would believe it.”
Except, to be honest, I think they would.
Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to had a ghastly year. Tragedies, financial catastrophes, health traumas, personal crises, the works. Nearly every heart-to-heart conversation is peppered with, “Me too! Same here! So did we!”
And I think that’s the loveliest thing about heart-to-heart conversations, they remind us we’re not alone. There are other people who don’t know how they’re going to pay their power bill or if they’ll ever have real friends before they die or when they’re going to wake up without wanting to go straight back to bed again. There is inestimable comfort in feeling understood and loved, especially when circumstances make us feel thoroughly unlovable.
I’ve been smiling a lot this week, not because life is magically easy and perfect and all the hard of 2017 disappeared, but because I’m not alone in the hard.
When the hard comes, the easiest thing for me is to withdraw from people. I don’t want to be a burden or a bother, I don’t want to be the one needing help and extra attention, I don’t want to make anyone else’s life more difficult. It drives Bear crazy. “How can I help if I don’t know?” is his earnest refrain.
So I practice. I practice being vulnerable and real and honest. I practice sending a text message or making a phone call or tapping someone on the shoulder and asking that oh-so-scary question fraught with the possibility of rejection, “Can I talk to you?”
So, back to the whole smiling a lot this week. I’m smiling because over the holidays I reached out again, and people reached out to me, and through that brave reaching out, we comforted each other, we laughed through our tears, we found renewed courage to try again, and we felt understood and accepted as the beautiful messes that we are.
We reached out in our backyard, sitting under shade trees and trying not to melt in the sweltering, pre-storm summer heat as we talked about job changes and crazy kids and bugs devouring our gardens.
We reached out at the picnic table, clinking glasses of icy cold ginger wine as we discussed mothers in rest homes and lack of thigh gaps and fatigue from endless late nights and early mornings.
We talked at the kitchen table, crying together as we figured out how to navigate the depression of a family member, grieve the loss of a loved one, and make time for ourselves in the hurly-burly of life. Cherry-infused port wine calmed ruffled spirits and turned our sorrows into laughter as, once our burdens were shared, they became lighter and we could see the funny side again.
We shared our stories via email and text message, over cups of coffee and around the camp fire, and somehow, even though nothing had changed, everything had changed because we’d connected with people who care. And knowing that we matter to someone, well, that brings light to the darkest places.
I’m smiling too because connection not only brings comfort and light, it also brings inspiration.
All those talks gave me new ideas for food to make and books to read and art to make. I have lists of great movies and good music, day trips to take and cafes to try, new blogs to visit and seeds to plant.
All those ideas sent me on a mission of inspiration this week.
I’ve been spending so many happy hours down in the granny flat, parked in front of the fan, surrounded by books and magazines, markers and notepads.
It’s not a time for doing, it’s a time for filling up my imagination with good things: gorgeous pictures, creative blog posts, recipes and gardening tips and historical narratives.
I’m loving it so much, and feel deeply thankful for my loves who so wholeheartedly share their lives with me, and would be miffed if I didn’t share mine right back. xo
by Krista | Jan 2, 2018 | Summer
Our little world is dark and still this morning, barely a murmur from wind or animals as we wait and hope for more rain.
Our New Year was marked by wild storms that toppled one tree and hurled branches, leaves, and bark from the gum trees all over the farm. It looks like a woodland fairy went a mad-crazy with confetti, and I love it. Ground that was bare and cracked two days ago, now has bright green grass an inch high. Vibrant spears pushing up through a veil of gum nuts and twisty branches, shredded leaves and gnarled strips of bark. What a beautiful way to start a new year.
This morning I’m hibernating in the granny flat, a fan blowing air cool enough that I can actually curl up under a blanket. That, my friends, is rare bliss in a Queensland summer, which usually has me comatose in front of a fan with a wet towel around my neck to keep from melting. I’m cherishing it.
Recently I realized that I was finally ready to go through my old journals, letters, and photographs, ready to work through those still-buried moments that needed addressing and healing so I could move forward in peace.
It has been horrible and beautiful. Going back to those days of darkness and bondage and abuse, facing the brain-washing and paralyzing fear and deep insecurity, reliving the crushing of all that was me, it is hard stuff. I’ve sobbed for her, the Back Then Me, trying not to be sick, wishing I could reach into those pages and photos and snatch her to safety, and make a safe place for her to heal, a safe place like the farm is for Now Me.
The lovely part is, I can do that. I can revisit those moments with the strength and courage and love that I have now. I can address those lies with searing truth that shatters them into pieces. I can face those bullies and abusers, and tell them exactly what I think of their cowardly cruelty. I can feel those feelings in absolute safety.
Face what happened. Feel the feelings. Speak the truth. Then the healing happens.
Now I can pick up letters or pictures that only recently had me sobbing and all I feel is love, and incredible pride. I talk to Back Then Me and tell her how sorry I am that I couldn’t keep her safe, how proud I am of her for keeping love and light in her heart no matter what hell they put her through, and how happy I am that we are safe now, surrounded by good people who love us even with all our crazy bits. We’re pretty lucky.
And when I’m ready, I do it all over again. Another story, another time, another moment, knowing that the painful part won’t last, that soon it will be scoured clean and filled up with love and gratitude.
As I work through these memories, I’m finding a lot of healing through drawing. I draw what I feel, what I need to express but can’t find words for. I have a goblet full of markers and a blank notepad nearby, and as I work through each situation, I start drawing.
It was awkward at first. I am not a natural at drawing, and had this wonky idea that I should only draw if I was good at it. Voicing that showed me the lunacy of such thoughts, and I embraced the freedom of being a bad draw-er. The drawings come more easily now. Bear, who has his degree in fine arts, cheered me on. When I bashfully showed him my childish efforts he beamed and said they were perfect, for it was my childhood experiences that were being given a voice, and it only made sense that they would be from a child’s perspective. That made me smile and picture my inner child scribbling away, telling her story through stick figures and primitive, um, everything else.
So I keep drawing, and each one lightens my heart and frees my spirit a bit more, and untangles feelings and thoughts that would otherwise stay hidden and unexpressed.
I’ve also been making things. The hard work of healing is only effective for me if I am equally passionate about the fun work of play.
I love playing. I love making things and mucking about in the garden and nailing bits of wood and painting old furniture and cutting out pictures for scrapbooks and hiding away with stacks of books to inspire even more play.
This week I harvested rosellas and made bottles of gorgeous ruby red syrup to add to chilled prosecco or icy cold sparkling water.
I harvested the last of my red carrots, striped beetroots, and a huge cucumber from my friends, Paula and Nikolaj, and made jars of pickles flavored with caraway seeds, peppercorns, and cumin. They’re so delicious served cold on our sweltering summer days.
Soon Bear and I are going to reupholster some old chairs in heavy weight linen, and put the second coat of bright green paint on my medieval chair.
Healing. Drawing. Creating. It’s a beautiful start to 2018.
What type of play is your favorite? xo
by Krista | Dec 4, 2017 | Summer
It’s a stormy afternoon, rain falling gently as I watch the old school version of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and have soft ginger cookies.
I like old-fashioned Christmas things, moments and experiences that remind me of good memories and jolly times with my loves. I’ve pulled out my collection of Christmas movies, and have been watching them one by one, feeling warm and happy inside as I see beloved characters and story lines that never fail to cheer me.
Earlier I took a few of my Christmas decorations for a walk, setting them up in truly Australian settings instead of the pine trees and snowy fields of my Canadian childhood. It made me smile to see them perched jauntily next to peeling bark and lush green grass. It’s not the Christmas setting I grew up with, but it’s still special.
It’s been a quiet few weeks for me here as I took time to care for myself after some intense healing sessions.
When I started on this healing journey several years ago, nothing prepared me for the aftermath of healing. Those days and weeks and months when the raw wounds have been scrubbed clean and healed over, leaving gaping holes that need to be filled with new things, with good things.
I’ve felt like a garden plot after all the carrots have been pulled out. Quiet, peaceful, but barren.
I felt strangely still. A bit fidgety. Not quite sure what to do with myself now that the big battles were over, and the time of rebuilding had arrived. When you’ve been fighting for so long, regular life does not unfurl naturally.
So, I’ve given myself time. As much time as I need to figure out what to put in those gaps that have been occupied by pain and grief and loss.
I’m waiting still. And that’s OK. I don’t want to rebuild with just any old hodgepodge of stuff. I want to deepen my roots and feed my soul with nourishing things so I can grow strong and resilient.
I haven’t been able to put things into words or clear plans of action, so I’ve just been preparing for words and actions.
I’ve been clearing spaces around the farm where, when I’m ready, I can create and make and build again.
I cleared out the granny flat and made it into a cozy place where I can do my writing and editing and reading and artwork, and also where guests can have a comfy cave to hide away in when they come to visit.
We started a man cave veranda for Bear where he can do all his painting and leather work and chain maille and store his swords and other medieval bits and pieces.
I made three work stations in the breezeway that will be perfect for our wine-making, preserving, and butchering projects.
I’m not sure what I’ll be doing next, but it feels good to know that when I do know, the spaces I need will be ready for me.
I’m so thankful for this time of quietness and rest and hope too. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I’m excited to see it unfold in good time.
Now it’s time to heat up carrot ginger soup for dinner, and join Rudolph in his adventure at the North Pole. xo
by Krista | Oct 25, 2017 | Summer
It’s a writerly day for me as I type up my weekly blog post for Harrow and Finch, a press release for a new client in California, and my weekly column on country living for the Warwick Daily News.
I like these days when I get to sequester myself in the granny flat, a cup of elderberry tea to my left, and one of coffee to my right, and the cheeriest hand-crocheted afghan I found at a thrift store keeping me toasty warm.
Bear is busy working on his medieval high-backed chair, popping in for a chat now and then to make sure I don’t disappear into a whirlwind of words and images.
On writing days, I make sure that I sprinkle other activities in between projects so I’m not sitting for hours on end. Sometimes I go watch chickens for a while, or pull weeds in the garden, or hurriedly plant a few more seeds.
Yesterday I went for a ramble through our orchards, delighted to find our apple, peach, and plum trees covered in tiny, delicate blossoms.
There’s something about apple blossoms that gives me a thrill every time I see them.
In Autumn we planted a few old world variety apples from France and England, and their blossoms look so different than the original apples we bought. They’re voluptuous and full, and look more like roses before they unfurl into the familiar apple blossom shape.
The citrus trees are flowering too, and smell positively glorious, though the lemonades and blood oranges already have tiny globe fruits hidden among the leaves.
The grape vines are covered with baby grape clusters, and give me hope that perhaps this year we’ll get to make wine, juice, and raisins.
Most of the plums flowered weeks ago, but this fellow is late to the party. He got badly damaged in hail storms last year, but a severe pruning gave him a fresh start, and I think he’s looking rather dashing covered with ethereal blossoms in palest pink.
I’m so thankful that most of our fruit trees survived the horrendous summer storms of last year. We lost about a dozen, but one day soon we’ll replace them with new varieties, perhaps some cherries and more figs, or maybe hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, and almonds.
It’s time to close my computer for a bit, and go out to the garden to plant the long lost seeds I found while cleaning out the granny flat last week. I’ve got Bulgarian Leeks and red and purple carrots, white Celeriac and yellow pear tomatoes, magenta silverbeet and a whole lot of cucumbers for pickling. Can’t wait to start harvesting all this goodness in a few months.
What helps you refocus on work when you’ve been sitting too long? xo
