I Bless Youed

Good evening y’all. Again I find myself in the lounge room amidst the noise and people, hiding in my headphones listening to a passionate piano recital our friend in Ohio sent us over the internet. Wow technology, thank you for that. The fire is keeping us all warm from the chilly night air. Sleeping outside in our chicken coop are not just eleven chickens, but now 21 chickens and a goat out there, all trying to keep warm. Winter Solstice has come and gone so sunlight is now on the rise, the days will only get longer. As I drove home from choir this evening, the stars hung above my windshield, bright and enticing. Beauty to gaze upon above you while driving makes it hard to keep your eyes on the road, but the curvy highway covered in warning signs won the contest.

Speaking of beauty, the rains came again! The tank was running low, so Keith scheduled the water man to come and sell us yet another 2,000 gallons of town water. Inevitably, this brings rain, usually the following day. So like clock-work, Tuesday brought the rain which poured down on and off for three days. It wasn’t cold outside, so we went on with our life out of doors, but enjoyed a few naps. Matt worked on the joists, leveling, chiseling out grooves to fit them onto the bearers, and eventually secured all eleven of them, in the rain. He didn’t need much help from us due to the fiddly nature of the work, so we found other jobs. After numerous failed attempts at growing chamomile from seed, Michelle and I happily transplanted about 40 chamomile seedlings into bigger boxes in the rain. All the while Jess played up in the shed alone, while Rory dug a new path in the garden. Jess is struggling with sharing these days, horror to me who thought it would be easy to teach this simple concept!!! Rory likes to work hard and manages to swing the tools quite high; with little Jess out of the way he has more freedom anyway.

Another rainy task was preparation for our new arrivals: the goat and the chickens.
Keith has a knack for running into and unintentionally charming people who are in search of a home for their animals or their old treasures. He is a collector of many things, and a softy for animals and babies. Luckily no one has offered us any extra children! Just Monday I reminded Keith that I really wanted more chickens for eggs. Monday night he came home from work with a list of free animals from his friend who was moving up the coast. We didn’t take all of them, but accepted the chickens and the goat. We had two days to make the large chicken pen a hospitable place for the new arrivals. Keith did most of the work of course, but Jess and I did what we could: tearing down dividing walls, hammering in dangerous looking nails, relocating roosts, sweeping up straw, spreading new straw, sweeping years of spiders webs off of the walls, and raking paths through the chook forest for the goat to use. Keith also made Jess a set of stairs down into the pen and a handrail. She can now go in and get the eggs all by herself!

Jacinta enjoys playing by herself for hours while we work, given some tools to use and the occasional feedback. In the chook pen it was a scoop, a long spoon and a little brush. On the work site it is benches covered in pots and pans, bits of wood, buckets filled with wood chips, sand, dirt, green tomatoes, and potatoes. The occasional worm to feed helps! We call it “Chez Jacinta,” her own little café where she prepares us drinks and meals. She is becoming more inventive in her play each day. She still does some real cooking with me, this week she suggested making carrot cookies. Who’s ever heard of carrot cookies? Enchanted by the thought of veggie cookies, I combined a few recipes and we were off! They were great, the best part was that Matt liked them! I’ll eat anything I make and call it good, Jacinta will eat anything called a cookie, Keith will eat anything you give him but Matt’s a little more discerning. They were carrot, raisin, oatmeal, macadamia nut, and coconut cookies, quite dense actually. Other than that, I can’t quite recall having an inspired food week. Nor did Jess have an inspired “potty week.” For some reason she now will not even sit for more than one second on the seat. She says, “done….lata,” or won’t even approach the toilet in fear of having to use it. It will be different each week I suppose.

The mice would be kind to learn how to use the toilet. But no, they choose to inhabit the cupboards. They seek out unused spaces and colonize them with crap. I have yet to understand how they can poop on the walls. They tore up paper, wood, steel wool, contact paper, cardboard and made their sweet little nest where they slept very comfortably, until we found it. They probably laughed at how long it took us to discover them. I spent a few days this week on my knees, scrubbing and scouring the floor level cupboards, eventually re-covering all of them in bright blue contact paper. Mary found another nest behind a stack of cook books in the canned good cupboard and spent a while cleaning and reorganizing that cupboard. So we’re all happy to have new looking cupboards, but I have sore knees from the effort. Jess was out “working” with Pop while I was doing this and Matt was building on Sunday. She was picking macadamia nuts off of the trees for the Lion’s Club Charity. Our little girl is starting volunteer work early!

Soccer has been another big theme this week. The Aussie Socceroos have made it to the next round. They defeated Japan, lost to Brazil and tied Croatia. Jess wears green and gold pyjamas on the nights they play, and we think this is very important to their success. Be amazed: I awoke for two of these games! Of course Matt has been on edge the whole time, he’s a real fan. It is Monday night, almost midnight and we are all up (minus Jess) awaiting the Australia versus Italy game. We’ve heard from quite a few good friends from the States and even England this week, some regarding soccer, some filling us in on lost time. That always makes a good week.

This past weekend, Matt, Jess and I drove down to Sydney to meet up with friends, but inspired by a big family gathering at the Football stadium to watch a “very important” match. Matt took Jess and I to our first Sydney Swans game (this is where Matt has been going on the weekends). We got to spectate with Jess’s Aunt Louise, Uncle Matthew and Cousin Ben, Aunt Allison and some friends. Jess crawled across our laps like a snake, munched on nuts, cheered with Daddy at the appropriate and inappropriate times, and played with Ben. By 11:30pm, we were finally off the last train and she was still skipping along smiling, loving the moment while we just trudged on home, amazed by her endurance. We spent the night at a few different friends’ houses and stopped in at Matt’s sister’s and some friends’ flat a few times. In all cases, we were spoiled with nice food, good company, familiarity, laughter, young children for Jess to play with, and even a tiny baby to cuddle in one case. At the Higgins’ house we heard some of Anne-Marie’s own compositions on the piano, and had a chance to chat with their house guests, a few very tall, dark and kind Sudanese refugees. To top it off, we had a few hours between engagements overlooking the harbor spent napping in the sun, wrapped up in blankets against the cold winds.

Language is a funny thing. We learn via imitation. Every time someone sneezes, we say, “Bless you!” Jess does the same, without fail. She even blesses strangers. We don’t say, “he sneezed,” as we often do when any other action takes place. So the verb to her has never been said. After her long night at the football, she wakes up Sunday morning and is sitting alone on the couch playing. I hear her sneeze and she states the obvious and the unseen, “I yawned and I bless youed.” She had never used that as a verb before, but as I think of it, she does that with animal sounds too. The dog “Woofed!” “Stop woofing Jedda!” On the bike she has a good twenty minutes of my undivided attention en route to town and amidst the singing she talks quite a bit. This week as we returned from playgroup, she said the longest grammatically correct sentences I’ve heard yet. “Big cows drink water. Baby cows drink milk. Lucky babies!” She is merely repeating a lesson I taught her last week on the bike, but as if that diminishes any of a mother’s pride. What an honor to hear the pride in her voice as she teaches me a lesson about cows, a lesson that I was able to teach her. Perhaps that is the joy of parenting: that some little human loves and trusts you enough to believe everything you say, no matter how wrong or right you may be, that is until they grow wise enough to doubt your infallibility.

Enough rattling, have a good week loved ones. Bless you (:

Socceroos!!!!!!!!!

Today Australia advanced to the round of 16, while the USA was eliminated.

<-- That's my boy Lucas, there...

Anyway, to those who complained about losing their house and mother on our result against Brazil, that was foolish of you. I meant later in the tournament, when we come up against them in the final rounds - not in the group stage. Silly.

So now we play Italy. No problemo. Maybe you can win your house and mother back by betting on us in that game.

Go away Toot!

Hello loved ones (: As I sit here near the fire with my new wooly Ugg boots cuddling my feet, I can hear the brutish sounds of the televised rugby game from my left, yet coming out of the computer I hear the peaceful sound of a friend from Michigan playing the piano. It’s dark and cold in the bedroom, so I’ve decided to change location and write in the company of others. It has been an active week, full of contrasting activities. The yellow leaves on all of the birch trees have fallen down to the ground, covering up lost toys and leaving more space for the sun to warm the vegetation and us humans through the winter. I was anxious that autumn would not bring the beauty and scents that I so loved in America because the few Australians that I asked about autumn didn’t really describe it as such. Perhaps the changing of the seasons aren’t that exciting to us all. It could be my strong sense of smell and sanguine nature that makes me so interested in the change of appearance, the colors, and the smells of each season. So far autumn and winter run together for me. I can smell fire wood burning, fermenting leaves, wet dirt, fresh dew, the occasional fresh scented frost. The grass doesn’t grow very much, so rotting grass is an odor that is missing at the moment. There are dry leaves piled six inches off the ground below the deciduous trees, but new growth and bright greens on most of the trees. The colors of the flowers have changed, now mostly purple, red and white. The chrysanthemums are in bloom, as are a few other unidentified flowers but not near as many as in warmer months. It is pitch black outside by 5pm and I couldn’t tell you when the sun rises because I’ve never seen it!

The full moon last weekend was so big and bright that I took a walk down into the paddock all bundled up with no fear and no flashlight. I kept hoping that once down the hill I would reach an angle where I didn’t have to bend my neck awkwardly to gaze at the moon. No such luck, I ended up lying on a bench watching the clouds roll by. The halo encircling the moon shows some brilliant colors when the clouds cover it. It was bright enough to go for a garden inspection of the newer seedlings and marvel at the impression the plants gave, as if they had opened up, and were smiling while drinking up the moonlight. According to the lunar planting cycle, the full moon gives you the go ahead to plant root crops. So after playgroup, lunch, and a little building with Matt, Michelle, Rory and I put in another block of carrots, beets, carrots, and turnips. Why plant turnips when you hate them? Good question. Besides that, Jess and I encircled a few potato patches with chicken wire to allow higher mulch piles and mulched the potatoes up to their top leaves. It’s a funny picture to me, imagining the whole potato plant covered up in mulch, almost as tall as Jacinta, with a few potatoes hanging on way down below. At present the garden is giving us broccoli, spinach, lettuce, peas, and arugula. The green tomatoes I saved from the frost took two weeks to ripen, so now in winter we are eating tomatoes! It takes a long time to get through a pumpkin, we harvested six of them over 2 months ago and still have four left.

Building plans began so long ago that it’s hard to believe how quickly things are going since groundbreaking. Our friend from Michigan, Lindsey, came for her last visit before she returns to America after her semester abroad. Not only was she an excellent inspiration to work on the building site (we had to make use of her willing hands and muscles!), she was also good fun to have around. Matt took the week off (no bank work) and with Lindsey, Keith, Michelle, Rory, Jess and I, we are on our way. Last week, we left off at the sixteen holes full of rain water, so this week began with scooping out the water, deepening and widening the holes. Cement piers were then sunk in the holes, leveled and secured by more cement, and more cement. Bearers (unbelievably long and heavy 4x4 logs) were then brought over from the huge pile of recycled building materials which Keith pain-stakingly accumulated by taking down an old church and transporting it to the northwestern corner of the property. The bearers were then laid out across the piers. More timber lugging later brought over the joists (a little thinner than the bearers) which now lie perpendicular to the bearers. Matt has been working on removing old nails from the joists. More joists, attachment and then a floor to follow next week…maybe. Jacinta likes working on her little work/cooking bench on the site and can occupy herself for hours with the mud, the pebbles, a few cups, bowls and a shovel. She and Rory love working with us, digging, carting goods in the wheelbarrow and trying to help in any way they are allowed. They both really wanted to help pour cement...but were more easily diverted than the dogs and their paws. Back to the work bench…Hi ho Hi ho, it’s off to work she goes. Matt particularly enjoys her raisin omelette (: Today she made me some pasta, and of course, a cup of mint tea.

Speaking of food, I had a good cooking week. All in one day I soaked and cooked two different types of beans, froze some for later, made granola, hummus, salad and pumpkin and tomato stew. Jess did her share, surely never leaving anything untasted. We made spaghetti and my favorite Argentine spinach pie. She enjoys measuring the spices and tipping them in the dishes, but even more, licking the spoon. When asked what she wanted to give to a friend for his birthday, she replied, “Birthday Cake!” Instead we made him a “nut man,” out of pecans and macadamias in their shells with a star anise for his hair. Keith did all the hard work, drilling and adjusting. All I had to do was come up with the idea and be the assistant with the glue! We thought “nut man” looked like a warrior, but after Jess handed him the bag and said “Here you go Aidan,” he opened up his gift and exclaimed, “a scarecrow!” Lindsey took us out for pizza at our favorite restaurant on her last night with us. Other than the delicious pizza, we sat next to the heater, surrounded by jovial people also waiting a long time for their food, drank red wine, played with Jacinta and truly enjoyed our time out of the house.

Evenings this week were very sporty, not in the active sense, but on television. Lindsey, to Matt’s delight, also likes watching sports, as does Keith. I am the odd ball.
Each night there was either soccer commentary or some type of football on before the World Cup soccer games began at 10:30pm. Games here are on at 10:30pm, 1:30am and 4:30am and live, they are only for the real fans, not for me. So Keith held on until 11 or so, and like me, waited to hear the result in the morning. Lindsey and Matt chose their preferred games, of course including the Australia vs. Japan match, and woke at the appropriate times or just stayed up very late drinking coffee. As you might know (if you care), Australia defeated Japan scoring 3 goals in the last 6 minutes of a close game. This propelled a previously nervous Matt up off his feet jumping for joy at 1:30am and just made Lindsey chuckle at Matt’s elation while I slept sweetly in my warm bed. This is the first time Australia has EVER scored a goal at a World Cup Tournament, this is very exciting for Aussie soccer fans, not for Japan.

Another cause for celebration is Jacinta’s continual success on the potty and in the dirt. The last three mornings she has sat on the potty next to the fire (it’s gotta be warm!) and done a “wee.” She reads books while waiting but within a few minutes, she gets a glazed look on her face, and starts clapping. “Pee!?” “I did a wee!” I still can’t believe her until I look. Since we are often outside and far from a toilet, she is learning to quickly squat and pee in the dirt. I’ve been coaching her for a while with her bum blowing in the breeze and nothing happening. On Wednesday she walked down toward the compost heap(????), pulled her pants down all by herself, squatted and peed a little puddle. She didn’t even get wet! She had to take Michelle down to show her the puddle she was so proud. Later on in the week when told she needed to quickly “wee” next to the building site, she promptly ran 50 yards with no pants to the exact spot she had peed the previous day thinking that was the only possible outdoor potty. Other firsts include riding a pony at Aidan’s birthday party and eating broccoli.
She has finally decided that she has outgrown her “baby table” (high chair table) and that she is big enough to eat at the “big table.” New words include Barna Grass (a bamboo like grass which she likes to feed the cows), Placemat (now that she sits at the dinner table), Big Girl, Big Boy, Man and Woman. She can discuss who is who for quite a while. “Daddy..man, Mommy…woman, Grandma…man.” Not quite, I replied that “Grandma’s are women, all grandmas.” We got all the way to the fact that women can have babies in their bellies. “Daddy…baby in belly?” You can guess that response.

On the theme of potty celebration, I’ll close with a story explaining the title. Everybody toots, here, they “fluff.” Jacinta uses the American word thanks to me, and everyone gets a kick out of how much she uses it, we are vegetarians, so hey! My dad named me “Tooty” when I was a kid, and I may have passed on the genes. One evening I heard Jess toot while sitting with Keith and he replied, “What did I teach you to say when you toot?” I’m expecting something like, “excuse me.” Jacinta thinks about it and starts waving her hand near her bum saying, “Go away toot!” No shame, just the essential clearing of the air, and she repeats it over and over.

Thanks for humoring me and reading on and on….
Good night.

About time for some pictures...

Jess and Shana making the little one's birthday cake (I think).

Meeting an emu.
Half-time during the football.

Note the lack of plumber-butt.

BY the way, I'm having some technical difficulties receiving your congratulatroy emails about Australia spanking Japan in their World Cup match. Perhaps you should try again. My boy, Lucas Neill, threw the ball right to the feet of Tim Cahill who scored our first goal. Next stop: Brazil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love and humility,
Matt

Hot Peppers...Ha ha ha

Last week I opened with a description of “autumn.” This week, I found out that we had actually already changed seasons and that it was really winter. There are not many native trees that change colors and eventually lose their leaves, so far I’ve heard of one, some type of native cedar is deciduous. Although I love the presence of native flora and fauna, I love the colors of autumn, and luckily we have quite a few gorgeous trees (most likely imported) in full color right now, red and yellow leaves holding on tight to the branches. We spent most of this week outside, and my theory on just long sleeves failed. Monday the sun was strong and warm, Tuesday the winds came and necessitated coats, Wednesday the rain came and we celebrated the needed water inside by the fire, Thursday sun, Friday sun and Saturday brought “all day rain.” It is 10pm and the rain is still going strong. So winter is now showing a little more of its force.

Winter seems like a good season to build a house. The sun is weak and thus far, it has been pretty dry. Matt had two days of work this week, one rain day to write a paper for his geography course, and two days to work on the addition. The description of what is being done would be much more detailed if Matt were to write it, but I’m the journaler so deal with me (: While Jess and I were having a picnic down at the dam with Michelle and Rory and some friends from play group, Matt and Keith fixed the alternator on the truck. While we drank tea and ate, Matt was slaving away on the house (:  He dug a few trenches to lay pipe whose purpose is to divert water which is running down the hill away from the house. Once all the hard word was done, pipe laid, I later got to drill holes in the tops and sides of the pipes. On Friday hole digging began, Matt and Michelle dug quite a few, and after cleaning the house, I dug one token hole. Sixteen big holes to sink in cement piers which, I’m learning, will hold up the base of the house. Michelle commented later that the reason she went so slow is because Jess hopped in the hole each time she looked away. Matt thinks it’s because he’s bigger, well...maybe a little. Matt later brought over the huge cement piers with the tractor. Today it probably rained the holes back to half size while Matt was off in Sydney watching football.

“Daddy….somewhere,” Jess repeated over and over while watching a few minutes of the football game. “Fooball….peeeeple,” I had told her he was amongst the many people watching the game, making sure she didn’t confuse him with the players. Jacinta is expressing herself so clearly these days, but doesn’t hesitate to express herself constantly, with no new thoughts, just the same thoughts again and again. One day after a nap, she walked into the kitchen and spotted the red hot chili peppers I had hung on the curtain rod. She burst out laughing and said, “Mommy…hot peppers hanging! Ha ha ha!” Now each time she walks in the kitchen, she points, laughs and says the same thing. Perhaps it’s funny to her because they are out of context, no longer on the plant in the garden but inside. It’s the same story with the yarrow flowers I hung inside to dry, she looks for them and says that they are hiding. She has a new little girlfriend from playgroup who she doesn’t really know very well yet, but is excited about her. Lily came over for the first time this week with her older brother and mom. So a few days later while humming along in the bike seat behind me en route to playgroup Jess said, “I see Lily!” Later in the week she assured herself that “I see Lily lata, some day.” On Friday she and I heard a mouse in our rodent proof cupboard. Excitedly she helped me clear the way in search of the mouse to find about 2 cups of cracked sunflower seeds and other brown traces of a mouse who had been there a while. We called out to the mouse, “ay yay yay yay! Mouse….get out!” So now everytime we open the cupboard she repeats the exclamations verbatim.

Speaking of unfortunate repetition, you’d think I’d have learned by now, but a large piano leaning a little too far to the right made me forget. “Shit!” I yelled out in my efforts to spot Matt and Keith while they moved the large player piano from the trailer to the back porch. Although I wasn’t much help at all, I did manage to teach my daughter a new word which she yelled emphatically about 10 times before I managed to change it to “sweep” and help her forget she’d ever heard it. So a piano, yes! An old piano that has been in a garage for quite a while, has about half the keys stuck, but is in tune and is gorgeous. What more can you ask for 300$? Matt is researching the issue and will probably figure it out in time. I haven’t had a piano (in my home) at my fingertips since I left mom’s house when I was 18. I always love going home, for many reasons, but one is that there is a piano, not just any piano, but the one I listened to mom play and teach lessons on and learned on myself. I’d love to play like my mom and dad some day, and maybe teach any child that wants to learn.

Music, music, music. This week I went to join another choir, the “Drongoes” acapella choir in Bellingen, (45 minutes northwest) for the first time. My choir director had asked if I might “moonlight” for them until the Jazz Fest which will take place in August. They were short on altos and she thought I might be able to learn their 14 songs sung mostly in African languages with no written music (besides the words) in the 8 remaining rehearsals. Yikes!!! What a challenge but also, what an honor. Of course I said yes, and Matt, Keith and Mary willingly obliged to take care of Jacinta. I could go on forever, but for now, I’ll just say, WOW! I’ve never been surrounded by so many strong voices to follow, I tend to lead, but not here. The African rhythms, the drumming, the laughter, the joy, the ease, the fire in the fire place, and men! Usually choirs are laden with female voices, and this was balanced. There is even a song in Wolof sung by Youssou N’Dour, a Senegalese singer that I once met in Senegal. We’ll see if I can catch up! Jess knows when I’ve gone to choir and what I’m doing there, and as a treat, she came along on Wednesday night to the smaller choir. She sings all on her own now, and not just “O le le!” She sings “la la la,” she sings choir warm ups, “Oh my darling (Clementine), and a few bits of African lullabies. It was funny on Wednesday night at choir, after she worked up the energy to come out of herself she waited for the silence and tried to get the choir to sing “O le le.” She said, “No no no…..O le le! O le le!” Unfortunately, no one really heard her so she went back to feeding her pig some of her left over dinner, corn.

The rain did a lot more work in the garden this week than I did. Michelle and I are making an effort to cut back on gardening and put our muscles into the house, which is equally inspiring and exciting. Jess and Rory enjoy the hole digging so far. When allowed, Jess likes watching Matt and just finding pebbles to play with near by. Inspired by the chickens munching down all of the broccoli seedlings in the house garden, we did finally enclose the fifth terrace with chicken wire. We saved those broccoli seedlings and linked all five terraces into one enclosure, one beautiful garden brimming with green goodness. Today I went down in the pouring rain, very proud of my recent purchases: mud boots and rain pants, and transplanted some lettuce, celery, chilies, parsley and leeks. Kindling for the fire is one job I try to do each week, but the rain caught us off guard and now we’re short on firewood: tinder, kindling and fuel. Keith gets stuck with most of the chopping, but the rain was in charge today. Guess we’ll just have to wear an extra sweater!

It’s been another eventful week. Jess is living into her status as a two year-old and we’re loving her even more. She peed on the potty for the first time, once was enough for her. She learned to say “three” this week, so now when she sees large groups of things, there are three of them instead of two. When counting oranges as she stocked up her wheelbarrow, I counted out loud and out of nowhere, she said “sixteen” after I said fifteen. The human brain is unbelievable, what a child can pick up effortlessly is astounding. I shouldn’t say effortlessly though, given the struggle she feels in her mouth when trying to spit out each new word, it is work. It’s toddler work and it’s gratifying.

Here’s a tasty story to end with: Keith brought home about 10 pounds of macadamia nuts, shelled, but in need of sorting out the bad nuts. He works at the local macadamia nut factory. On a rainy day, which is almost like a snow day for us, in that laziness sense, Keith, Jacinta and I sat near the fire sorting nuts. We listened to music, ate nuts, and sorted. Jess sat in the middle in her high chair with a pan of nuts and a few cups to play with, picking out shells, pouring them to and fro, and eating most of the good ones. “Good nut!” She handed me all of the bad nuts she could find and said with disgust, “Bad nut!” She’s learned to love these nuts and it’s a good thing, because they are one of our major protein sources.

Good night y’all. Have a gratifying work week and eat lots of nuts (:

I'll Do It!!!

Good evening everyone (: As your summer has passed spring by and warmed you up quickly, our “autumn” has come and cooled us off. I expected blustery cool days, but the sun still shines quite strong in the day time. The days aren’t so long, but it’s still warm enough to hang clothes on the line. If you could stay outside the whole day, you’d never be cold wearing a long sleeved shirt or sweater. Inside, in a house mostly shaded by big trees it can be quite chilly. Often, we’ll wake up and put three layers on. By 9 or 10am we get outside and realize how warm it really is. This is very conducive to getting work done in the garden.

Although I talk a lot more about the garden than I actually work, I feel quite accomplished in the garden this week. I planted about 70 potatoes with no shoots about two months ago. It was a grand failure and since then, we have planted different things on top of the potatoes. The thought was that, maybe not now, someday they will grow. Every week or so, a new potato pops up and makes me smile. Michelle spotted some new pea seedlings, and some carrot and onion seedlings that we had given up on. We think the garden is crawling along due to the third week of no rain.
We watered in some compost tea, sprinkled ashes from the fire place and gave it a good watering so perhaps we’ll see more life springing forth next week. I leveled out the fifth terrace paths, throwing the extra soil on top of the bed. This soil is rich mainly because it lies beneath Keith’s old burn pile, and held years of ash and rotten logs waiting to be burned. We planted nothing, but transplanted a lot of broccoli seedlings. We also began planning a mandala garden, with its main purpose being herb production, but also creating more beauty in a flat, hidden spot on the land. Michelle and I started ordering seeds for the garden, but it will be a long time coming, especially due to the beginning of construction.

As I have mentioned we are adding on two bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen/living room. After perhaps a year of contemplation and studying construction, Matt has now built a mini-house out of popsicle sticks, and is ready to go. He is still working a lot at the bank but in his spare time, he has leveled the ground, and is almost finished lowering the level of the land (by a few inches), not for the mini-house, the real house! I actually starting helping a little bit, transporting the roots Matt dug out to the mulch heap, picking up trash, and shoveling dirt. I don’t know what’s next but you can bet you’ll hear next week.

We are finally over all illnesses, yay! It’s a good thing because we’ve needed the energy for a busy week. Throughout the week, I was cramming to finish knitting Jess my first pair of socks for her birthday. I did finish on time, good thing. On Monday my knitting friends came over and later on we visited the Murphy’s and then checked out a piano for sale. On Tuesday Jess and I took the bus for the first time to visit Michelle and Rory (25 minutes by car, 50 minutes by bus). Jess loved the bus and is already asking to do it again. Hmmm…Wednesday we gardened and picnicked with Rory and Michelle, then choir in the evening. Jess had a blast at home with dad and pop, and I didn’t put her to bed! Matt did, which was lovely for all of us. Thursday we rode my bike into town and went to play group. Friday was the big day, Jess’s birthday, and today, Saturday Matt and I took her to an interactive “Porpoise Pool,” to see the dolphin show. We got kisses from seals and dolphins, fed seals, penguins, turtles, kangaroos and emus.

Friday June 2 was Jacinta’s second birthday and for the first time, she shared the date with my Mom and George’s 9th wedding anniversary which is on June 1st. How do two different dates occur at the same time?? A fourteen hour time change, that’s all you need. She woke to balloons and streamers that Matt put up everywhere and had a pancake breakfast as a treat, with maple syrup and everything. Matt worked at a pancake restaurant in Sydney year ago, so his pancakes are quite good and he knows it. She opened a few gifts sent from my family, and the day had begun. “Birtday!” She knew it was a special day, especially when allowed to taste the cake batter over and over. At one point she stopped licking the bowl, looked up and smiled ear to ear, and jubilantly exclaimed, “Birtday!” Carrie and Otto called, Grandma and Dja Dja called, Aunt Lecia called, and later on Grandpa and Grandma Gordner called. Lucky baby, she felt loved but still couldn’t tear herself away from her new barn and puzzle o talk on the phone. Rory and Michelle came to spend the day cooking and gardening with us, and that brought the energy level up even higher. It was hard to nap (for Jess) and hard to finish cooking the meal (for Michelle and I) but by 6:45, Mary and Matt were home, the food was cooked and we finally sat down to eat our hand made tortillas, beans, rice, salsa and salad. Keith’s truck broke down after work so we didn’t start birthday cake until 8pm. It was a long, lovely crazy day. At one point I had to calm Jess and Rory down in bean bags next to the fire, reading books, I think perhaps I needed it more than they did.

Jacinta is now two and just to prove it, she learned the phrase, “That’s mine!” She says it with such pride and pleasure, repeating it over and over while my ears cringe in fear of the selfish phase. Over the past few years in planning how to make my child LOVE to share and give and walk lightly on the earth, I planned on keeping this word out of her vocabulary. I wanted to squelch ownership. When she obnoxiously grabbed something away saying, “mine!” I planned on telling her, “No Jacinta, it’s not yours, you’re just using it for a while. It came from someone and something else, and it will later be passed on to someone else. Eventually it will go back into the earth from where it came.” I tried that tonight…do you think she got it??? No, she’s two! She also hears us using possessive adjectives and thus she follows our possessive example. I wonder how they become obsessed with the word “mine” when I constantly talk about whom things belong to. I think it was my experience in Senegal, living with a reasonably well-off family with four children who shared everything, that made me so conscious of this possession. Things were just things, they were not Sira’s books. They were just books and they were much easier to share. Although I saw this way of life and was able to take on a few aspects of communal living, my culture is a possessive one. I learn more as time goes by that even though I mock it, I am a product of my culture.

Jacinta wants to do everything herself, no shocker for other parents, but just for new parents. She’ll cry if you turn off a light, “No…..(whine whine) I’ll do it.” If you start calling the dog to come, she’ll say, “I’ll call him!  Jedda! Jedda!” She takes on the appropriate tone and facial expression, sounding very authoritative. She uses this same tone when telling adults to do things. I’ve just realized that it must be hard to understand why you talk to a dog one way, and to an adult another way, but this she is learning. She crawls into her own car seat, into her high chair, puts on her own bib and fusses if not allowed to do it herself. In fact, she had a thirty minute all-out tantrum after being carried into the house on Monday night, and she hadn’t yet turned two! She is beginning to understand that some things are “mommy jobs,” and this has helped a bit. Given her independence, she still can’t poop on the potty. Although she is wearing training pants most of the time now she is still scared of doing anything but sitting and enjoying the scenery on the potty. I’ll admit, it is cold in the bathroom, so cold that when you pee steam rises off of the cold water. People always talk about children standing in a corner to poop because they are ashamed, and that’s what she does. They talk about the “Terrible Twos,” and they have arrived. Yes, teaching her to love and that she is NOT in charge will be hard, but it is wonderful to watch her become whatever she is becoming.

Hope all is well with you lovely people and that you’re enjoying the warmth of spring/summer. We missed you this week and will still miss you next week (: