by Krista | Jul 3, 2018 | Winter
It’s dark and quiet this winter morning. Roosters just started crowing, heralding the imminent arrival of the sun. Soon sheep and goats will gather at their gates to be let out to the fields to eat, Fergus and Merida will start bleating for their first bottle of the morning, and Fezzik will be galloping around the farm yard, getting the wiggles out after a good night’s sleep.
Quiet moments have been precious and rare lately, stolen between meetings and classes, projects and feeding, gardening and writing. I treasure every one, for they are the moments that nourish me for the next thing, whatever that happens to be.
Growing up in Canada and the northern US, winter was always down time. Gardens slept under the snow, people hunkered indoors around roaring fires for long evenings of games and reading and movies, heading outside only to skate, sled, or go to work or school.
Things are different here.
Summer is now my down time, when it’s too blazing hot to be outside save for early mornings and late afternoons, and winter is the busiest time of my year. I practically live outside, loving the absence of flies and mosquitoes, using these cold but beautiful days to tackle all the farm projects that get set aside when outside feels like an oven.
We had an extra long growing season this year, so I just finished harvesting the last of the capsicums and leeks, and there are still mountains of chillies waiting to be picked. Bear and I fried up the capsicums and turned them into luscious pasta sauce, and yesterday the leeks joined a pile of onions in the frying pan and became a huge batch of French Onion Soup that freezes beautifully.
The kitchen is covered with jars and bottles filled with all manner of concoctions we’ve been making: honey from our bees, multiple batches of apple cider vinegar, port wine steeping with cherries and sherry steeping with peaches, plum wine vinegar, date wine vinegar, demijohns of apple wine, rosella syrup, mulberry liqueur. The list of deliciousness goes on and on.
There are also jars of medieval and herbal medicines that look like something out of a mad scientist’s laboratory. Tinctures of hawthorn and yarrow, pastilles of rose leaf, rosehip, and mint, and bottles of oxymel, an ancient Greek preparation of vinegar, honey, and herb of choice. At the moment I have thyme oxymel and rosemary oxymel brewing, thyme for sore throats and coughs, rosemary as a lovely tonic for strengthening the immune system and protecting from bacterial infections. These and others will be in my display and demonstrations on medieval folk medicine at Abbey Medieval Festival. I love making these things, using them, and experiencing their positive effects on our health and well-being.
Last week the sheep broke into one of my gardens and devoured nearly all my carrots, beets, radishes, silverbeet, calendula, and lemon balm. Sigh. So I salvaged what I could, then decided it was a good time to redesign all the gardens.
I wrote a list of the veggies, flowers, and herbs I love most, then started digging. And digging. And digging. I created borders with hardwood planks and the innumerable rocks I unearth in my digging, and started filling each section in. Elderflower hedges, a massive asparagus bed, and plenty of room for huge artichokes. I planted sugar snap peas, shelling peas, and sweet peas, golden beetroot and striped beetroot, black radishes, and nasturtiums. I divided and transplanted all sorts of things: spearmint and peppermint, feverfew and sorrel, borage and fennel and coriander and hollyhocks.
Bit by bit, everything is coming together, and I love it. I’ve left several garden beds open to fill with tomatoes, capsicum, cucumbers, beans, and other things this spring, but for now, the gardens are done.
This week is all about medieval preparation and finishing up work projects so we can turn our farm over to our caretakers and spend a week of pure fun at the Abbey Medieval Festival. There are articles to write and garb to sew, food to make and pictures to edit, animal feed to stockpile and the house to clean. There is wood-burning to finish and book orders to ship, laundry to do and wine to bottle, and it makes me laugh just to look at my to-do list, let alone imagine completing it, but we’ll get there, we always do.
And in the meantime, we’ll take these quiet moments and sip our cuppas while watching the sunrise, or sneak in a nap mid-afternoon, or have lunch on the veranda and watch the birds.
It’s a crazy life sometimes, but a good one. xo
by Krista | Jun 16, 2018 | Winter
Winter is here, and I feel it in the crunch of dry grass underfoot, the billows of fog blanketing the farm in early mornings, the plunging of temperatures just before sunrise.
I love winter in Australia. Yes, mornings are frigid, but once the sun comes out, it’s like a scrumptious Autumn day, cold, crisp, and utterly refreshing.
There are no bugs or sweltering heat, sunrise arrives at a more humane hour, and the early afternoon darkness is such a lovely excuse to head indoors for cozy evenings of books and movies and multiple hot cuppas.
Winter is also hard.
We’ve had no rain and our paddocks are dry and barren with little for the animals to forage. The cold temperatures mean newborn goats need to be housed indoors, and our tiny home echoes with the bleats of hungry kids and the pattering of their little hooves tap-tapping along the kitchen floor.
But the sunny days are glorious, and once those first rays of light hit the farmyard, we bundle up our armloads of babies and take them out to the sun-drenched goat playpen where they can nibble on grass and take long, luxurious naps in the sunshine.
During this barren time, my gardens are a haven. With no rain to keep them thriving, I’ve cut back to a few essentials, rainbow silverbeet, root veggies, and loads of herbs.
It’s so lovely to open the gates and wander along the straw-covered pathways, breathing in fragrant lavender, thyme, and rosemary, delighting in the daisies and feverfew that manage to blossom even in the dead of winter, and resting my eyes on green, glorious green.
With icy winds blowing in and freezing temperatures in the forecast, it’s a lovely weekend for hunkering in with hot soup and cozy sweaters, old movies and baking, writing for my luvs at Plum Deluxe, and reading beloved favourites from John Buchan, L.M. Montgomery, and Enid Blyton.
Mostly I’m looking forward to medieval mates arriving for a weekend of medieval projects and good visits over hot bread rolls and hotter coffee. They do my heart so much good, and their hugs are the best.
What are you looking forward to this weekend? xo
by Krista | Jun 14, 2018 | Winter
The sky is just starting to lighten. Roosters are crowing, the cuckoo clock is ticking, and Fezzik is snoozing happily beside me. We have two wee goats in the house too, brother and sister twins whose mama died giving birth to a third. I hear the patter of their little hooves and small cooing noises as they wake and decide it’s high time I give them another bottle.
I love early mornings at home. They are sacred to me. No matter how crazy the day ahead is, these moments keep me grounded and peaceful and able to handle the day better. They’re especially nice during winter, when lamplight and a heater beckon me to sit awhile longer before donning warm clothes and heading outside into the frosty air to feed sheep, goats, chickens, geese, dogs, and a turkey.
We arrived home a couple of days ago from our medieval week, exhausted but happy. Bear and I have been working very hard the past few months, so this week we took a much-needed rest.
I wake up each morning and ask myself, “What do I need today?”
Sometimes it was extra sleep, others a good walk outside. I’ve made soup, stopped work and watched movies with Bear, crawled in bed early with the electric blanket, an audio book, and solitaire on my phone.
The best part has been waking early every day to spend time alone with my journal and a pen that works, a cuppa and the heater, a dog snoozing beside me as I write and draw and write some more, getting all the thoughts and feelings out so they can be sifted through.
There have been huge changes in me the past few months, and I’m still sitting quietly with them, letting them sink down to fill in the cracks and do their work of making me whole and strong and thriving.
I saw a dear friend over the weekend who looked me in the face and said thoughtfully, “You’ve changed. You look…happy. No, that’s not it, you’re always a cheerful soul, but you look…content. That’s it. Content.”
And I feel it. Down to my bones. I feel comfy in my own soul. I feel safe and loved and understood and accepted in my own self. Life is still as crazy as it ever was, the same old stresses and sadnesses and pain, but my insides are different. I am my own safe place, and that is so precious to me for it’s not something anyone can take away.
In the past I’ve heard of self-love, but didn’t understand it. I was raised in a world where self-love was evil, selfish, contemptible. Instead, self-hatred was prized above all things. We were constantly reminded how evil our hearts were, how deceitful, dirty, and utterly without goodness we were.
They’re such despicable lies.
Lies designed to manipulate and control, for when you hate your own self, it makes you dependent on people and deities for your peace and security. Bad people love to have that control over others.
I’ve spent the last year rebuilding a relationship of trust with myself, trust that was shattered so long ago I didn’t even know what it looked or felt like. I started by proving to myself that I am here for me, always. That I will do whatever it takes to heal, protect, look after, delight in, forgive, cheer for, and grow myself. No matter what.
I am on my side.
And rebuilding that trust has been the most strange yet wondrous thing. It has broken my dependence on others and given me glorious freedom to figure out my own weird little self and embrace her with a whole lot of love and compassion and patience.
It has been a Great Undoing, a dismantling of lies and shoring up of truth, of facing each little choice and decision and figuring out what is me and what is programming. Each bit of understanding and clarity leads to a bit more, with grieving along the way for missed chances and lost moments, and gratitude too, for fresh, new days to live and choices to make from a soul that is getting stronger and braver and wiser and grateful-er by the day.
So this morning I ask again, “What do I need today?”
Connection with a kindred spirit or two, a bowl of hot soup, time to write and draw, and perhaps a few moments in warm, winter sunshine, soaking up light and comfort.
What do you need today? xo
by Krista | Aug 27, 2017 | Winter
This morning I woke up feeling wobbly in spirit. Anxious, unsettled, uncertain. So I did the three things that always help:
- Have a good cry.
- Talk to Bear.
- Go outside and make something beautiful.
It’s hard to keep feeling wobbly when the tears are out, the struggles are shared with someone who cares, and your arms are full of elderflowers.
So I take a deep breath and press on, because that’s what bravery is, one foot in front of the other, breath in, breath out, gaining courage from the good people and good things around me.
It’s funny to me how we don’t give each other courage by the things we’re mastering, but by the shared heavy sighs over the things we aren’t.
Finances. Relationships. Kids. House. Work. Health.
I’ve been so comforted this week by conversations with friends as we talked about how most of the time most of us are just trying to survive, just trying to earn enough to pay the power bill and (maybe) buy new underwear, just trying to do what we can to help our loves feel safe, loved, and happy, just hoping to have a few precious moments to ourselves where we can restore our spirits before the next emergency demands our attention.
And that’s bravery too. Staying in the life we have when it’s hard and scary and overwhelming and we’re exhausted beyond measure, working hard each day to make it a little better, a little happier, a little more stable.
I’m so thankful we don’t have to do life alone.
I have a tendency, when life is hard, to hibernate. That’s good, for a little bit, but then I need to get up and get out and connect with people, real people, people who love me and like me loving them.
It’s those connections that breathe life back into life. Those visits of laughter and crying, those emails of commiserations, those text messages and phone calls that talk about who’s vomiting now, who got/lost a job, and what on earth we’re going to make for dinner. Those little nothing conversations that mean everything because they say, “You’re not alone. I’m here. Life sucks, and it’s beautiful. You’re crazy and I love you.”
So we cry, we breathe, we talk with safe people, and then we get back to building good things.
Today I’m harvesting and drying elderflowers because it makes me happy to see bundles of these lacy blossoms all over the veranda. And because one day soon I’ll be able to sell parcels of these beauties in my tea shoppe market stall, which in turn will pay for food for our animals and food for us, and continue building goodness into our life here. That makes me smile as I cut and gather, wash and dry, store and package, brew and sip.
I’m also doing it because elderflowers are so nourishing to the body, helping it fight off colds, ease sore throats, and combat hayfever.
I’ve been able to go off allergy tablets completely since drinking elderberry tea this year, and I’m excited to see the effects of elderflower tea, which some believe to be even more potent.
Now I’m heading outside with Bear to plant two more grass gardens for our chickens, and harvest beetroot and purple carrots to roast for dinner.
What good things are you building in your life today? xo
PS – If you’d like to learn more about making your own herbal remedies, click here for my book: “herb & spice: a little book of medieval remedies.”
PPS – I’ll be sharing some exciting news and special deals for my newsletter subscribers in the months to come. If you’d like to be on the list, click here to subscribe. 🙂
by Krista | Aug 26, 2017 | Winter
I do love a weekend that feels like a weekend. One where you actually get to rest and take care of yourself and be companionable with your loves and eat good things.
After long days and late nights of writing and photo shoots, it’s been sheer bliss to set all that aside this weekend and just be us for a bit.
Yesterday was a movie day, watching excellent ones like “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, “Woman in Gold”, and season two of “The Last Kingdom.” We luxuriated in comfy clothes, special treats, and a complete avoidance of anything that required concentration. It was just what we needed, and we woke today feeling relaxed and happy and inspired.
We don’t often get to cook together, but we did this weekend, churning out cheesy pumpkin pancakes, garlicky hummus, loaves of bread, and wholemeal crepes.
Crepes are one of my favorite things because they’re so easy to make delicious things with. Our favorites at the moment are savory aged cheddar and tomato with lots of black pepper, and luscious fresh strawberry ones filled with sour cream and sprinkled with pineapple sage.
Today we’re pottering, feeding Jemima her bottle, watering gardens, planting cuttings, and thinking of ways to use all the lovely citrus dear friends gave us. I have baskets of lemons, limes, mandarins, tangelos, and oranges stacked on the veranda and kitchen table. I’ve juiced some, zested others, and feed all the peels to the pigs and sheep, who adore them.
Now I’m warm and comfy on the back veranda, tucked under a blanket, watching Jemima chase a very patient Apollo who guards her faithfully even when she tries to nurse on his boy bits. She then gets a firm growl and a little nip, and off she goes to nibble grass instead.
Our ewe, Emma, and her baby, Lillypilly, wander the farm yard, munching through freshly fallen leaves and whatever bits of green they can find before finding a shady spot for a nap.
The goats are back from grazing in the dam yard and are waiting for me to throw them their daily pellets when I feed the pigs, Pancetta and Prosciutto. I guess I’d better do that before settling in for a bit of inspirational reading.
What is making you happy this weekend? xo
Wholemeal Crepes
Ingredients:
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla salt (or regular salt)
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/4 cup butter, melted
Directions:
1. Place all ingredients in blender and blend for 10 seconds. Remove lid, scrape down sides, and blend for another 20 seconds.
2. Pour into pitcher and refrigerate until ready to use, at least 1-2 hours.
3. Place frying pan over high heat and heat for 30 seconds. Add 1 tsp of vegetable oil, and swirl to cover.
4. Reduce heat to medium-high heat and pour about 2 Tbsp crepe batter in center of pan, swirling to make a thin circle.
5. Cook until bubbles form on top (40-60 seconds), gently slide spatula under crepe and flip. Cook another minute, then remove to serving platter. (First crepe is always messy, so just plan on eating that one straight away.) Repeat until batter is used up.
6. Serve warm or cold with filling of choice.
by Krista | Aug 22, 2017 | Winter
It’s deliciously cloudy today, with gentle winds blowing and the hope of rain sometime this week. Living in such a sunshiny country makes cloudy days precious. I always feel like hibernating, drinking hot chocolate, and sleeping in a wee bit. So I do whenever I can.
We’ve been working outside a lot this month. Bear set up a big work table out of the wind and has been building dozens of bee frames so we have a good cache to draw on when it’s time to enhance our bee hives or add new ones. I’ve been bottle-feeding Jemima, digging up new garden spots with a crowbar, and trying to keep gardens and fruit trees alive with heaps of watering.
We had our friends, Sallie and Marshal, over on Sunday and had a great time working together on all sorts of projects. We each have properties that have more work than we can handle on our own, so we take turns helping each other, and I love it. No matter how big a project is, having friends to help makes it way more manageable and heaps more fun.
Last time they helped us with harvesting honey and planting fruit trees, and this time we hauled a trailer load of rocks for them to build borders and pathways, and took heaps of cuttings from my elderberry, salvias, geraniums, and fruit trees so they can plant privacy screens and flower gardens. It is always a jolly time, and even though we’re tired and grubby and aching afterwards, we’re also inspired, with full and happy hearts knowing we don’t have to go through life alone.
This week, in between writing travel and food articles for various publications, I get outside whenever I can.
I’m planting snake beans and purple beans, tomatoes and tomatillos, lettuces and chilies, radishes and onions, and getting seedlings started in my kitchen garden for pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and capsicums.
I continue to harvest mustard greens, silverbeet, lettuce, and beetroot greens for the sheep and pigs to supplement their feed. I’m so glad I planted extra, since even when the paddocks are dry, I always have something nourishing to give them.
Bear and I have been eating lots of roasted vegetables: pumpkins, potatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes. With so much work to do around the farm, it’s lovely to roast up a bunch of veggies and a couple of hams or pork roasts, and have them on hand for quick lunches and dinners.
It’s lovely seeing signs of spring everywhere now. Baby sheep and goats dancing and leaping about the yard, our big hen sitting on a clutch of eggs, animals mating with nary a thought for what the neighbors might think, and fruit trees budding and flowering. After such devastating hail storms last year, I’m really hoping to get a good harvest of plums, peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, apricots, grapes, and citrus this year.
Now I must get back to writing. I think I’ll make that cup of hot chocolate I was dreaming of earlier, and snuggle down for a writing marathon.
What changes of season are you seeing in your world right now? xo
