The Big Chill

3 weeks ago, it was snowing. 3 weeks ago, I took these photos. 3 weeks ago, it was cold, dark and grim ... and I nearly gave up. 

The funny thing about winter in the mountains is that is gets under your skin, it goes on forever (well, that's how it feels) and no matter how many you've done; you forget - while you are in it - just what a colossal challenge it is! 

On September 1st it was like someone had literally flipped a switch in the Macedon Ranges, all the trees that had blossomed at 6 weeks prior in town, finally burst forth their buds. Dots of yellow started to appear across the hills as the daffodils flowered, at last. A week before it had been snowing and sun was a distant memory and then ... BOOM.

So now that Winter is over, I can finally look back and say, it was a long, hard haul. I can see, with the perspective that hindsight offers, that it was a bit of a dark night of the soul. I was constantly being challenged on physical, emotional, spiritual and practical levels. I kept picking myself up , dusting myself off and plunging head first right back at the problem (s). I just couldn't seem to catch a break. But now I see it: sometimes there is a fine line between healthy determination and just throwing your head up against a brick wall! I remember reading once that "over-doing" is just fear in disguise and I think that's true. But while I was busily running into walls, I didn't realise that was what was happening. I thought I was being strong, resilient and healthily determined when actually I was pig-headedly trying to force things to happen because I am so very terrified that I might stuff this all up. Oh dear!

Well, we can laugh now and hopefully I have learnt something. At a particularly rough time, I came across this written up in a local cafe:

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up."

Thomas Edison

Of course, I took that to mean that I must keep trying to make things happen and off I went to connect my head to another brick wall but what you will hopefully get from it is that yes, sometimes you do just need a little extra determination to get where you want to but more often what you actually need is just a bit more faith. 

Lemony white

Making and meeting

A little visual story from the Weaving Windows interactive exhibition put on as part of this year's Craft Hatch. Melanie from Cecilia Fox teamed up with Maryanne of House of Maryanne to put on this delightful work. I don't need any excuse to get my weave on so I went down and spent a whole afternoon in the shop, weaving and drinking tea. True, I'm a hand-weaver rather than a tapestry weaver but hey, the principles are the same: under, over, under, over ... and so on! I thoroughly enjoyed myself, spending time in a flower shop again, with Mel and I reminiscing of those long gone days when we were students together, revelling in experimental textiles and all the many possibilities.  Ah, the good ol' days :-)

Gobletful

My contribution to this week's Seasonal Bouquet Project. I do have to confess a stretch of the 25 mile rule though: the ingredients came from mine and Lentil's gardens, organically grown of course; it's just that we just live quite a way from each other!

Rockin' the Casbah

 "Sharif don't like it

Rocking the Casbah

Rock the Casbah  "

Thanks to the rose above, this was the theme-tune for my entire rose planting afternoon!

It was a big day. I took a lovely drive over to see the ever generous Diana at Silkies Rose Farm to collect my much anticipated rose babies. Whittling my choices down to just twenty plants, because that is all I can fit in space-wise, at the moment; was a very hard process! In the end, I planted only what I loved, there's not a single yellow or red rose among them. Controversial?  Ah, wait 'til you see all the creams, corals and peaches I've got.

Sometimes you have to dig a little - pardon the pun - and ask a few extra questions to find like-minded people but it is always rewarding when you do. Diana and Graham at Silkies, are such people, their approach to commercial growing in a sustainable way is to be commended when so many others just take the easy route. Like me they have a deep respect for the land and as such, farm as organically as they can; with a bit of biodynamics thrown in there too. This is why my roses came from them and I firmly believe that this connection will make them happier plants in the long run.

 'Ey Wa-Lah!

One row of neatly planted, super happy sticks ... that come summer will actually resemble plants; I can't wait. 

Hush

The hush of winter has descended, sometimes you wonder if it will ever pass ... shhhhhh

Pilfered a friends garden a week or so back, because mine's asleep.

Moving and shaking

Nothing like getting sick to make you stop   ...    well, sort of, I am doing this ...

I cannot believe 2013, it's been crazy!  My bloggy silence has not been from lack of things to say but more, the lack of time to do them. I don't really buy into the whole "I am so busy" mentality but sometimes the universe just throws you some curlies to keep you on your toes and honestly, I'm getting foot cramps here! It's sort of just been one thing after another and me hanging in there with the "just get to the end of the week, just get this finished, all you have to do is make it past x, y ,z ..." self talk. 

To be quite frank, I am surprised that I have made it this far. It must be a good sign that my little body is getting bigger and tougher, usually I would have broken before now! Not that I plan on being broken just yet, either, a day or two off should do the trick, hopefully.

So, enough whingebaggin', what's been going on?

Me? I moved house & we moved the family farm.  See the nest? That was a hint. Quite a big deal, let me assure you; moving house is one thing (and not one to be sniffed at) but moving a whole working property is something else entirely. I'm just glad that the ultimate responsibility wasn't mine, I was just helping.

In between, there has been flower farming, so here's a catch-you-up:

There's been digging, rotary hoeing and raking: lots of it.

Darling Phil turned up randomly with some paeony plants for me. That's what the picture of the sticks in the ground is. So exciting. We live in a prime paeony growing region here and the first thing all the locals ask me when I say I'm growing flowers, is "Paeonies?" It gives me immense pleasure to reply "A bit of everything really. If it flowers and you can cut it, I'll grow it."

With the help of a delightful volunteer, Yvonne, we've built and planted the "shade" perennial bed. Hellebores, thalictrum, astrantia, Solomon's seal (just a few to start), heuchera, more hellebores, oak hydrangea, fragrant viburnum, snowball viburnum.... I have to keep reminding myself that they're not necessarily going to be pickable this year, or maybe even next, in some cases. That's going to be hard, man, I've never planned this far ahead!

Discovered angle-grinders.

Discovered how to fix ag pipe once you've rotary hoed it and it's spewing water everywhere. Did this all by myself, was pretty impressed. 

Installed a greenhouse. Levelled the ground, dug the frame down into it, laid a compacting gravel floor in it - I was on fire that day. It's just a little one but I was losing the war against the field mice who were eating all my seelings :-( The little buggers (and they are tiny) can get through the tiniest of holes or gaps, bait is not an option to my mind and the traps weren't doing the job. By the time I got this dinky lil guy set up, I had already lost trays and trays of baby flowers. Ahhh, the living, the learning.

The bulbs are all showing green now, the freesias are leading the way.

"Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the only things that are forever true."

A Course in Miracles

A weird week

Weird, strange, flat? Yes it has been. The weather has definitely taken a turn this last week or so (and I am a farmer these days so it's totally ok for me to dicsuss the weather). We have been very blessed this Autumn really but the frosts are definitely here now. Which means that even my little flower patch in town is feeling the chill. I have gone from complete abundance to just scraping it through in one week.

The dahlia's have pretty much given up the ghost. This will pretty much be the last of them, methinks. On the upside, I dug one up the other day to check out whether they had produced any decent tubers ... great success, a big (ish, to my proud parent's eye) clump of tuberous roots.

And that kind of sums up the week, lots of feeling blah occasionally interrupted by momentous discoveries, then back to blah. Looking forward to the coming week though, that tractor is apparently arriving tomorrow and a start has been made on my fence. Wombat-kangaroo-cow free flower farm, here we come!

Sharing is caring

Some scenes from last week's blissful afternoon on another's farm. We went to see Matt and Lentil: he grows organic fruit and veg, she grows organic flowers ... match made in heaven. Helped them weed and plant,* in just the same way folks have been coming to help me out and it was heavenly. Who'd have thunk that going and doing just what I had been doing all week on someone else's patch could be so invigorating?!

This community that I find myself in is truly a blessing.

*well sort of, everyone else worked, I did a lot of playing with the baby ... hey, it was an important role and someone had to do it!

To see more pop over and check out Lentil's gorgeous new blog: Maisy Day Flower Farm.

Ahhh, Autumn!

Some garden leftovers for neighbours of the new patch.