Can I have that?

Hello dear friends and family :) I hear Michigan had an early snow already, wow! True to form, everything being opposite here, it has been a hot week. We’ve all had our first sunburn and are much the wiser, and are finding it hard to take a siesta in the heat. I’ve had to water the garden every day and watering this beast is no simple task. It takes about one hour, doesn’t that sound crazy? It’s really not that big, well, yes, it is. I will soon have to hook up some sprinklers and/or irrigation hoses because this strong sun demands a lot of water, but my schedule before the hot sun sets in (9am) is a bit busy with Jess and breakfast. Jess and I made it to the beach again and had a nice swim as the water is warming up. This is the end of a two week school holiday, so playgroup and choir will start up again this coming week.

Matt worked three bank days and with one of his days off, took Jess out shopping. This is a small town and if you want choice or anything cheap, you must travel 45 minutes by car. So off they went, leaving me to dawdle in the garden for about five hours, my longest, slowest day in the garden here. They had a great time followed by stories to tell about food, the shops and a petting zoo in the mall. I completed small random tasks that had been left undone for too long like patching up fences, filing away seeds, replanting seeds that had failed in the first attempt, picking off caterpillars, filling in the last two weeks of my garden journal, staking and transplanting tomatoes and a few flowers, and watering, of course. I realized how differently I work with Jacinta versus working alone. I had time to contemplate my next move, weighing its importance in the long list of tasks in need of completion. I also had time to stare at the flowers and evaluate whether their location was a good choice. Gardening with Jacinta is somewhat like being a teacher, always having to come up with new and exciting ideas of how to present the same old lesson. There are so many things for her to do in the garden but the sun is too hot, so she must stay in the shade, playing with water or playing in the shed. On the other hand I had no one to laugh at or with, no one to make me take a break or stop and eat a carrot. I will admit though, I rejoiced in eating the only red strawberry around, whereas usually Jacinta gets almost every strawberry we grow.

The garden looks great. All of my seedlings are flourishing, especially the corn. There still remains plenty of plantable space while I await eggplant and pepper seedlings to develop. I am also leaving space to plant crops like corn every two weeks, so it doesn’t all come at once. The trees are growing but the citrus trees continue to attract aphids. Watering with diluted urine helps a bit, but saving it up is not so appetizing, nor is working near the tree once it has been “treated.” There will be nothing new to harvest for at least a month or two, but we still have carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, a few strawberries, herbs, chamomile flowers, a tiny bit of broccoli and more celery than I could I ever use. I need to spend more time mulching my lovely trees because the sun sucks up their water very quickly now, but can’t seem to work up the steam with my aching back to pull the wagon down the hill. I did two trees this evening while Jess was out with Keith with the smell of urine lingering above my head. I have started, this is good.

White mulberries have been the hit of the week. Our neighbors went on vacation for a week so Keith decided that he’d better get the mulberries rather than allow the birds to get used to the bounty. Mind you, they were really to make Jacinta happy more than for himself. He took her along a few times so she got to know the location of the sweet berries. Today she decided that she would go on her own, as if it was the most normal thing to do. She ducked under the neighbor’s fence and walked straight down to the tree while Keith was getting ready to take her somewhere in his truck. Just when she arrived at the beloved tree she was caught by our neighbor, who had just returned home and Keith, who heard her calling out to him that she had mulberries. This was her first wandering and she hopefully learned her lesson.

Speaking of getting caught red-handed, we went to a garage sale today. Jess and I lingered at a table full of good quality kitchen ware. There were plenty of little things down low for her to play with, but when I started paying for things and filling my shopping bags, Jacinta too, began packing the bags with things she wanted. I corrected her repeatedly while the kind lady selling her wares laughed. I took a strawberry spoon out and told Jess that we would not be buying that and she stood up. She held the spoon up high and bypassing me, directly addressing the lady, she boldly asked, “Can I have that?” Her tone let on that she expected a “yes,” but I quickly quieted her down and told the lady we really didn’t need it. Once we had paid and left with all of our new cookware and Matt’s new jigsaw, we found in the car that Jess had taken a pot she liked. I ran back to return it, but the lady insisted that I take it for her to play with. Nothing like getting off easy, I suppose she’s young though. We’ve got time to teach her about stealing. After the garage sale we ran into a footbridge and stopped for a look. We took a walk across Newee Creek and spotted a stingray down below! I’ve never seen one in the wild, and now know first hand why people don’t swim in the rivers here very often. It was a beautiful spot though, and like any path made Jacinta joyfully run back and forth chasing her daddy. I’m too slow to be chased these days.

My belly is growing at great speed and I am feeling lots of movement now. Sometimes I feel so much going on down there that I can’t do anything but lie down and get through it. The heartbeat is so strong that I can feel it without the doctor’s tools. The hardest thing is knowing that spring/summer is just beginning and I’m not even half way through. Matt’s been helping me with my back ache and fetching me late-night meals while I’m in bed. Jess still dives on my belly, but less now than before, and she hardly ever asks for me to carry her. She wants to spend most of her time inside playing, or on the veranda in her playhouse made out of a cardboard box with a “window.” She must know I need to slow down…hmmm…probably not. Whether she means to or not, this plus the heat will make me slow down. She is also reducing my workload by using the toilet regularly. We don’t even have to carry a diaper bag now, she’ll use the toilet in public places or the grass if we’re in a park! What a gift and a load off, literally. For Jess, it just makes her even more confident and a “big girl.”

This “big girl’s” imagination is also developing. She can play with her friends and enjoy their company, rather than just playing near them. She makes up words while she is playing. Today while playing in her box she decided that she had a farm. And on that farm she had some chickens. But what did she grow? She grew basil, pronounced the Aussie way, and beesil. What is beesil? Perhaps it goes in the same category as the “sida” that she spreads on her cow’s back and the “saywah” that “is not a tent, it’s a saywah!” After a while “on her farm,” she began playing peek-a-boo with me while I lay on the beanbag reading an Australian historical cookbook. She then peeked out of her box and asked me, “Do you like my hat?” She had a pretend hat on, and I recognized this question from a Dr. Seuss book called Go Dog Go! I answered, as the dog does in the story, “No, I do not like that hat.” Giggling all the while, she tried on numerous pretend hats asking me the question every few minutes until I finally answered, “Yes, I like that hat!” It’s a new phase in that she is inventing her own games, with language that she has learned purely through imitation and no grammatical correction. Earlier today, with a big smirk, she asked me, “Are you my mother?” This is yet another Dr. Seuss book. They are catchy and were all given to us by friends from our church in Michigan, so they are even more special. Until Matt mentioned that he’d like Dr. Seuss books for our baby to be, I never knew there were so many. I think we have the whole library. Her vocabulary could turn out quite strange if she continues learning phrases from them!

The house has developed, as it always does. Matt tore down the outside wall of Keith’s old room, windows and all, and opened it up to the form in which we will use it. Half of it will be the bathroom, and the other half living space including the piano. There were two roofs on this section of the existing house so Matt tore down the lower roof which housed the possum. Michelle and Rory were here on that day to help Matt and witnessed the stubborn and scared nocturnal possum’s refusal to vacate his home. With each layer they took down, covered in possum “residue,” they thought she might get the idea. She did not leave until her board was removed at the last second, poor thing. But really, we can’t share our lounge room with a possum! Onward building…I punched a few nails in the floorboards and Matt began removing some of the wood paneling in Keith’s bedroom to be used elsewhere. He also put up the first wall and window frame on the kitchen/living room half of the house. Each day it becomes more real, we will soon have our own house again and it will feel more like “our own” than anything else we have ever possessed.

Hope you’re all happy and healthy this fall. We miss you and love your letters.

Thanks for being with us from afar :)

Love,

Shana