I walk myself
Good evening loved ones :) It has been a fulfilling week, both busy and relaxing. I took a few long naps with my little girl and whenever I stopped moving, felt plenty of movement from baby Henry #2 inside my womb. I saw my first naturopath and took my last bike ride and loved it although I was saddened knowing that it would be another 6 months or so before I can ride again. 
I had long conversations with friends in the US on the phone and also had some nice visits with friends here in Macksville. It’s comforting when you realize your friends are really starting to know you. I was given quite a few spontaneous gifts this week by three different friends, all food: a box of peaches, a jar of homemade strawberry jam, home grown dried rosemary, dill, a mango and a bunch of spinach. Needless to say, it has been a tasty week in the garden and in the kitchen.
Perhaps the best part of the harvest this week was digging up two separate potato patches. They had not grown to maturity, but the greens were all dying and showing signs that they would just be wasting good space which could be planted with corn. In spite of their ugliness above ground, we harvested about seven pounds of beautiful potatoes of which we have already eaten over half. Digging for them is terribly exciting because there is the chance of finding none, since they are hidden underground. Thus, each and every potato is a total surprise and a gift, especially the “babies” (less than 2cm in diameter) because those are Jess’s favorite. I made a few dishes this week almost entirely composed of garden produce. This is always gratifying: potato salad with my own mayonnaise, eggs, celery, parsley, green onions, and potatoes, green salads, quiche with our own spinach, broccoli and eggs, roasted potatoes, beets and carrots, and pasta with our own leeks, broccoli, carrots, beets, celery, oregano, parsley, and shallots.
On the food subject, I must divert to discuss oysters. Oysters are harvested right here on the Nambucca River. I’ve seen them advertised and thought, “I should try cooking them….but I don’t know how.” I don’t even know how to open them! So now I am pregnant and in need of iron and oysters are one of the best sources of iron available, better than all meat excluding clams which are not sold here. Shellfish….hmmm…it’s a tossup, but they say if it’s cooked it should be alright. Anyway, I cooked some (pre-shelled) last week and didn’t cook the wine off very well, and Jess spat them out. Mind you, she eats anything from the sea whereas no one else in the family here eats any seafood except for shrimp. I finished them off because I knew I needed to. I have bought a dozen unshelled oysters which are sitting in the fridge waiting to be consumed and cooked in a different way. Any ideas? Still on food, Matt, Jess and I tried out a “Mexican Italian Pizza Restaurant” this week. Jess and Matt stuck with pizza and pasta, while curiosity forced me to try their bean enchilada. It was strange, yet tasty, and hovered between a flour tortilla filled with whole kidney beans cooked in Mexican“ish” spices and a pita wrap with a tiny bit of cheese baked on top. I suppose it’s like me cooking international recipes having no idea what the food is meant to taste like. I’ll admit I was disappointed, missing real Mexican food, but hey, they had a pinata hanging from the ceiling. Perhaps somewhere in Mexico they don’t use corn tortillas or sauce, don’t fry the tortilla before stuffing it, and use whole red beans rather than refried pintos. I am only familiar with Mexican food from American restaurants and one week spent in the poor part of Cancun.
Corn sprouting in the garden cheered me up though! Jess also found a few tiny, red strawberries to munch on, and even saved me a few. The seedlings were growing so well that they had to be transplanted. Michelle and Rory camped out one night with Jess and I so that gave us extra time in the garden, clearing out old growth and transplanting. The teepee garden is starting to fill up with newly transplanted seedlings artichokes, squash, chervil, dill, and borage and the corn, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, beans, basil, carrots and beets that I planted last week. The tomatoes and pumpkins from last year have self sowed and they may take over. I’ll be vigilant J I previously mentioned the difficulty of seed saving, well, this week it became more difficult. Well intentioned little Jacinta tore off the top of our last purple carrot which after five months had grown to be huge and was just sprouting flowers, which would soon have turned into seed. Looking for carrots for dinner, Jess tried to get the “big purple one,” she loves the purple ones. Her initial response to my not so subtle sadness was to self-soothe, repeating over and over to herself, “It’s alright, oh well.” For a few minutes I couldn’t do the excusing, just silent lamenting. Perhaps she knew I wanted to tell her that it was alright and thought she would do it for me.
Or…she may be learning that she can do no wrong. She has become VERY confident and bossy. Try as we might, constantly correcting her bossy demands telling adults what to do rather than asking does not work when her major playmate, her “pop,” (grandpa) does whatever she says whenever she says it. He loves to play as she does, so they have a great time together. She learns so much about how to fix things, to be creative with any old piece of junk, and how to find solutions to any problem. Nothing is too hard for Keith, “Pop, I want to eat mulberries.” When I have already said “No Jacinta, there are no more ripe ones that I can reach and I am hanging laundry right now,” she finds Keith a few minutes later. Pop climbs up the tree, stands on top of the ten foot high water tank, and picks twenty more mulberries. She finishes them off and tells him she wants more. Up the tank and back down again, he gives her another handful. She does say “thank you,” but my oh my! She prefers that kind of treatment, as anyone would, and at times, her expectations are becoming difficult. I’ve always said, “I will never have a child that disrespects her elders,” and it seems that our efforts may not prevent that. Or perhaps she is just two and it is just linguistic, but that can not be an excuse for letting her rule the house. She is starting to tantrum like a two year old should. It’s amazing how a parent learns to tune out until their sweet child has realized the impossibility of changing the decision. I never imagined myself being able to listen to her wail, but knowing so strongly in my heart that giving in to her impossible infinite demands will create a terror in years to come.
On a happier note, most of the time Jacinta makes us smile, laugh and melt inside with love and joy. Playgroup was at the beach this week, on the river right near the ocean. After playing in the sand for a while and watching me swim in the cold water, Jess ran out into the shallow water. She realized that there were no waves, but it had been so long since she had walked in the water alone that she forgot how much the sand moved under her feet. She ran straight to me, uneasy on her feet, grabbed on for dear life and pleaded with me to come out of the water. She then watched her little friend Lily carelessly bounding in and out of the water, splashing and smiling. She also saw Rory out in the deep with his mum and boom! All of the sudden she lost her fear and crawled in the water. She ran up and down the shore, galloped like a horse, slithered like a snake, jumped in little pools and splashed around. I eventually had to use food to get her out of the water.
Camping out was equally enjoyable: the excitement of a tent for young children is contagious. Even more, we had an enclosed fire in a bucket, a night hike under the stars, looked for twigs, played with flashlights and looked for frogs in the pond. Michelle and I of course relished the time to chat under the stars without children talking or garden tasks at hand. Bedtime has also been fun, it is sometimes our only time alone as a “nuclear family.” Jacinta and Matt have nightly bed jumping time. Of course she gets all giddy because it’s amidst changing into pajamas and is her “nudie jump.” She runs back and forth between the crib and the bed, giggling and dodging Matt’s tickling. Usually after the stories she has calmed down and is ready to crash. The other night we asked Jess if she would sing us a song before we sang her a lullaby. She happily obliged and proceeded to hum unrecognizable syllables for about two or three minutes. Usually she stops after a few seconds of humming and says, “This song’s about….bee bee bee.” That night she just sang continuously and it was lovely. I think Matt and I both lay there in awe, just hoping she’d go on and on.
One day this week while Jess and I were playing in the bedroom I put on a cd of lullabies that Matt and I made. Matt was singing a song called, “I Will Take You Home,” a song she has heard him sing quite a few times. This time though, she was listening very carefully while silently playing with her dolls. He sang the line, “I’m gonna carry you back home in my arms,” and she commented, “No, I walk myself.” I broke up laughing hysterically and she just kept playing with her dolls, not understanding what I was laughing about. I was laughing at her certainty that she wants to walk herself when she often pleads for us to carry her. I guess we all think we’re independent but love having people to lean on, not realizing we truly need help.
Matt kept busy this week, as he always does. In addition to four days at the bank, creating a nice gate for the orchard, and a long conference call to the US with other Creation Spirituality graduates, he also accomplished quite a bit on the house.
He finished the third wall on the bedrooms (the fourth wall will be a hallway between the bedrooms and living room). Each day he works a little bit on the roof doing touch up work like patching holes from previous nails in the recycled roof, attaching gutters and other things that I can’t explain. Keith moved out of his room so today Matt began the demolition of that part of the existing house. This is the only pre-existing space which we are taking over, it will become the bathroom and part of the living room. I suppose it is not demolishing, that would be easier. He is preserving each board and window to be re-used so he must work slowly and carefully. After this work is done he will begin framing the last half of the house. I began “punching” nails this week, this is easy, but tedious and time-consuming work, especially with Jess. Each nail on the floor boards must be punched down below the surface of the floor so the wood floor can be sanded and made beautiful. I have a job!
The construction is progressing, the garden is growing, and we are now parents who have to contemplate “parenting,” so we are growing too. We think of you all often and hope that autumn and life in general, are making you dance, sing, laugh and groan with the earth. Enjoy the colors!
Take care,
Shana
I had long conversations with friends in the US on the phone and also had some nice visits with friends here in Macksville. It’s comforting when you realize your friends are really starting to know you. I was given quite a few spontaneous gifts this week by three different friends, all food: a box of peaches, a jar of homemade strawberry jam, home grown dried rosemary, dill, a mango and a bunch of spinach. Needless to say, it has been a tasty week in the garden and in the kitchen.Perhaps the best part of the harvest this week was digging up two separate potato patches. They had not grown to maturity, but the greens were all dying and showing signs that they would just be wasting good space which could be planted with corn. In spite of their ugliness above ground, we harvested about seven pounds of beautiful potatoes of which we have already eaten over half. Digging for them is terribly exciting because there is the chance of finding none, since they are hidden underground. Thus, each and every potato is a total surprise and a gift, especially the “babies” (less than 2cm in diameter) because those are Jess’s favorite. I made a few dishes this week almost entirely composed of garden produce. This is always gratifying: potato salad with my own mayonnaise, eggs, celery, parsley, green onions, and potatoes, green salads, quiche with our own spinach, broccoli and eggs, roasted potatoes, beets and carrots, and pasta with our own leeks, broccoli, carrots, beets, celery, oregano, parsley, and shallots.
On the food subject, I must divert to discuss oysters. Oysters are harvested right here on the Nambucca River. I’ve seen them advertised and thought, “I should try cooking them….but I don’t know how.” I don’t even know how to open them! So now I am pregnant and in need of iron and oysters are one of the best sources of iron available, better than all meat excluding clams which are not sold here. Shellfish….hmmm…it’s a tossup, but they say if it’s cooked it should be alright. Anyway, I cooked some (pre-shelled) last week and didn’t cook the wine off very well, and Jess spat them out. Mind you, she eats anything from the sea whereas no one else in the family here eats any seafood except for shrimp. I finished them off because I knew I needed to. I have bought a dozen unshelled oysters which are sitting in the fridge waiting to be consumed and cooked in a different way. Any ideas? Still on food, Matt, Jess and I tried out a “Mexican Italian Pizza Restaurant” this week. Jess and Matt stuck with pizza and pasta, while curiosity forced me to try their bean enchilada. It was strange, yet tasty, and hovered between a flour tortilla filled with whole kidney beans cooked in Mexican“ish” spices and a pita wrap with a tiny bit of cheese baked on top. I suppose it’s like me cooking international recipes having no idea what the food is meant to taste like. I’ll admit I was disappointed, missing real Mexican food, but hey, they had a pinata hanging from the ceiling. Perhaps somewhere in Mexico they don’t use corn tortillas or sauce, don’t fry the tortilla before stuffing it, and use whole red beans rather than refried pintos. I am only familiar with Mexican food from American restaurants and one week spent in the poor part of Cancun.
Corn sprouting in the garden cheered me up though! Jess also found a few tiny, red strawberries to munch on, and even saved me a few. The seedlings were growing so well that they had to be transplanted. Michelle and Rory camped out one night with Jess and I so that gave us extra time in the garden, clearing out old growth and transplanting. The teepee garden is starting to fill up with newly transplanted seedlings artichokes, squash, chervil, dill, and borage and the corn, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, beans, basil, carrots and beets that I planted last week. The tomatoes and pumpkins from last year have self sowed and they may take over. I’ll be vigilant J I previously mentioned the difficulty of seed saving, well, this week it became more difficult. Well intentioned little Jacinta tore off the top of our last purple carrot which after five months had grown to be huge and was just sprouting flowers, which would soon have turned into seed. Looking for carrots for dinner, Jess tried to get the “big purple one,” she loves the purple ones. Her initial response to my not so subtle sadness was to self-soothe, repeating over and over to herself, “It’s alright, oh well.” For a few minutes I couldn’t do the excusing, just silent lamenting. Perhaps she knew I wanted to tell her that it was alright and thought she would do it for me.
Or…she may be learning that she can do no wrong. She has become VERY confident and bossy. Try as we might, constantly correcting her bossy demands telling adults what to do rather than asking does not work when her major playmate, her “pop,” (grandpa) does whatever she says whenever she says it. He loves to play as she does, so they have a great time together. She learns so much about how to fix things, to be creative with any old piece of junk, and how to find solutions to any problem. Nothing is too hard for Keith, “Pop, I want to eat mulberries.” When I have already said “No Jacinta, there are no more ripe ones that I can reach and I am hanging laundry right now,” she finds Keith a few minutes later. Pop climbs up the tree, stands on top of the ten foot high water tank, and picks twenty more mulberries. She finishes them off and tells him she wants more. Up the tank and back down again, he gives her another handful. She does say “thank you,” but my oh my! She prefers that kind of treatment, as anyone would, and at times, her expectations are becoming difficult. I’ve always said, “I will never have a child that disrespects her elders,” and it seems that our efforts may not prevent that. Or perhaps she is just two and it is just linguistic, but that can not be an excuse for letting her rule the house. She is starting to tantrum like a two year old should. It’s amazing how a parent learns to tune out until their sweet child has realized the impossibility of changing the decision. I never imagined myself being able to listen to her wail, but knowing so strongly in my heart that giving in to her impossible infinite demands will create a terror in years to come.
On a happier note, most of the time Jacinta makes us smile, laugh and melt inside with love and joy. Playgroup was at the beach this week, on the river right near the ocean. After playing in the sand for a while and watching me swim in the cold water, Jess ran out into the shallow water. She realized that there were no waves, but it had been so long since she had walked in the water alone that she forgot how much the sand moved under her feet. She ran straight to me, uneasy on her feet, grabbed on for dear life and pleaded with me to come out of the water. She then watched her little friend Lily carelessly bounding in and out of the water, splashing and smiling. She also saw Rory out in the deep with his mum and boom! All of the sudden she lost her fear and crawled in the water. She ran up and down the shore, galloped like a horse, slithered like a snake, jumped in little pools and splashed around. I eventually had to use food to get her out of the water.
Camping out was equally enjoyable: the excitement of a tent for young children is contagious. Even more, we had an enclosed fire in a bucket, a night hike under the stars, looked for twigs, played with flashlights and looked for frogs in the pond. Michelle and I of course relished the time to chat under the stars without children talking or garden tasks at hand. Bedtime has also been fun, it is sometimes our only time alone as a “nuclear family.” Jacinta and Matt have nightly bed jumping time. Of course she gets all giddy because it’s amidst changing into pajamas and is her “nudie jump.” She runs back and forth between the crib and the bed, giggling and dodging Matt’s tickling. Usually after the stories she has calmed down and is ready to crash. The other night we asked Jess if she would sing us a song before we sang her a lullaby. She happily obliged and proceeded to hum unrecognizable syllables for about two or three minutes. Usually she stops after a few seconds of humming and says, “This song’s about….bee bee bee.” That night she just sang continuously and it was lovely. I think Matt and I both lay there in awe, just hoping she’d go on and on.One day this week while Jess and I were playing in the bedroom I put on a cd of lullabies that Matt and I made. Matt was singing a song called, “I Will Take You Home,” a song she has heard him sing quite a few times. This time though, she was listening very carefully while silently playing with her dolls. He sang the line, “I’m gonna carry you back home in my arms,” and she commented, “No, I walk myself.” I broke up laughing hysterically and she just kept playing with her dolls, not understanding what I was laughing about. I was laughing at her certainty that she wants to walk herself when she often pleads for us to carry her. I guess we all think we’re independent but love having people to lean on, not realizing we truly need help.
Matt kept busy this week, as he always does. In addition to four days at the bank, creating a nice gate for the orchard, and a long conference call to the US with other Creation Spirituality graduates, he also accomplished quite a bit on the house.
He finished the third wall on the bedrooms (the fourth wall will be a hallway between the bedrooms and living room). Each day he works a little bit on the roof doing touch up work like patching holes from previous nails in the recycled roof, attaching gutters and other things that I can’t explain. Keith moved out of his room so today Matt began the demolition of that part of the existing house. This is the only pre-existing space which we are taking over, it will become the bathroom and part of the living room. I suppose it is not demolishing, that would be easier. He is preserving each board and window to be re-used so he must work slowly and carefully. After this work is done he will begin framing the last half of the house. I began “punching” nails this week, this is easy, but tedious and time-consuming work, especially with Jess. Each nail on the floor boards must be punched down below the surface of the floor so the wood floor can be sanded and made beautiful. I have a job!
The construction is progressing, the garden is growing, and we are now parents who have to contemplate “parenting,” so we are growing too. We think of you all often and hope that autumn and life in general, are making you dance, sing, laugh and groan with the earth. Enjoy the colors!
Take care,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
9:03 AM
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