Blog

“Mum, I’d really like to go back to school now.”

I feel her. I feel her deep in my bones. We’ve had the kids home from school since the 17th of March, for everyone’s safety, and it’s starting to bite. We will ignore the fact it’s Saturday, and school holidays, and no one is going to school at all.

I like staying at home usually. I like it a lot. But it’s a lot harder when there’s a pandemic on and you absolutely cannot go anywhere except the supermarket and the chemist. Maybe it’s the backdrop of anxiety; of waiting for the tsunami to hit; of counting the ways we can keep ourselves safe.

(Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands…)

I stocked up on soap ingredients before the major supermarkets put their limits in place, and picked up tallow and coconut oil from the big wholesalers. Of course I’ve been making soap like mad, because we all need to retain our sanity in this environment, and now I’ve only got one box of tallow left. I’m sure that’s going to go down a treat when I need to cross the river (something we’re trying to avoid).

Because what else is there to do but bake bread and make soap? It might sound like privilege, but I have flour and yeast, I have a business, I have a brain which is likely to go all squirrelly if I don’t keep my hands busy.

My bones might fall apart, but they can be patched up with tape and braces. We’re all in a lot more trouble if my brain starts to misbehave the way my collagen does.

So I bake bread, and apple pies, and make soap, and tell the Internet that it’s okay to be doing whatever gets you through the day right now. (Probably don’t kill anyone though, if murder is getting you through the day you’ve got bigger problems than I can help with.)

There’s a lot of one-upmanship happening out there right now. Who has it worst, who is struggling hardest, who can sit at home and read books, who is literally putting their lives on the line. And FFS people, it’s a pandemic, can’t we just support each other? No one is doing okay, I suspect we’re all refreshing the news feeds and twitter as best we can, trying to keep our shit together. Stop with the culture wars, and pitting people against each other.

Pandemics are rough. It’s a traumatic event, unfolding so slowly we don’t quite know what to do with it.

Give yourself permission to bake bread, or sleep, or scream into a pillow. Whatever works. Honestly.

We’re in that weird bit of the year, where time has no meaning and the fridge is still full of cheese and leftovers. Christmas is over for another year, and after the chaos of preparing everything, we had a really lovely day.

Baby quail are hatching today, which is always cute, if slightly loud. This year our two new cockatiels are spending their time flock calling for the new babies, which is … loud.

Cockatiels like to flock call to make sure they know where everyone is. Because Sunny and Luna are still so new to our household (3 weeks now), they don’t always flock call to us humans. But squeaking babies? Best keep an eye on those.

It’s been a good year. Amy started Highschool and finished quite well – her reports were good, but the most important thing, her teachers actually SEE her. They like her. They can see her strengths. Such an important thing.

Isaac’s knee misbehaved throughout the last two months of the year, and he spent an exhausting 6 weeks on crutches, feeling like his fibula wasn’t quite in place properly. He was in lots of pain and couldn’t weight bear properly. An MRI showed an enlarged fibula head, with a joint that is actually horizontal, rather than a 30 degree angle – probably a congenital thing, and likely to contribute to his knee instability.

Boxing Day, he woke up without pain, feeling like his knee was finally back into position. It’s such a relief, and he’s very pleased to be able to weight bear. He is on the waiting list for testing under anaesthesia and depending on what that shows, surgery to fix it more permanently.

Evelyn had an excellent year also. Once she had some accomodations in her classroom – earmuffs, chill out breaks, cool down periods – she settled in nicely. We suspect Evelyn is also autistic, so she’s on the waiting list for formal assessment now. Which will be nice, mostly to have a piece of paper to force accomodations to happen. She’s melting down much less often, particularly now she’s had a week off school. Not being exhausted helps.

Business-wise, our wholesale accounts increased a lot over the second half of the year, which is keeping me incredibly busy. We’re also still open to the public two days a week (Friday/Saturday) and our end of year markets were incredibly successful. It’s been busy, and I’m not actually going to get a holiday break, but I cannot complain about success.

Heading into the new year I don’t usually make resolutions. But I want to create more this year – whether it is art, or writing, or the occasional ridiculous pretty soap, I need a bit more to fill my soul. This year hasn’t been a bad year – not compared to some we’ve had, but it’s certainly been an intense year, where it’s felt like we’ve bounced from chaotic moment to chaotic moment without any breathing space. From Mum’s cancer, to various health related things, to kids and school and work.

Hopefully we can fill 2020 with lots of fun.

The come down after a big event is rough. Both mental, and physical. You spend so much time in a heightened sense of panic beforehand – prepping, labelling, packaging, remembering and forgetting things every hour – that the return home is more of a collapse than anything else.

Bushfest was great. But it came on the tail end of making a huge amount of soap for wholesale clients (YOU GUYS ROCK), and keeping all of their orders straight in my head, making sure I had quantities enough for what everyone requested — and look, I use a lot of lists. I have my wholesale order lists pinned where I can see them and mark everything off. But I also have ADHD, and it is A LOT OF EVERYTHING to keep running smoothly.

The relief I felt when my biggest order was delivered was palpable. The next two orders to go out felt like rocks being lifted off my shoulders. Now there’s only a measly 20 bars of soap waiting for collection, and I am DONE for the XMAS wholesale rush.

We have one market to go (Hobart Handmade Makers Market – 14th December, 10am – 3pm – Lindisfarne North Primary School, Geilston Bay) and then I might be able to breathe again. HHMM is one of my absolute favourites however, so it’s always a good day.

---

On Sunday, during Bushfest, the MC was walking around, interviewing stallholders. He walked past me three or four times during the day, mostly when I wasn’t busy, and dismissed our stall as unimportant.

It got me thinking about the worth we place on businesses run by and ostensibly for, female-presenting-people.

Soap is for everyone. At the very least, every single person should use some sort of product to clean their bodies. Obviously I am a fan of soap rather than shower gel, but everyone showers, everyone uses things to clean themselves.

And yet, my entire business is seen as “for the women”, and frequently sneered at when I’m attending events that are either ungendered, or geared towards men. It’s a bit disconcerting to be dismissed as unimportant because our business revolves around soap and skincare.

But it happens. All. Of. The Time.

Women’s things (businesses, hobbies, luxuries) are considered less important. Because our soap smells nice, and looks amazing (if I do say so myself), it isn’t considered practical enough, or blokey enough to take seriously.

I grew up in the bush, fairly close to off grid. I helped cut and split wood, light fires, debark trees, build our house. I also learned to cook, and kill and clean animals. I’m fairly proficient at a number of activities, none of which I’d really consider gendered.

All of this is to say, I’m fairly comfortable at an event like Bushfest. I’m fluent in the language of rural life.

And yet, there we were. Dismissed as being “for the girls”.

I wasn’t interviewed all weekend. No on-air promotion for the soap stall. And it shouldn’t rankle, because honestly, I had amazing customers of all genders, all weekend. The people who buy our soap ROCK. And we sold a lot of hand cream to all kinds of people – nurses, concreters, cooks, plasterers and bushmen. Because taking care of your skin and your hygiene should not be a gendered thing.

But there you go. Gender is a construct and the sooner we start to break down the walls of what people are allowed to enjoy, the better. Not just for my business (everyone deserves good soap in a smell they love), but in general.

Please don’t think this is a complaint about Bushfest in general – the event was excellently organised, and always very well run. But it’s always interesting to pay attention to the demographic of an event, and how that impacts our interactions throughout the day.

I spent all week watching the weather forecast. Clicking, repeatedly on Saturday in Bothwell, hoping that the forecast would change.

But no. There it was. “Winds: 40kmph. Occasional showers…”

“We can cancel if we need to…” I said. “If it’s awful when we get there, we can just come home…”

Highlands Bushfest is on every year at Bothwell, a lovely initiative by the Central Highlands Council to get more people to the town – even if it’s only for a weekend.

And there we were, booked as stallholders, with ridiculous wind forecast. Nothing fucks a marquee faster than wind, and we were still considering going.

All the sentiments in the world – we can just leave if its too bad – ignores how hard it actually is, both to set up and pack down an event. Let alone to do those things in the middle of Weather. And in any case, spoiler alert: We Did Not Leave.

Even when we looked at the marquee, with its walls bowing and twisting, and made the decision to pull down the walls, letting the wind rush through, we did not leave. Even when we knew that the roof had to come off if we had any hope of saving the marquee bones itself. We did not go home.

Mum – Kim Foale Ceramics – stood there and served customers as I wrestled down the walls. She held the marquee at its centre to stop it moving, and hoped for the best, as the customers were three deep, seemingly oblivious to the fact I was trying to prevent sure disaster (a broken marquee is both dangerous and expensive).

And so I ripped the walls down, and took the roof off ON MY OWN, which is no mean feat with wind gusts of 80kmph and a roaring gale rushing through. While husbands of customers watched, and women shopped, and I did not hit anyone in the face with my marquee roof, and my marquee did not break and bow and bend and smash into all the brand new display cars parked opposite me.

Afterwards, when we spoke to other stallholders, this was a common theme. A few marquees broke, a few lost their roof canvas, a few buckled entirely, shattered and broken. And still the people wanted to buy things in the middle of disaster.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly grateful for how well we did – but I dislocated my shoulder and collarbone, popped them back in, and still took my roof and sides off while people watched like I was the entertainment of the weekend.

We worked the rest of the day under a naked marquee frame, in the roaring wind. A running joke: “You lost your roof didya?” Laugh. Slightly less funny: “No, we took it off before everything broke.”

Oh. The two women working alone: Sensible. Surprising. Also: Lucky – some other marquees buckled a lot faster than ours did, leaving their owners no choice in the matter.

I am still incredibly windburned. So windburned.

It was an excellent weekend, wind notwithstanding. I enjoy talking to locals, and country women are my favourite women. (Sorry everyone else)

But: The comedown after a big weekend event is intense. We traded both days, and today, while I’m exhausted, I’m also twitchy and feeling like I ought to be doing more than writing a blog post and adding progressively more moisturiser to my windburned cheeks. After the intensity of the weekend and the work, to be home today feels odd. Not bad, just odd.

Markets are a particular kind of hard work. I tell people “I worked a market this weekend and I am exhausted” and I’m not sure they really understand just how exhausting it can be.

But! Wind aside. We had an excellent weekend.

• 

It’s almost Christmas.

Well no, that’s a lie. But when you’re a soap maker and everything you make has to be planned and prepped 8 weeks in advance to allow for making/cutting/curing/packaging, then Christmas is not far away.

I’ve just let my wholesale clients know that they only have a week until the cut off for Christmas orders, and even then I’m going to be pushing it – I’ve got orders in the works for 20+ varieties of soap right now, and I’m frantically making so everything is cured and ready before the end of November, and also so we don’t run out of stock right as we have our own Christmas rush and markets.

Our studio has been open to the public every Friday and Saturday (where possible), and people are slowly starting to drop in and pick up soap in person. It’s very cool, and I will still admit to being excited every single time we have a car stop.

It’s a chaos time of year, made trickier by a number of Paed appointments, as well as school performances, and various other things my kids absolutely need me in attendance for. Paed appointments wipe me out for 2 days – the combination of physical and mental energy it takes to prepare, then the effort of getting into the city, and then recovery. It’s not my favourite. But we’re slowly sorting out a few issues which needed working on – Amy has a shiny new ADHD diagnosis FINALLY, and she is trialling medication to help.

At this rate, I won’t be hatching any quail until the summer holidays. I’m just not sure how I would actually find the time to look after brooder babies right now. Maybe it will seem calmer in November when I think about setting eggs. Maybe.

We have 8 baby chickens on the ground right now – thankfully being raised by their mothers, and another two hens just went broody and have been given two eggs each. I guess if we end up with a ridiculous amount of poultry we can always sell them like we do with the roosters.

I keep reminding myself that it will all be okay – working steadily will see all the orders ready and curing, and as long as I don’t exhaust myself too badly, it should be okay. It is the end of Term 3 however, and I think we’re all running on empty. One more week until school holidays and sleep ins, but at least we’re not waking up in the dark anymore. The fruit trees are flowering, the sun is (mostly) shining, and if they’re predicting snow to 600m tonight, well. I can always ignore that. (We’re at about 220m).