     This week we celebrated Beren's sixth birthday. A fellow April, autumn baby, he is full of wonder for creatures big and small, adventure stories, board games, jumping on the trampoline, space and lego. He is learning to read and do sums in his head, scrub the dishes and write words, not to mention loosing those baby teeth left, right and centre! He is passionate and tender, quick to make friends wherever we go, giver of big cuddles and asker of curious questions // It was extra special to celebrate his birthday dinner with two sets of grandparents present as last year we couldn't see them! He requested "a chocolate six cake with raspberries and eggs".
God bless all your days Bear xx
2 Comments
       So many things made Christmas feel special this year: waking up with my sister and a dear friend to celebrate with us // Filling the house with flowers from the garden: feverfew, smoke bush, hydrangeas, valerian, lavender, dahlias and nasturtiums // Feasting on so many delicious things like ricotta pancakes for breakfast, trout gravlax Alex prepared, creamy potato salad with homegrown dill, rosemary crackers the boys helped me make with the best local pate, pavlova adorned with fresh fruit, cherries and roasted peanuts in their shells // Spending the afternoon outside in the mild summer air napping, playing games and reading books // Watching the house grow dark and quiet after all the excitement and intensity of the day // Lighting all the advent candles and saying a payer of thanksgiving for the Christchild and all the gifts He brings...
      "His eyes can read the animal atmosphere;
And see through their silence to sense their minds. His skilled hands can guide calves and lambs to birth. Out among his animals, in rain, cold and snow, Talking to them in affectionate callings, Something in him turned to their rhythm. In these times when geography becomes virtual And developers urbanise the earth May the farmer continue to hold true ground, Keeping the intimate knowing of the clay alive, Nourishing us with the fruits of the earth, Serving as custodian of that precious threshold where The rhythm of nature with its serene pulse And sublime patience restores our minds." From John O'Donohue's blessing "For the farmer" We've been farming for seven years this month. Alex and I have known each other longer in the world of dirt, chickens, bees, cows, eggs, poo, grasses, farmers markets and small children longer than anything else. We wear the lines and strain of seven years fumbling, experimenting, learning how to grow food: care for creature, root and worm. Seven years studded with wonder and provision, fatigue and injury. Seven years of benefiting from the wisdom - the loving - of others: local farmers young and old, educators, writers, activists, friends, family, customers, neighbours, strangers. Overwhelmed for seven years with the state of our world; our earth; our tables, our hearts. Remembering good things are worth fighting for: worth the time and sacrifice; that there's more than just ourselves; that we must remain curious; that we are made to know place; we are made for regeneration. Farming is a profession of hope. But then, isn't all seed planting? Growing a garden, yes, but also teaching, learning, making with your hands, parenting, healing, understanding differences, finding common ground, forgiving, beginning again.   down by the river
three boys fishing for anything for nothing long sticks make rods a jetty of fallen logs it's a hiding place they tell me a mossy, lichen-licked place a spongey, prone to crumbling maze of willow stripped bare and soon I feel stripped of cares rinsed of the day, in this golden, shimmering space awake suddenly to a slower pace: three boys, now bouncing on a fallen tree, frog calls, and the soft ripple of grass magpies overhead "we need to find the secrets" I hear them say, "the secrets of the world"    Today we celebrated Beren's fifth birthday! He is wonderful; funny, curious, strong-limbed, sensitive and we love him...
It seems like yesterday he was born; my autumn baby, my biggest baby (8lbs11oz), my shortest labour (3.5hrs), with a head of silky dark hair just like mine had been as a baby. When my grandma was told of his birth she said "Beren the Brown", and he certainly was as a newborn, but by his first birthday he was becoming blonde. Sometime between his first and second birthday his tight curls emerged and have stayed every since! I knitted him a second stockinette snake (his first greeny-hued one was a Christmas present) - but this time in red, black and grey. A homage to the many, many red and black drawings he does at the moment. He requested a "chocolate cake with lots of red and a red and black snake" - I made a gluten-free devils food chocolate cake with ermine frosting, and with the help of some marzipan I shaped a red and black snake and some rocks and toadstools. Raspberries and strawberries added some tasty "red" along with geraniums from the garden and sprigs of green mint and nasturtium leaves. He was well-pleased!   On Sunday we took a walk in the forest, we started out with no great objective or plan except to enjoy each other's company and the arch of tall trees swaying overhead, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the cool, earthy air all around us. Forests are magical places, and we are blessed to be able to explore the one the farm that touches the edge of the river -it is full of old oaks, elms, hawthorn, pine, holly, monkey puzzle, ash, willow, gum... Alex brought his hatchet and soon found an elm sapling to begin shaping into a long bow, I brought my camera to capture living beauty all around us: lichen, red holly berries, leaves turning golden, soft green moss, boys at play. We spent most of our time building a cubby - or "camp" as they liked to call it - under a low-lying oak branch that made a kind of roof over one spot. I rolled logs to make a entrance, and found rocks to form a fire-place while the boys looked for slaters and tiny spiders and bugs in the leaf meal. It felt good to put my strength into something, it reminded me of the years we spent building wigwams out of fallen eucalyptus branches in the paddock beside our old house. To be able to tidy up and fashion something creative at the same time. Let's go again tomorrow we said...  four years ago
we became farmers, not that we were born that way, we had studied painting, sculpture, history, sociology - we had only lived in cities, we came without land or money, but a willingness to learn, youthful optimism - we came with a red-haired toddler, a hope that we could grow for him and his siblings to come - a wholesome life, our journey began with an idea, then an opportunity to live and work on somebody else’s farm, (and for eight months we did) we were surprised with how quickly we felt at home on the land - the every day chores tending to animals we’d never kept before, pigs, cows, chickens, chicks, so many firsts, milking a cow (and drinking fresh raw milk) watching pigs roll joyfully in mud, brushing the velvety coat of a stately cow - swimming in a dam in summer dusk light, driving a car, smelling freshly cut hay, picking blackberries till our hands were pricked with thorns - we felt keenly the struggles of running a small farming business (though we didn't carry the weight of it) we also found something we didn’t know we were looking for; community; eateries, markets, friends, church - our next step was to strike out on our own, we took a business course, we made a two-year plan - we lived with new friends, we consulted others, we walked on land we might be able to move to, traced with our fingertips the outlines of a homestead, the path cows and chickens and pigs could follow, (we later learned to let that place go) we took up offers from friends to lease land and a nearby home - our first livestock (if you can call them that) were a swarm of wild bees I shook from a suburban clothesline, we housed them in a hive we’d built from local cypress pine - we felt so privileged keeping living creatures, they were followed by a second hive and then our first flock of chickens for eggs a second baby, a bony dark haired boy was born, and hours later our first batch of broiler chickens arrived and a pattern emerged of expanding family and farm concurrently (not that we planned it that way) the third year would bring us another beautiful boy babe, and more chickens, more bees, the first eggs were exciting beyond words, we found local restaurants and cafes, and a green grocer in town who would stock them - we went to farmers markets with gluten free baking, eggs, honey, preserves, and soon chicken would follow - the working year was divided between the crazy busy seasons (autumn and spring) and the somewhat slower, in-between ones always along the way there are so many others - friends who lent us their machines or hands, fellowship on the grass, feasts by the fireside - our beautiful customers, their smiles at markets, whose feedback and encouragements urged us to persevere, do things a bit better - we gathered too, in the deep of winter with other like-minded farmers, advocates, agrarians - to speak plainly, openly, with love, to share our triumphs and our wounds, we connected with local food co-operatives and began drop-offs outside suburban homes getting real food to people without much fuss, at last, the way we always wanted it! and how can I forget the help of those that stayed with us - from around australia, england, ireland north america, who rose early, shared meals, cleaned eggs, answered children’s questions, watered the garden, felt the weight of our burden to grow food, to keep on to jani, vinnie, seb, isa, madison, chris, ant, bonnie, kerby, dean we will be forever be grateful - the sunsets and sunrises, full moons, star studded nights; the things you can’t buy, or find elsewhere - the lick of fingers sticky with honey, honey you helped extract from a hive, the golden yellow of a yolk from an egg you collected still warm from the coop the tender flavourful meat, the crispy skin of a roast chicken, you helped process, pluck feathers from - biting into a tomato seconds after being picked, a linen apron filled with cucumbers, a melon watered so lavishly with old bath water - made the sweetest mouthful, these are farmers' bonuses, never accumulated in a bank account, but in the mind’s eye, the lungs so full of fresh air - hands weathered by hard work and tending to life (and death) in four years we have reckoned with our limitations, our smallness, stifling laws and regulations, our needs (and forgotten ones), injuries, those dependant on us, those we owe, in tears, in words sharp and tense - in words unsaid why do we keep on, but what else could we do? we cannot unknow the need for fresh, wholesome food, the flutter of wings at dawn, we cannot unhear the earth that groans for tenderness, redemption, the ancient songs of our place - we cannot unsmell the plumes of smoke from bush fires burning out of control, or wild herbs crushed in fingertips by the dam, we cannot unsee native flowers return to a forest, a koala by the roadside, rocks and mud made into dwellings, paddocks sodden with flooding rain - we cannot unfeel the call to live simply, gently, mindfully, in community - in grace, in kindness, with earth under our feet, over our hands - and smudged around the faces of our sons. Nancy Margaret
or just grandma to me - where do I begin to remember you, all you’ve been? do I start with your soft skin - those bright and kindly eyes your aged and crackly voice, asking us always to plant on each cheek and forehead - kisses three, your powdery nose and loose singlets, legs lying in the sun for vitamin d you said, and everyday in armchair or lounge or bed open books, folded newspapers the napkins up your sleeves - your tiny handwritten notes, the keenest, most hungry mind for news of the world you read everything - biography, philosophy, fiction and non, literature poetry, history, magazine old letters intended for you and others that weren’t, school notes and failed essays, a wealth of knowledge, a treasury of verse, story, song - the meaning of words the stories of others you felt the most, they made you cry - made you happiest the child who lived in the bush won a scholarship for school in the city, wrote and edited poetry, became a schoolteacher whose grandma rode past Ned Kelly whose father went to war, who married a farmer and had eight children birthed and breastfed and how many young minds you taught too - when we were children you came each summer with a full and musty suitcase sweeping us up in big hugs tucking us into bed we would request from your repertoire favoured stories, fables, poems - all the milestones you shared, our first walks, words, school concerts - then as teenagers, you came to live with us - in my room and then by the dining room table your movements were slow and strained but your mind as sharp as ever, how you loved the bustle of a full house all our comings and goings - and in the early dark of morning, a voice asking who’s there? you the tea drinker, liberally with milk - teabags stretched for three cups, lashings of butter, we knew the gifts you liked to eat dark chocolate, crystallised ginger, marzipan, peppermints - sardines on toast, cheese and beetroot, the time you taught me to eat nasturtium leaves, your faith that weathered decades of experience and loss, unshakeable, in a loving God - we counted on our fingers forty-one people have come into being because of you, you were not perfect but you were as much as a person can be - a capable woman, a generous mother a great teacher a wise listener a miraculous storyteller - and even in your last years a source of interest, faithfulness, remembrance the older fragile you barely moving, with my own red-haired boy who helped pop green peas in your mouth, who kissed your hand and ran cars along your bed I like him, you said, and smiled and on my last visit the mind that remembered the chickens we keep the days until they lay the porridge that came late you were lively, gripping my hands with papery skin so soft - those kindly eyes thank you for visiting you said, thank you for all you gave me a love for words to read and write and recite aloud to soak in sunshine and watch the seasons, to treasure hope, and care for kin - and above all, the gift of life - you gave to me my mum.
I try to find words to describe you. I want to speak of tall trees, distant stars and tingling in my toes. I want to sing the songs of our adventures of waves crashing against shoreline, and setting sun. I want to rejoice in your deep convictions, your faith that so many admire - in the beautiful art you create, the work of your hands. I smile falling asleep and upon waking - remembering you, your smile, handsome eyes - Soft words. Knowing that you dream my dreams too. Do you know that you bring out the best in me? that you love me, unreservedly - in a way I have never felt before. I want to shout from a rooftop, or carve in wet cement - your name, what you mean to me and to all who know you, I know that the boxes and the turtles and the rooftops and the trees and the open road and the distant stars will all come in time, That this is will do for now. An ode to you, Alex, For I have only just begun to find the words... |
ABOUT the authorEmily Clare Sims is a farmer and mama to three young boys. Each day she looks for ways to notice beauty, contemplate her faith and savour the seasons... Categories
All
Archives
August 2021
|
