Ep 64 Kate Ulman - Fox’s Lane ‘encourager of creativity’

This heart led Mumma of three has been luring us with images of a dreamy, bloom filled life on her Daylesford apple orchard & words of equal romance via her craft blog for over a decade. She laughs easily, has found balance in being real & makes the simplest of thoughts feel like genuine aha moments.  Kate Ulman is wrenchingly honest about the reality of farm life with young children, turning inwards when self care is needed & whether her babies will return to life on the land. Although not at her kitchen table, the intimacy of this conversation feels very personal & will leave your cup full & your heart nourished.

Episode notes

• Seeing your home the way others do
• Realising she is driven by making, creating & beauty
• Taking an ugly foundation & making it ‘beautiful’ slowly & sure
• The essence of a creative soul raising more creative beings
• Evolving with our children who are becoming the people they are going to be
• Creating a ‘place’ for our children
• The impact of an early childhood experience on a kibbutz
• Learning to farm at 30 & retrospectively being amazed they could do it
• Growing things organically was our religion but we actually didn’t know how
• Life before social media - 10 years of ‘ugliness’ because we could afford the beautiful 
• Sharing the raw truth of life on the land with a small family
• Expectation vs reality
• Seasonal appreciation
• “Every season is another chance to get last years mistakes better”
• The annual pre Winter crises & assessment of reality
• Pre farming life as a crafter & blogger
• Acknowledging there's a time & place for everything
• Filing your soul with the small &simple things but being realistic about doing whats possible
• Being kind about expectations
• “Being a martyr & running yourself ragged is NOT the solution but being aware & keeping it joyful means you can do it forever”
• Saying “I don't know” comfortably
• When we take our actions so seriously that it puts other people including  the next generation off ever wanting to participate in something worth doing
•  Letting go of the little things like baking bread for the sake of the bigger picture
• Actively engaging with community wherever a snippet can be garnered
• Putting her energies into writing a book
• Taking back her families story so it wasn’t available to the world online
• Rediscovering herself post early childhood mother-dom
• Being the complete opposite of organised
• Creating a plan for ‘older life’ so the love of the farming life continues
• Why bigger is not better. The active vision to make things simpler
• Why her mum is her greatest inspiration for her approach to motherhood
• How she became the encourager of creativity
• Daily exclamation marks of ritual elude her because she follows inspiration instead
• Why her good intentions for ritual get forgotten
• Why deep diving quickly into real conversations is important to her
• Her definition of success as living her truth & being filled with honesty, creativity, availability to the things she cares about 
• Having the confidence to live from your heart
• Gifting your future self by thinking ahead

References

Fox’s Lane

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