The Season of Hurry Up and Wait
A sort of update as to where we've been.
The first sure signs of summer arrived this week. Not the swallows or the cuckoos, the lilacs or the neon yellow gorse, but rather the tourists tootling along the bit-more-than-single-track road past the lake.
For those of us who drive it frequently, we know that two cars can easily pass each other if you both scootch to the side of the road. To the untrained eye though, it can be daunting.
I channeled all my patience as I idled behind a black SUV that was driving 5 miles an hour and then screeching to a halt every time another car (or bicycle) came past. I could see my neighbour in the rearview shaking her head as the traffic jam on our small, quiet lane built up.
We were late for school, as usual. This time it was the child who only goes in for one 50 minute session a week. It’d been challenging to get him in the car and I could feel the anxiety rising as the minutes ticked by. I made a mental note to adjust our leaving times by 5 minutes going forward, knowing that motorhomes and campervans would be the next to arrive for the season.
Eventually we made it to the main road where I could nip past on the main road, bombing over the hill to the High School.
We made it, just. I parked up, saw the child off, and settled into 45 minutes of answering emails in the car.
That school run is a good metaphor for this season, of the year and of our lives. It is hurry up and wait/the sprint and collapse - squeezing in moments of work between the endless school runs, appointments, meetings and events, with to-do lists growing longer as the season races on. The work of events, garden, writing, children, animals, etc, all growing in exponential relation to the length of the days. This year, even more so than ever before - with more events, goats, children and work than any year previously.
Unlike previous years though, I feel less caught off guard by the juggle— as if I have finally developed a muscle memory for this Season. In years past, the long, dark Winter when the events side of the business isn’t running, the kids have less on, the garden is sleeping and the goats largely stay in their cozy barn snacking on hay (so they can’t escape), has had some sort of amnesic effect. When the Summer hit, I was always caught slightly by surprise.
It has taken over a decade, but we seemed to have finally learned lessons on how to (mostly) juggle this full life of ours.
The secret?
We realised we can’t do it all.
For the first time in the 10 years here at Gartur, we have hit the summer with help. We have our head chef and business partner, Lucy, sharing the brunt of the management work. My beloved Eilidh manages the kitchen garden. Kat Begg is transforming our admin and systems. Lisa makes the things we produce look beautiful. We are working closely with our friends at Upper Ballaird to grow a large portion of the veg we will need for the year - growing things like cucumbers and herbs for our pickles and preserves so we can focus on the things we do well and can grow easily at our smaller scale.
Our friend Davy is on board to manage parking (of both cars and food trucks) at our Fodder + Farmer’s markets. Ellis has finished school and is working a day a week for us.
And there are many more I haven’t listed.
It has been a lesson in letting go. As someone who has managed things solo for years, it hasn’t always been an easy transition. Handing over the pieces of things I used to do is hard. There are many days that I find the elements of what I am left with the bottom of the barrel - VAT returns, submitting preserves for compliance, coding wholesale websites - certainly not the smallholding dream I moved here with.
Gartur started on an idea of being self-sufficient. We were going to grow our own and teach others to do the same. I brought my camera and pen along to tell the tale of “homesteading” in Scotland. I cringe a bit - 2014 Kat was nothing if not exceedingly optimistic.
These days, we are community sufficient, if there is such a thing. We are a small part of a larger picture, using our skills and resources - our writing/cooking/preserving/photography skills and knowledge as well as this special place - to do more together than Kevin and I ever could’ve imagined when we pulled into the courtyard a decade ago. Those skills we honed in running the farm, managing events, publishing magazines and photography and editing have fed into something a bigger than us…and all the better for it.
In it’s new role of Fodder + Farm, Gartur is hosting more and producing more than ever. We are working away at a new cookbook-a-zine launching soon. Those cucumbers Upper Ballaird are growing for us are destined for over a tonne of pickles (yes, we are crazy). We have a spice range and accompanying recipes.
And so with two sunny and dry days at the weekend, we mowed/mucked out/checked bees/went for swims/went for runs/BBQ’d/went for ice cream and just generally tried to pack as much as we could into the bright warm days and for the first time in a long time, those things included “time off”.
We are still BUSY, the days are still packed to the brim, we still don’t see nearly enough of our friends during the Summer, but for the first time in a long time, it feels like the balance is within reach.
If it could just hurry up…
We have a number of exciting events coming up:
10:00am - 3:30pm, Saturday 1st June: Eilidh is making a mini quilt
9th June: Open Farm Sunday Fodder + Farmer’s Market, with lots of great stallholders, farm tours, plant sales and delicious streetfood (by us), coffee (by Roam Coffee Company) and gelato (by Farrah’s Farm Fresh)
15th June: Long Table Feast
Community sufficient--all the yeses in the world to that.