August - A Season of Becoming

Dear Friends,

August has felt like a month of beginnings.

The beginning of lambing.  The first poppies opening in the flower field.  Ranunculus stems slowly lengthening towards the light.  Peonies waking beneath their winter mulch.  Paddocks being prepared and sown for another season of poppies.

Everywhere I looked this month, something seemed to be beginning.

And yet, amongst all of that new life and possibility, I found myself wishing time would slow down.

Winter has always felt like a season that asks us to pause. To rest. To take stock of what has been, and quietly preparing for what is to come.  But somehow, this August, the days seemed to disappear before I had the chance to catch up with them.

There were lambs to check, gardens to weed, paddocks to prepare, flowers to harvest, records to review, family to spend time with and a home that still seems to have an ever-growing list of jobs waiting for me.

Perhaps that is simply life.

Beautiful and full, and often moving faster than we would like.

This month has reminded me that there is so much beauty in the becoming.

But becoming takes time.

Nothing in nature rushes.

And perhaps I need to remember that more often.

 

In Bloom This Month

August has brought the first real signs that the flower farm is beginning to wake from winter.

There has been plenty of weeding and mulching this month, preparing the beds for the season ahead and doing my best to stay one step ahead of the weeds. As a mostly solo flower farmer, with the occasional and very welcome help of the beautiful Penny, I am always looking for ways to make the garden more manageable without relying on chemicals.

This year, I decided to mulch the peony rows with silage in the hope that it will help suppress weed growth and reduce the hours spent hand weeding throughout the season. With over a thousand peonies now planted, anything I can do to make the job a little more manageable feels worthwhile.

I am hopeful the mulch will do its job without causing any problems for the plants.

And slowly, beneath it all, the peonies are beginning to wake.

The first foliage to appear has been from one of my earliest varieties, Coral Charm. After months of looking at rows of bare soil and quietly wondering what was happening beneath the surface, seeing those first shoots push their way through the ground feels incredibly exciting.

There is something almost magical about the way peonies disappear completely for winter, only to return again when the time is right.

A reminder that sometimes growth is happening even when we cannot see it.

The Iceland poppies have also begun to bloom, opening in so many beautiful colours that every harvest feels like a little surprise.

After each harvest, Olive and I have developed a small tradition. We choose two of our favourite colours from the bunches.  Olive says the colours remind her of summer, her favourite season, and she has already requested that there always be a vase of poppies beside her bed. 

 I think I understand why.

There is something so cheerful about poppies. Even on the coldest winter days, their colours feel like a promise of warmer days ahead.

Some of the ranunculus have also started flowering, and I have begun harvesting the first stems. At this stage, I am cutting them regularly to encourage the plants to continue producing and to encourage longer stems as the season progresses.

It is still only the beginning.  But after months of planting, waiting and tending, the flower farm is slowly beginning to give something back.

There have also been a few changes to the flower farm itself this month.

In my first season of flower farming, I laid black plastic along the paths between the beds. In theory, it seemed like a practical solution, but the longer it was there, the more I realised I didn’t like it.  I didn’t love the way it looked aesthetically and, because the flower farm sits on a slight hill, I also found it surprisingly slippery. With old stems lying across the paths and damp winter conditions underfoot, I had a few slips that convinced me it was time for a change.

So, the black plastic has now been removed and grass seed has been sown along the peony paths instead.

The grass I sowed earlier in the annual flower section has already established well enough to mow, which meant I recently found myself purchasing a narrow petrol mower.  It does a wonderful job.  Looking back now, I probably should have planned fewer flower beds with wider paths between them so I could simply use the ride-on mower.

Instead, I will be getting plenty of exercise with the push mower.

Perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

One of the things I am most excited about this month is that I finally ordered myself a garden shed.

At the moment, my greenhouse and garage are overflowing with garden tools, dahlia tubers and everything else that seems to accumulate when you spend as much time in the garden as I do.  I am very much looking forward to having one dedicated place where everything can be stored properly and kept organised.

And perhaps, most excitingly, I will finally be able to use my greenhouse for its actual purpose.  My brother-in-law is planning on putting the slab down in the next couple of weeks, and I am already imagining how wonderful it will feel to have everything in its place.

Penny and I also spent time this month working our way through some of those late-winter garden jobs that quietly prepare everything for the season ahead.  Together we pruned the roses and hydrangeas, fertilised the garden and pruned my espalier fruit trees.

There is something about winter gardening that feels very different to the growing season.  Much of the work is not immediately visible.

You prune, mulch, fertilise and prepare, knowing that the results will not appear overnight.

You simply trust that the work you are doing now will make a difference later.

I think there is probably a lesson in that.

 

On the Farm

August has been full swing into lambing.

Every day begins with checking the lambing mobs, making sure new mothers are caring for their lambs and keeping an eye out for any animals that might need a little extra help.

Throughout lambing, we collect any lambs that have been mis-mothered or orphaned and bring them home.

The weakest lambs are brought inside first, often finding themselves beside the fire while we work to warm them up. If a lamb is too weak to suck properly, I stomach tube it with artificial colostrum. Stronger lambs are given a bottle.

For the first twenty-four hours, they receive artificial colostrum before being transitioned onto milk replacer.  Once they are strong enough, they move down to our lambing shed.  Inside, we have pens set up with plenty of straw and heat lamps, along with an automatic lamb feeder.

The feeder allows the lambs access to milk whenever they are hungry, creating something a little closer to the way they would naturally feed from their mothers rather than relying on only four large bottle feeds each day.  We have found that the automatic feeder gives us better survival rates.  From a purely financial perspective, raising orphan lambs on milk replacer probably isn’t the most profitable exercise. But for us, it is also about animal welfare.

And, quite honestly, there are only so many lambs one person can bottle raise.  The automatic feeder allows us to care for more lambs while giving them regular access to milk when they need it.

It has also become one of Olive’s favourite places to spend time.  Any chance she gets, she runs down the hill to the lambing shed.  She can spend hours down there talking to the lambs and playing amongst the pens.  There is something very sweet about watching her with them.

For Olive, the lambing shed is full of new friends.

While August has been busy here at home, Duncan was also lucky enough to be chosen to attend a growers’ trip to Kununurra with a group of other Tasmanian farmers.

The trip gave him the opportunity to see how farmers in the Ord River region grow crops under irrigation, while also experiencing a part of Australia completely different to Tasmania.  It was a wonderful opportunity to learn, meet new people and form new friendships.  I always think there is something incredibly valuable about stepping outside your own familiar way of doing things.

Sometimes seeing how other people live and work is what helps you look at your own life with fresh eyes.

There has also been plenty happening in the cropping enterprise.

The paddocks are being prepared for another season of poppies.  First, the paddocks are sprayed off. Then the ground is worked and prepared before sowing begins.  We now have two paddocks sown, with one more still to go.  Before that final paddock can be planted, however, there is still the rather less glamorous job of rock picking to finish.

Farming is often like that.

The big milestones are exciting—planting, harvesting, watching new crops emerge from the ground.  But so much of the work happens in the jobs surrounding those moments.

The preparation.  The maintenance.  The things that need to be done before anything else can begin.

August has also been a month of numbers and reflection for Duncan and me.

We have started working through our financial and production records as part of our annual benchmarking process.  We are members of Farm Owners Academy, a farm business coaching program focused on improving farm businesses through better systems, understanding your numbers and developing the mindset required to continually improve.

For us, benchmarking is an opportunity to step back from the day-to-day work and look at the bigger picture.

To understand what is working.  What isn’t.  Where we have improved.  And where there is still room to do better.

It is easy in farming to become completely absorbed in the immediate jobs in front of you.  There is always another paddock to check, another crop to monitor or another job waiting to be done.  Taking the time to look back at the numbers and review the systems behind the farm is a different kind of work.

But it is important work.

Because if we want to continue building a better farm for our family and the future, we need to understand where we are now before we can decide where we want to go next.

 

From the Kitchen Table

This month, the store room has been reminding me just how quickly a year passes.  As I look along the shelves, they are slowly beginning to empty.  Only a couple of jars of preserved fruit remain. We are running low on canned beetroot. The raspberry jam has all but disappeared, there are no canned tomatoes left, and the freezer is beginning to look considerably emptier than it did at the beginning of the year.

That was always the plan.  I wanted us to use what we preserved.  But perhaps not quite this early.  As the children grow, so do their appetites, and this year has made me realise that I need to preserve considerably more next season.

There is something rather satisfying about reaching this point in winter and knowing that the food on our shelves has been enjoyed.  After all, there is little point preserving it simply to look at it.  Still, I think I will be planning a little more generously next summer.

The vegetable garden has also started receiving some much-needed attention.

I have been tidying the beds, weeding and mulching around the blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, hoping for an abundant berry season to help fill the shelves once again.

I am continuing with my no-till approach throughout the vegetable garden and still have two more beds to prepare before summer planting begins.

The plan is simple.  Cardboard over the existing surface.  A generous layer of compost.  And then, when the weather finally begins to warm, summer vegetables planted directly into the beds.

There is something deeply satisfying about preparing an empty garden bed.

It is full of possibility.

Another favourite from the kitchen this month has been Ma Ma’s choc chip cookies.  I am incredibly lucky to have my mother-in-law living just down the road.  She is eighty-seven this year and still loves spoiling her grandchildren, regularly making baked treats for their lunchboxes.  The children absolutely love it.  And I won’t pretend that having one less thing to think about each week doesn’t make my life a little easier too.  There is something very special about having these small acts of care woven into everyday family life.

The sort of things that can easily seem ordinary at the time but, I suspect, will one day become some of the children’s fondest memories.

Ma Ma’s Choc Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 170g butter
• 170g plain flour
• 85g icing sugar
• 57g cornflour
• 1 packet choc bits

Method

• Cream the butter and icing sugar together.
• Add the sifted flour and cornflour and mix well.
• Stir through the choc bits.
• Roll into small balls and place on a lined baking tray. Flatten slightly with a fork.
• Bake in a moderate oven for 10–15 minutes.

 

Gathered at Home

August has been full in the very best sense of the word.  Full of family, old connections and new beginnings.  And moments that reminded me just how much I value having the people I love close by.

My sister and her family came to visit this month for a Sunday lamb roast.  There was woodcutting, family time and the opportunity to take them on a tour of the new farm we purchased earlier this year, which they hadn’t yet had the chance to see.  There is something exciting about showing family a place that is still so new to us.

Walking through the paddocks together.  Pointing out the possibilities.  Imagining what the future might hold there.  Another piece of our family story slowly beginning.

One of the loveliest surprises of the month has been reconnecting with my cousin from my father’s side of the family.  I hadn’t seen him for more than twenty years, and after moving from Queensland to Tasmania, he is now living much closer to us.

He also happens to be a plasterer.  Which proved to be rather perfect timing.  He came to the rescue and repaired the cornicing in our laundry that had fallen down, as well as putting up new cornice in the kitchen where I had removed an overhead cupboard and replaced it with a range hood after getting my new oven last year.

But more than having jobs finished around the house, it has simply been lovely reconnecting with family after so many years.  My children have also loved getting to know his two sons—their new cousins.  Having more of my family here in Tasmania feels incredibly special.  For so many years, much of my family has lived far away.  There is something comforting about knowing that perhaps some of those family connections will now have the chance to grow closer again.

If I am honest, August has also been a month where I have felt overwhelmed.

There were things I had hoped to get done around the house over winter.  Projects I imagined finishing.  Rooms I wanted to organise.  Changes I wanted to make.  But somehow, the days disappeared.  One moment it was the beginning of winter and suddenly we are standing at the edge of spring.

Sometimes I wish life could simply slow down.  I want more time to enjoy the home we are building.  More time to sit in the garden rather than always working in it.  More time to walk around the farm without thinking about the next job waiting to be done.  More time with Duncan and the children before another year quietly passes.  I want to enjoy this life while we are living it.

Not simply rush from one season to the next.

And perhaps that is something I need to keep reminding myself.

Nature does not expect everything to happen at once.

A seed does not become a flower overnight.

A tree takes years to grow.

A garden is never truly finished.

And perhaps neither is a home.

Or a farm.

Or a life.

We are always becoming.

Always growing.  Always adding another small piece to the picture.

Maybe I don’t need to have everything finished.  Maybe I simply need to notice how far we have already come.

 

Field Notes

August has been a month of beginnings.

New lambs arriving into the world.

Poppies opening for the first time.

Peonies pushing through the soil.

Paddocks being planted.

Gardens being prepared.

Old family connections becoming new again.

And somewhere amongst all of that, a reminder that growth takes time.

I have spent much of this month wishing there were more hours in the day.

More time to finish the jobs.

More time to enjoy the things I have already worked so hard to create.

But perhaps the answer isn’t to do more.

Perhaps it is simply to slow down enough to notice.

To notice Olive running down the hill to visit her lambs.

To notice the first Coral Charm shoots appearing through the mulch.

To notice the cheerful colours of poppies on the kitchen table.

To notice family gathered around a Sunday roast.

To notice how far a garden can come in just one season.

And to remember that there is no need to rush what is still growing.

August has reminded me that we don’t need to have everything figured out.

Some things simply need time.

Until next month,

From the Paddock.