We love Aunty Kara and Fred

7/1/2018

We’ve been back on the farm for just over a week now. It’s been equal parts pure joy to be home and heads down, bums up, trying to prepare for the year ahead.
My resolution is to be kinder to myself this year and to stop seeking “balance”. There will be no guilt in 2018. OK there will be a little guilt, but I will try to accept that finding this balance everyone talks about on a farm is as likely as getting the right amount of rain exactly when you need it – sometimes you get lucky but mostly you’re slightly off and sometimes it’s even a drought or a flood.
The past year has been huge so we need some recovery time and also a chance to catch up on all the jobs inside and outside that didn’t happen while we were in Melbourne.
Thankfully, my sister, known forever more on this blog as Aunty Kara, stayed with us this week, and has let me catch a few more Zs and helped with everything from babysitting to truck driving.
Hattie has been ecstatic and is saying “Kara, Kara” on repeat all day. But someone outshone Aunty Kara and that’s her dog Fred.
Fred can be really smelly. She got a wash this week and then promptly dived in murky water and rolled herself around in the dirt and grass – Hattie obviously thought this was hilarious!
We’re so glad Aunty Kara, Fred and Kit the cat are moving to Wangaratta. The babysitting will be fantastic but I’m mostly looking forward to visiting wineries with you. The Hurdle Creek Gin Still was a good start today!
Norbett, our cat, is not so keen ... He's spent the week on top of the outside toilet, hiding from the four-legged guests.
Our biggest, bravest plan for 2018 is that Kilmuir Farm will be starting pastured egg production next month. Wangaratta Council issued our planning permit this week, which will allow us to have up to 1000 hens.
Get in touch if you, or anyone you know, would like to stock our beautiful eggs. I’ll write more on that in the weeks to come.
Further to my plan to be kinder to myself, I’m trying to commit to doing more of the things I “want” to do, not just that list of never ending “need” to dos.
Writing this blog is part of that. If I miss a week, I’m not going to stress (well I won’t be as guilty about it as I perhaps would have been in the past).
I want to record what we do here. I’m so proud of how hard Dean works and how much Hattie is loving life on the land.
I want to record that we are not just a family who have survived the most horrendous of medical scares, but one who is committed to each other and making this farm work.
I want to write about it and photograph it and be able to look back on the year and the years ahead and see that all the hard work is worth it.
So, I suppose that is a resolution too. To take more photos of us as a family, not just pictures of Hattie and the animals. Let’s see if I can.