My Turn!
THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
The Great News is that I have been asked to speak more than a few words at the Press Publish Conference in Portland, Oregon on March 28th – 2015. I know most of you knew that already but I thought I would make it all official and also tell you a little of what I am going to speak about.
When I first saw the email from Andrea Middleton and Jen Mylo asking me to consider talking to them about coming to a conference with Press Publish – I almost deleted it thinking it was junk mail. ( I am so sorry Andrea! You almost ended up on the cutting room floor!) Have you ever had a delay in your head when you read something and it is so NOT what you expected to read – then there is a blank moment, then a few seconds later you cock your head and look back and think about what you just read and have to dive for the rubbish bin to retrieve it and read it properly this time, thank you very much? Or is that just me?
I was visiting Wellington, in New Zealand my home country – cooking homemade tomato sauces for the great lasagna feast. My mind had eased right down into that gentle kitchen cruise. I had just put two baking dishes, loaded with whole well oiled and salted garlic, into the oven to roast, I was heady with the scent of fresh, local garlic and crushed basil. Or was that the wine? Anyway – Random ideas swirling in pictures about my head with words floating behind them like bubbles, my inner score on full glorious sound. I had talked to nobody but tomatoes for hours. Then there was this email asking me to speak Out Loud.
To write is one thing. To Speak is quite another.
Now – I thought. Then I read it again. This. This is one of those offers one must grab with both hands. I thought. But being at a loss for words, I said – Hmm.
(If I have this correct – Andrea and Jen, who are organising and managing these conferences, work for Automattic. Automattic hosts WordPress. Wheels within Wheels.) Brilliant isn’t it!
And what will I be talking about?
Spinning the Yarn: I will be telling you, in person, the journey I took that brought me to blogging about my farm. I will tell a little of my history. Our histories build the path we walk upon. I don’t mean our fathers or grandmother’s history (though that is important too) – I mean us – Our Lives are our strength. We are living in an instant pudding world. We do not have time to be victims of our lives, we need to live in our lives and lean on all the relationships we have built, all the knowledge we have collected, then turn the corner and stride along swinging our arms using that knowledge as fuel. Fuel for the Benevolent Monster. (You have heard me talk of him before – that is for sure). Yes, I will tell a little of that. 
We are never still, life is always in motion. Like our hearts and our imaginations. So I will try to stick to the plan.
The concept I want to explore in Portland is that of Relationships. When I say relationships I mean the relationships with our Histories and with our Bodies and with our Food and with our Cars and with our Health and with our Mothers or our Readers or our Work and with our Keyboard and with our Journals and with our Lovers or our Dogs or some of those or all of the above and much, much more. I think that these relationships and the communication lines we develop BETWEEN these relationships become our vehicle. Our benevolent monster. Then we place our two legged monster, full of relationships chattering away, on a road built with our histories and stories and we gambol along gathering. Relationships are critical to Balance. Balance! Balance in our lives is a Talk in itself.. maybe another day. Imagine being wide awake and seeing these relationships.
So My Talk will begin with those stories, the stories of my youth, where my little self came from. My gamboling. How I grew up surrounded in people and noise. Stories of my growing Up self. How so many of the relationships I developed, or strangled as the case may be, how they all met at a certain crossroads and I turned left and suddenly came to the prairies and its empty fields. And it was all suddenly very quiet. How the farm and my cow and that deep quiet brought me to blogging and to you. And how you brought all your histories and knowledge to my blog, and the relationships we developed taught me and supported me in the farming and keep me honest.
The Fellowship is why I am going to this conference. You build my strength.
Then I will teach those wonderful people at the conference How To Think Like A Cow. Though I will not make them re-chew their food. Or moo. There will be no mooing.
The line up of speakers for the Press Publish conference in Oregon is extraordinary. I have to admit to being a little in awe of my fellow speakers. They know the stuff I don’t even know I don’t know. I am more of a Whisperer than a Speaker. Hopefully they will give me amplification. And for those of you who are closer to Phoenix than Portland, there is another conference there. Not me, but some pretty clever and interesting speakers to further develop the relationships we have within the blogging community.
We love new challenges you and I.
Love your friend – almost back at the farmy
celi
PS Tomorrow we zoom across to the UK for a look at an old farm there. The last farm in this series. We should have called this series Old Farms in a Modern World because I for one, and you too I think, have gained quite an insight from each contributor into how small farms are managing in a big farm climate.
This coming Sunday (the US Sunday) I travel back to the prairies. The tundra. It takes all day so I will leave here at 5.15 am and I should be home back out on the prairies by about 8pm. But I will check all the animals before I go to bed. And check in with you on Monday morning.
Then I am home until the weekend of the 28th of March when you can find me in Portland, Oregon.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
122 responses to “Press Publish calls Miss C”
Congratulations! Though I really think you should make them moo like a cow.
Morning Anne.. Moo.. c
YAY! YAY, Perfect and wonderful and and perfect and we’ll you know. I am speechless with joy
Afternoon Chris, and thank you.. hope all is well with you.. I shall pop over and see asap c
Reblogged this on bridgesburning and commented:
Now this is wonderful news! Congrats Miss C!
I am terribly proud of you. But I do think there should be mooing.
Morning Sweetie, are you travelling? or off home.. i will come over and see.. c
I am working like a mad fiend and haven’t had a moment to post and my darling daughter is having gum surgery today.
Gum surgery.. poor girl.. I imagine you have a freezer full of frozen probiotic yoghurt for her recovery period? that sounds painful… c
Your words about relationships are like you pulled them out of my heart and put them into form. I have always struggled to express my idea that our lives are all about RELATIONSHIPS and not much else. Relationships are the only lingering thing that will remain when we are no longer present. When we exit a phase in life – we leave behind so many relationships.
i.e. change jobs – there are co-workers that will remember you long after you go somewhere else
marriages – in my divorce I lost contact with some people that I did love and wanted to keep in my life but circumstances prevented that
and of course death – which I think we all understand……
I said many years ago, the purpose of my being alive is my relationship to others (human, environment or animal) and that my goal is to be a positive influence to as many as possible. But I am a one-on-one personality, so my relationships tend to be intense….. I would rather know 5 people very well than know 100 people by name only.
anyway, deep thoughts that I seem to be able to express here, but for me to speak in person out loud, can’t do. I’m too soft spoken. 🙂
And thus – YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!! You are going to be fabulous!!! I hope they YouTube your speech!
Last thing: “We do not have time to be victims of our lives, we need to live in our lives and lean on all the relationships we have built, all the knowledge we have collected, then turn the corner and stride along swinging our arms using that knowledge as fuel. ”
This is my quote of the day!!!!!!!!! Can we all say AMEN to this?
A Big Amen to this!!!! I’m going to share this relationship thought as the Thought for the Day that I send out to my siblings! Thank you Celi!!!
How did you end up as “Deleted?” Thank you Pat. I love your thoughts on relationships, they are the threads that linger after our deaths – what a wonderful concept.
Thank you for writing this for us.. Take care.. c
Very good question indeed! I wrote another response early on that didn’t even make it on the blog at all! 😦 About how exciting it is Celi, that you are going to the conference to share your life (which is so interesting!) and your ideas on subsistence living and taking care of our planet, which we on the farmy, and so many others share. But posted it from my iPad that had some issues. Pat, I hope you don’t mind if I share your thoughts about relationships staying on even when we exit this life. It makes so much sense. My Mom would always tell me that, and now, even though I can’t hug and kiss her, I feel her with me always, just like she, and you said. Thank you both for these beautiful thoughts! xoxoxo
I don’t share a lot on my Facebook page but I just posted the same words as quote of the day… nup… quote of the century! 🙂
You guys!! c
It’s great to see you on the other side… in the Commenters Lounge… hope you are having fun, with us and with your beautiful family 🙂
So excited about you speaking at the upcoming conference! You will be fabulous! And will no doubt share the importance of sustainability of our planet. I wish you could be filmed and it posted to YouTube so we could hear. And see you too!!! 🙂
Yes, our relationship to your planet is paramount to the talk and to us! much love c
Thanks for the kool aide colours on a cold day.
I have a special affinity with abandoned sun bleached toys.. hope your weather is a bit warmer this morning.. c
This is an absolutely incredible opportunity of which you are quite deserving. Congratulations! You will do splendidly and make all of us at The Fellowship proud. You already do.
That feeling of pride is such a gift. I never really understood why my Mother was so against pride. (there is another Talk right there!). Hope you are missing this next lot of snow on the weekend Audrey.. c
I do love that word “gamboling”. Oh, how I wish I could attend the conference. I hope the speeches will be available on YouTube or Vimeo at some point. The Fellowship is indeed a wonderful community of folks, and we are all connected as kindred spirits. Being a part of The Fellowship has brought me many lovely friendships, lots of advice, humor and warm fuzzies when I needed them most. You’ll do great at the conference! We are all so happy for you!
I love it too, it exactly describes our awkward yet fearless forward movement.. I think there must be singing involved. On the Press Publish site there is a page for you to enter your closest city to request a conference there.. maybe we could see if we can get one down your way? c
You ROCK!!!!
Morning Julie, you are up early.. can you still smell the bush fires? c
Hooray for you!!!!!
Morning Liz and thank you. I am very lucky, not only do I get to Talk but i also get to see the other Talks and hear what all the Techy guys are teaching.. I had better take my notebook! c
ROCK is right. In more ways than one. Some of us, well, okay, me, are pretty dependent on this blog for my daily shot of courage and humor and above all perseverance. The co-sponsors of this convention have chosen wisely in choosing you, Cecilia.
I have one tiny suggestion: speak loudly and slowly. Some of us (ahem!) are a touch deaf and too vain to wear a hearing aid. You might have a few of us in the audience.
What VERY good advice.. I shall make sure to remember.. hope you and hubby are warm, I hear it has been terribly cold in chicago.. c
Splendid! I wish I could be part of the crowd, actually hearing you think like a cow. 🙂 Oh, joy!
Hasn’t hit 0 yet today, breaking records, which we like to do up here near the Windy City. Have a good day.
I chose the right week to come to California.. is it still blowing? cold and blowing is awful.. c
You sure did. 🙂 Not blowing much right now, just frigid. I wish I didn’t have to venture out in it. Alas and alack, I know there are daffodils and snowdrops hiding under all.
still hiding too, sensible daffs!
Celi, you knock my socks off whenever you write stuff like this. You are a storyteller of great proportions ( Beth Ann ) . Your blog gives us a daily shot of courage and humor ( Equus ) . Your words touch the inner core of my heart…. I said this before.
You will give a great speech and we will cheer you from the comment box. I love to see it on you tube . Have a safe trip
Lol
Morning Gerlinde, I am longing to be home now, cold or not, (you know that feeling) .. and thank you for your comment.. comments like those make us all stronger.. love c
Excellent! And how very brave of you! But, you will be a great speaker–if you have any nerves, just pretend you are speaking to the farmy!
“Though I will not make them re-chew their food. Or moo. There will be no mooing.” lollllllll I can always stand a giggle in the morning.
I know! Mooing would be cruel! c