inner pickle

therein lies my heart

 

See that? 

That farm stall is a dream. 

An idea tossed around for years before it became real. 

A farm stall for a farm bought and paid for by my great great grandfather (William) who worked it for years for a wealthy landowner called David Berry, paid his rent regularly, then rode his horse to the auction to bid on his own farm. He got it. That day it became ours too.

They were always dairy farmers, these family men of mine. Something I never intended to do because it looked like such hard work, not like piping eyeballs onto pig cupcakes at midnight, what a doddle. 

A farm stall that has a logo with my Dad in the middle of it, picking coffee (which I think he's doing in his sleep right now - it's coffee picking time) and hens, bees, pigs and a Holstein. (Although when we go looking for a house cow I think it will be a Jersey. These hills have a long history of Holsteins.) If I'd thought about it I would have pre-emptively included Indian Runner ducks. Very top of my Christmas list.

Today we took our own free range pork, fennel and sage sausages to the market (and sold out by 10am.) Today it felt like we were finally a farm stall, not just a biscuit stall hoping to be a farm stall. 

Adam put the supers onto the beehives. Next up: honey! Wild blackberry jam! Farm house quiche!

It was hard work getting to the market today but we did well and it's 8.15pm and the entire family is asleep apart from me and I'm thinking red wine and a movie. 

Cheers to you, William. 

I'm so unbelievably grateful to you.

xxx

in a year

Some years don't go as planned.

I have a friend who says she barely holds it together through the odd number years but all good things happen in the evens.

Some years might be punctuated with illness, or just pass in a blur of tiredness, and you might not really recollect them at all.

Some years change you. Adam and I spent a year (two, in the end) living in Bethnal Green in the East End of London. I worked in London at a job I adored and took the summer off to go and work on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Then there was that one year I wore a wedding dress down an aisle, turned thirty and got pregnant. 

This twelve months? It'd be all PR spin if I didn't say it'd been a stretch. But it was just one year ago that we started the Buena Vista Farm idea. That we might one day have more than twenty chickens and maybe sell our pigs for their delicious pork and how about we make biscuits and sell them at local produce markets?

One year, and we're still in business. Still building, still planning, still growing. 

One big year.

Today as I rolled out hundreds of biscuits for delivery over the next two days, I felt incredibly grateful that I am baking for a living. It might not be everyone's dream but I can't imagine why not. How totally great it is to walk into a big clean commercial kitchen and chop butter and weigh flour and pipe hot caramel and twirl Ginger Twirlys. 

 

 

Plus, to add to the feeling of celebration, our first lot of Spring broilers arrived today. Fluffy little delights. These birds will be free-ranging, as opposed to being in pastured pens. 

The fact that I even have half a clue about these things is a year-long miracle. 

 

 

Are you in a big year? Or a quiet year? 

And would you like some Ginger Twirlys?!

Leave a comment on this post and I'll random-number a winner next week, and yes I'll post overseas! (The gingers last and travel well.)

Thanks for sharing this year with me, you lovely folk.

xxx

the office

 

Ad and I set up our first outdoor market stall on Saturday in Kiama. 

I've held off doing outdoor markets 'til now - I was nervous about all that bikkie stock going to waste if we were washed out. But we're closer to online sales now (coming soon, have you heard that before?!?) so it's not such a big deal. We're also doing three markets a month now so we can afford to have some rolling stock. 

It was a perfect winter's day.

And check out the view. I feel super lucky that this makes up part of my office. (The other part is the chook yard.)

How 'bout you? 

Where's your office? Do you like it? 

Hope so. Life's short, right? If there's something you love doing and you're not doing it, is it about the money? There's some massive risk and anxiety in hurling security to the wind and pursuing the unsafe road. It's uncertain. I'm just pretty confident that if you do something you're passionate about then that kind of determination is sticky. Good people want to be part of it. It will start to generate it's own energy. And hopefully cover the rent. You'll never know if you don't give it a go and wouldn't that be a shame?

Here's to uncertain, unsafe roads. 

(And delicious biscuits.)

xxx

 

that's where you are

 

Oh HELLO!

I missed you!

We were offline over here for quite a while and then when the Telstra line was finally replaced and we got back online, I forgot how to blog.

It felt a bit indulgent, like there was work to be done and I was messing around writing about it and not actually doing it. 

But without it, I'm a bit less. There's time for both, I've decided, and there is still definitely time for craft - more on that tomorrow!

We're on the farm, we've nearly sold out of the last batch of broilers and our many hens are starting to come into lay just as we start regularly selling eggs to regular customers. 

Our first two pigs are in the freezer - I must tell you about our morning at the butcher, it was so interesting! - and we're planning pastured broiler pens and winter vegies and spring bees and summer coffee plantings. 

And here is a photo I received today of our farm! It was taken by a fantastic photographer called Graham Ezzy who took it from the air last Saturday. We are very grateful to him! 

Are you very well?

And do you feel like a farm visit soon?! I hope so! I'll keep you posted on the plans. Meanwhile we are over at Gerringong Rotary Markets this weekend with Bikkies, come and say hello if you're in the area. And if you're not, stay tuned for a Bikkie giveaway coming soon!

 

Photo by Graham Ezzy

xxx

perspective

 

Sometimes it's just about how you look at things. Your choice. See what you see. You choose your response. 

We've got a bit of shaking up going on down here and it's all exciting and unnerving and our brains are jangling a bit. You know that feeling? 

Take the one year old. How we love her. The way she makes our hearts stop when she dives off the kitchen table (miraculously uninjured.) The habit she has of speed-unrolling a roll of toilet paper and stuffing it down the leg of my jeans while I'm on the loo. Her new words: "let's go!" and "now!"

Without her we'd be less. (And there really is nothing a bowl of custard cannot improve.)

 

Perpective.

A single friend of mine referred to a friend of hers as a 'friend with benefits'. I am so naive I wondered if she meant he had an abundant garden that she got produce from. Maybe a hen? (Am I my Grandma yet?)

I have a few awesome friends with gardens and the benefit of wit. 

This guy dropped in yesterday, bringing produce.

 

 

 

Purple beans, ducks eggs, dehydrated and fresh-picked zukes. Now there's some benefits! Plus wit. He's a favourite in this house. 

While not here in this space I have unfortunately not been on a beach reading a novel. Or even better, in a forest writing a novel. Or even lying out in a paddock staring at my navel (or that of a small child.) I've been working. 

 

 

 

 

 

And cooking kilograms of tomatoes into pizza sauce.

 

(Seriously coveting Milkwood's new toy.)

 

We've been extending chicken pasture, moving pigs (successfully and drama-free!) and watching broiler chickens grow. 

We've been in the trailer and up the paddock. 

 

 

 

Looking at things from a different perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And loving it. 

 

 

(And her, the wee rascal.)

xxx

baking day

After I've hand rolled and cut about a thousand biscuits, which I have today, not only can I hardly type, but I find myself wandering around youtube looking at automated biscuit factory equipment. 

I don't actually want a biscuit factory, and I think the moment you go from handmade to automated you can taste the difference, I just find massive biscuit engineering totally fascinating. 

Check out the way they make the girl scout cookies in the US. (Skip ahead to about 1.30 to miss the unnecessary introduction and get to the biscuit making.)

 

 

 

Late this afternoon, Henry Bean, a smart seven year old, came into the kitchen with a card. It read:

Yes he got a warm biscuit. 

Yes I am quite sure his father put him up to it. (He got one too.)

xxx

 

 

 

weekendiness

 

Why did I not think of making biscuits as a career, like, ages ago?

SO. MUCH. FUN. I love love love market day.

And we sold out, which is the coolest thing ever. Very grateful.

Hope your weekend is wonderful!    

 

xxx

head in the biscuits

Adam was talking to me earlier this week and randomly threw the word biscuit into the (one-sided) conversation.

I said "huh?" and he said "aHA! I knew you weren't listening!" 

It's a bit true. I'm all about the biscuit at the moment. 

And so, as I make small inroads into getting our bikkie website up, I'm looking at the draft photos I've taken of some of the bikkies and I think, they are quite lovely looking biscuits if I don't sound too big headed saying so. 

I thought you might like to see them.

Ginger Twirly

 

Marry Me Caramel

 

Mouthful of Meringue

 

Choccy Choc Choc

 

Short Stuff - orange and lemon shortbread

 

Visitor Biscuits - choc chunk

 

In the Doghouse

Yes, I crack myself up. It's very sad. 

I'm missing two of my favourites, the biscotti and the Handsome Jam Sandwich. Will get them tomorrow!

Hope you are having a lovely week, lovely folk. And I apologise if I seem distracted, it's not personal, it's just half sugar crash, half brain overload. Nothing a good strong coffee won't fix. 

(As soon as we're underway here, expect a post on detoxing?!)

Also, anyone know anyone who builds websites? I think I need to outsource!

xxx

what a Saturday

I took my little biscuit company to my first market on Saturday. And it was AWESOME. 

SO much fun. I've never thought about myself as a salesperson, and I still don't think I am. But damn I sold some biscuits! 

I sold out of the most popular bikkies by about 10.30am and brought home a mere 12 bags. Very relieved about that. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to sell two. 

Here's a not-very-good shot of us (no offense Dad):

Sample jars at the front. An old dude diving for his wallet. My double chin (what was I THINKING? I should be making organic sugar-free muesli. Am such an idiot.) Also Adam, holding a gluestick, pasting on my ingredients labels onto the backs of the bags as we go. I am so organised and professional, it's devastating. 

Somebody placed a bulk order the day before to be delivered at the market. It was a reasonable sized one and I wasn't back in the catering kitchen in time so had biscuits spread all over my kitchen counter on Friday night. I was heat sealing bags, labelling, and putting in tray after tray of biscuits when we had a blackout. I thought I'd caused it. 

Adam ducked outside to see if our nearest neighbours were in darkness and in that two minutes Ivy managed to fall into one of Henry's plastic toy boxes and injure herself and Tilly skidded on an aluminum drink bottle left lying on the floor. Adam returned and confirmed the whole street was out. 

After patching up the baby and lighting a bunch of candles, he went into town to get burgers for dinner, awesome man, and I tried not to think about all the things I left to the very last minute. 

I called my parents and confirmed the other side of town wasn't in darkness, so Mum's oven was my backup plan. 

After burgers by candlelight and early bedtime for the smallies, the lights mercifully came back on. Gave me a dreadful fright. 

The biscuits in the oven were even cooked. I had, however, left quite a lot of things to the last minute. And so finally went to bed after 2am, with bikkies packed, sealed and ready (without ingredients labels) and set the alarm for 5.30am. (I'm giving you the detail for a reason. Bear with me. The three hours sleep is significant.)

It was a rainy morning and I was glad to be an inside stallholder (we are hoping to get a marquee and have an outside spot in Kiama next month.) We worked very hard, we talked and sampled and sold all our stock. And it was so much fun, I adored it. 

Mum minded the kids, Tilly went off to a birthday party, we all got home at lunchtime and flopped around on the couches. The kids had their computer time (which they do together.)

'Cept after half an hour I remembered that I'd told Tilly I'd put on a DVD for her and I hadn't done it. I went round the corner into the study to ask if she wanted one on, and she wasn't with Henry. He said she'd gone out the gate. She would have had to go past Adam and I on the couches to do that. We looked in her bedroom thinking she had put herself to bed, she's been on medicine for an ear infection which makes her sleepy. Not there. Not in our bed. Not anywhere. 

We went outside. Not on the trampoline or in the garden. Not in the chookyard. Not next door with our neighbours. Not anywhere. 

Adam got in the car and drove up the road. Drove up to our friend's house at the very top of the road in case she'd gone for a visit, she has done that once before. No sign.

He came back and searched the house again while I took the car and drove down the road to our other neighbour. Not anywhere. By now I was starting to panic, I'll be honest. I realised with a sinking heart we had not seen her for about 45 minutes. Neighbours up and down the road were out looking for her. I went down to the nearest dairy on our road which she'd recently asked if she could visit. Not there.  

I came back and Adam got back in the car to go and check the river that runs under the road. Another neighbour was checking the dam nearest our house. It was at that point the bottom of my heart fell out. Panic set in, I won't lie, and I madly checked the house again. Just as Adam had, under every bed, under every couch, in every cupboard, the linen press, the pantry, it's not a big house. Not there. 

My lovely lovely next door neighbour had both Ivy and Henry and I called Dad, as I always do in a crisis, and asked them to come.

Five minutes later, as Mum and Dad pulled into the driveway, Tilly appeared on the verandah with a sleepy face. 

She looked at the people and asked us what we were doing. 

She'd been asleep in the house. On the couch. The one I had been sitting on (it's only a two-seater.) She had been underneath a big pile of pillows and cushions and blankets. 

I called Adam immediately who tracked up and down the road to make sure everyone knew we'd found her. 

Really, had she not heard me hysterically crying through the house, hoping to find her under a bed and not drowned in the dam?

She really hadn't. There was no tricking or hiding. The kid had been asleep next to me, I hadn't seen her get under the pile of cushions and it's a miracle she didn't suffocate. Also a miracle that neither Adam or I had a heart attack. 

Little bugger. 

Worst hour of my life. Without doubt.

On three hours sleep. 

Can I say though: I adore this road. I adore these people. I cannot imagine a better place to live. 

Our nearest neighbours hosted a pizza movie night that night, we had a lovely bottle of wine, the kids had a spontaneous disco, and we thanked our lucky stars. 

Hope your Saturday had more of the ups and less of the downs?

xxx

 

climbing mountains

Almost market day. Seven hours in the commercial kitchen today, and lots of bagging and heat sealing and labelling tonight, with extra hands making light work and tea and good company!

One crate of bikkies at a time suddenly looking sellable. Incredibly exciting. 'Cept I can't stand up straight anymore. Wretched old fogie. 

 

The mammoth clothes mountain of clean washing I cannot seem to get around to folding and that I (cough) may have lost a small child in yesterday. 

Sniffer dogs were at the ready. 

Unnecessary, in the end. 

 

Really, I cherish her independence.

I love that she gets herself breakfast in the morning. 

I do not understand Weetbix spread with butter, but I believe she inherited this from her grandmother on my side, so OK. 

Not really so OK with the entire box on the table. She's lucky she's so damn cute. And that I am so significantly not a morning person that you can get away with anything while I fumble around with kettle and cup.

What's happening on your mountaintop?

xxx