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twelve

20/2/2022

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Twelve years growing a marriage and most of those spent learning how to farm regeneratively and raise little men, rising at dawn and retiring long after the sun has set.  Not a day passes without a hearty conversation between us, and that's the privilege of living with your best friend; of sharing the best and worst of your selves and still feeling safe enough, loved enough to keep at it. We have gathered twelve years in our hands; seasons of comfort and difficulty, of joy and anticipation, of drought and abundance, of adventure and mundane life, gritty and awful, faithful, golden loveliness. We have worked hard to understand each other better, to listen, to hold carefully a thing that sometimes feels overwhelming fragile, or momentarily obscured. We are still leaning how to rest, to nurture what's separate, to invigorate the mingling. Marriage is play too, ridiculous and sweet. To grow a life together is not always to agree or know the way forward but to know you belong beside each other and that's enough. The path ahead is glittering faintly, and we're bound to fall short, to disappoint and delight, but there's promise too. So much goodness yet to come // 
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December 31st, 2020

31/12/2020

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Years ago when I blogged regularly I would do a review at the end of year using photos of my feet. It’s kind of odd to think about now but at the time seemed an apt way to honour where my feet had taken me over twelve months. 

My feet are bony and long-toed and roll slightly inwards. “Pigeon toed” as a kid, sometimes tripping over myself, class mates noticed and made fun of me. For years mum took me to see podiatrists and I wore orthotics in my shoes to help my feet walk as they should. 

Yet I have always loved walking. It is when I feel both alive and restful. Closer to nature and to the urban, to God.

It has been a year of walking. Short solitary walks, almost every day on the farm have sustained me. Given me relief from the strain I felt at home. Helped me reconnect with my body and my breath. Helped me notice the subtle changes of season: watch birds and grasses and cloud covering. A moving space to cry or rage or grieve in, talk it out, let it go, play with ideas, pray. 

It has also been a year of walking with others: most of all my three children. It was the thing we most looked forward to and needed after a day of balancing (rather haphazardly) chores, egg cleaning, meals, schooling - the time after lunch we would be free to roam and ramble. Walks became our daily reset button, and oh did we need them. 

Then there were a few special walks with my sister and friends after weeks of not being able to see each other: time to chat vigorously and move our legs, notice the season unfurling around us. My dear friend came on a walk with me in spring, and she took this photo. I think it’s my favourite from the year, a reminder that 2020 was a year of walking too...
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Ode to autumn

31/5/2020

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Autumn leaving
brings a kind of grieving 
a sorrowing 
at the shortness of the season
that savoured space 
between summer heat
and winter freezing

a colourful unleaving
skin shedding,
holy lenting, 
calving, isolating
autumn unlike any
I can remember: 
shrouded in smoke,
in soap, 
washed hands, news reel
and the sounds of 
home are amplified;
joyful, painful,
silent, ear splitting sounds 
blurry edged video calls - 
we’ve grown older
we’ve laboured,
schooled, baked,
sowed, and let go
and let go and let go -

Autumn like no other
and painted like every other:
ash gold, oak brown, 
gum grey, clover green,
hawthorn red 
marked with blood,
with loss and love.
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ode to a dress I made

30/5/2020

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It may not look like much to you but this is my #teahousedress sewed in beautiful dark blue linen I bought at the The Fabric Store a few years ago with my sister. I fell in the love with the linen and at the time thought I’d make a roomy wrap dress.

Then I came across this pattern from @sewhouse7 which is inspired by the lines of a Japanese kimono. For a fairly novice sewer like me this required careful concentration. The pattern is so well written, it was actually a pleasure to follow. I took the advice of others and sized down for a more fitted look. I am so so happy with the result - it is truly comfortable and beautiful feeling dress that doesn’t over expose or hide away oneself. The deep pockets and waist tie and box pleat at the back are my favourite details. I now want to make another three! 

I’ve felt for a long time that sewing my own clothes is a profound act of love to myself. Taking the time to make something for my specific shape and needs. To champion patterns by independent, female designers and purchase fabric from small businesses who follow sustainable practices and source their fibres ethically. To limit waste and save the leftover "scraps" for future making. 

There's a tension that I feel between wanting to care a lot about clothes, and not care too much at all.

In a time where collectively as a culture we own more material posessions that ever before; when fashion fads seem to come and go at whim; when clothing is cheaper and flimsier than ever; when garments are made by people who are underpaid, undervalued and overworked; when we dispose of so many still "wearable" things into landfill or dump by the garbage bag to our local charity shops (for them to deal with) in our pursuit of "joy-filling" minimalism - I want to say enough! I want to spend more time making and mending garments I will savour wearing, and save up for fairly-made items I can't make myself but will last a very long time. Because the process, materials, intention and feeling do matter. The ethics and disposing of our things matter too. 

Here’s to our clothes, and the stories we sew into them... 
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Ode to summer

29/2/2020

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ode to summer goes something like this:

you began slowly friend,
such a timid, mild beginning
I almost begged you to
turn it up a notch
so we wouldn’t need to light the fire
put on socks, wipe dripping noses

but then a few weeks later
we were in a heatwave, sweating -
and so began the irregular
shape of you this time:
hot and cold
dry and wet
smokey and clear
back and forth
again,

You’re circles around the mulberry tree
staining our fingers blood red on berries
prickles from the blackberry brambles,

You’re eagles soaring above our heads
and we marvel at your beauty
and your cunning, picking our chickens
off like popcorn,

You’re the mosquitoes we hear buzzing
around our heads at night,
always one we missed,
the damp air and the red bites
on my children’s faces

You’re the beautiful stone fruit
apricots, peaches, nectarines,
plums, pineapple, mangoes
zucchinis from friends,
the first from our own garden:
first vegetables grown in this place -
You’re the clothes that dry stiff on the line,
the bare feet and brown shoulders,
the sun on my cheeks, light on my face -

You’re the waxy sedum,
the tall hollyhocks, the mass
of pink valerian, the wavering lavender
the frenzied sound of flies
of bees, moths, wasps -

You’re the country shrouded in smoke
the land that burned (some still smouldering)
the loss of creature, plant, life, livlihoods
to great to count, so big to bear
omnicide we said,

You’re the confusion,
the disbelief, the knowing
our climate is changing,
people diverging
lamenting, regenerating -

You’re that time my family visited
when we ventured outside after dinner -
it was still light, and we basked
(all nine of us)
in the warm dusk:
sprawling on the grass
on the veranda,
reclining, chatting,
strumming a guitar -

We revelled in the blessing
of being able to gather like
we never could at our old home -

the soft grass, green leafy shade
space and peacefulness
a time I will tuck under my skin
to remember always,
our shared contentment
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Last days

14/11/2019

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the last days at baynton
were glowing with winter sun

I made sure we soaked it in:
we circled the paddock
climbed the big old fallen tree
the one we pretended was a sailing ship
or a steam train
or a secret hide-out

we surveyed the landscape
the familiar lines of home

the boots of my children
kicking the dust
around the dam’s edge

our ginger cat Pickles,
sleeping by the back door
(the last time we would see him)

the way the afternoon light
streamed on the laundry door
made the bricks warm to touch,
danced above the kitchen cupboards

the wind that rattled the roof at night
shook the tree tops
woke us in our beds

and now the strains of moving
are well behind us -
weary bones rested,

now that spring is here
and we smell flowers
and we feel air on our toes

those little waves of feeling
come, crash, fall away, go
over and again:

the house we used to know
the place we called home
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ode to home

20/6/2019

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Dear home,
How do I sum up four years and seven months with you?

How do I begin to offer thanks
for the safe keeping and comfort
you have brought my kin?

Not only shelter -
a place to rest and work and create in,
nooks to fill with beauty,
stories weaved into the walls
and floors of you,

the sound of a lamb
pattering in the kitchen,
of babies crawling
and hiding in cupboards -
of wind howling
of rain on the tin roof -
the squeak of a child’s fingers
drawing fish on foggy windows
of trucks creeping past loaded with hay,
and the distinctive rattles of the local utes:
that’s Michael we’d say,
that’s Marty, or that’s daddy -

of the ground around you:
the gardens we grew,
what thrived, died,
the trees that survived;
fig, oak, plum, walnut,
pomegranate-
the vegetables you gave us,
flowers too

the pasture around our fence:
so familiar are the bumps and curves
the trees and grasses,
the games we played, dam we circled,
and the time Reu first rode a bike
and the afternoons we spent
carrying dead logs and sticks
for our wigwams one, two and three -

You hold so many moments, memories
firsts, birthdays,
newborn babies,
the school bus,
hundreds of loaves of bread baked,
thousands of eggs packed,
chickens plucked by the shed,
picnics on the grass -

of seasons, of struggle
and beautiful peace,
of drought and flood
bushfire smoke and thick frost
sunshine and full moons
and the stars that take our breath away -

there’s the old grey gum tree we can see when lying in bed,
the one I watch as I hang clothes out to dry,
that I never tire of watching sway in the breeze -
”give me a home among the gum trees” I think,
indeed,

of the people who came:
dear friends and helpful travellers,
strangers needing directions,
each of my siblings -

and all the creatures:
bugs, beetles, bees, mice
cats, snakes, a tiny dog
who chewed holes in our flyscreen -
the moths, butterflies, dragonflies,
grasshoppers, mud daubers,
swallow nests under the eaves,
frogs under the bath tubs,
kangaroos grazing,
echidnas by the road -
the wild geese and the tiny ducks in the dam,
black swans, turtles, yabbie claws too.

that we could lie on the trampoline
and look up through the branches of the big cypress tree
and spot birds resting:
galahs, cockatoos, sparrows,
parrots, magpies, and kookaburras -

I will remember all of these things,
and I will see myself sitting on top of the nearby hills
looking out at the sweeping granite country
farm land, dam, fence, forest, road:
and the sight of that tiny redbrick house with a green roof
where my eyes were always drawn first:
our home -
and remember you.
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ode to autumn

31/5/2019

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Autumn, she’s a gift to me
(and always my favourite season)
that soft sun,
slow golden unleaving -

she is the mandarin
I’m peeling with my hands
by the back door
(and all the pips I find
under my boys’ beds)
the sound of bees
about the verbena bush

she’s the morning frost,
the late afternoon walks,
sandpit tunnels, the birds
in the trees:
cockatoos, galahs,
magpies, crows, kookaburras,
goshawks, willy wagtails fanning -
and the two black swans
that appeared one morning
in the dam

she’s the velvet ears
of freshly born calves,
the green spear-tips
of daffodil bulbs
the brownest, driest, heat-bleached earth
soaked with longed-for rain
and the burst of bright bright green -

she’s birthdays and busyness
chickens, eggs, children, dishes -
the dance of wants and needs and jobs
the first boxes packed, virus caught,
windows thrust open, weeds pulled -

she’s the steam of morning, midday,
afternoon, late afternoon and evening tea -

she’s the season of letting
what must fall away, go -
of sitting gently with old shadows,
speaking kind words to fresh fears
but finding beauty there -

and oh, in all those golden leaves… ​
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ode to thirty (and teapots)

2/4/2019

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If years were teapots
and I’d lived thirty
here’s what some would be:

a heavy clay one, purple with golden stars,
I close my eyes and can see it held in my mother’s hands -
a greeny-blue one with a map of the world, and Australia cut off at the handle -
another with swirls and dots, a gift for my tea loving mama,
and years later I would visit the very place in Poland it had been made - 
the Japanese pot painted with dragonflies,
the first that belonged only to me -
a tiny yellow 1950s one with wattle on the lid, enough for two little cups -
there’s the ornate pewter pot, pouring mint tea from height
in all the places we visited in Morocco - 
a beautiful blue and white pot, covered in willow trees
and swallows and mountain side,
carried in my hand luggage to France - 
a brown and green glazed pot Alex found in a paddock covered in earth -
the unbreakable (as yet) enamel pot, pale blue,
which holds tea for guests and sometimes daisies from the garden - 
the stainless steel faithful pot, an enduring wedding present;
who has boiled our water on the stove for nearly ten years -
and the pots I drew in blue ink, one shaped of hair,
another with a garden growing out of it - 

There’s more of course,
so many pots over the years
that filled the cups;
whispers, whimsies,
tears and teabags too - 

The cups of joy, of relief 
post-childbirth sips,
cups of sorrow, farewells, 
new beginnings, regrets -  
the cups of faith
(the runneth over types)
of early mornings,
mid-afternoons,
evenings when everyone is in their beds
(some of the very best)
so many shared with friends,
strangers, kin,
with my husband -
tiny cups of rooibos with my children,
ceylon, oolong, 
lapsang souchong,
bergamot anything,
roasted rice, dandelion roots,
Buddha’s tears,
fresh verbena leaves - 

Ah! If years were teapots 
and I’d lived thirty 
I’d drink to it’s story:
the lessons and the loving,
the pouring out and the filling,
the adventures and the brewing -
Here’s to another thirty...
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the year of the chicken, an ode to 2018

31/12/2018

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There are three chickens in the yard
I can see them from the kitchen window
scratching in the garden beds,
kicking up bark mulch and dry earth -
they dart at anything that moves
jumps, skips, hops
so efficient are their beaks and claws
for this task of foraging, unearthing

and I think about this year nearly done
perhaps the hardest one for me,
or the most important -
why are important ones the hardest?

I could list the things that gave it shape:
the long days of mothering full time,
of postpartum fatigue, the last breastfeed -
of eggs packed, caneles baked,
story nights with local women,
books read, conflicts had,
farmers markets, chicken sales,
workshops, a school change,
an awful email out of the blue,
the flowers picked with my hands

but really it’s everything in-between
the dreams, the waiting,
curly heads, grubby grins,
shadowy doubts, sorrow stings -
hushed, yelled, wrestled,
wanted, endured, relieved
the yearnings and the forgotten things:
a twelve month unearthing
clawing for something - anything,
holding on and letting go
again and again and again

I could be making resolutions:
you know, those page long aspirations -
goals for what could be,
what I could do better (and not do at all)

But I’d rather stare out the kitchen window
let my fingers become prune-like
in soapy dish water -
and learn from my chicken friends;
to keep scratching at the surface,
feel the sun on my back
make the most of each season -
and choose kindness
again and again and again


Photo of me and the girls / by the wonderful Cat
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    ABOUT the author 

    Emily 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...

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