172 Freedom for my chickens

Bonsoir mes amis. A lot of English books use French expressions without any translation, and it makes me think, "wow, how do people know what they are talking about?" After some contemplation, I decide that it must be one of those French expressions that most Anglophones understand. Blah blah blah… I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying life, the spring, the sun and stars, or at least, trying to enjoy amidst strife.

 Our chickens enjoyed life today more than they have in a while. They are FREE range chickens, as of today. We had locked them up for many reasons, safety, keeping track of eggs, and to keep them from digging up the garden.  They have never laid very well anyway, and are only laying one egg a day lately. I am learning how to garden in the presence of large birds that scratch up any disturbed soil, namely turkeys. I figure that our chickens should enjoy the land too, rather than waiting around for us to throw them weeds and dig them grubs. Early this morning Matt carried Genevieve into the pen and accidentally let a chicken out. As I was hanging the clothes on the line I watched how happy and free the hen was. I remembered how nice it was to watch the chickens around the place in the day, to be near them and to see them doing what they do best, scratching for nourishment. So I let them all out. It took them a few minutes to seize their freedom, but it was heaven. No eggs today, but the hens went back to their roost to sleep, all but one hen. I can try and pretend that I care more about what the animals produce than the animals themselves, but I don't think that is me.

 Perhaps age wants me to toughen up, age, motherhood and life in the country. I like to play the part of a real farmer but I am FAR from it. When I can take a step away, I wonder whether this new harsh edge will make me happier or steal some of my joy. I suppose we are meant to lose some of our childish awe and joy as time goes by, but how much? Necessity toughens me up, for example, firewood. I ordered a truck load of firewood, which was delivered in massive chunks. Of course Matt would normally be out there chopping and stacking firewood, but this time he was stuck on the couch. Keith taught me the method to the madness in splitting wood. He is a very good teacher, patient, slow and incredibly encouraging. By the end I was able to split a big stump into ten good fire logs in a few minutes. I need to practice though. The girls are making a firewood cabin in the shed, complete with a bench and a door. I keep reminding them that eventually we will have to burn it all down. Jacinta understands the sad reality, but insists that the one piece of wood with the beautiful insect trail must move with her as the bench moves.

Instead of chopping firewood, Matt has been putting his energy into healing, going to work, resting, reading, doing lots of conference calls for the Creation Spirituality Education Program and playing with the girls. Our naturopath again worked wonders on him. Two days later, he was feeling more mobile than he had in two weeks and three visits to the osteopath. He is slowly moving back into normal life, doing lots of chores around the place and tickling the girls. The girls were very kind and gentle with him in his pain, knowing to ask him for stories and cuddles rather than a shoulder ride to the car. He discovered a wonderful children's musician, Dan Zanes, and plays music videos for the girls as they sit on his lap. A week later, he is now able to stand up, play the guitar and play those same songs for the girls and dance with them. The other morning Genevieve woke up in our bed, looked at Matt lying in bed smiling and started her day of chatter. In a sweet sleepy voice she whispered, "You happy Daddy?" He smiled even bigger with his eyes half closed and said, "yes." He is so thankful for his renewed mobility and ability to play and fully join the havoc of the household.

We are all really happy and grateful for Matt's renewed energy and health. Life seems so easy again with all of his help and happiness. Last Sunday was Mother's Day, a day when he wanted so badly to spoil me. I could see that his anguish was almost as much as his physical pain. He did a great job of spoiling me though. I woke up to a new cheminea on the veranda, which means we can now have safe outdoor fires more regularly. He helped Keith, the girls and I make a Mothers Day breakfast and we were off to Ecofaith following. The girls and I took our sweet time at the big fruit shop while he rested in the car. We finished our outing with a trip to a huge Recycled Goods Shop and found some treasures. Then he made purple pancakes with the girls for dinner, all while trying to heal, but feeling great pain. By this weekend he has healed so much that he took the girls to town for a few hours while I gardened and spent hours doing some light building for Jacinta's birthday, making her a musical jewelry box. Today we spent the day out at Ecofaith and then explored the magical rocky creek called "Never Never Creek" in "The Promise Land." He is still on the mend, but leaves for Sydney tomorrow on an airplane for his first week of official job training, what Genevieve calls "Daddy's toilet training."

As it turns out, that was three days ago and Matt has been in Sydney for a few days. The girls and I have been eating smoked fish, tofu and lots of rabbit food, Matt's least favorite dishes. Tonight's tofu was particularly good: ¼ inch slices baked in tamari, peanut and sesame oils and sesame seeds for 30 minutes. Life is pretty much the same, thanks to the rain. We had planned to kick off building our little "women's camp" out on the other side of the dam and camp out for a few nights. Instead we shopped for tarps, tools, tent pegs, ropes, and marshmallows, ready for the next sunny free day to begin. There is a lot of work to be done, but we are excited to try this out and prove it to ourselves that girls can build beautiful things, no matter how long it takes. I foresee a lot of time spent sitting in the high grass and exploring this year and watching the girls come up with imaginative games. But mainly, we are busy to-ing and fro-ing from preschool to playgroup to visits with friends to choir to markets. Our time out there is rare as in the garden. I am contemplating cutting out a few things, but we shall see. I avoid backing out on things when people rely on me.

I also seem to avoid finishing things that I have started. But lo and behold, I finished Jacinta's birthday hat! It was a complicated pattern but it will be ready for her birthday, two weeks away. It is winterizing time. I'd rather chop wood than clean, iron and re-hang the curtains, but after months of dread, I did it! (It's good that I can congratulate myself for doing such tasks, tasks which seem obligatory to others). We can now close the clean curtains for added warmth without disgust of last year's dirt. I bought used wool blankets weeks ago, intending to cut, punch in grommets and hang them over the girls' windows and some walls, as added insulation. Four down, one to go, another load off, almost off. Genevieve loves her wooly cave, asked the other day for "you put a wooly here too?" She thinks they are just for her playing pleasure.

The garden seems to be another place designed just for play these days. I love brewing compost tea/fertilizer, but they seem to be breeding mosquitoes. I have covered them though. I don't understand how the mosquitoes survive. I can fertilize, plant, transplant, weed and water all I want, but once the seedlings are in the ground, they stop growing. My winter garden frustration has returned, lack of sun, maybe. The lemons are tasty though. It is incredibly gratifying to pick a lemon from the garden and squeeze it on our fish, in our tea, and in our salads. We have sparse herbs, which are lovely to have out my front door. The lettuce goes slow but we have a few leaves each day for a tiny salad, pumped it up with herbs and other veggies and salad, voila. I made garden pesto the other day, basil and native spinach. It was so good, and made me smile every time the girls dipped into the jar to sneak a spoonful. We have learned to enjoy pesto without parmesan now that we have completely dropped cow dairy products (minus butter), I just add more nuts.

Keith and I drove out to a seed swap gathering in a magical place, one hour northwest of us. Such a great idea if you can get someone to organize this. Why not save your seeds, which are tried and true to your area and are collected in abundance, and share them with other gardeners? Taking a cash value off of seeds is a lovely feeling, it is yet another of nature's free gifts. It does take energy to collect and knowledge of how to do it, so I don't mind paying. But it feels so good to swap them. The generosity of this crowd was honestly shocking. Aleasa, a permaculture teacher who runs her own nursery, hosted the gathering. After we all swapped, she took out her entire seed stock and let us pot up anything we wanted to take home and grow. She mentioned that her seeds were viable. I wondered how that could be, that she could guarantee all her seeds were still good and would come up. I have so often bought seeds that list an expiration date. It is well within that date, and they NEVER come up. I assume it is my failure. Every one of Aleasa's seeds came up within 3-5 days, tiny flower seeds that I have tried over and over and failed from store-bought organic heirloom seeds. I guess this is what a viable seed is. As Keith and I were leaving an elderly lady from the gathering gave us her address and said she'd love to give us anything we wanted from her 25 year old garden, if we would just drop in for the day. Generosity, a beautiful trait I will keep trying to live up to.

In my limited experience thus far, I have found people from less materially endowed countries to be the most generous. In all my time visiting the Dossas, my Togolese friends, we have rushed off before the meals. They let us leave. My Senegalese family never allowed friends to leave just before dinner. They made them stay. I never want to impose, such a modern Western concept, because many of us would call unexpected guests for dinner as imposing. When I only prepare enough for four people, I get stuck on that number and feel bad cutting anyone out of their share. But for some Africans, this slightly diminished proportion is a small sacrifice to pay in order to keep one's dignity and offering hospitality. Last week, the girls and I visited the Dossas and stayed past 5pm. I specified that I had made dinner for Matt and would leave by 5:30 to go home for dinner. But Christine had been waiting for months to offer us the hospitality she could not give while pregnant and lacking energy and spirit. She insisted and said we must stay, we did. The girls played hard with the rowdy boys until dinner.

New baby Joseph is healthy and lovely to hold and true to form, is handed off instantly when I walk in the door. Everyone in the house is doing well since Joseph was born. No more gestational diabetes, no more fear of eating the wrong thing. The father found a way to get in home child care assistance which is working wonders for the children's English, homework and immersion into Australian culture. What a long way they have all come. How lucky the girls and I are to share in their lives. We enter another world each time we walk in the door, a vibrant household with a constant flow of unexpected visitors. Again we are showered with generosity to learn from.

The girls can learn many things from us, but not the amazing hospitality, generosity and willingness to stop busyness for guests. This week we went to drumming class, belly dancing class, and choir, all essential life lessons :) Both girls are learning to cook very well and understand the cycle of seed to plant to flower to seed and on and on. Jacinta cleaned her room all by herself with no guidance for the first time last week. It was awesome. It hasn't happened since though. There have been a lot of card making occasions the last few weeks, which she loves. Some mornings she wakes before we do and goes straight to work. "Mom, I am going to make Grandma Shari's Mothers Day card." Last week at pre-school she was so excited to make me a Mother's Day Card, she asked the question that every parent knows they will hear at some point, ""Mom, can you go now?" I burst with pride, kissed her goodbye and left, knowing that she had gained enough confidence to seek solitude.

Jacinta's imagination is blossoming, surely something we could never teach but heartily encourage. The other day she was playing on the floor with a bear and a blanket. She was talking and Genevieve asked her what she had said. Knowing it was funny to say this, she smirked and replied, "I am not talking to you, I am talking to me!" She is starting to understand humor on another level, and makes us laugh even more now.

Genevieve is on her 2 year old level of humor, and makes us laugh for very different reasons. Her words and facial expressions are highly entertaining. She rejoices hard and falls hard. Evie is an energetic little dancer, always ready to play with others. She was so excited the other day while dancing that she ran at me and bit my leg. Other times it is easier to back away and foresee the bite coming. Being "sent to her room" does calm her down eventually but changes nothing in her behavior. This is why both Jacinta and I sometimes wince if her face ever comes near our bodies. She is discriminating, and does not bite Matt, Mary or Keith. Genevieve is full of love, rage and will. She can't stand that Jacinta can pour her own rice milk or butter her own toast and she can't. She throws little tantrums all day long, impatient and frustrated at injustice. She packs her own morning tea in a backpack on Jacinta's preschool, carrying her little " pack pack" in and out of town when we drive Jacinta in. She tells everyone she is going to "Little Peeschool," which means life at home with me, getting one on one attention while we work on the house or in the garden, or playing near me while I get things done. She'd rather be playing with Poppy and sometimes I let her. It's a battle to convince her that I'm an okay option but I really treasure our time alone and love our "Little Peeschool" Days. 

One lesson I am proud the girls have learned is to take their time, look closely at things and move slow. This may come from their natural childish state of awe and wonder. Amidst all the things I keep telling myself I SHOULD be doing with them, this is one important lesson I feel is accomplished. It is easy to see the negative effects when we try to get somewhere on time. But for me, the positives surely outweigh the negatives. The other day we went to the pond to meet our friends for French class. No one showed up, as I guessed might happen given flu season. Instead we spotted a duck and sat down near her, by the water's edge. After a few minutes of close inspection Jacinta spotted a small tuft of yellow fur beneath the duck and called me over. "Mommy, I think there are ducklings under her!" Over the next few minutes of quiet attention, eleven ducklings snuck out and began to wander in the long grass. The mother duck wandered to another tree and most of the ducklings followed. Three were left behind so the girls gently shepherded them over to mom. Obviously the mother was trying to shake us, but we didn't get the hint. The girls continued to shepherd the trailing ducklings to their mother. After about 30 minutes the mother took them across the pond to a small island and struggled herself to get up a steep ledge. The ducklings could not get up the ledge very easily either. They tried over and over, in different spots, always getting up a few inches and falling on their backs in the water. One by one they made it up the bank, with no help from their mother. We talked about how different human parents are to this mother example, not in a pitying way just natural differences. After another 20 minutes, there was still one duckling left who had given up. We watched a black duck come and chat with the duckling. We sat squinting to see across the water, hoping she would help the baby.  But she swam away after a while. We then went on a lovely autumn walk around the pond, threw leaves around and played. We eventually went home for dinner, wishing the little lonely duck luck.

We talked about the duck in the days following. The girls went back to the pond a few times to look for the lonely duckling, once with Matt and once with me. But it is left a mystery. We like mystery, better than the truth sometimes. Like why do our ten chickens average 0-1 eggs per day? If I knew the answer I might have to work harder on them. Good thing I don't know why.

I wish you a lovely spring week, less rain than we are having and a bit of beautiful mystery.

Peace,

Shana