Time to dweam

Hello there! Here I sit trying to close my week profoundly with you all, all the while also trying to sing lullabies to Jacinta in her crib. Every time I stop she sweetly calls out, “Mommy? Mommy?” until I recommence the singing. My newfound enemies, the mice, can be heard a few feet away scratching through my mountains of books, bags, and things that await a home, all stacked on top of a dresser stuffed inside my closet. Last night they woke me around 2am gnawing madly on something and brought me out of bed searching like a paranoid zombie with one goal in mind: shut the mice up! With no flashlight nearby I tried candle light, throwing books, unlit candles, and bottles at the nasty mouse, and after the third time being awoken, I just turned the lights on. I tore apart drawers, cleaned out under the bed, under the couch, emptied a laundry basket full of toys and books. Did I find the mice or any trace? All I found was our faulty mouse trap closed with some peanut butter missing, no mouse.

On a happier note, I had a lovely 29th birthday on Sunday. It started out by being awoken by Jacinta and Matt with a beautiful hand-carved candle holder in the shape of a treble clef in my hand, followed by phone calls from my family who all remembered that my birthday was 15 hours earlier in Australia. Then Mary and Jacinta baked me a lovely carrot cake while Matt and I fenced in the orchard. Later on Keith and Jess came out and pitched in. We all went out for lunch at a restaurant on the Kalang River and ate until we could eat no more. It was a warm sunny day, and lovely outside on the terrace overlooking the river. Jess and I shared a seafood pasta full of shrimp, scallops, mussels, and something called “bug” that looked like crab. I haven’t eaten anything so rich in ages, nor consumed that much shellfish in all of my life. I felt spoiled, and thought of the Gordner side of my family who would have loved that plate. I even took a picture of my plate! After digestion, Matt gave me garden labor as a birthday present while Jacinta napped. We created a new teepee made out of tippicino branches and a new edge out of logs, perhaps tripling the size of the garden. We began covering the grass in newspaper and compost, but that will take days to complete. Daylight was coming to an end, and we had to have cake for dinner (: I was in bed by 8:30pm, fat, happy and feeling loved.

If you had time to look at Jess’ “important message” on our website, you’ll know our big news. As Jacinta puts it, “Mommy has baby in belly.” Yep, we’re pregnant again and excited beyond words. We waited the twelve weeks to share our news, so I’m just past the first trimester. I love being pregnant, and especially having a little girl to kiss my belly. Jess has gone full speed ahead into playing with her dolls, she goes to great efforts to make them beds in every room. She lies with them, renames them each day depending on the human baby most recently talked about, changes their pants, and breastfeeds them (two babies on her belly at one time, all while sitting on the potty trying to do a wee). She sings to her babies, and for the first time today we heard her sing a lullaby Matt wrote for her months ago. She softly mumbled “close your eyes…time to dweam” as we stood in wonder of all she can pick up unconsciously. Just today she decided to wipe baby Kai’s bum and used an entire roll of toilet paper. She won’t do that again.

Matt has poured his “baby on the way” energy into building us a house and we now have four walls up! Probably four more walls remain, a roof and a bit more inside (hee hee), but we have a real date in mind since baby Henry number two is due in early March. We heard the baby’s heartbeat on the Doppler for the first time this week, it was nice. I’m having a hard time adjusting to normal rushed doctors who look at computer screens while meeting with you versus my strong yet peaceful midwife who met with us for over an hour each month and actually looked us in the eyes while chatting about everything under the sun. But hey, we’ll just have to be our own caring midwives for a while. Midwives will take care of the actual birth, but nothing pre-natally. Midwives have absolutely no insurance in this country if they choose to practice outside of a hospital so they’re hard to come by at the moment.

Update on the mouse situation…to get me back for my complaining, amidst my wistful “I’m bearing a child” paragraph, one poor mouse just got half trapped in our trap and squealed while running with the trap stuck on its body until Matt came and took him outside. Now five minutes later I can hear another one running around, so there’s a family. I feel terrible killing them, gosh. If they would just stay outside, there’s plenty of food out there. Where would they go if there were no houses to invade? They’d live in the bush, like they should. Oh la la….

Speaking of invasions, the cows kept up their endeavors to eat up our gardens. Sunday Matt and I put a final coat of chicken wire over the three wires enclosing the orchard. The cows seem put off, a sigh of relief…ahhhhh… So Monday comes and with it, four calves and a huge white heifer bust through my shoddy chicken wire fence enclosing our beautiful five terrace garden chock full of great green produce. I was luckily eating my oatmeal out on the veranda and saw the whole thing start. So off I went, cowgirl Shana chasing cows once again and saving the garden from destruction. I hadn’t any plans that day, so although it was a bit overdue, I strengthened the fencing, the gate, and increased the height of the fence by about two feet. Jess traipsed back and forth between Matt, Keith and I, spending more time than usual chomping on garden carrots and gazing at ducks on the pond. As the day wore on, she lay on the ground playing in the dirt relaxing, turning little bits of wire into baby shovels for digging tiny holes. The fence is actually complete. I was shocked at my ability to finish it the same day the need arose, this is abnormal. I owe it partly to Matt and Keith entertaining Jess and partly to the abundant produce at stake in the garden.

Tuesday was a big harvest day, so big I had to do a photo shoot. Keith helped Jess and I dig up one potato patch, the one with the fungus on the leaves, but we dug up over six pounds of potatoes anyway. We then picked two buckets full of broccoli, a hidden head of cauliflower, a huge head of savoy cabbage, spinach, a beet (just to check its progress), and a purple carrot (for Jacinta to eat). It was a proud day, and to top it off, Jacinta is willingly eating broccoli soup! She is also eating potatoes now since they are “tiny” and because she dug them up. Even better, I think spring is really here. (I am knocking on wood!) I received a huge seed order and had to plant a few tomato, pepper and basil seeds in trays. This was good fun for Jess too. Although anxious and needing restraint to prevent her from ripping open the packets and scattering the seeds here, there and everywhere, we eventually planted the seeds in rows and even labeled them!  

It has been a good week on the land, and especially watching the house become more and more real. For Matt, obviously, he’s not watching anything. He is sweating, working from morning until night, stopping only to think up the next step, or what to do if certain vital lumber has gone missing, drink coffee and eat lunch. Keith helps him push up a wall once it is built and I may hit a nail in here and there and take photos of important steps. Matt’s relieved to have finished his census work this week, and also to have worked two days at the bank. Four walls and some income, what more can you ask for? “New Dog” a visiting dog who had become a part of the family, but was also an egg-stealer went back to his family yesterday. I am happy for the return of easy eggs, but Jess misses New Dog. “New Dog’s coming back,” she reassures herself. She is probably right though, oh well. Adventures in the egg hunt continued: this week’s favorite new spot to lay an egg was on top on the piano on the veranda. Jess came running, so excited she was out of breath today, “Mommy! Mommy! Egg on piano! Egg on piano!”

So, life is great, full of newness and love with the hope of more to come. Wishing you all love, hope and interesting twists and turns. It’s so strange to ponder the coming of spring to us and fall to you and what a different space that puts us in emotionally tied to the seasons. Enough pondering though, enjoy the last week of August!

Cows, mice and lullabyes

Good evening loved ones. I suppose you can almost smell fall coming on, as can I smell spring. Perhaps it’s global warming or just a fluke, but spring here is early. It should still be winter. I find myself wondering whether this part of the world is like Michigan in the sense of grand temperature fluctuations. Should I listen to the signs of spring and plant things or just wait? Perhaps I will wait, I’m new here. In the rush for spring I did put in a large seed order on Thursday.

It has been a wonderful week here at home, just Matt, Jacinta, and I all alone, well, with the animals of course. Matt worked a lot on the house and a little bit at the bank and collecting census papers. Out of his 500 houses, there are now only 10 remaining to be collected! Jacinta and I stayed home most of the week, skipping playgroup and one choir to relish the solitude of the house. Matt and I spent most evenings recording lullabies and will finally bring to a close a project begun over six months ago. Jess and I got out of bed earlier than normal to feed the animals since Keith was not here to do it. (I have gotten lazy in the “chilly” winter mornings). It was fun feeding the chickens and the goat their porridge, and mostly watching Jess feed the little birds. She sits down and plays in the seed, watched the birds come, then eventually gets up and chases them, giggling all the while. It was actually lucky that we were home all week, we ended up catching more cows in the orchard. One day was spent adding a second wire to the fence, and the next day, adding a third because the calves broke through the second wire. It is remarkable how little damage they have done given their potential. I never thought I’d spend my days scaring off sweet little calves and devising methods to keep them away. I actually swore at a cow!

I’m losing my softness on animals living out here on the land. For example, mice used to be cute little furry creatures that I couldn’t imagine hurting one year ago. Now, they invade our space, chew up things we love, poop in places we’ve cleaned out, and keep me awake at night gnawing in hidden locations near my bed. They stink, and I sware, they are gnawing through our roof. So I now set traps, willingly, and celebrate when we catch one. We caught three this week, plus one drowned rat in the goat’s water dish, yuck. Heartless, yes, I know. The goat, she is more stubborn than I, very strong, picky and a bit rough to handle. What does she do for us? Not much, she munches a few branches here and there and poops, but in no particular place that we can use it on the garden. Perhaps I’ll have to start milking her to feel like she’s worth the food she consumes. Chickens…we have about 20, and about half of them are living on the dole. They are old hens and are finished laying. Why do we feed them? I don’t know, Keith loves them, but my heart is losing its softness. They do still provide us with good nitrogen (manure) for the soil, but their food isn’t free.

The laying half of the chicken flock is providing us with a good supply of eggs now. Mary found another nest of eight bantam eggs today, unfertilized thankfully. They are constantly relocating to keep us on our toes. They stopped laying eggs under the mulcher because one hen went clucky and monopolized the nest for a few days. You can ask Jess who lays eggs, and she’ll recite a list, “chickens, berhdies, ducks, snakes, lizards…” “What about goats?” I’ll kid her, “Nooooo!” she replies disgustedly.

Jacinta has become quite the conversationalist, or one might say, “chatter box.” After her first painting endeavor this week, she is quite proud of the newly painted green desk which we call a “stove.” “Look at my pretty desk!” she’ll say. She loves naming things in books, each new word is a challenge, she loves pronouncing them and with great ease. This week’s most shocking words were centipede and tortilla. She’ll tell you about choir and how “Amelia sings up high” and “mommy sings down low,” complete with hand gestures. She’ll make up a melody of la la las and say, “that’s my song.” Instead of saying “why?” again and again, she will say, “I wonder why mommy’s cutting broccoli.” Perhaps she understands that I will not answer why questions constantly. She has also started to play tricks knowing that they will be funny and testing whether I will agree. For example, she threw handfuls of seed at me while feeding the chooks, and threw handfuls of wood chips at me while cleaning out the chook pen. The newness of it all makes me laugh, it is pretty funny, but won’t always be funny I suppose. One behavior which we struggle with is the big SELF in her. Her need to be independent is so strong right now that if you help her do something that she has not requested, she will wriggle herself free and rewind. She will run back to the exact spot you picked her up while snottily and sulkily muttering, “self!” and then walk all by herself to where she needs to go. Unfortunately this does not carry over to walking up the hill, then she whines and cries on her knees, “Carry…..carry me….carry me.” After endless encouragement and a while she eventually gets up and walks. It’s so hard to leave her there, but sometimes words don’t help and physically, I just can’t carry her after working in the garden.

Garden-wise, there was not much done this week, just some watering since the heat is returning and harvesting broccoli and peas. Jess and I began revamping the teepee garden, but much work remains. Matt dug trenches with a little help from me for the extension cord to bring electricity to our shed. He will be able to build furniture under cover after the house is built. Matt tore down the exterior wall on Keith’s bedroom and constructed a new interior wall which will become a hallway between the bedrooms and the living room. I ripped out some old nails, and gave him a small hand in pushing the wall up into place, but basically, he worked alone, accomplished quite a lot and enjoyed the solitude this week. And our first wall has gone up! Hooray!

Today was a lovely day. It was my mom’s birthday and although it is not yet her birthday in America, I’ve had fun celebrating in her absence. After a few months of practice for the Jazz Festival, I sang with the Spangled Drongoes today in Bellingen and had a blast. I learned 14 out of 15 songs, and got to sing to a full house including Matt and Jacinta, and telepathically to my mommy. The nature of the choir is quite crazy and disorganized so it was the first time we’d ever sang more than 8 songs in two hours, and we sang 15 in 50 minutes! Matt is an honest critic and he was impressed. He was genuinely joyful to be able to finally hear us all, so that made it even better. Jacinta moseyed on and off the stage, either grabbing on to my hands and swaying when she needed to be “in” the music, playing with young girls in the audience or sitting on Matt’s lap munching. Although I didn’t plan on her presence up front, I was assured by other mothers singing that their children had done the same years ago. She was pleasant, and amidst my struggles to spit out all of the tricky African words, gave me more rhythm and strength than I may have had on my own. The community markets were also happening this weekend, and therefore it was a bustling little town today. It took Matt and Jess 35 minutes to find a parking spot, rough start but it was ok. To add to the fun, Matt test drove our new second hand stroller and fell in love with the three wheel contraption, especially pushing it up and down bumpy grassy slopes. After the concert we had lunch, ran into a few friends, bought some native bushes for Jess’ garden, listened to a Dixie band and felt somehow “held” amidst this big crowd of mostly strangers.

Friday night a friend from playgroup called and invited me out for dinner and drinks to bid farewell to a woman who was moving. Typically I wouldn’t bother, but for some reason I decided it was time to go out alone with some women, and I did. Sparing you the details, I’ll just say that I had a great time, good fish on the playgroup’s account, and laughed more than I have in a long time getting to know these women without their children. One of my best friend’s from Michigan had her second baby, at home and it was magical. I somehow caught the vibe that she had given birth and called within 18 hours of new little Dennis’ arrival. Music is pulsing through my veins and is luckily growing into Jacinta’s little soul. Tomorrow I turn 29 and will probably get to talk with a few family members. I just feel held, loved and as if I am being woven into a new tapestry, surrounded by beautiful colors and supported by strong fibers coming from all different directions. I feel lucky and just give thanks.

So thanks for your love and support. It strengthens me and gives me energy and inspiration. Do check out an important message from Jacinta. www.paintedguitar.com/jessmovie.html Give her a few seconds to load…

Here’s something to make you laugh…while brushing our teeth 5 minutes ago, Matt all of the sudden realized that we had forgotten something that occurs in August. It’s now August 19, and we missed BOTH of our anniversaries completely, August 9 and August 15. It’s been eight years now! He was the one to realize the error, so he has the one up. Oh well (:

Have a great week!

I'm cute now!

Good evening my ever so far away loved ones. I hope this August is making you smile as the summer heat continues on. It seems as if winter is coming to a close here. It is not the smell of fresh mud coming out if the thaw that you may know, it is a few trees here and there coming into bloom, the magnolias and black wattles. It is the masses of bees buzzing in these newly flowering trees, so loudly that you have to stop what you’re doing, follow the sound and go find the tree that they are loving. It is a few lush patches of green grass amidst the short dry grass for the goat to munch. The air is growing warmer, Matt is even wearing shorts to collect the census booklets. Perhaps shorts are no sign, workmen wear strangely short shorts all winter long here. Matt still wears long ones though (: We haven’t lit a fire at night in about a week, but we have to restrain the wind chimes more often these days. After this weak excuse for a winter, I guess I’m ready for spring. It’s a new Aussie season which I have not yet seen and it means we can plant corn, peppers and tomatoes again! It might mean more time out on the hammock now that we have permanent place to hang them. Most important, it will mean longer days, more time to build our house!

The lumber has been transported from the “pile of junk” to the building site, the nails have been removed, and the windows have been chosen from the pile. Matt is continually refining details in the plan, but I think we might start building the wall closest to the existing house this week. Macnuts and the census collection took a lot of Matt’s time this week, but as we all know, income is pretty important. His range of activities each day is as diverse as mine and Jacinta’s. He may start out working on the house, run out for a few hours of census collection, and finish the work day off with a few hours at the macadamia factory. Then home again for dinner, bath and play time with Jacinta, tickles and stories at bedtime, a documentary on TV, and inevitably at some point, doing something productive on the computer or erring aimlessly on the internet. Yesterday he did census collection all day, but came home for a midday break to watch Aussie rules football. It’s nice to be able to make your own schedule. I can’t express how overprivileged I feel to have no obligations outside of the home, perhaps even guilty. Of course my days are filled with no problem and my body aches each night from activity, but I never stop and think, “what shall we do now?” The next need is always there telling me what to do.

The potatoes were in desperate need this week. Following some advice from a friend I concocted some “Bordeaux” to fight the fungus destroying a bunch of our potatoes. I used two ingredients I have never owned before: lime and copper sulfate. After 3 days, the leaves still look pretty sad, but underneath those sad leaves lie a few good potatoes. In fact we ate a few this week and they were delicious. Newer potatoes were in need of mulching, so Jess and I lugged and spread a few loads of mulch on the lovely new green shoots. Typically Michelle and Rory join us in these endeavors, but Rory has the measles! Needless to say, our garden buddies are taking a break. A wire needed burying to bring electricity to the shed, but it wasn’t risking failure so that task hasn’t been done yet. The cows figured out that our wire (enclosing the orchard) is not electrified and busted in to have a bite to eat. Luckily they only ate half a mango tree, half a lillypilly and maybe some grass before they moved on. But they needed to be chased out, later chased out of the neighbors’ yard, and later chased out of the yard near Jess’ cubby house. We need to add an extra wire to keep them out, but that day was a tiring and adventurous day and the cows have’t come back since. I must be pretty scary (: Daisy the goat also added to the fun that day by eating half of my potted seedlings. Jess won’t get too close to her anymore, she’s “a little bit scary.” One all positive animal experience this week is the chickens, they are laying between 4-6 eggs a day, finally!!! We are eating well now.

Food wise, the broccoli is abundant, as are the Chinese greens and spinach. There is a whole head of cabbage to pick but I can’t bring myself to do it, it’s too pretty in the ground. I made beetroot burgers for the first time and they were great. I also had a rare success with bread rolls actually rising. Tonight I made French toast (strange for dinner, but quick) by dipping bread in egg, milk, crushed macadamias and cinnamon, and it was very good. Yes, I do use these nuts in everything.  I search for ways to include them because they are free and delicious. Any finely crushed nut would do the trick though, you can even use them in place of breadcrumbs in any recipe. We joke that either Matt or Keith will need to continue working at the nut factory forever to keep Jess and I full of protein. Given the abundance of the broccoli, Jess will not eat it, if she can see it. It’s self-congratulatory, yes, but I must brag that I found a way to get it in! Mince the broccoli like an herb, mix it up in an omelet with egg, brown rice and cheese, and it works! Speaking of Jacinta and food, she is in love with her new baby butter knife. She stands proudly on her chair cooking with me, chopping (attempting) lettuce, bananas, cucumber, thin carrots, tofu and cheese. Since I have been practicing my choir music (only one week remaining before the Jazz Fest) with a cd, Jess and I sing along to choir songs while cooking. I’ll sometimes ask, “what should we listen to?” Her constant response while cooking is, “choir music!” Although I still have two songs to memorize, I’m growing tired of it so her need for repetition is urging me on.

In spite of our best friends absence, we still had quite a social week. Jess came along to the “big choir” again and had a ball because there were a few young girls to play with. Different adults give her attention when they are not singing so she did the rounds, but stayed close to the main soloist, sweet, smiley, humble 17 year old Amelia. The children sat at her feet in awe, just glued to her beautiful voice and playful eyes. When she looked too distracted with the music, Jess would run around playing ball or checking out new people and things. Our director pulled out a balophone which she brought back from Guinea Conakry. Jess was as in awe as I. She just stood in front of Fiona throughout the whole Senegalese song and stared at the wooden piano on the floor. It’s funny how children break social cues and just do the things we all long to do.

Having the house to ourselves this weekend, Saturday night we had a few friends over to eat a potluck dinner, make pecan pie and drum. It was good fun, and lovely food. It’s a wonder that I met so many good cooks so quickly! We had quite a spread: roasted vegetable salad with homemade mayonnaise, a fruity green salad, spicy blue cheese muffins, Thai fish cakes, briani (a saffron vegetable rice), beetroot burgers, and bread rolls. The pecan pie was a funny, overly rich and disgusting reminiscence for a bunch of people who either once lived in the US or wanted to try pecan pie, or in Matt’s case, did the dishes while we ate because he doesn’t like nuts. Finding the corn syrup was difficult. It cost Osha $7 for a small bottle of the nasty genetically modified corn sugar, imported from the US. High fructose corn syrup is one of the most commonly used sweeteners in US processed foods purported to be healthy and “fat free,” but it is not good for the human body. Drumming was fun, a new thing for us all to drum together, but a good way to take a break in the middle of a chatty evening. Jess loved it and played with all of her instruments, mostly enjoying sailing above the drums with the high pitched Australian bird whistle that my mom and George sent from the US. Again, she lasted until pretty late, 10:45, but it was worth it.

It’s a wonder that Jacinta still had the energy for the “fairy birthday party” we attended this afternoon. It was lovely though, I’m really starting to love the people from playgroup: the ladies, the children of all ages (well, 0-5) learning to play kindly.
Seeing them all dressed up as fairies and pixies in a backyard filled with mandarin covered trees was beautiful. The children trust other moms to help them when they can’t see their own and I love it. Last week at play group Jess actually yelled out, “Shana!” knowing that the word “mom” wouldn’t be specific enough to get me. In preparation for the party Jess, Keith and I spent a few hours making a little fairy to give as a gift. The mother had made wands, crowns, little fairies, and heaps of food for each child, it was awesome. Our little fairy seemed quite insubstantial, but it’s the thought that counts I guess. Jess had a blast and will be flying for days.

Her vocabulary is exploding, it’s so much fun to partake in the learning process. She shocks us hourly. While sitting on Matt’s lap watching a movie of her earlier days of babyhood, Matt jokingly said, “Look how cute you used to be.” Jess retorted, “I’m cute now!” I suppose they learn sarcasm young here, I still don’t like it but it’s Australian and she is starting to sound like one. She still says “sweater” with a real American R, rather than saying, “jumpa.” When walking by the recycling bin the other day Jess caught a glimpse of an old newspaper clipping of a dog and a chicken. “Those don’t go in there mum! That’s not rubbish!” My jaw dropped first because she caught me, secondly, because she said all of those words. Matt often grabs her for a big tickle if she’s anywhere near the bed and this week, amidst the giggles she called out, “Hey, that’s my little bum!”

So after all that, to sum it up…we’re having fun with our little girl, getting to know some nice people and keeping busy. But I miss you all so much that I ate pecan pie and got a headache from the sugar. I hope flowers are blooming, bees are buzzing and that life is lovely in your neck of the woods.

Cubbyhouse

Poor mummy... no umbrella

Good evening folks. Hope all is well in the hot USA. It seems strange to have given up celebrating my birthday in one of the nicest months in the Midwest to have it here in August, the coldest, windiest month in Australia. Although my family tells me it’s so hot that they don’t get outside much these days. I’m pleased to hear that California Governor Schwarzeneger is going to work with Tony Blair on global warming since President Bush doesn’t think it’s important. Australia is another loser country which refused to sign the Kyoto agreement, stand by your man (USA)! I suppose I can still spend time outside here in the midday so I shan’t complain. Despite the arrival of some cold winds, it has been a lovely week here. Perhaps I owe it to the fact that I don’t ever really have to leave the house, but have options if I’d like to leave such as playgroup, choir, “town,” or visiting friends.

Each day is pretty similar, yet the activities within are quite diverse. We often awake to Jacinta saying, “Mom? Eat down there?” She has gotten in the routine of crawling out of bed and going straight for my drawer to find a piece of fruit, some nuts in a jar or a container of granola. She takes the bribe so we can sleep a little longer, along with a cup of water and sits at her table eating and drawing. As the day rolls on we have breakfast, perhaps do some laundry, play in the cubby house, hammer nails into the floorboards, check for eggs, fetch greens from the garden for lunch, make and eat lunch, feed the chickens, put the goat back in her pen, read stories and nap. Matt often has to work, but joins us for a bit of this routine. Post nap is time to make dinner, play, eat, play, followed by the eternal bedtime routine. Post bed is either time for sleep, music, movies, reading, knitting or letter writing. I really love the consistency of our days lately. There aren’t many surprises, good or bad: just the odd letter from a loved one in America or a friend dropping in.

So today after Matt left for another football trip to Sydney, I sent Jess off to “morning tea” with her grandma and she came back bearing gifts! How does a two year old with no money bring her mom a fancy umbrella home from “morning tea?” It has been pouring down rain for the last 24 hours, buckets of rain. I haven’t gone out and needed an umbrella in the past few days or commented on a plan to purchase one, but 3 weeks ago visited a neighbor and got stuck in the rain. Upon return they offered Jess and I an umbrella to make it home safe, easy. Today as she rode in grandma’s arms under the umbrella, she watched all of the people with umbrellas. “Aunty Moi has umbrella,” she remarked. “Aunty Flo has umbrella.” “Grandma has umbrella.” Mary said she noticed each person with an umbrella, commenting and then said, “Poor mummy…no umbrella.” She went on and on and told Mary’s friends at breakfast about her poor mother. Following morning tea Jess and Grandma went to buy me an umbrella, little did I know there was a lacking in my life. Jess told the ladies in the department store about her poor mummy and picked out a nice big red one to bring home. So how does she get things? Simply by whining for me! Perhaps I should tell her all the things I need like fancy pots, pans and knives, banana trees and nut trees (:

How about walls for our house? Just kidding, we want to build them ourselves and we are actually moving on from the floor to the frame now! Just Friday, before the rains came, we finished the entire floor. The jagged edges have been cut off, each board has been pried in close to the next and hammered down into the joists. There are a few more nails to pound in but I always need an easy job to do while Matt is working elsewhere. The leftover floorboards have been carried down to our shed later to be turned into furniture in the house. Jess can spin in circles on her bedroom floor and draw her bed in chalk where she pictures it. (We will eventually sand the floor down and then halt the chalk drawings, no worries, we’re not that free and easy!)  

Matt finished census delivery on Thursday and breathed a sigh of relief. Soon he’ll have to retrieve it from 500 households, this may be a different story. If he sits at the all night gas station and pursues truck drivers passing through, he’ll make extra cash but you know Matt. That just isn’t his style. He said I could do it though (: We might make it a family night out, there is coffee and junk food, tempting. Matt and I actually went out alone last Sunday night. Unfortunately no restaurants in Macksville are open on Sunday nights, other than the smoky pub. We drove 10 minutes to Nambucca and tried out the motel/Thai restaurant. Matt had avoided it like the plague based on its ties to the motel, seems like a bad recipe for Thai food, but it was good. It was the most expensive Thai food I’d had, you have to pay extra for rice, AND for each doggy bag container! I’ll just have to work harder at cooking it myself. It was also so fast that we’d been out for only one hour by the time we finished. It was too cold for the beach, and too dark to gaze at the waves from our car, so we went to the only open shop, Woolworths, a chain superstore. Pretty pathetic, I know. I had avoided it completely in the 10 months we have been here, but took this as a chance to compare prices and see what organics and other treasures they sold. Swiss cheese and Aussie olive oil for me, chocolate for Matt, a baby flashlight and some bath boats for Jess: all things we never knew we needed! It was a fun date, and rest assured, Jess had a great time at home with grandma and pop, and LOVED her new toys.

The new “baby torch” was a great help on our expedition one evening this week. With Matt and Keith both too tired from work, Jess and I went out in the dark and prepared the old chick pen for Iris and all of the eggs underneath her in the shed. We found the nesting box, packed it with straw and hay, filled bowls with food and water and snuck over to the shed. Jess walked proud in the dark with her little torch lighting the way and her basket in hand, knowing the big task ahead. My job was to pick up the sleeping chicken (only 7 months old) and Jess’s was to gently lay the eggs in the basket and carry them all the way to the chick pen. After I picked Iris up we saw NINE EGGS under the tiny hen! Jess was too scared to pick them all up, but she carried the torch and walked all alone while I carried the chicken and the basket of eggs. Once in the chick pen, Jess placed each egg in the nesting box and I laid Iris on top. We locked her in feeling brave and proud and came in to brag about it. The next day Iris hopped off the eggs and left them to go cold. She didn’t like the move, bummer. She was too young anyway, and I really didn’t want to have to kill any more roosters. So it was a good effort, and it ended well. We gave her a chance, but now she’s happy running with the other chooks.

Speaking of the chickens, the teepee garden is well loved by them. They dig and poop and eat all they please as it is not enclosed. It is the only non-fenced garden and will soon be fenced in. The soil is now gorgeous and ready to be planted but almost all the plants have been destroyed. They left a few good leeks which I harvested today and there is a flowering broccoli plant which attracts the bees. The comfrey is hanging on but the ice cream bean looks burnt it’s so brown. It’s a good digging garden for Jess and Rory for the time being. We harvested our last pumpkin, a potkin I’ve been told. All ten of the pumpkins we grew this year were unintentional plants, popped out of the compost and were eventually transplanted to grow good food. Other than that, we’ve been eating lots of spinach, broccoli, peas, lettuce, and Chinese greens. We had a great salad week and  I finally found a way to cook the Chinese greens and enjoy them rather than dread their abundance in the garden. I stir fried them in sesame oil, peanut butter, sesame seeds and used the drops of water left from washing them to steam them a little. I just love sesame oil, it’s a true luxury when I actually buy it.
I also found a good way to make pizza dough using 3/5 whole wheat flour, 1/5 cornmeal, and 1/5 unbleached white flour with your usual yeast, oil, salt and water ratio. For sweets, I made some really strong gingerbread, not all that spectacular but full of iron and protein.

Jess enjoys anything sweet we make, just tonight she went to bed after a treat of some gingerbread and a hot carob milk, “hot cayob,” she calls it. This week I tried limiting her tasting while cooking and it really helped her to eat her meal when the time came. She has learned what “no begging” means through this and now uses it on the dogs. After all she has to tell someone what to do! This morning she ate two and a half pancakes, with some yogurt and applesauce for breakfast, I was shocked. She is starting to willingly eat raw spinach but must be forced into eating any other green, raw or cooked. She is a very good helper with the housework, wiping up messes, even vacuuming. She just started helping Keith to do the dishes. I usually say no because I don’t want her wet but Keith’s always game to teach her something new, even if it takes 3 times longer. Just today Keith was painting some animals for me on nice paper, and he is a real painter, concentration required. Jess wanted to help, and as I started to say no he found a way to include her and let her try without making a terrible mess. Even when he looked away for a second and she swiped her red paintbrush across his white bandicoot, he just quietly fixed it and covered up the newly pink bandicoot with brown. Patience is an amazing thing, I learned some in Senegal, but I hope to learn more as time goes by.

I’ll end with a revelation by Jess. Lately Jess recites titles and dialog in her books. She calls out titles which we understand and can then read them with her. This week, as she sat on the potty quite a bit, she rediscovered the book called, “Everyone Poops.” She even requests it at bedtime, while I tend to choose stories that end with the moon and everyone sound asleep. She will now sit alone on the potty while I do other chores reading the book. Her favorite page is the page showing different people pooping, she constantly searches for the page with “daddy pooping.” The daddy is also smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper, so it’s pretty funny. Jess then extrapolates on all the people that poop, you’re all on the list. There is one page that she somehow picked up in perfect English and reads to herself while I am not in the room, this is why I am calling it a revelation. Imagine a two year old sitting on  potty for 15 minutes at a time, never having done a poo on the potty intentionally, trying to psyche herself up, all alone. She looks at the page for a while and says verbatim, “Some children poop on the potty, while other children poop in their nappies.”

Nothing like a deep thought to close (:  Wishing you all cooler weather and a happy August.