365 days of farm life

This week a letter arrived from our accountancy firm congratulating us on it being one year since settlement of the farm.

A year.
365 days of farm life.

Surely that's worth taking a pause and reflecting on, I figured to myself. I couldn't do it any sooner than now as yesterday I fell in a heap and could barely drag myself out of bed to get a cup of tea. The last couple of months have been busier than usual as Rohan tries to recover from a back injury and I tried to do some of his chores as well as my own. Thankfully he looks like he might be turning the corner and he can now stand up for longer than 5 minutes, walking is still a challenge, but the standing is a big leap forward. So I think my mini break in bed yesterday was the culmination of a crazy November/December, but after a day of sleeping and tending to a sore head, I'm up and at it this morning, ready to face the sunshine and the chores once more.

But Friday night Rohan and I sat together on the back verandah, overlooking our kitchen garden, gazing out to the olives and the mountain beyond that and pondered on what it was we had achieved this year. As I nursed a Belgian cherry beer, Rohan laughed as he remembered the look of horror on my face on that Friday night a year ago when we got the keys to the farm and let ourselves in. 'Your face said, This is even worse than I thought it was,' he pealed with laughter, 'and you were right, it was!' We remembered the yellow walls and beige skirting boards, the back verandah that was all enclosed and a home for redbacks (I do like the fact that autocorrect changed this to rednecks and I had to change it back), the grass that towered taller than me in between the rows of olives, the overgrown, diseased orchard and the back paddock that was overrun with gorse.

Now, we sit in open space that looks out to the mountain, inside the house is all white walls that project light patterns as the day turns to dusk, the grass between the olives is like a park, the orchard is green and lush (although I'm still fighting various diseases and pests in there), the redbacks have lost the war of who owns the verandah, the bees are in their hives and the back paddock is gorse free (for the moment, with a battle plan for how to keep it that way).

We're taming our cows and sheep with buckets of molasses and oats, and they now come running to us when they see us instead of hurtling away in the other direction. In the yard, the plunge pool is taking shape with a coat of sealer going on yesterday and today looking perfect for painting it adriatic blue before filling it with water. On hot days you'll find us there cooling off and gazing at a sky of endless blue.

Every day we've learnt more about the land we live on, the community we live in and about ourselves. Recently, someone said to me 'You were the last person I pictured doing this', and I just smiled -  a self-satisfied smile that belongs to someone who is perfectly at home with life here on the farm. Tonight we head to our local community Christmas party and, unlike last year when we walked into the hall and all eyes turned to us wondering who the hell we were, this year we will walk in knowing our neighbours and the people from this small, quirky community.

New year's eve will be one year since our first night sleeping at the farm and so we'll toast with champagne to the year that's been and to the one that is to follow. There have been some tough times in 2014, for both of us, and as we all know, the news feed this year has been fairly horrific. In all of these times, the farm has been our escape from the world and it has also been a place for family and friends. We've loved having people from here and overseas visit, stay, help out and share in the fabric of our lives.
Thanks to each and everyone of you who have stitched a square of our farm journey. A special thanks to those who have contributed their (wo)man power to the farm cause.

As I wrote in November last year, we decided to call the property Innisfree after the William Butler Yeats poem 'Lake Isle of Innisfree', and it became increasingly pertinent. There is indeed peace here and midnight is all a glimmer.
Long may it continue so.


I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
                     - W.B. Yeats