170 Playing docta

Hello there. I hear spring has sprung for you folk in my homeland. I am smiling as I contemplate the light green, the odor of wet beautiful dirt, hope and the bulb flowers popping their heads out of the dirt in your land. We had our first fire the other night. The wind has been blowing hard for the past few days and it is raining again. The ground is so wet that really, I shouldn't be messing with the soil for fear of compacting it all. But alas, I am not a trained gardener and will give anything a try if I have fifteen minutes to pop a few things into the ground.

 

The summer is clearly over, it is dark by the time we have dinner. We still have nice fruit in season though. If we only ate local fruit, our fruit salad these days would be kiwis and guavas from our garden (the kiwis are finally ripe after sitting in the fruit basket for over a month) and bananas from the fruit shop. Apples are in season a few hours drive from us so we are starting to enjoy the beauty of autumn apples. What does local mean? Good question, I suppose it is a spectrum of HOW local. Ideally, local food could mean anything grown in your town. Perhaps practically, local food might be anything grown within an hour or two hours driving radius from your house. If we ate only veggies from our garden, we would have cucumbers, green peppers, a few lettuce leaves, one cherry tomato, one leek, some rocket, garlic and warrigal greens every night. But we don't, we buy most veggies from the fruit shop. If we ate only eggs from our chickens (who don't lay well in the cooler days), we could share one or two eggs a day. If we were really dedicated to eating truly local and needed some more protein, we might eat one of the nuisance turkeys who dig up the garden. Instead we just buy local beef and local pork from the butcher. I hope to learn to grow a constant and better variety of veggies some day, and perhaps eat our chickens. We might have to invest in a rooster in that case.

 

For now, I am just experimenting when I get time, even starting to mow the lawn. This season I am trying out new ways of planting having as my major goal: leaving the soil structure intact. Most importantly I want to preserve the integrity, the life in the soil (worms, fungus, beneficial bacteria, minerals). Anytime the soil is uncovered or looks slightly tilled the turkeys dig it all up in search of worms and grubs and the rats dig up seeds. Introduced to me by my friend Martina almost ten years ago, no dig kind of gardening is much easier, just the addition of compost and liquid fertilizer to build up the fertility in the soil. I pulled out the old corn stalks in my bottom terrace, threw them on the compost heap and did not weed. With my large shovel, I jammed the tip in about 6-8 inches deep, pushed the shovel away from me, dropped in a handful of dried up chicken manure and a potato. I then pulled out the shovel, never taking out any dirt, leaving 13 potatoes underground, hopefully to sprout through the weeds in a while. I did the same with about 80 garlic cloves in the top terrace. I am interested to see how they grow in comparison to my previous efforts involving a lot more labor. I probably should have added some mulch and manure but any doctoring up attracts the turkeys. The girls and I have been weeding and planting peas everywhere in both gardens, and a few have actually come up in spite of too much rain. The fallow ground is diminishing as I find little blocks of time to transplant winter crops like broccoli into the ground. This comes at a good time, when Genevieve has learned to like broccoli.

 

Matt hacked down a large tree in the middle of the terrace garden with a machete the other day, while standing on a ladder. This does sound insane, yes, but we don't have a working chainsaw and he wanted to help me out. This endeavor made way for more sunshine on the plants and also created a third sturdy post to prop up our heavy kiwi vines. New stepping stones that we made together with our friend Emily will also inspire our garden this winter. We are hopeful for a productive garden. The girls hope to eat peas by the fistful, so we will continue to plant them every chance we get.

 

Our long awaited guests have come and gone, but what a lovely time we spent with them while they were in our midst. The Easter bunny didn't stay long enough to even sight him. Matt's sister Allison came and spent a few days with us for Easter which was so nice. Jacinta and Genevieve were thrilled to have their aunty here to play, as were we. They had a lovely time baking cookies together, and of course eating them. Jacinta proudly sat on Allison's lap through out the whole Peter Pan play, knowing it was a treat to be near her aunty. We went on a rainy day outing to Koala Park and strawberry picking.

 

Our friend Emily from Michigan stayed almost two weeks. Her loving, positive and energetic spirit inspired all of us. She had just finished her medical degree in osteopathy. She came to us after six weeks of medical work in Malawi, and a short stay in South Africa with stories and the desire for more adventure and exploration. We chatted late into the evenings, (giving me the chance to knit, listen and flap my gums), shared music and life. She played with the girls who were electrified by her energy. She worked on Matt, Keith, Mary and I, on all of our sore bones and even taught Matt and I how to help each other's knees (me) and back and shoulders (Matt). Her hands were magical. None of us had really had much experience with osteopathy, but after last week, I wish I had an MD who was also an osteopath like Emily. It seems to be one of the best options in the US, an MD who has knowledge and faith in natural remedies and deep tissue therapy. Not only did we have free medical care and great company, but also help with dishes, cooking and child care. Amazing. She slept on a hammock in our tiny abode for a few nights and didn't mind being awoken each morning by Genevieve looking for a playmate.

 

We packed more outings in the last two weeks than we usually have in two months. Matt took Emily and the girls to Coffs Harbour to visit the Big Banana and the ocean. They walked up and down a small island, Muttonbird Island, no small feat, but beautiful of course. We saw a wood chopping contest, a really funny version of Peter Pan put on by a local theatre group, and went to Bellingen for outdoor church both Sundays. Last Sunday Matt led Ecofaith for the first time while Jason was on vacation.

On Easter Sunday Matt sang his funny version of how the Jesus story can be connected to chocolate eggs. It was great, in between each serious historical verse, he had us all sing, "What about the Easter eggs? I really like Easter eggs! Where are the Easter eggs?" Only Matt could connect chocolate eggs to Jesus.

 

Easter was really nice.  The girls woke up extra early for breakfast and a few non-edible gifts from Matt and I, bulbs to plant and special stones. Soon, they found Easter bunny tracks leading to baskets in a few different places. Jacinta was so in love with the markers Pop and Grandma left in her basket and the one page to color in that she instantly went to work drawing and didn't look at anything else in her basket. There was chocolate to be consumed. While Genevieve began the demolition of her chocolate bilby, our task oriented Jacinta said she'd have chocolate after she had finished. Eventually we hopped down to the garden to find their wheat grass filled baskets, lots of chocolate, jelly beans and the hard boiled dyed eggs. It was quite a crowd of picture-taking admiring adults, Allison, Emily, Keith, Mary, Matt and I. The girls enjoyed the hunt, the chocolate, the company, and it wasn't raining! I hid their baskets over and over, until they ran out of steam and proceeded to have a very chocolatey day. They had a nice playful morning, followed by a long drive to church and another exciting chocolate Easter egg hunt. Emily and I took off on the canoe upon return to Macksville while Matt relaxed with the girls. It was the first time I canoed without the girls in our canoe and actually got to paddle hard. Mary cooked us all a nice dinner to wash away some of the chocolate. The only missing part of Easter was my family in the States. On Monday, we had the chance to connect with some of them on Skype and even talk to them on a web camera and even look at them! It was really weird, but amazing. My little niece in Indiana was baptized on Easter and we got to "see" her along with some more of my family.

 

After Easter Matt had to go back to work, so Emily and I decided to take the girls camping to the rainforest and see some waterfalls. Emily, like me, is a bit risky and loves a good challenge if beauty and excitement lie at the end of it. We took these girls to some gorgeous hidden corners, "Never Never Land" was our first real stop, a swimming hole on the Never Never River located in "The Promise Land" between Bellingen and Dorrigo. We played on big beautiful slippery rocks, walked through shallow pools, and climbed mossy trees, had a picnic and even saw a Peter Pan and Tinkerbell (or a couple we named as such). Emily was a great navigator, entertainer for the girls and after searching through tens of travel brochures, found a camping site for us. I love traveling in spontaneous company. En route we saw a few amazing waterfalls, and eventually made it to our destination. Dangar Falls was magnificent, and a great hike up and down to get a close up. Jacinta's legs have surely grown up and made the hike all on her own. After a nice dinner in town, we camped under the bright stars close enough to the waterfall that the splash lulled us to sleep. It was a wee bit chilly, but four girls squished in a little tent helped keep us warm. Although one shooting star after another tempted us to stay out stargazing all night, the chill in the air sent us in the tent to find a space in the big sleeping bag. We had such a nice time in Dorrigo that Genevieve has added "Dowigo" to her vocabulary. When asked what she did today, regardless of the truth, she says, "I went to Dowigo." When she packs her little bag and heads out the door, she is going to Dowigo.

 

I will close with a story about the girls' latest imaginative play. "Evie, do you want to play docta?" Evie replies, "Yeah, I be docta." Jacinta, disregarding her says, "Yeah, Ok, I'll be the docta, but first I am going to make some bandages." Paper, crayons, scissors and a few minutes later Jacinta has three new colored bandages. "Ok Evie, sit down. What hurts?" Evie replies, "My belly hehts." Jacinta instructs her to lay down. It takes a bit of encouragement. I peek in. Evie is on her back on the wooly rug while Jacinta adjusts her legs, looking calm and very involved. I leave them alone and in a few minutes come back in and Genevieve has the colorful bandages on her legs. Jacinta is hoisting her up on her lap, sitting in her doctor's armchair and giving her a big cuddle. Genevieve is actually accepting the cuddle (abnormal). They eventually switch places and Evie cures Jacinta's legs. I try to remain unseen and don't hear much. Today I asked Jacinta to tell my mom about their doctor game. She happily obliged and proceeded to tell mom about their illnesses. "We get bellyaches from eating too much chocolate."

 

Genevieve, who keeps good track of everyone's whereabouts will tell you that Allison is in Canberra, working, Daddy and Granma are in Kempsey, working, Popy is on hollyday and Emily is in America. We loved our busy home for the holidays and laughed a lot but now we are back to normal and this is pretty good too. With new inspiration and relaxation from our visitors, we are tired, filled with love and still ready to play, new and old games.

 

Hope you all had a nice "hollyday" too. Enjoy your spring, perhaps with a burst of new life and hope.

 

Peace,

Shana