the Wise Robin

summer days

 

These summer days are so full. Heat & rain, heavy air, darkened rooms, midsummer, christmas, twinkling lights, journeying north, new years, family, crafting, late nights, summer reading, garden time, friends, intentions, new calendars, fresh diaries, blooming garden, frazzled garden, watering, river time, ice cream, swimming, smoke haze, bushfires, summer spring clean, linen sheets, hot winds, cooler humming, always humming....it's hot, but we've bunkered down, shades drawn, awnings beating off the heat. There's the river & the occasional storm to cool things off. Midsummer seems to come when summer is barely summer. She's only just begum to ease herself into our lives. Christmas & New Year came & went in a fantastic, delicious blur of all that is good & after travelling north & back we're now settling into the rest of our summer. There'll be more pool days & river days, camping, cinema under the stars, gardening, harvesting & a little list of things this Mama wants to do before we begin another year of homeschooling. I hope these first weeks of this new turn around the sun dear friends, find you well & happy & full of peace. 

happy new year

 

 

Happy New Year dear friends. We've had a wonderful break the past month & I hope you all have too. I love New Year even though it's tinged with sadness at saying goodbye to my favourite festival, yuletide. The new year always feels so full of promise, like each new day, but in a much bigger way. Last year I made a lot of resolutions, some achieved, some still being worked on & some not even making it off the ground. I like to dream & hope for big & beautiful things. This new year I want to pare things back, simplify. My heart has rested on two intentions. To work on growing my mindfulness in what & how I speak to myself & others, & to try my darndest to just roll with whatever the universe throws my way. I've spent a lot of time pushing against things the past few years & it's tiring. I've already started simplifying our home, emptying cupboards, wardrobes, play spaces, our art room of things that we don't need, use or want anymore. Off to the op shop we go. Our home already feels like it's breathing more freely, we have more room & less dust bunnies. Do you like to set intentions for the year? I wonder about all that positive energy out there fuelled by peoples hopes & dreams.

The river is high and ambling on its way as we head down most evenings to escape the heat. The cooler's been buzzing non stop for the past five days as the indoor temperature slowly creeps up. There's been no sign of the forecast storms, each day dawning brilliantly bright, the haze settling in not long after the sun is up. Despite the heat we've been out on the trails. Niamh is hearing cicada song for the first time. She stops in her tracks and asks "wat's dat?" Beetles my chickadee. And so now all insects have become beetles to her. "Beedle, beedle" she chants. Both girls have been sleeping in & I've been waking early, lying starfish in bed listening to the five am chorus. It starts with the littlest birds, the thornbills & weebills. Not long after the silver-eyes & blackbirds join in & then it's the wattle birds, honeyeaters, magpies & sometimes kookaburras. We have a sweet pair of grey fantails visit us in the evenings, zipping around the garden catching bugs & eyeing us cautiously. After dinner we head out into the frazzled garden. William thought I was watering, I thought William was watering & so it goes. We lost a few things & everything else has bolted throwing off green or white umbrella heads. I pulled the last of the carrots, leeks & lettuces. I'm consoled by the fact that the tomatoes are ripening, we've eaten our first batch of sweet basil pesto & we now have a more comprehensive irrigation system. I do think though that there is something therapeutic, some days, about hand watering. I used to say that too about washing dishes until we got a dishwasher.  Some afternoons I get too cabin feverish & head out in the heat regardless. On solstice Zahra & I harvested our garlic. She pulled about three head then declared it too hot & retreated indoors. I ploughed on & we now have ninety seven head of garlic in the pantry. Not bad if I do say so. I tried the old french garlic braid thing so I could hang them decoratively in the kitchen but the stalks were too dry & I was too impatient. At night we lie awake listening to the buzz of the fans & hear the possums sniggering under our windows as they head out for the evening.

The girls were thrilled with their new ladies, Miss Phyllis Mouse & Miss Dandelion Doe. Niamh calls Phyllis, Physhus, & Miss Dandelion & Juniper Kitty have both been seeing the sights from Zahra's bike basket. I've finally admitted to myself that I took on too much Christmas sewing this year...the two ladies & their accompanying wardrobes, a nighdress & a couple of peasant tops for Zahra, christmas decorations as presens for Zahra's teachers & our own decorations for the tree. I always seem to pick the really fiddly, invovled patterns. Every spare moment I had it was stitch, stitch, cut, cut & if I wasn't doing that I was thinking about it. Then our vac blew up so we ate dinner surrounded by fabric off cuts & pins, cotton trimmings & scissors each evening. Still, everyone was thrilled with their stitched gifts. Next yuletide I will simplify on the sewing front.

Now, three six five. Wonderful & challenging & time consuming & rewarding. Would I recommend it or do it again? Hmm. If we had another baby, definitely. I am however pondering the 52 project. One portrait a week for a year. Jodi sums up beautifully everything I want to say about the 365 project. How I learnt so much about photography, my gorgeous girls, the light in our home, when to engage & when to put my lens down. There were days when I lamented taking on the project but I'm ever so happy I did. I've captured an amazing year of growth & change with my girls & disproved a belief I've had in myself that I fail to carry things through to completion. Just something someone said to me once. It's funny how we take these things on. I'd love to make a movie for each of my girls with the images & I'm already contemplating a hard cover printed album. I'll take it as it comes because right now I'm focusing on that new year intention of simplicity. 

Happy 2015 friends!

 

 

 

 

 

it's beginning to look a lot like...

 

 

 When the hills are clothed in honeyed straw, the gum trees hang loose in the midday heat and sticky mango juice drips from our chins. When bare foot in the garden is not an option because of bindis & the compost heap is high with another round of lawn clippings. When the jacarandas bloom and evening storms break the day's humidity. When Bing, Nat, Frank and Michael come to stay for a month, crooning us through this month of December. When the tree goes up and the smell of fresh pine fills the house. When the Christmas books are brought out and pored over. When I'm elbow deep in felt and thread and needles and notions, when late nights become later the closer we get to summer solstice. When the windows sit tight during the day and are thrown open at night, the slightest inkling of air breezing over skin, bringing sleep. When the last of the year's school work is packed away and Mama lets out a big sigh. When the berries ripen and we head to the orchards. When the days speed up and we hurtle toward another year, then it begins to look a lot like Christmas. 

Well hello there! It feels like it's been a while since I've really been here in this space. Thankyou so very much for all your lovely words about my Nanna. We're all winding down now. William has two weeks of holidays starting this weekend and we're finishing up school this Thursday. How wonderful it feels. It has been a challenging year for me in so many ways, becoming more creative with our homeschooling routine to fit in with a certain busy toddler, broken arms and all the physio, fracture clinic, osteopath appointments that came along with it, dealing with sleep deprivation like I've never felt before, feeling isolated & craving more time to stretch my own wings, my nanna & pop passing. But I'm not going to lament any of this because we're all busy, we've all got stuff going on & now it's my favourite time of year (as opposed to my favourite season) & William will be home for two whole wonderful weeks & then it will be solstice & Christmas. It's a time of endings and beginnings. The heat is only just beginning to wind up, the garden is flourishing, we have more time for crafting and being together. The days are long but will soon begin to shorten, we'll spend more time swimming. I'll start thinking about what to knit with the wool I've been spinning, evenings will be spent down at the river. My mind will be free of school and classes and early nights and being super organised just for a while. Oh how I love this time of year, giving and sharing, traditions and lists and friends and family. It's just started raining again after another humid morning & Zahra's cello lesson has been cancelled for this afternoon, so a cup of tea and some more Christmas stitching it is! 

 

 

 

 

 

and just like that...

 

 

 

 

 

...flannelette is swapped for linen, feathers for cotton & wool for bare skin. The swollen days of spring have deflated in a frazzle with the heat. French onion soup was the last for the season, we've moved onto salads. I always forget how short spring is here, the heat taking me by surprise every year. The shell pool has been dragged out & dusted off, the girls spending the long evenings playing while I get the washing in or water the garden. The dog lies spawled on the floor panting, panting, always panting. Shhhh, just for a few moments Kaya girl. The flies buzz at the back door waiting to be let in while I prep the evening meal. "Be quick with the door girls" I have to remind constantly. Heat makes me cranky. More to the point anything over 31 degrees leaves me like a floppy fish. The doors and windows are shut tight again until next March & we fidget while waiting for the biting sun to lower his gaze so we can head to the pool. Our movements become restricted to the few hours before nine o'clock & after four, which become between the hours of eight & seven during the hottest heat of January, February. I see tradies & people jogging & wonder what they're doing, don't they know they could evaporate just like that? William heads out on his road bike with his Italian skin. Some days I feel that this land & I were never meant for each other. My complexion is much more of the Scottish Highland or windswept moors type. Summer here is sort of a thief, she steals time & energy, but gives it back as an appetite for good weather & woolens. The garden is humming along though. Carrots, celery, spring onions, snow peas, parsley, cornflowers & calendulas. Capsicums & more salad greens have gone in. My next move... pumpkins, tomatoes & a forage garden for the chooks. I've started researching honeybees & bantam chook breeds. We'd love to have bees by next spring & need to boost our feathered flock. We lost Anouk not long after Stella a few weeks back & now we have just three girls, with only one layer. Not really enough for a family of four that eat eggs every day. They've settled into their new run, Annabelle, our man hen, quite content to crow from the top of the compost heap every morning.  I've been spinning, albeit with sweaty hands, & wrapping up a few photography jobs. The last one at a local gallery where I was humbled & fortunate to be using studio gear again. With that etheric mantle free from the girls for a few hours I walked away feeling like I haven't in so long. Enlivenend & energetic & inspired. I'm asking the universe to deliver more of that. ...and just like that, dare I mention it, Christmas is around the corner. I have Miss Dandelion Doe and Miss Phylis Mouse queued up for the girls but other than that my thoughts on Christmas have been fairly few and far between. How are your ideas on Christmas shaping up? Do you manage the seasonal transition with grace or like me end up like a floppy fish?

moonstone sky

 

 

 

 

We've had a mix of sunny days & puffy clouds this week but mostly we've had moonstone skies. Niamh has started sleeping unitl eight but my body clock seems set now for five thirty. I get up before the girls and light the table candles, fill the house with the warm glow of the lamps. Outside the dawn light lasts unitl just before eight. I feel like I've finally embraced Winter for this year. It took a while to let go of Autumn but I'm really getting into the darkness & rain, the cold & grey. They make for a good excuse to stay indoors & drink tea under piles of quilts, read & bake. Zahra and I just finished The King of Ireland's Son, wow, what a great read. We talked and talked about it, had to go back over the plot to find out how he was related to her and what she was doing then, a real twisty, complex tale, like a celtic knot. We baked Great, Great, Great Grandmother's Lemon Syrup Cake from this cookbook. I've never had success with syrup cakes, the syrup always just running off & pooling in the pan. But this, this has changed my take on lemon syrup cake forever. No pooling, just moist, syrupy, lemony cake. The garden is chugging along. How anything grows or moves faster than a snail in this weather has got me. The only thing I seem to move quickly for is more lemon syrup cake.

The wintersweet is blooming at last in all it's understated beauty. Ours is tucked away in a dark corner of the yard under a giant Jacaranda. The tiny flowers have such a strong fragrance. Kind of  a spicy, jasmine, ylang, ylangy sort of scent. The first year we moved in here I spent the entire Winter taking in wafts of it's perfume and not knowing that it was this quiet, unassuming, shrub over there beneath the evergreens. Like when you find out that the quiet kid at school has this amazing talent no-one ever knew of before. Every Winter now we watch the buds until they pop, but it's usually our noses that tell us before our eyes.  It's chugging kind of weather, slow and steady. I'm chugging along with my flanelette, lap quilt & Granny's Favourite. We made Solstice beeswax candles and tin can lanterns for tomorrow. I can't tell you how much I look forward to Winter Solstice . Watching the sunrise & lighting the fire to burn last year's solstice tree, filling the house with candle light, the smell of pine & sage & woodsmoke, the beeswax figures Zahra makes for the Solstice cave, hot chocolate & toasted marshmallows, thinking about what we're letting go of and what we want to bring into our lives. Kind of like how Christmas should be in my mind...dark & cold, snow on the mountains, candlelight in the windows. I guess that's why people celebrate Christmas in July. 

Wishing you all a peaceful Solstice, be it Summer or Winter, from all of us here in the house on the hill.

 

 

 

catch up

 

135/365

 the old making the bed parachute trick. haven't met a kid that doesn't love it.

 

134/365

 

a rainy day indoors 

 

133/365

 

my little bird watcher , with breakfast on the windowsill, watching all the winter birds. eastern spine bills, silver-eyes, sparrows, white cheeked honeyeaters and wattlebirds

 

132/365

 

 

always reaching for something or other, things that are out of reach. our saftey margin on tabletops and benches is receding as niamh grows, stands on tiptoes, climbs. the back of the couch , our place to stash those few untouchables out of her reach, is no more.

 

 

last week disappered so quickly & before i knew it there were almost two weeks of 365 photos backlogged on my desktop. it was rainy& blustery, sunny & grey, foggy & cold, all sunshiny & warm. the last of the autumn weather. we spent a lot of time indoors, peering out. niamh comes to me with her wellies & a hat asking to go out. zahra is happy to stay in until the sun bursts through then she's gone , into the garden, to her fairy realm & chookie friends. i didn't do any gardening on account of the wet weather, but fed the girls with the glass-bead eyes, who didn't seem bothered by wet feet & feathers. i've been trying to get a good photo of them but they're shy & run under the big, old, apple tree when they see me coming. their eyes are big & black, shiny like onyx & they have petticoat upon petticoat of feathery pantaloons.  we made rhubarb pie & walked through damp paddocks, where chimney smoke & setting sun mingled. there were perfect early morning spider webs & fresh greens to pick from our garden. the last of the roses are opening & soon it will be time to prune, set them to bed until spring. the greyness of winter is usually a welcome sight to me. it means cosying up, knitting, soups & hot chocolate, baking & snow. but for some reason this year i'm dreading the few short, sharp, months of winter & am eager for spring already. not sure what that's about. could be the indoor laundromat we've got going on or the lack of mud room & the bobillion pairs of muddy shoes & mud inside at the backdoor, right in the kitchen.  i do know i need gumboots though. easy in & easy out, into the yard, the vegie garden, up to the compost heap, first thing in the morning to feed the girls. my last pair finally died, so gumbot shopping i must go. i did do some early christmas shopping, can you believe it, i'm feeling very organised. i ordered the miss juniper kitty for zahra and miss phyllis mouse for niamh & another ornament kit which i use as stocking stuffers. that alicia is so talented. the indoor time has been good for sitting down to some knitting. i'm trying out my first lace pattern. if anyone had asked me a few years back if i'd be knitting something fancy pants like this i would have laughed, because back then a rib stitch was challenging. but here i am, following a lace chart of all things & even though i frogged it a dozen times i really am enjoying it. it's challenging & new. who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. so this week i'll be thinking about mud room solutions, waiting for the postie, dodging hanging laundry, going about our general homeschooling rhythm, knitting, purling, passing slipped stitches over and going horseriding for the first time in five years. i can't telll you how excited and nervous my tummy feels. happy working week wherever you may be.

 

 

this past month

 

No matter how hard I've thought about making it here over the past month, it just hasn't happened. With the all day vomiting and nausea of this pregnancy abating just enough this week, thanks to the ingestion of copious bottles of ginger beer, I'm starting to feel a little more excited every day. The past month has been full yet slow in so many ways...

 

 

our first very exciting and very pink, sugar plum fairy Nutcracker season

 

 

last minute Christmas stocking stuffer stitching

 

 

a Summer berry picking expedition

 

 

a visit to the Southern Ocean to enjoy her cool currents and stormy skies

 

 

knitting for the babe

 

 

staying cool indoors with the unrelenting forty degree temperatures

 

 

resting and more knitting

 

 

early morning rising before the heat starts to bite

 

 

growing and evening baths

 

 

still more knitting for the babe and a pregnancy favourite, potato salad.

 

Hope you are all enjoying Summer days that are full and slow too.

xoC

sitting and stitching

 

 

This morning I found myself alone in the quiet of the early hours surrounded by a tidy house. I do love waking up to a clear kitchen bench and not tripping over books or half finished craft projects on the way to the stove to put the kettle on. I love these precious days, soul food I call them. I notice my patience pockets are more full and it's easy to hold cranky words still when I get a few moments of solitude first thing in the mornings. They don't happen so often at the moment , my pregnant belly demanding my body sleep more and more.

 I haven't been visiting this space nearly as much as I think about it. In fact there are a lot of things that aren't getting done right now. I have a long list of those. But they can wait because I know that they'll inevitably get done, crossed off, rubbed out or forgotten about eventually. A clunky computer that needs a good declutter and nearly forty degree heat don't help matters, along with  a babe bouncing around in my belly. Well, they're the excuses I'm sticking with for the moment anyway. Right now the only thing I seem to want to do more than anything is to sit and stitch. Whenever I get a spell to sit I find myself reaching for that old embroidery tin. I even missed last Tuesday's yoga class to take the dog up the hill so I could sit and sticth while she fossicked. So this morning, with my peeps still asleep and a cool breeze blowing through the window before the heat of the day kicked on, I reached for needle and thread.

This morning I'm finishing off the last of the Snowy Day decorations and I must admit I'm a little sad at the prospect of these little beauties coming to an end, much like the sadness you feel when a gripping book comes to the last page, and also nervous as I don't have any follow up projects. I keep peering into my knitting basket at the projects left a while back in favour of needle and thread, but they just don't take my fancy like floss and felt are right now.

 

In between the cross sticth of a Selbu mitten and the icy sequins on a polar bear I've been sticthing away on a few bookmark stocking fillers. As I sit and sticth they sit and read.

 

 

Zahra even occassionally joins me making her own decorations for the tree, another thing on that long list, collaboarting on some Solstice birds, modelling and needle felting a St.Nic. He seems to be her theme this year along with Ruprecht. Last year her theme was Charlie Dicken's  A Christmas Carol. She even left her shoes out on St.Nicholas night hoping for some Lebkuchen. He and his belly, ahem, were much obliging.

 

One thing that did get ticked off that long list was our advent wreath. It may have come a little late... but you all know the saying. Off to find some new stitching projects. Any ideas?

 

Happy stitching dear friends

Cxo

cicada song

 

With the cicada's in full swing , temperatures rising, the surrounding hills taking on a paler hue and  doors closing to keep out the heat, the shift in seasons is certainly upon us. This morning our postman delivered some eagerly awaited crafting materials and books, so Zahra and I  declared our Summer Solstice crafting season officially open. We have a tradition of waiting until December before cracking open the decoration box, Christmas books and music but crafting which is usually left to the last minute has begun early this year.  Zahra hid herself away in her room this morning issuing strict instructions not to come in. She emerged a few hours later declaring all of her Solstice gifting complete and wrapped apart from a trip to the store for some chocolate ( Green and Blacks Dark, with a hint of Madagascar vanilla please).

The snow day embroidery sampler I ordered from Rosy Little Things, back when I was lying on the couch in that first trimester haze, is taking shape quite nicely. They're fiddly things, but oh so beautiful when finished and great for slowing things down. I think I'm living vicariously through that adorable red coat with mittens. Ever since a little girl I've always dreamed of a wearing a red coat through the winter months, there's something kind of fairy tale about them.

Making this time of year meaningful for us in a southern hemisphere context is always a challenge. Everything apart from the old, cliched Santa Claus driving a ute and wearing thongs, which doesn't really fit for us,  takes on a northern seasonal bent of snow and holly, which I must admit I do love, (another dream of mine... to have a white Christmas). This year I'm going to try a little harder to weave some of our own seasonal magic into Solstice.

happy seasonal crafting to you dear friends

Cxo

undressing the tree

 

As a kid I remember the yearly hunts for our Christmas tree. Dad in his truck, with my sister and I  looking for a rogue tree. I use the word rogue because we've always opted for Radiata pines. These trees, although planted in large plantations by landholders and Forests NSW as a sustainable timber source, are listed as a weed when outside these boundaries. This year I tossed up buying an artificial tree. I looked around and saw some beautiful trees but I kept thinking about the smell of pine in the house and having that breath of green which has been a part of my Christmas since I was a child. So I was really chuffed when I found a local nursery selling beautifully shaped, purpose grown Radiata pines for Rotary. By purchasing our tree here we were not only bypassing the work of looking for our own tree but we were contributing to a worthwhile charity....and maintaining a family tradition. 

Undressing the tree is always touched with a little sadness and sentimentality for me because it really brings home that it is the end of Solstice and Christmas for another year...my very most favourite time of year. Amidst the chaos and fast pace that December brings this time of year means, making and giving, baking and eating, magic and loved ones.  

Just before bringing in the New Year we undressed our tree. As each decoration came down I was thinking about what we would do with our tree. The thought of composting or placing it in the green waste didn't seem quite fitting for something so special.

So on our first super hot Summer day, with sweat trickling I resized our tree and stacked it ready for our Winter Solstice fire. Our Christmas tree will keep on bringing warmth and magic when the days are cold and nights long. A new tradition that fits well and makes me smile.

warmly

Cxo

last minute making

Those last minute moments of making are all coming together...even if there is the odd gift half knitted under the tree.

Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas filled with merriment and love

~

Cxo

a breath of green

 

today stockings were made and hung...

and a breath of Christmas green brought it's delicious smell into our home.

There's something satisfying and soul soothing about dressing the tree...the colour, the smell, the music, the lights, family gathering together...I love it.

The tree brings with it a beautiful, calming energy that make the lists of things to do between now and Solstice seem inconsequential.

~ Cxo

 

 

getting our groove on

 

The Christmas crafting has been, well,  a little slow, to say the least, around these parts. There's been plenty of planning, a lot of looking at the beautiful making going on all over blogland and even a few supply trips. Then this morning we discovered a house sparrow had made it's way into the art room. One puzzled Mama, an excited little and one very curious dog looking on certainly did nothing to calm this little bird. After discovering the screens were bolted into the window frames, closing off doors and trying to gently usher our sparrow out through the front doors with no success we left it to rest and maybe find it's own way out.

Meanwhile we finally found our Christmas crafty groove ....and it felt good, just pottering and making. I'd be painting too pretty a picture if I didn't tell you that it's taken a while, well most of December really, to find our seasonal crafting groove. I was beginning to wonder that it hadn't disappeared all together this year. But then the sparrow came. What does a sparrow have to do with creating and making I hear you say! Through a friends suggestion that a bird in the house was something special, a message of sorts, I decided to do some digging. Turns out that a bird indoors, or more specifically a bird that circles your living area three times, is a symbol of ill fortune or death. Hmmn. This wasn't rocking my boat, and besides it was in the art room not the lounge, so I dug further and found out that a sparrow indoors heralds simplicity, creativity and productivity. Of course, I should have known a sparrow indoors was all that was needed to help us find our rhythm!

~

Cxo

Oh... and a quick manoeuvre with a tea towel was just the ticket to setting our sparrow friend free.

 

 

 

these Christmas skates

 

(my go to pattern, Saartje's bootees, in Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo... yummy to knit with)

I'm a list maker.  And right now my list is growing rather than shrinking. It should be shrinking because most of the things on my list are Christmas crafty, present type things and the number of days between right now and Christmas are slowly dwindling. I've written the list, cleaned my workspace and played with ideas...all that's left to do amidst the baby crafting, birthday making  and seasonal get togethers, is to actually start. Herein lies the problem. Where to start. Maybe that knitted present that I've yet to by wool for, or the needle felted stocking stuffer, and indeed the stockings themselves. Or perhaps Sasha,the doll Zahra has has fallen in love with, the homemade decorations I'd still like to hang or the sewing for my sister. So many choices, so little time.

(Nutcracker by Sarah Jane Studios, tree is Zahra's)

(design by SoSpetember)

There have been small inroads in the decoration department over the past few weeks but these December days have been so crazy, busy that I haven't had time to strap my proverbial Christmas crafting skates on...yet. So this week I have cleared my calendar and I'm looking forward to being at home catching up with my needles and thread, wool and fabric, scissors and machine...slowing down.

Hoping there are moments of stillness and slowing down for you throughout this busy season

warmly

Chontelle