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 | Aug 28, 2019 | Winter
It’s raining.
Just saying those words aloud has made me cry a few times this morning. And laugh with unfettered joy.
It. Is. Raining.
It’s not enough to break this hellish drought, not near enough, but it IS enough to grant us a reprieve, to give us hope, to bolster our spirits with rain-washed air and that luscious smell of damp earth.
It’s enough to wash dust-encrusted leaves and give new seeds and seedlings a boost.
It’s enough to add some precious water to our rainwater tanks and maybe enough to grow a little grass to keep our animals and local wildlife going a bit longer.
It’s cold outside, but our windows are flung open to welcome in the freshest air we’ve breathed in a long time and let us listen to the glorious symphony of raindrops falling on our tin roof.
Thank you, dear rain. You are so very, very welcome here.
This morning we celebrated the rain with sourdough French toast and huge cups of coffee and by declaring a holiday. We have solemnly sworn to only do fun and happy and cosy things today: great books read under the covers, old movies that make us grin, walks in the rain, hot chocolate, and the most comforting of comfort foods.
We’ve been celebrating a lot lately. Not because life is consistently jolly and celebratory, but because it’s been ridiculously hard, scary, stressful, awful, no-good, exhausting, and yucky, and at such times celebrations are vital to survival.
The last time I wrote to you I had returned home after nearly a month in the hospital. It was a traumatic time, to say the least, and we were looking forward to peaceful, pleasant weeks of recovery while we planned for a brighter future.
Then my doctors found cancer on my head, and our peaceful, pleasant world lurched to a standstill.
They said things like, “We think it’s malignant, but we’re hoping it hasn’t spread to the skull or the brain,” then booked me for surgery and the waiting game began.
We were scared and sad and tired. We’d already faced and made peace with the possibility of my death while I was in the hospital, and here we were, only a few weeks later, facing it all over again and trying not to live in fear. But that’s the thing about cancer. It is scary. Especially during the we-know-you-have-cancer-but-we-don’t-know-what-type-so-we’re-going-to-cut-open-your-head-and-hope-for-the-best times.
So we did the bravest thing we knew to do: we talked about it. All of it. The sad, the scary, the what-ifs. And we let ourselves feel. All of it. The sadness, the fear, the hope. When we caught ourselves stuffing things down trying to put on a brave front, we stopped and un-stuffed those things and brought them back into the light where they could be processed and released.
We also hibernated and took the best care of ourselves we possibly could. We rested and read beloved books, watched favourite movies and had cuppas on the back veranda, looked for treasures at second-hand stores and ate the foods we like best.
My surgery was August 9. It took 2 hours longer than anticipated and left me with a partially shaved head and a 10 cm incision that was held together with a dizzying number of staples. Last week the staples were removed and the doctor gave us the good news: they got all of the cancer and I was officially cancer-free.
We cried. We laughed. We hugged a lot.
And I realized my hibernation time was only just beginning. It turns out that when you go through one physical trauma after another, your body finally says, “Hey mate, let’s rest, OK?”
So I’ve been resting as a happy little hermit, treasuring the gift of life, knowing that this year has changed me deeply, knowing that is a wonderful thing.
Yesterday something happened that still makes me smile. I was pottering in my gardens, planting purple snow peas, cucumbers, and French beans as an act of hope that rain might fall today when Fezzik started barking and jumping around madly. I looked up and there was this chap sitting contentedly in the branches of the golden rain tree that overhangs the garden.
I could hardly believe it! In my eight years on our Australian farm, I’ve never seen a koala. Not once. I’ve seen a giant goanna clamber up the gum tree outside our bedroom window, found an echidna waddling through the bush, spotted innumerable kangaroos and wallabies in our fields, but never a koala.
Bear helped me set up a tall ladder and I stood up there for ages watching this beautiful animal. He watched me too, not nervous or angry, just curious. We knew he couldn’t stay – koalas do not eat golden rain trees – so we enjoyed his presence as long as we could before tying up the dogs and leaving him alone to mosey along to his next destination.
We’re so glad he stopped in for a visit to brighten our day.
