A few photos

Crazy driver


















Hard day at the beach

















Corn












Bad hair day

Rain beautiful rain

Rain, beautiful rain!

Good evening loved ones! This Saturday night journaling might become hard if I have many more highly social Saturdays (hee hee, these kind of days energize me, but I’m out of practice, so I’m whooped). Although it’s 11pm and I’m a tired puppy, I still feel this need to close this week with you all. It’s been a really good week. After last week’s hot sun and lack of rain, this week it rained constantly for three days. The rain was very nice, light at times and very heavy at others, but constant, very tropical. There was no thunder or lightening, it was the kind of rain that you can play in, or mulch in, as Jacinta and I did. It was cooler and there was no sun for these three days, a nice break from sunscreen, sun hats, short sleeves and bug spray.  Our rainwater tank, from which we get all of our water for drinking, washing, plumbing and everything else, it is full once again! Matt has gone back to work, training at a bank, and although it is a monotonous process, he is thankful for employment, and even has a laugh here and there with his co-workers. The sun has returned and the plants are overjoyed given their big drink of water and now sun!

Thanksgiving has come and gone, I hope you all enjoyed the family and food surrounding and blessing you. I had a good few phone days on Wednesday and Thursday enjoying catching up with a few of you and hearing beautifully familiar voices across the telephone lines. I prepared a small Thanksgiving meal consisting of a Chilean Harvest Stew (pumpkin, corn, tomatoes and beans), a brown rice dish with macadamia nuts, apples and celery (trying to imitate stuffing in a strange way), roasted potatoes and carrots, and bread pudding for dessert. Not so traditional, but I tried to use some of the normal Thanksgiving ingredients I could find here. I tried to find cornmeal for cornbread, but no one eats it here! Life without cornbread???? I’ve since heard that cornmeal can be found through the co-op. Jacinta and I picked flowers from the garden and decorated the table. Keith, Matt, Jess and I gave thanks for the good things in life, said “Cheers!” (Jess loves toasting, saying “Cheers!” and having a swig of water) and had a good meal. It was hardly a feast with my big lovely family in Indiana and Illinois, but a humble meal to celebrate the food of the season and give thanks.

Rosellas are brightly colored birds with green and blue backs and scarlet red bellies. This is not a bird you see often here at our place, but this week we had a few encounters with them. First off, Keith rescued a baby rosella who had been abandoned for some reason and was sitting in the middle of the road, seemingly unable to fly. After work at the macadamia nut factory that evening, Keith brought the baby bird home in a box and excited Jess and Jedda (the dog) to a level of distraction from all other activities. Jacinta watched him hand feed and care for the birdie. The next morning while Jacinta and I were out at play group, the rosella’s parents came up the street from where Keith had picked up the bird and then down the big hill of our driveway and honestly came to rescue their baby. Keith heard the squawking parents all morning calling from the trees outside, and the baby responding, squawking back in reply. So her brought the bird outside, followed the calls, and took the bird out if its box and carefully placed him on the ground. The young rosella then flew up into the tree, rejoining his parents. Amazing, aye? The second rosella encounter this evening took place at our friends’ house while we were having dinner. Jacinta had finished eating and we were lingering at the table chatting, apparently too long for Jacinta’s taste. So, off she went, exploring out onto the veranda, and disappeared from my sight. I promptly call to her and follow her out reprimanding her for leaving the room and find her sitting contentedly in a big arm chair, calling out, “Ees! Ees!” I look at her string pointing finger to see a rosella off in the distance, sitting on a telephone wire with its scarlet chest sparkling in the setting sun. Ahh, what the children teach us.

So this week our little girl has been just as interesting to watch as ever. As I was working peacefully in the pouring rain, re-mulching trees that had not adequately been mulched the first time around, Jess sat a few feet from me, playing with her shovel in the dirt. She was digging up dirt, putting it in a pot, and dumping it out on the grass. Once in a while, she would pause and listen to the kookaburras laugh and hold up her hand to her ear to show me that she was listening. I stopped mulching quite often to marvel at her joy in the rain, and once I stopped and watched her contemplate. I never thought about that, when is a child old enough to stop and stare into the trees, and just think? There was nothing moving, it was the dam she was looking at, filled with lily pads and purple flowers, surrounded by big trees. Contemplation for a toddler, what a cool sight to observe. She’s growing some more teeth, so sleeping is hard for all of us. Her hair can be made into a really nice, sweaty, wet head mohawk, it’s quite fun to play with! Her newest word is, “See See!” I think she wants to tell you to, “Look at this!” She often sings the word, “Yahweh,” (the word for God in ancient Hebrew), repeating it over and over just to herself. We don’t think she’s really calling for Yahweh, but who knows?

Garden progress is great. I’m having troubles discerning which plants are weeds and which are seedlings because I sprinkled so many seeds haphazardly. I decided on a few weeds and got rid of them, and mulched over the rest, hoping that anything that really wanted to live would grow through the mulch. I transplanted some leeks, strawberries, lavender, pineapple sage, and catnip. All of our trees are now properly mulched and have comfrey growing around them. All are doing well, minus the coffee tree who needs some extra love. I built a new compost heap since the turkey owns the other heap now. Matt has continued his serious digging with a shovel, a rototiller and a tractor, preparing to build himself a workshop next to the existing shed. I’m scoring a bunch of dirt from this project! Carrots have sprouted, finally, the beans are climbing the teepee and the corn is over a foot high. The sunflowers seem to have outgrown the caterpillar munching and both gardens are flourishing for the moment.

Playgroup was fun this week, I really enjoy a few of the ladies who come. I rode my bike although the rain looked as if it were about to come, hoping for the best and we made it there as the first drops fell. I got out my knitting and settled in for a chat. I’ve been knitting again, which is great fun with this soft, sea-colored, hand-made yarn. The children all played, mums trying to keep them out of the rain, but by the end, we just gave up and let ‘em get muddy. So after a bunch of puddle play, the rain stops and I change Jacinta into her last outfit and diaper. We pack up, get on the bike and it begins to pour, once again. So we hop off, and hang out with the other mums, waiting for the rain. A friend offers me a ride in her van, and we eventually walk over to her van. With the bike and all of my stuff in my arms, Jess was given the freedom to walk to the van. A little coaxing here and there, we’ve almost made it to the van, and she sees a great looking puddle. She throws her helmet down into it and lays down, like it’s the bath tub. So, off go the clothes, the diaper, and we get into the van in the backseat, naked on my lap, between my friend’s two kids’ car seats. The van can’t get down the hill and back up safely in the rain, so we’re dropped off at the top of the hill, bike and bags and all. Here’s the funny picture I want to close with: Jacinta and I walking down the hill in the pouring rain, hand in hand, and Jacinta, completely nude and smiling after a good hard day of play at playgroup.

More Yucatan stuff

OK, so here is the church that our church's group worked on a little in Feb 05. We actually did some fence walls, the building was done.










Here's the church, post-hurricane, from approximately the same angle.


So yeah, if you can go and serve in the town of Leona Vicario... looks like they'll need it.

Yucatan

Here's some pictures of the area in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, following the hurricanes recently.

It's why anyone thinking about going on a work trip with the church down there should definitely do it! Those who went lasy tear will recognize the building we worked on in the background of one of the pics.

(thanks to Diane for sharing the pictures)

Sport, Harry Potter, and a job

Since Wednesday, Australia has had a good run…

Australian Soccer team beat Uruguay 1-0, advancing us to the world cup finals.
Australian Rugby Union team beat Ireland by some huge amount.
Australian Rugby League team beat Great Britain.
Australian Cricket team beat the West Indies by a simply embarrassing margin.

I know that most of our American friends couldn’t care less about any of these sports, but take my word for it that we’re the best.

So about Harry Potter…  It (the new movie) doesn’t even open here for two more weeks, and all the reviews are really good.  That’s annoying.  Australia loses there.  I also resolved a question that had been on my mind regarding the title of the first Harry Potter book.  IN America, it was HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Here and in Britain it was …the Philosopher’s stone.  Anyway, that first movie was on TV here the other night, and every time the stone was mentioned, they called it the philosopher’s stone – not dubbed or anything, meaning that they filmed different takes on every scene that included the mention of the fullname of the philospher’s/sorcerer’s stone.  I know you’ll sleep better now.  No need to thank me.

Oh, I got a job.  I dunno if I mentioned it or not.  A part time bank teller.  Not all that inspiring compared to my last job, but this shire (i.e. county) has the highest unemployment rate in the country, so one does not have the privilege of pickiness.  I started today.  Training, ho hum.

Hope you’re all well and nobody got too badly burnt when Alex tried to burn down the church.

Caterpillars attack

The caterpillars attack!

Hello loved ones! Thanksgiving is coming and they are advertising in the shops to “Order your Christmas Chook (chicken) now!” No one seems to realize that we should be thinking about turkeys (or tofurkeys), but they eat pumpkin here on a regular basis, and not in a pie. This weeks headlines: Jacinta got her first library card, drinks from a real cup now, drank her first glass of milk, stayed awake for the first time on the bike ride home from playgroup, and had her first day away from mum (me). Matt had his last week of lazing in the sun (not really) before bank-telling training begins, began digging out a plot for his workshop (a big dig with tractors, shovels and rototillers), and spoke a few times with the council discovering various annoying rules and regulations that will slow down the building process.
I worked a day on a friend’s organic farm and absorbed as much as possible (cow manure gathering included so I absorbed a bit extra!!), had my first pest investigation, dug up an old turkey nest for mulch, drove an hour away to go to a great market with Jacinta, heard some local music, and made it through 3 “round-abouts” in one day, without crashing or pissing off too many drivers.

The weather has been hot and dry, perhaps we got about 50 drops of rain. There was a big lead up wind storm, unbelievable wind, making me think….ooooh! Rain??? It’s going to rain tonight, I won’t water. The next day, gray and very windy, it will rain…..no, then came the 50 drops. The wind was amazing. I guess we have enough land that 2 black wattle trees falling over didn’t cause any damage, just saved us the work of chopping them down. They’ll make good firewood, garden border, and mulch. Mulch is a major need right now, we’re researching the mulcher market. For the time being, I’m using bales of hay, grass clippings, and the turkey’s old nest. Did you know that the male turkey will create a nest about 25 square feet, all by scratching over good nesting material from as far as 100 feet away? Up hills, down hills, over grass, through downed trees and messes of branches, he works all day long preparing the nest for his woman to lay her eggs? This is the reason that I am not using the compost, because of his trials. Therefore, we used an abandoned nest from 3 years ago. With this gold, I mulched around the teepee and lined the teepee with logs which Matt and Keith had cut from an old black wattle tree. The teepee is looking very good with its wooden table in the middle and 3 black wattle stumps serving as stools. The vines need to get to work though, Jacinta needs some shade before she can really enjoy her playhouse.

Keith and I have spent a few nights out in the house garden with a big flashlight trying to figure out who’s munching the corn and sunflowers. One night a moth was caught, and the next night, a big fat caterpillar. So out came all of the garden books, none of which said much about a natural solution. Jackie French, my new garden guru, failed me, or so I thought. One bit of wisdom was, no matter how much they are destroying, do not act yet, allow the garden to become a natural place. The pests have just discovered new territory! The birds and other predators have not yet found this to be a place of feasting on your pests, so invite them by planting flowering and aromatic herbs and installing a birdbath. So that was the next step. I’ll give it a while and then perhaps resort to dusting with pepper and perhaps some glue spray. The library happened to have a natural pest control book, written by my guru. Lovely.

Jacinta has been making us all laugh a lot lately. On our trip to the library while I was trying to browse through the gardening section, she was placed on a big fluffy red couch with two great kid’s books filled with animals and a big picture window facing the park where she watches ducks. Shortly after being seated she sees two magpies (birds) hopping towards the window and calls out at the top of her lungs, “IES! IES!”  I whisper, “Shhhhh,” from my position two stacks away. She stands up, calling me over yelling, “IES! IES!” continuing until I come over and look at the birdies with her. Lesson learned….libraries are not quiet places when Jacinta is present. In the middle of the night Jacinta will now stand up in her crib and rather than cry, she will call out in clear English, “Mummy?” until she is picked up for a cuddle. She now has twelve teeth including 4 of her back teeth and her hair is long enough to be really sweaty and messy when her hat comes off. She understands more directions, most impressing for me is, “Put the plug in the bathtub.” She loves the bathtub and promptly climbs in upon entry to the bathroom, even if it’s just following me in for a pee. Her new calling in life is hunting for poo. Poo of any kind: chook poo, cow poo, dog poo, or even Jacinta poo. Out on the veranda she is the first to discover the chooks having snuck through the gate to scratch around the deck where we eat because she sees their droppings and calls out until we have verified, “Peepee,” that yes, it is poo. In the paddock she does the same and will some times when given too much space, pick it up for verification.

Today’s trip to the Bellingen market with Jacinta was a big highlight for the week. Markets take place in a different town each weekend day. Everyone has spoken of the Bellingen markets as the place to go, and it only happens on the 3rd Saturday. They also warned that the “aroma” of the markets might make us high, actually the aroma of Bellingen. So off we went to the bustling market located in park, filled with maybe 150-200 stalls selling handcrafted everything, flutes, digeridoos, clothes, plants, trees, ready to eat food, drinks, honey, nuts, not many fruits and vegetables, herbal remedies, soap, leather crafts, wood crafts, and best of all, my most sought after good, wool! Handspun, hand-dyed merino wool from Aussie sheep is better than what I had hoped for. I’d been searching for good wool (you’d think it’d be easier in sheep producing Australia) since I came out in December. But it doesn’t get that cold here, knitting is not so chic, and acrylic wool is “more fashionable” and much cheaper. I also found a stall selling Waldorfy dolls and beeswax candles and rightly guessed that they were from one of the nearby Steiner Schools. The funny thing was when the woman, embarrassed, explained that her first grade daughter was only playing a Gameboy because she had taken it from her brother, it was not hers! For those of you that don’t understand why this is humorous, it is because we Steiner school people, in short, tend to frown upon “unimaginative technological entertainment” for young children because it seems to contribute to later difficulties with attention and socializing. Hmmm...moving right along… there were good bands to listen to while eating, native trees and plants being sold, and lo and behold….I met a Frenchmen! I thought there were none around, but I happened to choose this particular plant stall as my first shopping interest and sensed an accent. It was great to hear this beautiful language again after leaving my wonderful French friends in Detroit back in August. So after a long hot day, a sippy cup lost and found, and none of the infamous strange “aroma” in my system, we took the road back to Macksville.

The most beautiful sight I see these days is at dusk, when Jacinta and I, and sometimes Matt, go down the hill, past the chook pen, past the compost heap, into the teepee garden to water. Looking across the dam at the towering wattle and gum trees with the sun gone down behind them in the distance, the ducks flapping their wings to escape us noisy humans, it’s awesome. Although we don’t have our own space, we are making space for ourselves here. Although we expect no phone calls from friends wanting to stop by or just to chat, we can just sit down at night, drink some tea or coffee and discuss plans to build, and what the kitchen should look like, and go to bed. Although I can’t make Christmas plans with my family, or plan a big Christmas party and cook for all of our friends, I get to sit back and go for a ride and celebrate Christmas with Matt’s family while he works out the details. Life is new here and so very different from home, but it is slow and beautiful. I sometimes have to stop myself from running because I scare the chickens, the ducks, the turkeys and the birds away. I am still a city girl, learning to be a country girl. I guess I’ll take my time.

I miss you all, and will miss you more as the holidays approach.
Happy Thanksgiving! I’m thankful for you all.

Ducks are chicken

It’s all backwards.

Chickens will literally risk their necks by standing inches away from a swinging pick-axe, all in the too-often-vain hope that there’ll be a worm uncovered.

Ducks will fly away en masse if someone stands up from their seat on the porch about 40 metres away.

Why is it we attach cowardice to chickens?  Stupidity, sure, but they’re not scared.

And who do I see about getting this changed?

Making bread

First, measure out the stuff.


















Then, put the stuff in the thing.


















Finally, watch the thing mix the stuff. Voila!

Citrus trees by week 4

Citrus trees by week 4…

Hello my friends and family (: Here it is another Saturday night, I truly look forward to this time of recording the past week’s joys, observations and lessons learned. It has been a hot week, but it has also rained every couple of days. The rain, I suppose would be the sign that this is really spring. Locals say that the incredible heat and humidity this early in the season is not normal, that’s good to know. We’ve started using the spa in the courtyard to cool off, rough life I know. Jacinta loves splashing around, jumping from bench to bench, blowing bubbles and diving fearlessly across the deep just to keep us on our toes. Jedda, the dog, also loves the spa, especially playing fetch with Jess’ water toys.

It has been a good week. Major milestones include beans and corn that are 6 inches high, 7 new citrus trees in the ground and heavily mulched, a new seedling hut, newly cleared land to extend the compost heap, Matt getting a job after his first interview as a casual (fill-in) bank teller, I’ve started making bread everyday with the breadmaker), Jacinta learning to jump (with help), and saying new words like horse, turkey, noodle (nounou) ,corn (cong), gone (gong)  and puppy. Actually, we can’t tell the difference between rhyming words like cheese, keys, and peas and puppy, poppy, peepee, and poopy. Unfortunately, there are not always sufficient context clues, but it’s ok (:

I visited my first local organic farm, about a 15 minute drive from home, and met a really cool family. We have a bit in common: music, kids, farming (but they know how), interest in whole foods (though they’re much stricter), former cityfolk, and chatty women and more pensive men. I hope to learn a bit from them. Here’s a funny scenario…my friend visits today to drop off my order from the co-op, has a walk around to see what I’ve done so far and comments on my meager efforts in mulching saying, “Oh, that’s your mulch, how cute.”  In other words, I’ll have to do a lot more in that realm. So she happily showed me how to mulch, mulching the lemon tree with me.  Later in the day I spent a few hours cutting branches off of the black wattle tree which Matt and Keith had just cleared from behind the compost and used them to mulch over the shredded paper laid around the trees. I’ll probably volunteer on their farm one day this week to learn some more.

My first major mistake this week was mulching newly planted seedlings with freshly cut grass clippings. Three days later…you can guess…in my newly built no-dig garden bed, I had grass sprouting to life. I PLANTED GRASS!! It didn’t have to find its way in, I put it there, Whoops! Lesson learned: kill grass in black plastic garbage bags in the sun before using as mulch.

I made lunch for two new friends and their sons from playgroup. We had a lovely afternoon here at the house, complete with hiking, visits with the chickens “chooks”, musical instruments, and drawing with Pop. Playgroup was enjoyable once more. It is so nice to sit and watch Jacinta do her thing. In the two hours she plays, she only visits me when she is hungry or thirsty, or if she sees the fruit bowl come out ready to be consumed. I must run to her at times, either to take her clothes off before she climbs in the baby pool, to put them back on when she runs into the craft room soaking wet, or to coax her into putting on her sun hat. Otherwise she tends to play with the older children, soaking up ideas on how to use certain toys and laughing when they do something amusing. She also enjoys playing by herself, her attention span for one activity is getting longer. New discoveries at playgroup: there is a ladies’ night at the hardware store with wine and lessons on machinery, the mom’s have ladies’ nights out, next outing will take place at the local Chinese restaurant. They elect officers each year and run meetings once in a while, whilst the children run around somewhat chaotically.

On the wildlife front, I saw the carpet snake all stretched out for the first time. He was about five or six feet long and was stuck in our seedling hut because he had just swallowed a big lizard and couldn’t get through the chicken wire after his meal. Jess got to see the “Ssssssssss” and was happy to watch Pop coax the him out of our new hut. The turkey continues to act as if there are eggs incubating in the middle of the compost heap, so we can’t use the compost soil yet. It’s been a month now. I’m starting to think that it’s time to give up on that theory and dig in. Just today the kookaburras came close enough for Jess to see and hear them laugh. The mosquitoes are thick and think we are very tasty. We see harmless spiders all the time, this is good for Jess as her favorite song right now is the “Eensie Weensie Spider.” She even starts it on her own, she puts her fingers in a diamond and says, “Ooncie.”

So now our garden has 13 trees, new additions are a late blooming navel orange, lemon, lime, kaffir lime, grapefruit, blood orange, and a mandarin. Hopefully they’ll start giving fruit in 2 or 3 years. Perhaps by then we’ll have a house to host our friends who we miss so much in the States. With 4 types of oranges, we’ll need some help consuming them all so please come see us in a while. Until then, you can sleep on our floor (hee hee), camp out or stay in a nearby B&B, and we’ll just have to buy fruit from the local fruit stands (:  Miss everybody and love hearing from you.

Just some pictures

Here we have Shana's slaves relocating a perfectly decent chicken cage to a new location in order to protect seedlings from critters and hail.









Jacinta watching her version of TV.














Awwwwww, cutie!












The morning...

An audio treat

Something really good from my friend Emily…  Click on the link and listen!

www.paintedguitar.com/littleboy.html

COW, I win!

For our American friends who are familiar with the game “Cow,” let me just say that every day, for the past month, and every day in the future:

COW, I WIN

Reason 1: Cows are to where we live as squirrels are to where you live, except that they don’t climb trees.

Reason 2: Australia begins each new day about 16 hours ahead of Michigan, so even if I didn’t have cows all over the place, I have an almost insurmountable headstart each day.

Seeds are sprouting

Seeds are sprouting by Week 3!!!

I’ll have to admit that I’m pretty high this week now that I can see sunflowers and beans sprouting up out of the dirt, made a friend who eats vegetarian and makes her own bread, put my first order in with an organic co-op, and met a mid-wife in the natural food store. Jacinta’s “leaps” include learning to jump (beginning the process), swimming in the spa, eating peanut butter and mango chutney sandwiches, lots of carrots and brown rice, trick-or-treating, and saying, “thank you, meow, duck, kiwi, uh-oh and hat.” She’s really starting to understand directions. It’s so great to tell her to put something back and watch her do it. Matt has successfully hooked up our internet after spending days on the phone with the internet folk, begun drawing up the official house plans to submit to council after discussion with a builder friend, begun the interviewing process, started his lawn-mowing career and hooked up his first water pump from the dam to transport water up into a tap in the new orchard garden.

This week was a planting week, very productive actually. After creating the teepee in our orchard garden on the hill, Keith and I planted 3 passionfruit vines to climb up the poles. I later planted beans to climb up the remaining poles and sunflowers and corn to grow between the poles. The beans and sunflowers have already come up, within four days! Strong sun and water are incredible creations(:  We hung a wind chime in the teepee for Jess to play with, but it doesn’t seem to be as fun as walking and splashing in the newly watered dirt. On Halloween we planted two lillypilly trees (this is a native berry) and an avocado tree, no significance on the date. The first on November brought my huge seed order in the mail and began the major veggie planting.

In my smallish garden next to the house (about 100 square feet) I did some heavy interplanting. The theory I’m trying out is this: if you plant a huge messy variety of veggies, herbs, and flowers, in some sort of order but not in rows, leave no bare soil and mulch constantly, then you won’t have to water or weed as much and you’ll avoid major pest infestation. I’ll give it a few months and reassess. Thus far I’ve planted corn, watermelons and canteloupe together. I planted the eggplants, broccoli, tomatoes and capsicum (peppers) all directly in the soil (this is risky….) and mixed them up with marigold and mountain spinach seeds. I planted a small block of carrots between the tomatoes and sunflowers. I planted a few wavy lines of lettuce and arugula behind the sunflowers for some shade as it’s very hot already and it’s spring! I’ve hilled some more melons, some zucchini and cucumbers. We’re using a few old double washtubs to grow herbs and strawberries in this plot and plan to extend the garden by another 3 feet. I did most of the planting while Jess snoozed the afternoon away because she hasn’t quite learned how to walk on the paths yet. This may not happen soon… I suppose I’ll need to make more than a few sacrifices to the birds and bugs, but some to Jacinta’s wandering feet.

On the community front this was a good week. I now have a library card, a bank card, and a Medicare card. (I’ve been here for 3 weeks, I am a “temporary permanent resident” and have free health insurance, poor America). I rode into town and explored a bit on my own paying visits to a few shops: first off, the natural food store. I enjoy combing the aisles looking for the few things I could afford. Food is a lot more expensive here. One extreme example: a can of organic black beans was $4.50!!!! (about $3.50 US). I then had my first visit to the Bottle Shop and began my education in Australian wine. At the post office I discovered aerograms (pre-stamped paper which is then folded to become an envelope) which will be an inspiration for me to write snail-mail. Upon return from this trek into town, I successfully made it up the hill on my bike with a basket full of food without stopping to walk the last 100 yards. Finally!!! I had tea at a friend’s house and found we had a lot in common. She gave me seeds to plant from her garden and hope for finding a community of friends that have similar ideals. Jess had a blast taking over her 3 year old’s toys, roaming the garden, munching on cookies and jumping on the trampoline for first time.

At playgroup I got to know a few more women, a really neat Irish lady, and another lady who is just starting to build a strawbale house. I’ve signed up for a women’s camping weekend in December. I will have the chance to hear the stories and wisdom of a few aboriginal elders, to explore the river and rainforest environment, and then respond creatively to the sharing through art, music and writing. The camp is on a hundred acre certified organic property on the banks of the Kalang River.  It is mostly sub-tropical rainforest. There are beautiful walks and abundant wildlife. Much of the wildlife in this region is nocturnal and includes wallabies, sugar and feathertail gliders, quolls, flying foxes, possums, greater gliders, owls, nightjars, microbats, water dragons, pythons, goannas, and frogs. It sounds rough, aye?

On the family front, we are enjoying Keith’s willingness to teach us about the land, the trees on it, the birds feeding on the flowers and trees. Keith has been collecting odds and ends for us for the past 9 months, one of which is an entire church which we will use to build our house. If we ever need something we first go to Keith to ask if he already has it. Nine times out of ten, “it’s filed under miscellaneous somewhere in the shed.” The “shed” could mean it’s anywhere on this great 5 acres, sitting in piles at a few end of the property. It’s a new game for us to play, but for Keith, give him 5 minutes and it’s found.  For example, Keith and I were teaching Jess to walk on the paths in the garden yesterday, and I said, “Jacinta, let’s go look for a broom so you can sweep the paths!” Keith “Pop” says, “Ahh…I’ve been saving something for you, I’ll go have a look.” Five minutes later, he comes back with a baby-sized straw broom. We’ve gone garage saling together the past two weekends and gotten some good deals, today, a stereo!!!  Mary “Grandma” works at a retirment/nursing home and lives in Kempsey (45 minutes away) Monday through Friday. Today we attended a celebration of the opening of the new nursing home which she manages. After playing through speeches and dancing to the band and choir, Jacinta tasted about 5 different Australian pastries.

Politically speaking…it took me about 5 years of voting life to become passionate about American politics (not meaning I enjoyed the politics but cared enough to want to influence them). It will take me a while to understand enough to become passionate about Australian politics, and hopefully by that time I’ll be able to vote! For now, all I know is that the prime minister John Howard follows the US and Britain like a puppy dog. Right now he’s trying to pull a George Bush and change legislation for terrorism without explaining exactly what the threat is, but just that the threat is great and warrants compromising civil liberties. The debates in the House of Parliament are vicious here. They yell and scream at each other and speak their minds, they also get thrown out for going too far, but just for that day. A few of the five states are harshly disagreeing with the national decision and are letting all of their colors show. I hear that Bush’s approval ratings are 35% now, as they should be. Too bad it took those 15%  this long to understand the havoc that the Bush administration could wreak on the rest of the world, the environment, and our own people.

On a more positive note, Jacinta is still a chirpy little girl. We celebrated Halloween here in the house since Aussies don’t celebrate Halloween. Her grandparents found her a fairy costume which she put on over her purple dress, and spiced it up with some snazzy purple plastic beads. She then knocked on our bedroom door and got a cookie from Matt, knocked on Grandma’s door and received a kiwi from me, and ended with a knock on Pop’s door and got another cookie in her purse. That’s the way I like it, total control and no candy!!!

Jess has learned to give great kisses at bedtime and when she wakes in the morning. She wakes with so many things to tell us, as if she needs to make up for the few hours she slept the night before. She is starting to have some rhythm to her day, she wakes at about 7, greets everyone, goes out on the veranda,  (most often: Pop and Jedda the dog, eats oatmeal, drinks tea in her tiny cup, and then lingers around while we drink our tea playing with the dog and her ball, watching ducks and lately, she loves the turkey. If it takes me over an hour to get her outside to play, she stands at the screen door and bangs on it to get out. We’ll spend time walking, picking flowers, collecting eggs, digging in the dirt, maybe go for a bike ride, play with toys and snack all morning long and then she’ll have a nap at about 11 or 12, sleeping between 1 and 3 hours…..rhythm??? For her, yes!!  She whines at the refrigerator when she’s hungry and when given her bowl of food takes it to her high chair, slides it upon the tray and waits to be put in, this is shocking as she used to despise her high chair. She still plays with her food when she’s done, but can get the spoon in her mouth. She helps me make dinner too. She can now peel garlic, it’s quite funny though because she likes to taste everything, even the garlic and ginger root. She likes to take the raw veggies one by one to daddy, in the other room. She can entertain herself for a while now, it’s so fun to watch and listen to her busyness. She likes to toast at dinner time and make everyone say “cheers,” before each sip. Then it’s a trip to go watering the plants, bath time and bed time, by about 8pm. But she still wakes in the night…. it’s 11pm and here she is, needing a cuddle. Good night y’all.

2nd week in Macksville

2nd week in Macksville

Here we are, 2 days before Halloween in a place that doesn’t celebrate this candy-ful holiday, digging up garden beds, building fences, and planting seeds for summer produce. It’s quite strange. Speaking of holidays, since I arrived here in Australia and began shopping I constantly see signs of, not Halloween, not Thanksgiving, but Christmas! It was mid-October and I was listening to Jingle Bells in a discount store.
On television they have started commercials advising safe driving during the holiday season (Christmas): “No ‘Drink’ Driving!”

As much as I hate being in the presence of a television blaring obnoxious commercials, I am sometimes impressed with certain commercials. One example:
Country Energy, the big energy company, advertising Green Energy, which you can choose to pay $1.50 extra a week and consume Green Energy in your own home, without having to buy your own wind tower or solar panels. How cool is that???
En route to the beach town 11 kilometers from Macksville, there is a sign promoting water conservation, paid for by the government, not the Green party.

This past week Mary and Keith were away visiting friends and family so we had time to learn to call this home, and not a vacation cottage. We took care of the chickens, feeding them their porridge every morning at 6:30, scattering seed for the local ducks, birds and turkeys, and later collecting their eggs. We accomplished many things, one of which was learning my way around the kitchen and recuperating my normal kitchen creativity. After collecting 4 fresh eggs (this time I had to reach under the lovely hen keeping the eggs warm!), Jacinta and I made some oatmeal raisin macadamia nut cookies. This little girl loves playing with me in the kitchen, I wonder what child wouldn’t like washing her hands every 3 minutes, digging her hands in the batter, squishing the eggs and butter, licking sugar off her fingers and digging out raisins to munch on. The variety of color, shape and size of the shells and the dark orange color of the egg yolks continue to amaze me.

Matt, Jess and I all worked quite a bit in the garden this week. Matt spent time building fences to guard the land from the chickens and the neighbor’s cows, digging ditches for a water pump and digging holes as we planted our first three trees…orange, macadamia and coffee. We now have two garden-able spaces: one small flat garden next to house which is now completely ready for seed and has tomato and sunflowers seed already in the dirt and a large orchard garden on a grassy slope situated between the chicken coop and the pond.

Preparing the small garden was a bit of a pain because we wanted to build a “no-dig” bed. This involved spreading shredded paper, then hot grass-clippings, then mulched lucerne hay, then…..picking up cow manure by hand from the neighbors land and spreading it over the hay. We did not have the energy to collect enough cow manure, so later on in the week, I dug out 4 wheelbarrows full of good compost dirt from the “chook” pen, and then 4 more loads from random spots on the property and spread them on top of the cow manure. THEN….it was time to fence it in and plant. During all of this laboring, Jacinta usually found something to do, either chasing chickens, digging up dirt with her baby shovel, filling up containers with my dirt and throwing the dirt back on the ground, searching for treasures amongst the sticks, pulling shredded paper from the bottom layer of the garden bed, pouring water on the plants, kicking the ball to the dog, or….napping peacefully in her cozy crib inside.

The orchard garden is the newer of the two and will NOT be a raised bed. As you might guess, we could not possibly collect that much cow manure, dig up that much soil, or pay for that much hay. For the time being, this approximately 1600 square foot garden has 3 trees planted, a fence to block off the cows, and a teepee made from barna grass (bamboo-like tall grass grown right here) which will soon allow a passionfruit vine to climb and Jacinta to play inside. Matt and Keith will soon hook up a water pump to make use of the pond water as nourishment for the new trees and veggies-to-be in this garden.

There have been some impressive rain and even hail storms over the past week. When people talk about hail “the size of baseballs,” it does exist! It ruins cars, crops and hurts animals and people, but boy, watching it from the comforts of your own home, it’s beautiful. I can’t believe that stuff shoots out of the sky and comes down so hard. The water has been good, our water tank is almost full, everything is green, flowers are in bloom, but unfortunately I don’t have many veggies benefiting from the rain. I am still awaiting my seed order. I’ve seen a few gardens in the area with tomato plants two feet high and pumpkin vines getting ready to fruit. Ideally, I’d have planted back in September, but that’s quite alright. I enjoyed having another mid-western autumn, spending time with my family and enjoying the harvest season in my home country.

Matt and I are trying to take Jess on nightly walks and bike rides to visit the nearby horses and cows. She can “nay” and “moo” like a pro. Her chicken sound is that of a monkey, she’s a bit confused, but she can say chicken. She eats ground macadamia nuts in her oatmeal, loves kiwis and bananas, and has started eating peanut butter sandwiches. She even had her first taste of Vegemite!!! She can run down hills without tumbling, but it sure makes us nervous. Her affection for holes is still strong: every hole we dig for a tree, she gets in and tries it out first. While feeding the birds, she throws most of her allotted seed down the hole near the bird baths. Everything in its place, right?  She has slept through a few nights now, but still wakes up at 6am every morning.

Today Jacinta turned over a new leaf…she willingly left my side in the orchard to go with her “pop” (Keith) to get a drink, up the hill and inside the house. In actuality, it was the verbal promise of a cookie that did the trick. How wonderful though, here is the picture: Matt is digging a trench, I am wrapping leaves around the teepee and Jess is playing around the base. Pop offers a trip to get a drink and she looks wary…I say, “Pop might give you a cookie,” and her face lights up! She walks 20 feet to Pop and holds her arms up to be carried. She goes up to the house and returns happily 20 minutes later with Grandma and Pop with a blanket and basket of toys.

My driving skills are improving, it’s beginning to feel normal to drive on the other side of the road. My old rule “You’re doing it right if it feels wrong,” no longer applies. This is a small town though, and I’ll keep it simple for a while, no driving in bigger cities. My bike riding skills are also improving, but whoa, there are real hills here! Matt used to marvel at my inaptitude in shifting gears, and now I understand why he could do it and I couldn’t.
I met a bunch of nice ladies at the Macksville playgroup on Thursday. What a beautiful sight to see 20 kids between the ages of 3 months and 5 years all playing in the backyard of the family center. They were scattered throughout the yard, some playing in the tiny baby pool, mostly half naked because they’d forgotten their bathing suits and are not near as modest as Americans. Some crowding around their gabby mums, the fruit bowls and cracker plates, others digging heartily in the sandbox, a few sitting in the craft shed playing quietly alone, some climbing the tree or the playground, but ALL wearing sun hats and covered by a shade cloth. This is a great thing, Australians are very sun conscious and have figured out that it’s easier to shade play spaces than spread on sun block every 2 hours. The ladies were really nice and open to chatting with me and filling me in on community information. I met one woman who invited me to visit her garden next week and another who is going to bring me some of her husband’s pumpkin seeds (because she doesn’t want to eat any more pumpkin herself). Jacinta was in heaven, finally amongst children again, after the 2 months in limbo missing her baby friends like Otto and Iris. Her infectious giggle made everybody laugh and her mommy proud. I plan to go every Thursday and learn a little more each week.

Today Keith took us to a big garage sale, we’re off! We’ve officially begun the rummaging process. Soon the boat will arrive and we’ll have more stuff than we can handle. We’re still doing quite well without all of our belongings but it will be nice to see certain things again. We’re in a new place with lots of exciting challenges. The weather is getting warmer every day, it seems to be in the eighties and makes digging very sweaty work, but still rewarding. I am anxious to get more seeds in the ground.
That should be it for the update, quite wordy I realize. Oh well. Daylight savings will spring us forward tomorrow as 6am will come quickly. Farewell loved ones.
We miss you all.

Some new pictures

Life on the farm... This is the first garden planted. Note the chicken in the background. Matt's first task was to fence the garden in, enabling his ego to inflate as he could claim to have ousted not one - but 11 - chickens from the garden. What a hero!

Jess has cool pink boots. Daddy chose them!





Here we have a picture of the place. The dam in the background ran dry two years ago, but is doing pretty well now. It's the home . We've just finished piping some water from it to our feshly planted fruit trees (orange, avocado, macadmia nut, lilly pilly, coffee, passionfruit).



Here is Jess with Keith (Pop). She's proving to be a pretty good tractor driver.










Where does garlic go? Ears!











And how do we get that garlic smell out of the baby?






Well, that's about all for today. Just wanted to catch up on some pictures....