I live in Macksville

Good evening y’all. I hope this finds you all in good health and spirits. Today is the Equinox, spring for us, when the hours of light equal the hours of darkness. The sun is hot, the mosquitoes are back, and flocks of new birds are flittering around. Countless birds which I can’t name feast upon our enormous native fig tree, in addition to a few magnificent birds which I can name: regent bower birds (bright yellow and black), satin bower birds (iridescent blue and black), and fig birds (greenish yellowy brown with red circles around their eyes). The galahs have flown in singing beautifully and flaunting their bright pink bellies. The bald-headed pigeons, bush turkeys, red-headed wrens and tiny willy wag tails still come around for their seed. It’s not bad bird watching here, bird watching clubs even come around to check it out. The most recent bird excitement has been the little blue wrens who flap their wings so fast that they can remain stationary right on the windows in order to eat dead bugs stuck on the outsides (we don’t wash windows, this can be our excuse now!). Mary tells me these birds are brown year round except for mating season when their heads turn brilliant blue. Imagine signs that obvious that you needed some affection!

Our kiwi vines and pear trees were screaming out for affection these past few months, or so I thought. But at last, the dead looking fruit trees that I thought I had killed by lack of love are budding! Their buds came much later than other deciduous trees, but perhaps they needed even more warmth to come back. It is pretty funny, me, a clueless gardener, new to the area, with no idea which trees should behave like cold climate trees. I am learning and luckily, can laugh at myself. Another new idea to me is seed saving. Knowing the exact moment to collect lettuce seed is quite challenging, and all seeds are different. But it is simply a waste of money and nature to solely buy seed when all of these seeds are just blowing away from my garden. Of course some will self sow, and that’ll be nice. The fat ones seem easier, like peas, but drying them is tricky with the mice. Speaking of, I stepped on a live mouse in the dark yesterday!!! My friend Michelle is giving me tips - on seed saving, not mice control - and I’ll take any more advice out there!

Some of the seeds I’ve planted are coming up: cumin, marjoram, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, corn, artichokes, borage, dill, coriander, spinach, and marigolds. This is always exciting, especially when the seeds are all concentrated and you only have to carefully water a small area of pots each day. Watering with holy hoses for almost a year now, with Keith, Jess and Matt’s help, I finally have a hole-free hose in each garden with a good spray nozzle. You’d think I’d have avoided wet clothes a while ago. Hmmm… Now where will I plant all of these seedlings??? In the completed teepee garden which Michelle helped me to finish this week. This was a huge task necessitating tens of trips up and down the hill transporting heavy loads of compost, mulch and woodchips for paths to cover up the newspaper and cardboard covering the grass. Being pregnant, I needed more than a little help. So with Matt’s help in the beginning, a few loads from Keith, over twenty loads from Michelle and my trusty wagon that I can actually pull while pregnant, we are done! Jess and Rory helped by watering the paper and playing in water as long as we needed to work for a few days.
There is now an empty garden ready to be filled with flowering herbs and spices and some vegetables. The fruit trees surrounded by this garden already look happier. To add to the excitement we harvested a whole basket of root crops to share: colored carrots, turnips, and beets. Needless to say, I didn’t help much on the house this week.
Even though Matt spent a few days at the bank and every afternoon at Macnuts, he was able to finish off the roof, with gutters and all! Keith lent him a hand whenever he was around and needed, Michelle helped carry a few windows and Mary joined in the work too. On her weekend off she painted the ceiling (before it was put up) and passed it up to Matt on the roof. She stayed around all day catering to the guys’ needs as they worked into the dark trying to finish the roof. Unfortunately the sun heats up on that tin roof and Matt did a lot of work in the heat. But now, there is a roof, and even a few windows installed so he can work hidden from the sun. This afternoon Matt and I went on a “Handmade House tour,” saw some really cool houses, and got a few ideas. Some of the highlights were straw baling, solar power, recycled building materials, composting toilets, gorgeous wooden kitchens, handmade furniture, outdoor showers, great gardens, a day out, and Keith and Mary taking care of Jess. We will go and see a few more houses tomorrow in the “hippy town,” Bellingen.

Speaking of Bellingen, this is one of places I go to for choir, and sadly both choirs have finished up for a while. I’ll enjoy the lack of need to go out on a weeknight, but surely miss the music. Jess and I went for our last pre-choir beach picnic this week and finished the evening with the last choir rehearsal. We visited some friends another evening and had a lovely time catching up and drinking tea. Jess played with their eight year old son outside and feasted on mulberries which were not quite ready. We also went to playgroup again. It gets more fun each time I go. Many of the mothers and a few dads are also city refugees, relishing the peace and slowness of life out here. Some drive for thirty minutes from their isolated houses to get to playgroup and NEED the company. This makes me grateful that I live so close to town. Here’s a small town: as I’m riding home from playgroup on my bike I run into Matt, carrying furniture down the street, loading up the truck with the bank’s old desks. On our way into town, after a few minutes of silence, never having put all of these words together before, Jess commented, “I live in Massville,” Macksville, yeah, same difference. She’s finding her place here and takes great pride in knowing that this is “our road” and “our house!”

It has been a good week for all of us. Matt watched his favorite football team make it into the grand final last night, and tasted his first homebrew tonight. Although he tipped it down the sink, he’ll try again and we all had a few laughs watching his and Keith’s expressions. I found out medical insurance companies cover naturopaths here so I’ll start seeing one through the pregnancy. They do 45 minute appointments rather than ten minute slots! I also caught up with a good friend in France and discovered that our phone card is good enough to make long conversations affordable, even to France! We’ve found two good friends to assist with the birth of our next baby and are excited preparing for his or her arrival. Jess finished off another week with no nappies in the daytime and knows when she’s gotta go now. We’re doing pretty well sharing space here at home, but of course, are antsy to move into our own space. Life’s pretty rosy for us and we are thankful for the generosity all around us, close by and far away.

I’ll close with a funny story about Jacinta’s first experience of being “naughty.”
Left alone in the bedroom where they most like to play, strangely quiet for about 10 minutes, two children emerged with a jar of apricots, almost empty. Rory was holding the jar saying, “Mom! Look what we found!” Jess’s mouth was full, chewing one apricot with another in her hand, grinning. Each morning when we wake up she is allowed one apricot and knows that she must ask, and always hears that any more will “make you poop all day long.” Rory knows not to touch anything in my room without asking, unless it is a toy. As they were being chided, Jess looked curious, not guilty, not sad, just as if she were entering a new world. When later asked to tell daddy about the story, she told it excitedly, “Rory and me…in crib…eating apricots…Naughty!” How many did you eat? The number changed each time, two, then three, then five, then seven, can’t blame her though, she can’t count! (After a few extra poos I’d say she ate more than two.) Will you do it again? “Rory and me,” she specified. Will you and Rory take apricots without asking again? “No, no…naughty.” It is so hard not to laugh at the humor in the situation when trying to teach your children lessons.

Have a good week loved ones. Miss you guys.

A Little Bit of Chocolate

Good evening loved ones (: It is nearing the year anniversary of our arrival here in Australia and I can say I feel adjusted to the seasons. As you come into fall, (I’ve heard it’s starting out pretty chilly already) I feel wistful and nostalgic of my love for its smells and meaning in the Midwest. Strangely, I am not sad. I feel ready for spring planting, longer days, short sleeves, sunhats, open windows at night and playing at the beach. Jess and I did finally make it to the beach this week, just for a quick play in the rock pools and a picnic before choir. Although I’m getting heavier and less agile with this baby in my belly as it heats up, I feel energetic. Perhaps it’s also due to longer nights of sleep or maybe the fact that our bedrooms to be are about to be roofed! Another excitement in our lives is the last few days of toilet success. I shan’t jinx it, but we’ve had two full days without diapers! I’ll just give thanks for these two days (:



It was also a good “friend” week. First off, we finished two huge projects for friends and family in the States and joyfully shipped them (in spite of the cost of shipping) off to be enjoyed. Just a tip, if you know two to three months ahead what you want to send, you can save 1/3 of the cost. But I’ll say, it takes patience that I don’t possess to wait 3 months when you’re excited to send something. Secondly, I had a new friend come to knitting and bring her tow children, including one little girl Jacinta’s age. My friend is learning how to spin wool and it is so interesting. I’ve told myself “no!” on trying to do it with her because I already have too many time consuming interests. She also has an amazing garden, much to share, and a husband who knits and grinds his own grain to bake! They live out near a town that has nothing but “The Pub With No Beer,” and are over twenty minutes from any shops. Jess and I went for a visit on Wednesday and had a lovely time. She’s so unlike me in her humility and quietude,
it has taken months to realize how much we have in common. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy to have playgroup to meet people like her! Michelle and Rory came out a few days to work on the house and in the garden and play. We always have a good time. Lately, Michelle helps with the heavy work on the house while I do other things with the kids or with food. We have to eat sometime! I have to laugh at times that I am inside cooking or hanging laundry while my friend is outside building my house. I truly give thanks that she is there and that she enjoys lending a helping hand while I am pregnant and busy. While gardening, she totes all the heavy dirt down the hill while I level the ground and spread newspaper. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have met her.



On house progress, it is moving along faster than I can believe. Matt worked three days at the bank this week, two days at Macnuts, and it rained all last weekend. In spite of all that outside work, we now have stained rafters over the bedrooms and ceiling sheets being painted on the ground, ready to be installed tomorrow. In all likelihood, we’ll have a roof over it all in no time. Jess and Rory love watching it all happen, but find other forms of entertainment no doubt. We set up tents on the floor of the kitchen to be to play underneath. Their newest task is watercolor on the easel, or as Jacinta calls it, “the weasel.” She loves painting, recently inspired by Keith’s painting animals in a book for a friend. Using our paints she was always working under supervision, but now she is free with her own set of watercolors. Her most common theme is worms, “big worms.”

In the garden we see lots of worms so they must be on her mind. Heavy rain last weekend empowered my chamomile transplants. My tomato and basil seeds are surfacing. Our potatoes are growing faster than we can mulch, the beets are big enough to pick, as are some of the carrots. The peas are coming to an end, but the spinach is powering on. There is still some broccoli but nothing overwhelming now. Michelle, Rory and I created a few more beds in the terrace garden and cleared space for spring planting. Jess and I planted corn, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, cantaloupe, watermelon, and beans today. Matt even got stuck planting a few seeds when he came down to say hello, but got to experience “planting” with Jacinta which he enjoyed. Usually within twenty minutes of entering the teepee garden, she is skipping around like a fairy, soaked with water, covered in dirt, smiling from ear to ear and has lost most of her clothes.

Even though all subjects lead to Jacinta, I still must write a “Jacinta” paragraph, too much has happened this week. Not only has she gotten over her fear and shame of pooping, she has also given in to wearing hair clips and pony tail holders. Her bangs are terribly long but I want to keep her hair all the same length, so she needs to tie them back. It has been difficult but she’ll now wear them from morning until night. “I call them hair things,” she says as I try to correct her and call them clips or hair bands. It is unfortunate when children stick to the bad English you unconsciously teach them. On the other hand, I’ve loved listening to Jess learning from songs this week. As we’re lying down going to sleep she’ll ask, ever so sweetly, “Mommy, sing me a song.” Rarely I dare ask which one, but this week I did ask once and she requested, “Bonne nuit?” which means “Good night” in French and is a lullaby I often sing. Another song she hears, this one not so quiet and sung by Taj Mahal on a CD is called, “Don’t you push me down!” When being hurried on a slide she clearly said the phrase for the first time, “Don’t push me down!” When I retold the story at dinner, laughing all the while, she stood up on her chair and loudly repeated the phrase. “Don’t push me down!” she declared, and giggled, over and over. Of course we asked her to sit down, eat her dinner and speak softly. This she did, at great pains, but continued softly every other minute to repeat the order, “Don’t push me down.”

Jacinta has started to play with some of the older children at playgroup, so perhaps she saw the need to learn this phrase. Amongst most of our older neighbors, there is one house a few houses down the hill with a sweet young five year old girl. She has taken to Jacinta, probably more as a caretaker, and Jacinta quite enjoys the attention. They play together in the sand pit and push around dollies in strollers at playgroup, but haven’t played much here at home. The one time Josephine came for a visit, we toured the gardens and Jess’s funniest attempt at conversation was, “Do you like garlic?” Josephine doesn’t like fruit or many vegetables, but the girls get along. She drew Jess a picture and put it in the mailbox so Jess got mail! It was a good mail week for Jess, she also received a little dolly from a friend in America. Instantly Jess needed to draw Josephine a picture, so she and Matt painted her a picture.



Matt had a few funny Jess stories to tell this week. It has been ongoing, the creativity of which kinds of tea Jess makes in the bath these days, but the brews are especially strange with Matt. When she comes out of a Daddy bath, she tells of strawberry and cookies tea, salami and mulch tea, something and grass tea. Sounds delicious aye? Tonight they went to the supermarket together and Jess had a strange burst of energy. As Matt looked for a certain item in an aisle, Jess would do a lap of say, one lane of freezers and upon return say, “I meet you there!” So when she came back for a late dinner, she was full of energy. She was so excited that she was a bit over zealous in spooning the herbs into my teapot, shaking them all off of the spoon before tipping them in. I asked her, “Jess, why are you so excited? You didn’t have any sugar today…are you just happy?” Lo and behold, she replied, “I had a little bit of chocolate.” Oh? “Daddy gave me a little bit of chocolate.” When Matt heard he had been exposed, he joked the rest of the evening that she had promised not to tell mommy. It feels good to know she still can’t hide things from me, the day will come soon enough. She also knows that chocolate has sugar in it, or that it might make her behave differently. That shocked me. Although I can’t control her every bite, I guess she’s still doing pretty good. The whole family tries really hard to support me in my food endeavors with Jacinta.

So again, in too many words, there’s life for the Henry’s this week. Our little baby on the way seems to be fine and is already loved by many and kissed often by its older sister. A friend from choir just gave me a beautiful sweater knitted for our new little being. I know my family is well in the US even though I can’t see them, and hear from good friends from time to time. We have “No worries,” as Jacinta has learned to say. Hope you’re all feeling warm and knitted tight into a loving circle, be they close or far away.

Brewing beer in the bedroom

Good evening lovely people! Another week has passed and again, I come to you on Saturday night with too much to say. After a week of hot sun, followed by unbelievable winds, all leading up to a great storm, it is finally raining. I transplanted about 20 huge chamomile seedlings yesterday hoping for rain. Ahhhh, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief. They may not perish after months of bringing them up in trays. There are flowers everywhere (all of which were here before we came), bees buzzing in the garden now relishing over 30 flowering broccoli plants. The wind blew all of my peas off of the fence, but this inspired me to do some spring garden bed preparation. Jess and I spent many hours in the garden this week, did a lot of cooking and a little work on the house with Matt.




Matt worked a few days at the bank, and every day at the nut factory, and of course, as much as he could on the house. The two days he had at home were spent out in the yard, all of us. Here’s a good picture: Matt and Keith are using loud power tools sanding off the wear and tear on lumber which will soon be our rafters. Ten feet away and down the hill, I am staining the sanded rafters on saw horses. Twenty feet down the hill is Jess in her cubby house with the door shut, to keep the chickens out of course. She is dressing, cuddling and feeding her dollies while making cookies and tea for the rest of us. My work is often interrupted, which I quite like, by fun tasks like hanging laundry, Jess’s potty needs, hungry Jess, hungry baby in my belly, Jess wanting to look for eggs, a call for help dressing dollies. This leads to shoddy work on my part and mistakes like kicking over the can of stain, oops. I must excuse myself though, it is difficult to balance a can on a hill while painting downhill. In any case, these are lovely days spent together. I just think about years to come when I’ll be looking at those rafters and remember the beauty of the process.

Speaking of the process, Matt is learning how beer is made. Happy to have received the desired brewer’s kit for Father’s Day, he began brewing that day. We now have a keg in our bedroom which must be kept warm, at 24 degrees Celsius to be exact. It sits in the sun by day, and is wrapped in house wrap and blankets at night. If it falls below 24, the heater warms it up or it is placed by the fire. It bubbles every few minutes, and is interesting to have around. Jess will comment, “beer bubbles!” and for some reason thinks that we will all have a glass when it is finished. Another process I learned about this week was how to make garlic powder. Why bother??? When two pounds of organic garlic starts to go bad, you can not just throw it out. We all played our part: Matt looking up the recipe on the internet, Jess and Keith peeling, me chopping, and Keith and I taking it in turns to check on the garlic for dryness throughout its 12 hour stay in the oven. The most exciting part was throwing it in the food processor to grind up the dried slices and watch it turn into powder, very cool. I was never a big fan of garlic powder, but for the moment, I’m using it in everything. We made applesauce this week and joked about throwing some in. No worries, we didn’t. Jess and I made pesto to use up some of the last fresh cloves. With no basil in the garden, we substituted mint, parsley and oregano and it was great!

With all that talk of food, I just got up for a snack. I’m revisiting my pesto, and I think I overdosed on the garlic. Look out vampires! I wake up almost every night at about 2am for a big snack, this baby is hungry (: I’m showing earlier this time around, 15 weeks now. It’s fun getting bigger but challenging thus far without summer maternity clothes. I’m not relaxing much yet, but I keep trying. There are just too many things that need doing. Jess skipped her nap a few days in a row, so I didn’t even get a midday nap! We have had a few little “yoga” sessions though, we call it yoga but it’s just stretching and pre-natal exercises. For Jess, yoga is running around the room nudie, rolling around on her wool rug “wooly” and copying me every once in a while. I’m amazed at how long she can entertain herself wrapping up in blankets and just lying around on her wooly. She is almost as baby conscious as I am now commenting on what the baby is doing at each point in the day. “Baby’s sleeping in your belly?” “Baby is sitting now?” “Baby’s drinking milk?” “Baby’s eating yogurt!!!” This evening right before bed, lying next to me while listening to Matt play the guitar, she came out of nowhere and said with a big smile, “I have baby brother or sista.” Children seem to say the sweetest things as their last thought before sleep.

Jacinta makes us laugh a lot these days, trying out new words and topics of conversation. Throughout the day if she has heard a new word, she just throws it out there, like, “listen to this!” In the garden I exclaimed that a particular broccoli plant was enormous. She liked the sound of it, and held on to it all day, “Enormous!” We made banana bread whose existence was not for taste but nutrients (wheat germ, honey, nuts, molasses) and she got to pour the sticky molasses. “Molasses!” She liked the sound of it and boldly copied, “molasses.” She brings the word up every few hours, no conversation, just smiles and says it. Another day she commented, “Jacinta Grace Henry…that’s what daddy calls me… Why does daddy call me that?” I answered, “because that’s your full name, just like my full name is Shana Marie Henry.” She accepted that. We have one sweet little hen named Mona Lisa with an injured leg. Any time we come outside she follows closely in hot pursuit, as if she wants a cuddle. Other larger hens frighten Jess by following too close, but not this one. “Mona Lisa is helloing me!” How could you possibly correct this cute grammatical error, to use hello as a verb? Another funny conversation we have concerns “sweaters” and “jumpas,” an American word versus the Aussie word. She knows they mean the same thing, and has learned that mom says sweater and dad says jumper. She has decided that she doesn’t care that only mom says sweater, “I call it sweata, no jumpa.”





It’s almost too warm for sweaters or jumpers here, but Jess likes to wear them. Perhaps it’s more of a problem with detachment. Once the sweater is on, she does not want to part with it, even if it is blazing hot. It could also be that she likes pockets and a few of her sweaters have pockets. We’ll be out in the garden working with dirt and water in the sun and she holds onto that sweater like a security blanket. In addition to weeding garden beds and pulling out winter plants that are overabundant and just in the way, we’ve planted more seeds. Herbs and flowers this week, we planted some really interesting herbs like cumin and anise. Learning from inattentive watering of the past, we have watered the seeds everyday. A few tomato seedlings are popping up. Many of the seeds I’ve planted are new to me. With Jess’s haphazard method of scattering seeds outside of their “labeled zone,” I’m bound to have troubles knowing which plants are which until they produce something. Although I’m already missing Jess’s afternoon nap, we’ve had great long days in the garden with no need to return to the house by lunch. We just pack a picnic and stop and eat in the garden overlooking the dam. There are no dishes and we don’t have to change our clothes and try to get clean, other than our hands of course.

It has been another enjoyable week with two nights out for choir, playgroup, and NO COWS IN MY GARDEN! The fences paid off. Although, the goat ate some strawberry plants, oh well. Jess and I took Matt out to Yarahappini mountain, only 15 minutes away for Father’s Day and we all had a great time. I’m also knitting again, I’ve postponed finishing the socks with thin wool. They were going too slow and winter is over. I’ve started another project for a friend’s baby to come, using fat wool and I love going fast! I received a beautiful skein of silk wool as a gift and this has also reinspired me. The mice are slowing down, but are still present. They eat chocolate!!! I bought some chocolate to send to a friend in Michigan and a mouse ate it! Matt has joined a group working on putting Creation Spirituality into more practical terms so he too is feeling reinspired. He’s studying World Religions for his geography degree but it is quite superficial compared to all of the previous study he has done in his doctoral degree. Jacinta is inspired and inspiring every day, she is even starting to make up her own songs, humming. I’ll catch a little tune and just listen, and being the chatty child she is she’ll stop singing and talk about it, “That’s my song.”

Thanks for sharing our life with us. We’d love to hear all about you too, especially about fall, the smells, the colors and what you’re doing in it all. Ohhhh autumn, this will be my first full autumn away from my country. Enjoy the shortening days, the excuse to go inside and be lazy earlier in the day (: Here’s some Jacinta wisdom for the week: sing a song or hum a tune. Say, “that’s my song,” and either laugh, smile or cry with it.

All done?

Good evening loved ones (: I hope this letter reaches you all in good health, good spirits, and ready for fall. Spring (feels like June in Michigan) is here, I dare say. No cold fronts have returned, but the rains came. Hallelujah! We had three full days and nights of lovely sloppy rain. I love the sound of it, there’s no mistaking the sound of rain in a house with metal roofing, even in deep sleep. Although half of our rain gutters are out of order due to the construction, the water tank is now overflowing.
Mostly, we stayed inside, painted, played, sewed, cooked, and slept, only venturing out to fetch eggs, chase cows out of gardens, and feed chickens. Matt, on the other hand, got lucky and had two days of bank work during the rain. So there was no lost time for him, especially after setting up a tarp to build under on the last day of intermittent wimpy showers.

Before the rains came, last weekend was full of family and friends who had come from afar to celebrate Mary’s (Matt’s mum) 60th birthday. We all met at the local Chinese restaurant and surprised Mary who knew only that her daughter Allison and Keith’s daughter Jo has come. Most exciting was her sister from Tasmania and brother from the Blue Mountains, she was overwhelmed with joy. I made my first cheesecake and luckily, it turned out well. Macadamia crusted passionfruit cheesecake is quite a complicated thing to make, but that’s all I cooked for the whole weekend so I shan’t complain. Good food, good wine, and good company kept us busy Saturday and Sunday. Jess, of course, was enchanted by all of the admiring family members giving her love and attention. Imagine, as a sanguine little two year old, having three rooms full of people to visit. She could leave any room once the thrill expired, and move on in search of more attention or entertainment, or better food. We all had a lovely time.

Keeping up the social atmosphere, two friends came for knitting on Monday morning and helped us with the overwhelming leftovers from the weekend. It was nice to start knitting again, I’ll probably finish Jess’ wool socks by summer (: It’s so nice to have such an abundant garden that your friends can’t leave empty handed. The most common garden gift these days is broccoli. I don’t know what will follow. You never know which crop will overproduce, and which ones won’t even come out of the ground, well, at least I don’t. The terrace garden is beautiful right now, overflowing, overgrowing, so large that Michelle went through this week pulling out plants going to seed to make way for shaded spinach or pea plants. It’s getting so warm that the broccoli plants are all going directly to seed. The bees are thrilled, buzzing around all of the yellow flowers. They say that broccoli plants in flower, many flowering vegetables are great companion plants attracting predators to eat the bugs that munch the leaves. But spring is here and we need room to plant more, so we’ll be pulling out a few here and there. Below is a photo of Jess celebrating the harvest, munching on a purple carrot and posing for her proud mommy.

Speaking of more garden space, I’m proud to say that I finished half of the new enlarged teepee garden beds. After completely enclosing the orchard in with chicken wire and installing a new gate, (with Matt, Michelle, Keith, Jess and Rory’s help), I dove into hauling dirt, mulch, compost, and wood chips down the hill. I was worried that it would take weeks as I can’t push the wheelbarrow full of heavy dirt while pregnant (I tip even when at full strength). But Michelle carried a few loads, and then I figured out the wonders of the wagon, Jess’s huge American SUV wagon given to her by my mom and George. This wagon is awesome for many reasons. If I put a tarp in the wagon, I can fill it up with anything and take it down the hill without hurting my back or losing my balance, even carrying Jess sitting under all of the mulch. Et voila, after newspapering the ground, tens of trips down the hill, tipping the wagon, spreading the materials evenly on the ground, dirty hands and knees and a terribly dirty Jess, a new garden ready for spring! It even has little paths to each of the fruit trees and some cow manure left as a token of appreciation from the cows who ate the fruit trees.

Again you ask? The cows got in again? What about the fences you put in? Yes! Four frisky little calves and one big momma broke in the one weak link, a temporary gate to the orchard in the rain, in the dark one night. Keith is attuned to the sounds of the animals and had been listening to one cow moaning for an hour or so. Finally, he put on his rain gear, took his flashlight and went down to see what was wrong. This large white heifer was crying because she could not get to her baby and give her milk. Her baby was “stuck” in the orchard, eating my trees! They ate most of the branches off of my apple, plum, nectarine, and orange trees. They decimated two native bushes, but left over half of the fruit trees untouched. None of the trees are ruined, just set back. I am sad, sad to see all of the flowers gone off of those beautiful trees, but learning. Just today Mary caught a calf entering through the one open link on the neighbor’s side, so I blocked that off too. Soon the grass will grow all over and they won’t be so desperate for food.
Amidst the rain and the visitors, Matt was able to do some building this week. He constructed the dividing wall between the two bedrooms. This is no simple wall though, nor a simple task. It is made up of closets, drawers, and shelves. If you know Matt, this is a true love of his: built-in storage. No shelves yet, just framework, we still need a roof.

He worked between the raindrops, while Jess and I worked on the garden. It’s raining! Run under the shed! It stopped, let’s go play in the dirt! One day after picking Matt up from the bank and dropping him off at Macnuts, upon return Jess and I decided to stay out in the rain. We found five eggs, what a thrill to go searching at 4pm, knowing that no dog had stolen them because New Dog went back to his home! We ventured down in the orchard to check out the cow destruction in the daylight. It was good fun, until we came inside and realized that Matt’s cell phone in my pocket had gotten soaked. Later on it was declared dead and necessitated lots of money to buy a new one. Oooops ): Another bummer is that I threw our sopping wet clothes in the dryer, including a rusty nail in my pocket. The clothes all came out green and speckled. Lessons learned: 1) close your pockets in your rain jacket and 2) clean out your pockets and never put a rusty nail in the dryer.

Jess had a busy week, even without playgroup or choir. On Tuesday Keith took her up to see Mary at work for her 60th birthday and to visit all of the elderly people who live at the retirement home that Mary manages. She had cake, charmed everyone, explored the halls, and sang the whole ride to and fro. She spent a few hours painting this week with Matt and I, but mostly with Keith who is an excellent painter. She has her own paint smock and paints with feathers and Qtips. She cooked up a storm in her playhouse while Keith brought up loads of dirt for her garden. Then she and Keith planted some native bushes in her little cubby house garden. Jess and I cooked quiches, bread, shortbread, pizzas and a few other things. She went to town with Matt a few times, and they had choir night together painting and playing. It’s funny, when she requests a long Dr. Suess book and I groan saying, “No…it’s too long.” She replies without a doubt, “Daddy read it,” as in “he will read it to me even though it’s long!” Her speech continues to entertain us endlessly. Today’s new word was “ointment?” (She has a diaper rash) Do we teach her these words, so unnecessary for a two year old? No, she just hears them and thinks they are fun to sound out and repeat. When you ask her simple questions like, “Where did you get that head band?” She’ll give great detail, “In pop’s sock drawer!” “Who made you that sweater?” “Mommy knitted it!” In the morning she has taken to the routine that both Matt and I need cuddles before she can get out of bed. It’s so funny because she willingly gives us cuddles, mum first, dad second. By the end of Matt’s cuddle though, she’s ready for breakfast and sunshine. Lying on Matt, head nuzzled into his neck, she looks up and eagerly asks, “All done???” She is released and off she goes...to the drawer for apricots.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day here in Australia, it is very confusing having two different days. Jess and I went shopping in Macksville this morning looking for a very specific gift…a brewer’s kit. Where might one look? First we stopped at a gift shop and bought what Jess thought Matt would like: soap?! We checked the camping supply store, he said, “check the health food shop.” It was closed, so we checked the pharmacy, the hardware store, the grocery store, the department store, the pawn shop. Everyone had a suggestion as to where I might try next. Now Jess had done very well walking but by this point grew tired. Luckily, she was meeting grandma and friends for morning tea, so I continued solo. Passing by the thrift shop, I saw a 5$ bag sale and had to partake. By this time, I bought Matt some chocolate thinking I’d never succeed. Someone else suggested the health food shop, so back I went. This time, it was open. “Try the small grocery store.” There it was, beside the river, a brewer’s kit all alone on the back shelf, waiting for a home. I breathed a sigh of relief, I did it! Out little town has exactly what I need, I just have to search for it! A few shop owners even said, “You’ll have to drive to Kempsey or Coffs Harbour,” bigger cities both 45 minutes away. As I walked along the river, passing by couples eating on picnic tables and a big hungry pelican, I felt happy, at peace, and in complete disbelief that this is my town.

Here’s wishing you a peaceful week. May you be in love with your town, be it quaint or bustling.