Pick Your Own

This is the sort of thing I had in mind when we moved to the country. The overflowing backyard veggie patch has always been in the picture (yet to be realised) but I wanted to be near places we could visit to pick our own food. There's something about an orchard that gets me all nostalgic. I spent a few years in my childhood living in a house in the middle of an apple orchard, and while the glasses have definitely taken on a rosy hue, I'm sure I'm not exaggerating when I say we spent our weekends running up and down the rows eating fruit straight from the tree. 

Even though apples aren't uncommon in this area, and plenty of people seem to have a tree or two in their backyard, I hadn't been able to locate a proper pick-your-own farm.

Then a friend told me last week about a place not far from here that was once run as an organic farm, and is now a meditation retreat. It's set on a beautiful patch of land alongside an enormous, neglected orchard with rows of apple trees of all different varieties. The fruit is falling from the trees and rotting on the ground - the birds are having a field day. 

So armed with our inside knowledge, my littlest pair and some dear friends put on our gumboots, grabbed some baskets and set out. We were warned about wombat holes and rabbit warrens, then invited to help ourselves. The kids ran wild while my friend and I sampled the wares, grabbing a handful of the sweetest, a selection of the crispest, as we came across them. Every tree held a different fruit, none of them labelled. The prettiest often seemed the most lacking in flavour. Ironically, after traipsing the length of several rows, I decided that my favourite had been the first one we'd tasted. Luckily we were able to find that tree again, and the basket was topped up.

Now I have to turn my attention to what to do with all that fruit. Apple pie, anyone?

A is for Apple

 

For a brief time as a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. Noble as that career path would have been, I know it was less about a desire to educate and more about being able to write on the blackboard*. My short stint as a teenager giving piano lessons to a handful of neighbourhood kids drove the final nail into the coffin. As highly as I value education, and as much as I love to learn, I am not a teacher.

But back when I entered Year 2, back when 'teacher' was the answer I gave to every well-meaning adult who asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I took to school a set of handmade flashcards that I'd stayed up most of the previous night making. I had thought it through, you see, and I was going to teach my little sister and her kindergarten colleagues how to read. I think it lasted one lunchtime before they gave up on me and headed off to play chasies.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. One evening last week, this was the scene taking place in our lounge room - a very grown-up six-year-old taking it upon herself to teach her little sisters the alphabet. And perhaps she has more of the teacher's spirit than me, because she turned it into a game, sending them off for an apple from the fruit bowl, a xylophone from the music basket, a plastic horse from a bedroom, to illustrate her lesson.

They fight and argue with the best of them, these three, but it's these shiny bright moments of cooperation and care, the encouragement shown by a big sister, and the adoration of two little girls for one big girl, that lets me know we're doing OK.

* Showing my age, I know.

Lately

++ Visits with dear friends

++ The re-arrangement of the stuff

++ A very important birthday celebration. Four! My babies!

++ The brightening up of corners in our new home

++ Handmade gifts from lovely little people (whose mother allows glitter! Brave woman.)

We're settling into the same old rhythm within these new walls. The work/school routine is keeping us busy. So much is so good right now. There's uncertainty, yes, but such possibility. 

{Thank you for your beautiful comments on this post, and for welcoming me back with open arms. I don't know where I'll fit this blogging lark into my already overflowing days, but it means too much to me to let it go.}

Afresh

I fell off my blog.

I've been trying to climb back on it. There are so many reasons, some simple, some  really quite profound. But mostly it's just time. In the several-times-a-day scuffle with priorities, it seems to have fallen in a great heap at the bottom of the enormous pile. Even lower than the washing, which is saying something (and which is also an enormous pile).

So while I try to work out the ropes and rigging (for the climbing back on, you know), I'll enjoy fresh sunflowers on a table in desperate need of oil. The table, which once sat pristine and unused in my grandparents' formal dining room, now graces the kitchen in my new home. MY NEW HOME! It's a tiny house that needs a lot of love, but has already been transformed, in the space of less than a month, by paint and scrubbing brushes, the  incredible generosity of good friends, and the laughter, shouting and singing of my three gorgeous girls.

I'm about 50 days late, but happy new year! Here's to fresh beginnings.

Wild Plum Jam

After our little foraging trip, we had a kilo of wild plums, tiny and more sour than sweet. I roasted them to soften them then pushed the pips out, one by one. I transferred the soupy flesh to a saucepan, added sugar, then watched it bubble and simmer until it was sticky and jammy. Then I poured it into scalding hot jars, left them to cool, then tied it all up with string.

The end result - tart, not too sweet, perfect on a scone. Hopefully not poisonous. 

{Washi tape purchased from my old friend, the Craft Queen.}

Christmas Pickings

A change in our living circumstances this year has meant we don't have a garden, at least not much of one to speak of. We have land, a huge expanse of vacant lawn, but lack of inspiration and the short-term rental thing means we haven't done anything out there. But we live at the end of a little dirt lane, one that I meander down regularly. And a recent wander revealed a bounty of produce. So one evening last week, my babes and I went a-foraging to see what we could see.

When we returned, we had a big bucket of wild plums, a posy of pretty weeds, apple branches that we twisted together with some mysterious berried shrub to form our Christmas wreath (and the tiny apples looked quite festive, too, in a glass bowl) and a bunch of spiky holly. It brightened up our 'for now but not forever' home beautifully. All in all, a festive foraging success.

Oh, and Merry Christmas! I hope yesterday was fun and messy and noisy and a just little bit excessive - it certainly was for us.

{I'll be back in a couple of days to show you what we did with those wild plums}

Tree

I was digging around for my Christmas spirit. I knew I'd left it somewhere. After the year we've had, the loss, the massive change, I wasn't sure where it could be.

And then, in the space of 24 hours, we hit up a local carol evening, and sang and danced in the rain. We drove home via the crazy lit-up Griswold houses. We visited Santa for the obligatory half-thrilled, half-terrified photo. We travelled along beautiful country roads to pick out a tree and cut it down. And we chose a corner of our home in which to set it up and decorate it.

And suddenly, there it was. Suddenly I was making pompom garlands and homemade gifts for teachers, downloading Bing Crosby and ordering ham. Every evening we turn on the lights and do a stocktake of the pressies underneath the tree. 

No, you can't open them yet. Yes, you have to wait till Christmas morning. 

Only three more sleeps.

Handmade Christmas Giveaway

Head on over to Christina Lowry Designs - I'm featured today! And better still, you can win an incredible selection of handmade goodness for Christmas, including one of my hand-knit hats in the winner's choice of style and colour. Quick, it closes tomorrow!

Crackers

The party had a robot theme. I, being me, suggested we get into the swing of things and make some robot masks to wear. They, being them, decided we needed to add a touch of flair - a bunny robot, a three-horned unicorn robot and a horse robot. Neigh.

They're crackers, all three of them. Gloriously, beautifully, relentlessly, seriously crackers.

Absence

I had thought to begin this post with, "I was wandering through the house wondering if I'd ever blog again." Which led me to envision myself in something flowing, moving slowly, fingers draping absently along dust-free surfaces, deep in contemplation.

But none of that ever happens, the flowing, the slowly, the draping. (The dust-free).

I'm here and I'm busy and I'm accepting it may never relent. I'm smiling more than I'm not. My girls are well and beautiful. It's November already. I'll find my way back to this space with time. I've been feeling its absence.