We'll cook up a roosta when I get bigga
Happy Easter and Happy thoughts of potential spring I hear Milwaukee got sixteen more inches of snow for Easter, my oh my. In my 26 years of life in the US Easter always meant spring, buds on the trees, the returning smell of wet soil. It may still have been cold, but there were usually signs of new life. From what Lecia and Ben have described, those signs have yet to arrive in Wisconsin. Thinking of my sister stuck in everlasting winter, I taught Jacinta and her friend Lilly how to roll snow into a snowman, pack a snowball and have a snowball fight the other day. We used air as snow, so no one got hurt They were surprisingly entertained and carried on in the “snow” for quite a while. I was impressed when they decided to roll up the white woolly rugs and turn them into snowmen. Jacinta keeps asking when we will see snow again, poor deprived Aussie kid. I don’t explain the price of airplane tickets to the US, I just say, “hopefully soon!” I’m sure you are all ready for a new season to arrive.
It is time for a seasonal change here too, it is autumn’s turn to light our days. It is my third autumn here, and I am finally starting to recognize some signs. Autumn is much more discreet in Australia, the color show and loss of leaves is spread out over time. Some trees change colors and drop their leaves all at their own pace, others just stay the same. Now that I have learned which trees in my orchard are meant to lose their leaves, I can appreciate the plum, apple, pear and nectarine trees dropping their leaves.
For a few years I worried that I had killed them with neglect. I am learning.
The change of seasons surely is less extreme here, I miss the extremities though. I could smell fall coming at the end of the summer in the US. I’m sure others can smell the coming of autumn here, but my nose is not so keen. There is nothing drastic, but summer plants slow down, stop producing fruit. Eventually they will go limp, brown and die, but very slowly. I had this extraordinary sunflower “tree” with over 50 blooms on one root system. All ten feet of its mammoth stalk has finally dried up leaving all of the small flowers dead after months of cheerful blooming. It took a shovel, a mattock and about ten minutes to dig it up. This is autumn I suppose. Summer’s tomato plants have all stopped fruiting, but new seedlings have come up and are already producing green tomatoes. Watching old tomato plants is amazing. As the originally productive vines die off, they make way for the smaller shoots to come into production. The cucumber vines that I have not destroyed are going strong, but I have given up dragging them up to the house. I’m lining them up on top of the garden shed just to see what happens, how long they last, and if rodents destroy them. Otherwise Jacinta paints them, we throw them for fun or stomp on them. Jacinta and her friends have taken to carving cucumbers with shovels into bowls in the cubby house.
We can also see autumn in the color of the flowers. The other day Jacinta said, “Mommy, it must be purple flower season.” Another reminder of autumn is the aphids on all of our citrus trees. They are one sign of autumn I could do without. Last winter they successfully destroyed a few trees, even with all of Keith’s hard work spraying while we were in the US. I finally found time to spray the trees this week, using pyrethrum spray. It’s amazing to me that a spray made from pyrethrum flowers can kill pests on contact. I am killing, otherwise the aphids would kill off our efforts to produce our own fruit. One fun thing about spraying was looking so closely amongst the leaves, inevitably finding developing fruit and tiny green tree frogs hopping from leaf to leaf. If I look closely in the soil, it looks as if my recent seed plantings have been partly successful: carrots, spinach, and peas. One out of eighty garlic cloves have sprouted out of the soil…obviously there is a slight problem. There is always another lesson to learn.
One good lesson learned this week is this: the messier the house, the simpler the meals, the happier the children. Why? When I pointlessly attempt to clean up messes all day long, I never get anywhere and the girls are wishing I’d just play with them. In their patience, they make more messes. The answer seems to be simple: learn to sit and be peaceful in the middle of a mess and leave the house often. The cubby house is perfect to get away from the mess without necessitating a drive. Don’t worry, I’m not promoting living in a dirty rotten mess, just not letting clutter eat into my spirit. The girls’ happiness is not compromised by toy clutter. When I look back at the past week and think about our general well being (besides colds and chicken pox) Jacinta was happier, more carefree and agreeable than normal. I was more at peace, less frustrated, but aware of the messiness of everything. Genevieve was her usual curious, determined self.
Genevieve has taken climbing to new heights. She climbed onto a kitchen chair, then straight up onto the kitchen table. Nothing is sacred now. She crawls up onto Jacinta’s desk regularly now, this week though she fell off for the first time. She climbs onto the outdoor bench to try and see me in the kitchen window. She used to climb up a children’s wooden lawn chair to tear pictures down off the walls. Now the pictures have gotten higher so she tries standing on the arms of the chair. It’s all about getting what she “needs.” Combining her love for the outdoors and climbing skills, Evie climbed a file box to get up onto my bedside table. She then climbed onto the window sill and pushed out the screen in our bedroom window. I was nearby cleaning, chuckling until she got to the window sill. Usually she just wants to look out the window at cows and ducks, excitedly saying , “Boooo” and “Uck!” This time she wanted out. This time convinced us that she can not be left alone. Easier said than done, we’ll just see how that goes.
Given Jacinta’s chicken pox, you’d think we’d be going stir crazy by now. But Jacinta had a very mild case and was no longer contagious by Thursday, lucky because it was playgroup. It was also the “Easter Parade,” where all of the elementary age children march from the school to the main street in their Easter bonnets (funny hats they make at home) smiling and calling out Happy Easter. Both girls loved the fanfare and the chocolate eggs some of the girls were giving out. Tuesday we spent a few hours at the beach while Matt went to Coffs for an interview. Wednesday the girls came with me to Coffs Harbour (biggest city nearby) to take care of more immigration medical hoopla. The major problem is that I didn’t read all of the detail on the form, so I’ve ended up backtracking quite a bit. We had Thai food for lunch, and later spent a few hours at the jetty looking at the boats, watching the waves crash onto the rocks, watching fish feast in a small coral reef, and had ice cream. It was nice to be out, and not fear passing our germs onto unsuspecting children. Friday we spent with friends: splitting up bulk food for the food co-op. Later on, Jacinta’s friend Rory came to play and brought some great boyish energy into our midst. We played football and soccer, then he actually impressed Jacinta with a few creative cooking ideas in her outdoor kitchen. She’s usually so busy showing everyone else what to do, she has a hard time using other people’s ideas. Hmmm….where might she have learned such a thing???
The almost full moon has just risen above the tree line, lighting up the sky. The temperature is cooler now, the days are mild and have been slightly breezy, but still very warm. Jacinta has to wear “footie jammies” because she can’t keep her blankets on at night. Saturday night she wanted to wear shorts and a Tshirt to bed and promised she’d stay under her blankets. I laughed with her telling her that it’d be impossible to do that. So she asked, “Mommy, will you cover me up over and over all night long?” Rather than being overly practical and shooting down her ideas, I’m starting to be a little more agreeable with her also!
Matt and Keith did some work cleaning up around the chicken pen, cutting down massive vines and weedy trees. They stacked and dried out loads of firewood in preparation for winter. They also mulched to get rid of the refuse. I was hoping they’d finish the chicken shed, but there are still other things more important than eggs, they think. The chicks that were babied for a long while have turned out to be two roosters and one hen. Bummer. Now we have three identical crowing fighting roosters and one or two hens who don’t lay eggs at large, sleeping in trees. A few days ago Jacinta asked, “Why don’t we eat our roosters like Lilly and Aidan?” I told her we could and she quickly replied, “No…I want them to wake us up!” After a little discussion, she convinced herself that, “We’ll cook up a rooster when I get bigga.” These are small roosters, it will be a small meal for a “big girl.” The golden hen that hatched five chicks last week has lost all but one of them to mites, not foxes. I told Jacinta that Easter was about new life. Good thing she didn’t point out the contradiction when they died on Easter. I guess things must die to make way for new life, but cute fluffy chicks are hard to lose any day.
Genevieve and I went for a good hike around the dam on Easter morning, she lives to be taken outside. Matt takes her out each morning now to see the cows and ducks. He says she has almost patted a brown cow on the head a few times. We had Matt’s sister here for Easter and Keith and Mary were home too so it was a busy weekend. On Easter Sunday we went for a nice lunch at the beach. Jacinta rode her squeaky wheeled tricycle up and down the boardwalk. We also had a swim and Jacinta had a new beginning in the waves, she loved them!!! After a few years of real fear, she said, “Let go of my hand, I want to swim in this wave.”
In addition to cow gazing and working outside, Matt has been working on his book and preparing himself for interviews. He still has another interview. Wish him luck. We’ve been playing Yahtzee lately and in the past, he needed luck. But this week he beat me, no luck needed now. He played a lot of Scrabble this weekend and proved he really is a word man, over and over. Jacinta likes to sit on his lap, learn and touch the letters. Our friends Anissa and Craig brought their three children over for a barbeque and a “late night” as Jacinta calls it. We had a great time, the kids finishing the night off with Finding Nemo. Genevieve was particularly wakeful that night, she just could not stand to miss out on any fun, so she stayed up til about 10:30, crazy child. I felt like we were 20 again having our friends stay past midnight.
The girls and I took Allison back to the airport today. Matt had taken them to find her on Saturday. They love going to watch the airplanes, to see all the people, to play around in the big open space, to jump from one shiny square to the next, and to check out the fish painted on the walls. We did some sightseeing following our goodbyes, explored a lookout onto the ocean, and ended up in a nice little park. It’s rough living in a tourist destination I guess living here is great, working would be the issue. We’ll find a way. Send us some luck and we’ll try and send you some warmth.
Love,
Shana
It is time for a seasonal change here too, it is autumn’s turn to light our days. It is my third autumn here, and I am finally starting to recognize some signs. Autumn is much more discreet in Australia, the color show and loss of leaves is spread out over time. Some trees change colors and drop their leaves all at their own pace, others just stay the same. Now that I have learned which trees in my orchard are meant to lose their leaves, I can appreciate the plum, apple, pear and nectarine trees dropping their leaves.
For a few years I worried that I had killed them with neglect. I am learning.
The change of seasons surely is less extreme here, I miss the extremities though. I could smell fall coming at the end of the summer in the US. I’m sure others can smell the coming of autumn here, but my nose is not so keen. There is nothing drastic, but summer plants slow down, stop producing fruit. Eventually they will go limp, brown and die, but very slowly. I had this extraordinary sunflower “tree” with over 50 blooms on one root system. All ten feet of its mammoth stalk has finally dried up leaving all of the small flowers dead after months of cheerful blooming. It took a shovel, a mattock and about ten minutes to dig it up. This is autumn I suppose. Summer’s tomato plants have all stopped fruiting, but new seedlings have come up and are already producing green tomatoes. Watching old tomato plants is amazing. As the originally productive vines die off, they make way for the smaller shoots to come into production. The cucumber vines that I have not destroyed are going strong, but I have given up dragging them up to the house. I’m lining them up on top of the garden shed just to see what happens, how long they last, and if rodents destroy them. Otherwise Jacinta paints them, we throw them for fun or stomp on them. Jacinta and her friends have taken to carving cucumbers with shovels into bowls in the cubby house.
We can also see autumn in the color of the flowers. The other day Jacinta said, “Mommy, it must be purple flower season.” Another reminder of autumn is the aphids on all of our citrus trees. They are one sign of autumn I could do without. Last winter they successfully destroyed a few trees, even with all of Keith’s hard work spraying while we were in the US. I finally found time to spray the trees this week, using pyrethrum spray. It’s amazing to me that a spray made from pyrethrum flowers can kill pests on contact. I am killing, otherwise the aphids would kill off our efforts to produce our own fruit. One fun thing about spraying was looking so closely amongst the leaves, inevitably finding developing fruit and tiny green tree frogs hopping from leaf to leaf. If I look closely in the soil, it looks as if my recent seed plantings have been partly successful: carrots, spinach, and peas. One out of eighty garlic cloves have sprouted out of the soil…obviously there is a slight problem. There is always another lesson to learn.
One good lesson learned this week is this: the messier the house, the simpler the meals, the happier the children. Why? When I pointlessly attempt to clean up messes all day long, I never get anywhere and the girls are wishing I’d just play with them. In their patience, they make more messes. The answer seems to be simple: learn to sit and be peaceful in the middle of a mess and leave the house often. The cubby house is perfect to get away from the mess without necessitating a drive. Don’t worry, I’m not promoting living in a dirty rotten mess, just not letting clutter eat into my spirit. The girls’ happiness is not compromised by toy clutter. When I look back at the past week and think about our general well being (besides colds and chicken pox) Jacinta was happier, more carefree and agreeable than normal. I was more at peace, less frustrated, but aware of the messiness of everything. Genevieve was her usual curious, determined self.
Genevieve has taken climbing to new heights. She climbed onto a kitchen chair, then straight up onto the kitchen table. Nothing is sacred now. She crawls up onto Jacinta’s desk regularly now, this week though she fell off for the first time. She climbs onto the outdoor bench to try and see me in the kitchen window. She used to climb up a children’s wooden lawn chair to tear pictures down off the walls. Now the pictures have gotten higher so she tries standing on the arms of the chair. It’s all about getting what she “needs.” Combining her love for the outdoors and climbing skills, Evie climbed a file box to get up onto my bedside table. She then climbed onto the window sill and pushed out the screen in our bedroom window. I was nearby cleaning, chuckling until she got to the window sill. Usually she just wants to look out the window at cows and ducks, excitedly saying , “Boooo” and “Uck!” This time she wanted out. This time convinced us that she can not be left alone. Easier said than done, we’ll just see how that goes.
Given Jacinta’s chicken pox, you’d think we’d be going stir crazy by now. But Jacinta had a very mild case and was no longer contagious by Thursday, lucky because it was playgroup. It was also the “Easter Parade,” where all of the elementary age children march from the school to the main street in their Easter bonnets (funny hats they make at home) smiling and calling out Happy Easter. Both girls loved the fanfare and the chocolate eggs some of the girls were giving out. Tuesday we spent a few hours at the beach while Matt went to Coffs for an interview. Wednesday the girls came with me to Coffs Harbour (biggest city nearby) to take care of more immigration medical hoopla. The major problem is that I didn’t read all of the detail on the form, so I’ve ended up backtracking quite a bit. We had Thai food for lunch, and later spent a few hours at the jetty looking at the boats, watching the waves crash onto the rocks, watching fish feast in a small coral reef, and had ice cream. It was nice to be out, and not fear passing our germs onto unsuspecting children. Friday we spent with friends: splitting up bulk food for the food co-op. Later on, Jacinta’s friend Rory came to play and brought some great boyish energy into our midst. We played football and soccer, then he actually impressed Jacinta with a few creative cooking ideas in her outdoor kitchen. She’s usually so busy showing everyone else what to do, she has a hard time using other people’s ideas. Hmmm….where might she have learned such a thing???
The almost full moon has just risen above the tree line, lighting up the sky. The temperature is cooler now, the days are mild and have been slightly breezy, but still very warm. Jacinta has to wear “footie jammies” because she can’t keep her blankets on at night. Saturday night she wanted to wear shorts and a Tshirt to bed and promised she’d stay under her blankets. I laughed with her telling her that it’d be impossible to do that. So she asked, “Mommy, will you cover me up over and over all night long?” Rather than being overly practical and shooting down her ideas, I’m starting to be a little more agreeable with her also!
Matt and Keith did some work cleaning up around the chicken pen, cutting down massive vines and weedy trees. They stacked and dried out loads of firewood in preparation for winter. They also mulched to get rid of the refuse. I was hoping they’d finish the chicken shed, but there are still other things more important than eggs, they think. The chicks that were babied for a long while have turned out to be two roosters and one hen. Bummer. Now we have three identical crowing fighting roosters and one or two hens who don’t lay eggs at large, sleeping in trees. A few days ago Jacinta asked, “Why don’t we eat our roosters like Lilly and Aidan?” I told her we could and she quickly replied, “No…I want them to wake us up!” After a little discussion, she convinced herself that, “We’ll cook up a rooster when I get bigga.” These are small roosters, it will be a small meal for a “big girl.” The golden hen that hatched five chicks last week has lost all but one of them to mites, not foxes. I told Jacinta that Easter was about new life. Good thing she didn’t point out the contradiction when they died on Easter. I guess things must die to make way for new life, but cute fluffy chicks are hard to lose any day.
Genevieve and I went for a good hike around the dam on Easter morning, she lives to be taken outside. Matt takes her out each morning now to see the cows and ducks. He says she has almost patted a brown cow on the head a few times. We had Matt’s sister here for Easter and Keith and Mary were home too so it was a busy weekend. On Easter Sunday we went for a nice lunch at the beach. Jacinta rode her squeaky wheeled tricycle up and down the boardwalk. We also had a swim and Jacinta had a new beginning in the waves, she loved them!!! After a few years of real fear, she said, “Let go of my hand, I want to swim in this wave.”
In addition to cow gazing and working outside, Matt has been working on his book and preparing himself for interviews. He still has another interview. Wish him luck. We’ve been playing Yahtzee lately and in the past, he needed luck. But this week he beat me, no luck needed now. He played a lot of Scrabble this weekend and proved he really is a word man, over and over. Jacinta likes to sit on his lap, learn and touch the letters. Our friends Anissa and Craig brought their three children over for a barbeque and a “late night” as Jacinta calls it. We had a great time, the kids finishing the night off with Finding Nemo. Genevieve was particularly wakeful that night, she just could not stand to miss out on any fun, so she stayed up til about 10:30, crazy child. I felt like we were 20 again having our friends stay past midnight.
The girls and I took Allison back to the airport today. Matt had taken them to find her on Saturday. They love going to watch the airplanes, to see all the people, to play around in the big open space, to jump from one shiny square to the next, and to check out the fish painted on the walls. We did some sightseeing following our goodbyes, explored a lookout onto the ocean, and ended up in a nice little park. It’s rough living in a tourist destination I guess living here is great, working would be the issue. We’ll find a way. Send us some luck and we’ll try and send you some warmth.
Love,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
12:11 AM
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