Big carrots and bandicoots

Good day dear friends and family (: I hope this letter finds you all warm, satisfied, and at peace. I am feeling greatly satisfied with life, very peaceful, but not so warm. The last few days have been dreary, wet, and a little chilly. If we were smart and closed up all of the windows and doors again, it would be fine, but it’s hard to close the windows once spring has shown itself no matter what country you live in. These kind of days are great for gardening in general, but especially with Jess. She could go for hours in this weather, if only we had the time to stay down there. I’ve had a lot of other things that need doing or I choose to do. Choir has started up again. Anyway, we’re lucky if we spend even one hour a day in the garden. In spring, that seems to be a sacrilege. With all of the space I have to plant out, all of the delicious vegetables I could be planting, and the fruit trees that need loving, it seems terrible. I suppose I’m intentionally taking it slow for the baby and my back, but I sure wish I could do a lot more in the garden.

We are at 21 weeks now in the pregnancy. I guess I was half way last week and didn’t know it. We also hit week 53 in the journal, so that means we’ve been here for over a year. Baby Henry #2 is due in late February/ early March. It’s hard to believe that I’m already half way through, physically, yes, but not mentally. I see a local doctor each month, but next month will go and sign up at the birthing center in the hospital in Kempsey, which is 45 minutes away. Unfortunately their midwives can’t see women pre-natally, the doctors have a monopoly on that business. Matt came along this week and heard the heartbeat for the first time, and the doctor still only hears one heartbeat. My back hurts more than it did with Jacinta, but back in Ferndale I didn’t walk up and down hills, tether stubborn goats, take care of a toddler, chickens or dogs. I taught French and cooked for children, but had time for cat naps in between classes. It’s hard to believe life could change so drastically in just two or three years, wow.

The house project changes drastically each week. Living in the dark and not really knowing what the next step in building will be is actually quite exciting for me. I am always pleasantly surprised with each step towards livability, while Matt, the mind behind the plan just trucks along, knowing exactly what and how much work lies ahead. Sometimes it is overwhelming for him, the pressure to build, work a few jobs, and plan for more rewarding work to follow when the house is finished. He holds it all together quite well though, just requiring chocolate, coffee, and comic relief from Jess. This week we made a few of our first purchases towards the interior of the house: a mattress for Jess and overhead lighting for the whole house. We also began drawing lines on the floor to layout our kitchen, this is very exciting. This week Matt somehow single-handedly built the frame for our kitchen/living area, even with an aching wrist and three days at the bank and four days at Macnuts. He then prepared the wood to use on the one day he would have help so that on Saturday the rafters could all be installed on this room. My friend Anissa brought her family over on Saturday and while the men worked on the rafters and the rain held out, we played, cooked lunch and just held the children together all day long.

This friendship is quite a lucky one, Anissa and I met at playgroup almost a year ago. She had the only little girl around Jacinta’ age and we’re both into knitting and gardening. She has a little boy who is four and a Gemini like Jacinta. She and her husband are also city refugees trying to live out a dream and their garden is gorgeous! Her husband loves cooking the long slow way like I do. Now we’re both pregnant and due within a month of each other. We’re starting to spend more time together and it’s really nice. The children have loads of fun together, they enjoy the same things, they share, love animals, cooking and food. Lilly still has a thing for eating random objects, so food isn’t as exciting for her. She prefers magnets, sticky tack and crayons. Jess and Aidan both find this strange, Jess is just confused by it, but her brother finds it hilarious.

Yesterday Lily ate an entire blue crayon of Jess’s. Bewilderment was Jess’s only response at the time, but today when I told her that her friend Rory was coming for a visit, she asked, “Can we draw?” I said sure, and she stated that “Rory doesn’t eat crayons.” I had a good laugh at her clever logic but she didn’t understand why I found it humorous. In spite of her girlfriend’s strange habit, Jess just loves having Lily beside her, you can see her newfound joy and confidence in having a friend the same age who loves the same things she does. They mill around her playhouse cooking and playing with pots and pans in the sand. They slide down the big box Jess crushed over and over. We have three rocking horses for some strange reason (Keith collects everything) and all three children mount the horses, just enjoying a communal rock. Lily and Jacinta have started running off together and not just to the bedroom to jump in the crib. They took off twice the other day, both times towards the same tree at the edge of the property. I don’t know why they chose this tree, but the first time we were close by and said it was fine. The second time they ran from the house all the way down all the while heading for a small group of cattle, including the only bull. They were chased by a mom, and caught, and busted. But oh did they have fun doing it. You can imagine what a cute picture it is: two little blond two year olds running down a hill, holding hands, overjoyed with their newfound freedom. They’ll have to enjoy their freedom closer by though. Too bad.

There is not much to report in the garden this week other than rain and the purchase of a sprinkler. This saved some time and what has been planted looks great. Jess and I transplanted eggplant and pepper plants and planted another patch of corn. Those darned turkeys not only crack open our chicken eggs to eat the yolk out, they also have discovered the fresh soil to dig up in the teepee garden. I threw things at them to no avail, but they kept coming back to dig up the same patch. By some unknown stroke of genius, I decided to cover that patch in squash seedlings to deter them, and so far it has worked. Weekly I am shocked at how long seed saving takes, expecting to collect seeds from at least one of the six plants I am waiting on. The carrot flowers are beautiful.

We have about four patches of carrots from which we can harvest, and today I found some fat ones! Our celery is abundant and so tasty compared to the supermarket variety. The beets have been discovered by a rat or a bandicoot and are being dug up and chewed upon. We dig up a tiny patch of potatoes once in a while, and then Jess eats potatoes. Otherwise, she couldn’t be bothered eating them. Today we made a soup almost entirely from the garden. Perhaps it is my favorite soup: Red Lentil Curried Vegetable Soup. We used carrots, celery, potatoes and parsley straight after picking them. This could be why Jess has all of the sudden started eating soup again, but maybe not. It’s strange how certain foods come in and out of the range of acceptability on a child’s palette.

Jacinta again, made us laugh all week. It has been nice being a nuclear family again, even though it will be just a few weeks. A change in pace is always nice. Jess had a few milestones, first being shopping for her first “big girl undies (underwear).” Secondly, after counting to herself for months and going higher and higher counting chickens, she always skipped the “six.” We corrected her once in a while and she would laugh at us. This week, she began counting with a six. She’ll go up to eleven now, it’s quite cute. She says silly things like, “My calf came from a duck,” knowing that this probably wouldn’t happen, but goes on and on. She’ll giggle and repeat the same joke over twenty times like tonight she talked about liking “pinenuts, peanuts and poonuts (this was a daddy joke).” You can’t help but to giggle with her for quite a while, but then, it gets old. Then other times she makes statements that just warm your heart. In the garden the other day she was transplanting her first seedlings, with lots of direction from mom and caution. After she had successfully done a few eggplant she proudly said to me, “I’m learning to carry plants!” Another sweet comment she made was that, “Lilly’s daddy and my daddy are building me a house.”

Well, I guess I’ll close on that note and go to bed to dream about our new house and big beautiful eggplants. I wish you all good dreams, peaceful ones at night and that you can reach the ones you work to achieve all day long.

Peace,

Shana