What makes your heart sing??

And then this amazing thing happened.

One beautiful February evening, I interrupted our family dinner and asked everyone to grab something from the house that they LOVED doing, something that made them happy, and then we filed out the door. One by one I checked to make sure no-one had food in their teeth, everyone was dressed appropriately and then we headed to the steps of our cubby-house.

It was a gorgeous evening and we were happy just to hang out together doing what we love to do.

And then I made some comment about a ridiculously enormous fart, everyone cracked up laughing, I snapped my shot, I started laughing and fell back into the herb garden and got a wet bum, the girls laughed some more, I kept snapping, and then we hung out until it slowly got dark and cold and we went inside to clear away dinner.

A few weeks later I was standing in our local newsagent first thing on a Monday morning hassling them to undo the piles and piles of new magazines that had just been delivered - because one of the photos that I took that evening was on the cover of the Autumn issue of Slow Living Magazine!!!!! My family are on the cover of a magazine!!!

I've had a copy of that magazine sitting on my desk for about a month now and I still get a happy surprise every single time I walk past it. I still can't really believe it.

There are certain things that I have gotten used to over the five or so years that I have been a blogger - a lot of people know a lot about my life, some people respect my opinion, I can take good blog photos and write good blog text, I've taken photos and written articles for some other publications, I've even written a book!!!! But never in my wildest dreams did I think I would take a cover photo.

I'm thrilled.



I also wrote an article and took some pictures for the inside of the magazine. All about farmer Bren's spoon carving and how it's changed his life.



You can get all the information you need about Slow Living magazine here - http://www.slowmagazine.com.au.

And if you do have your very own copy and would like to win a subscription - take a photo of the cover in your home/in your garden/with some of your favourite creative things, upload it to instagram, hashtag it #slowlivingmag and Slow Magazine will choose their five favourite images and reward them with a subscription each. Cool huh!! Better get snapping.

And until next time - why don't we all do a bit more of what makes our hearts sing!!

Love ya's!!

xx

Snippets the third

Hello!

OK, I'm doing a snippets post again. I feel like all I ever blog these days is craft and my attempt at a how I'm really feeling blog that I tried to write this morning isn't sitting comfortably and needs time to settle. So I'm leaving it in my drafts for a bit and falling back on a trusty tried and true method of blog catching up.

I always hope that by skimming the surface, it might clear the way for bigger and better and braver posts to come. Sometimes it works, and other times, well, like I said there have been several crafty posts around here but not much more.

So let's get started shall we, several snippets of my life right now.

I am...

Enjoying my girls and my farmer boy. So much at the moment. They all seem happy and inspired and lovely to be around. So often we seem to be dealing with challenges and fixing things up, it's just lovely to sit back and enjoy this moment in time when it all feels just right.

Playing Suzanne Vega on Spotify whenever I am alone, all the time.

Smelling the sweetest signs that springtime is on her way.

Listening to the latest episode of Strangers and feeling heartbroken and inspired and sad and hopeful all at once.

Wearing coveralls (long sleeved, button upped overalls). They are the best winter invention ever. Sometimes I even wear my jammies underneath all day long and none ever knows. Best!!

Reading The Signature of all things and loving it. Thanks so much for the recommendation Ms Mogantosh.

Crocheting - my hottie cover, step four is coming tomorrow, are you excited?!

Knitting - another pair of slippers for my farmer boy who wore his first pair out.

Blogging - not so much these wintry days.

Flicking  to my spread in ABC Organic Gardener magazine and thinking it's funny that I am in a magazine about organic gardening not with our organic farming but with my crafting.

Enjoying the chit-chat on my Foxslane Facebook page and wishing it were as easy to comment and reply over here on the blog as it is over there.

Not loving these cold, wet, dark and windy last weeks of winter. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Knowing - that I need to menu plan but not knowing where to start.

Wondering - if I'll get a chance to get this post up before school pick up today, 45 minutes and counting....

Dreaming - of getting out into the veggie garden again later in the week when it warms up a tad.

Hoping to host a fabulous crafty event later in the year with the acest Veggie Mama herself.

Giggling inside when finding out in the middle of a pap smear last week that my doctor reads my blog. Hi!

Knitting socks!! From the toe up on 2mm needles that may as well be tooth-picks they are so tiny. Sock knitting might just be the very definition of slow craft but I am well and truly addicted and have plans for lace pairs and fancy yarned pairs and birthday present pairs and kiddie pairs. I loveLOVElove knitting something so basic and so essential, so pretty and so comfy.

Ravelry details here.

Laughing at one of my girls who declared that sex education at school is silly because they don't even show you how to have sex!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Casting on - another pair of socks. This time for Miss Indi in the cutest yarn that almost looks like sprinkles on fairy bread.

Grateful that my parents are back across the road after their three wonderful weeks away. Life and maths homework and circus and dancing pick ups and drop offs just weren't the same without them.

Adoring teaching wool craft to a mixed aged bunch of kiddies at the girls' school each Tuesday. We've been having the greatest time making pom-poms, god's eyes, finger knitting and weaving. And I've remembered how much I love to teach. It's been a long while but that feeling you get when you watch something click with somebody is priceless.

Smiling at the memories of last weekend; of packing up, of visiting a biodynamic farm and buying seed, of getting lost and not sleeping and spending hours and hours together in the car. Such crazy fun times. Let's do it again SOON!

And that's me all caught up with no place to go (except to the kitchen to wash some potatoes).

I hope you are well and happy and warm.

I wonder what you've been enjoying, playing, smelling, listening, wearing, reading crocheting, flicking to, enjoying, not loving, knowing, wondering, dreaming, hoping, giggling, knitting, laughing at, casting on, grateful for, adoring, smiling at...?

Big love

x

the strangest meal

I still get so excited when I see my work published in a magazine. I mean it's one thing to write and photograph stories for my own blog, but it's something else entirely when an editor or publisher chooses me. It feels validating, like I'm on the right track. I love it.

Last week the winter edition of Slow Living Magazine came out and along with a story I wrote and shot about life on our farm in The International Year of Family Farming.


There is also a story about my sister Meg and her bike riding, foraging, adventuring family,


A story written and photographed by friends of ours Sahm and Andrew about locals Wayne and Chris.

And one of my favourite photos I've ever taken of my farmer boy's hand holding a tomato he just picked on the editorial page. Yay!

Of course Slow is filled with loads of other articles written, shot and about amazing people and places that have nothing to do with me too.

Before the magazine went to print Tim Baker, the editor, sent out an email asking all the contributors to write a three or four line bio that included a brief description of who we are and what we do, followed by an account of the strangest meal we've ever consumed and our current favourite dish.

Mine never made it into the magazine so I thought I'd include it here;

Kate Ulman is an organic farmer, mother of three and wife to her handsome farmer boy. One Autumn evening a few years ago while they were walking around their farm admiring, discussing and smelling the soil, Farmer Bren suggested she have a taste. She hesitated, but then wondered who was she to question her husband's precious soil, his life's passion. So she ate a bit. It tasted like gritty earth. Luckily it grows the most gorgeous fruit and veggies, including the Mutzu apple which is her favourite fruit in the world.


I hope you are having a glorious, slow weekend folks, and if you have the time I'd love to hear about the strangest meal you've ever eaten and/or your current favourite dish. It's such an interesting one.

Big love!

xx

Alphabet Journal out-takes

One chilly afternoon not last autumn but the autumn before, photographer Kim Daly and her husband came to our farm to shoot some photos for Alphabet Journal. Our family with our tangly hair, our mismatched boots and our raggle-taggle clothing got to work amongst the autumn leaves making a campfire in the garden and cooking damper on a stick.





At that stage we didn't know a lot about Luisa Brimble's dreams for Alphabet Journal. We didn't know if it would be an online magazine or print, we didn't know when or how often it would come out and we didn't know what it would look like when eventually it did. But we adored all the little scraps of info we did know about it all the same; a few favourite contributors, stories of families, stories of real life unstyled and true.

The Alphabet Journal photo shoot felt like the first magazine shoot in a long time that we didn't have to clean up for, that we could just be ourselves, that we were enough.




We had a gorgeous time together cooking and eating, feeding the fire and knitting, and just hanging out enjoying each other's company. And Kim wandered around us snapping photos on her proper film cameras, answering all of our questions and politely tasting all the camp-fire cooked tasty morsels she was offered.

By the end of the day our bellies were full, our clothes smelled of smoke, we all felt like old friends and we were dying to see what this magazine would look like when it came out.

One year later, and with our Jazzy on the front cover!!!! Alphabet Journal the magazine was sent in hand wrapped brown paper packages tied up with string, to homes all over Australia and all over the world.

Alphabet Journal feels beautiful in my hands, smells comforting when I bury my face in it and is filled with 160 pages of inspiring, real, gorgeous, messy, interesting, true stories. Alphabet Journal is such a treat. Our family feel absolutely thrilled to have played a little part in helping Luisa Brimble's dream come true.

On the very first page there is a bit that reads ;

Alphabet is a magazine for people who make a home together. We believe that a home is a lived space and not a showroom. We believe that when families return to the basics - acts of gratitude, curiosity, collaboration - they are writing the kinds of living stories that are meant to be shared. This is where we share them.

Thanks for the photos Kim, thanks for the beautiful magazine Luisa, congratulations to everyone involved in Alphabet Journal issue A. We love it and can hardly wait for the B issue.

Big love to your family from ours.

xx

This weekend you might like to…...

READ - issue 39 of Dumbo Feather. There's a story about an organic farmer/blogger in there you just might recognise. Eeeeep!!


MAKE - my toffee apples while it's still apple season.



LISTEN - to Emily Ulman's beautiful new song Light On and while you're at it like her facebook page too - she's ace.


PLANT - your garlic. We got a bit of ours in yesterday and hope to get the rest in tomorrow.


PULL OUT - the last of the outside tomatoes. Ours were hit by our first frost on Wednesday night and will make a delicious feast for the chooks and compost pile.


SUPPORT - our gorgeous friend and organic egg farmer Madelaine and her pozible campaign to buy an egg washing/sorting/grading machine.


CLICK - over to Wholehearted Journal to read an interview with me.




MEDITATE  - by taking a little time out for yourself each day in May to crochet a motif. Take a picture, upload it to Facebook or instagram and tag it with #motifdaymay.

And have a gorgeous weekend. Of course. We've got loads of farming stuff going on and we're hoping to get out to Clunes Booktown at some stage too.

How about YOU?

Bye! x

bits & pieces

Firstly, thank YOU!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Your messages on my last post have made me smile, they have made me cry, they have humbled me and they have meant the world to me. Your messages have reminded me of why I blog and have strengthened my resolve to keep blogging. Big time!

This community is awesome and I love being part of it.

So although I haven't gotten off to the greatest start, three posts in the first 16 days of 2014, I look forward to a wonderful, blogging year filled with the stories and the goings on in our family, on our little organic farm, in the forest, in Australia.

I wish, on the girls' dandelion above, that 2014 is filled with much creativity, wonderful health, love, inspiration and big opportunities for us all.


And now for a bit of housekeeping, some stuff I thought you might like to know...

Firstly, we are in the January issue of Country Style magazine. The feature includes a bit of our story, some beautiful photos and such an enormous thrill for us to be included in the shiny pages of this super glorious magazine. Yay!


Secondly, a couple of the photos I took at the topping out ceremony at my parents' building site made it onto Slate! I know!! (Read the article here). How very exciting indeed.

In December, my parents followed the topping out ceremony with a lock up party for their builders and family. We ate a delicious meal, my Dad and the builder made a speech and then keys were handed over.

I don't know if we'll ever build a house of our own, but I do know that if one day we are in that position, I love the idea and ritual of acknowledging the different stages of construction, thanking the team working so hard to create the space and celebrating building milestones with family and friends. We feel honoured to have been included.

Thirdly, my gorgeous friend and one of my fave bloggers Cath, has moved blog addresses and started up again. Yay! Head on over and visit MyBeardedPigeon to read about Cath's gorgeous little family, her life in a small community, her inspirational and very successful online business, and her wonderful way of seeing the world.

Fourthly, Pip's next blogging course, Blog With Pip,  is starting up again soon.

I was lucky enough to sit in the back of the class during the last course and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

If you are thinking about starting up a blog, if you already have a blog but need some fresh inspiration, if you have plans to make your blog into a book, if you want to build your blogging community, if you want your blog to look cuter, your photos better, if there is something about blogging you've always wanted to know or do, the Blog With Pip course is for you.

Seriously, the last course had students who have been blogging for years all the way through to beginners choosing their blog names and there was more than enough content for everyone.

And possibly my fave part of the last course is the community. I think Pip's last course officially ended a month or so ago, but many of the students still meet up regularly on Facebook to ask each other questions, offer support and help each other navigate the big wide blog world.

I think Blog With Pip is ace!

And that's it for now. It's crazy hot here and we're spending our mornings doing the farm chores and our afternoons swimming in the bottom dam. We're reading, making rainbow bracelets and we're trying to keep cool. If not for the constant threat of bushfire, it'd be idyllic.

So tell me about you, what have you been up to lately? Any links you'd like to share?

Stay safe and happy.

 xx