narrating kayoz

My zucchinis are being murdered!

I had a second attempt at planting out a zucchini two days ago.

The first one I planted got completely eaten by pests (slugs? snails? do earwigs cause damage too? cause we've got a lots of them), despite being surrounded by crushed egg shells, which seemed to work last year.

So this time I planted a more mature plant & added four snail traps (bowls of vegemite/sugar-water to attract them) and strewed around some lettuce and silverbeet leaves as slug traps - although that only works if you go out and collect them before they move on, which I failed to do last night.

 

As you can see from the close-up below though, it is *still* getting eaten. And if this is how it looks after two days...

 

You can see in the top right of that pick there's a leaf already completely eaten, and the others are suffering...

I've never had a problem growing zucchs before. Sure, they always end up with some powdery mildew, but it doesn't seem to stop them producing plenty of produce. And I might have lost the odd seedling, but again, not so it's mattered. So this is really rather disconcerting.

A perfect day

I have had such a lovely day today.

After dropping Liam at school, Mikaela and I went to my mum's, where we spent the day hanging with her, along with my cousin & her two little girls (4 months older and 12 months younger than Kaely).

The three girls see each other almost every Monday, but this was a particularly good day. There was some squabbling, of course, but there were also tea parties, taking turns playing drums and piano, racing around squealing like crazy people (okay, that did get old fairly quickly, but my wonderful Mum put a stop to it by reading them a story or two while I got lunch), feeding the fish in Mum's backyard, hiding under bed clothes, building train sets, and so on. Most of which was done in remarkable harmony.

It was 32 degrees today (90F) so after school (and a few errands) Mikaela, Liam & I hung about outside in the shade for nearly an hour, the kids having a cool outdoor bath (in a clam shell), me sitting with my feet dangling in the water. Liam actually spent most of the time out of the water, just popping into it to cool down from time to time, so it wasn't much of a bath for him, but it was a lovely way to spend an hour. And then later the water can be bucketed onto the garden, which it needs.

When we came in I sat knitting* for another half hour or so, while Liam read to me (his idea - we went to the library before we left school), and Kaely pottered around, making beds, reading books to 'Baby Purple Teddy' etc, and Chris cooked dinner.

And after dinner, we spent another half hour outside enjoying the evening cool, playing with Lochie, and watering**/weeding the vegie garden (not as much as it needs though, of either one).

Now the kids are in bed, and I'm off back outside to bucket the water from the clam shell onto the new plants we've put in out the front.

__________

*I'm knitting a blanket for the baby, to match the ones I made for Liam & Mikaela (a bit like this one, but it I gave to my best friend's baby, who was born first - Kaely's is not even half this size, and neither will this new one be), but while I'm more than half way through the pregnancy I'm only maybe a third of the way through the blanket, so I really need to get on with it!

**With rain water, of course, though that is fast running out.

The Spring garden

I found some self-seeded oregano this morning, while out of the front planting out a few clumps of violets pulled out of my cousin's garden, and a purple daisy cutting from my own. Also a self-seeded grape hyacinth and a tiny violet plant - all on the edge of our so-called 'lawn'. I think I'm going to cultivate the un-lawn look just there and see if some more will come up next year.

I love when things come up by themselves. It's good when things we plant deliberately flourish, of course. But when things come up by themselves - and in a good spot - it seems as though we must be doing something right. It feels like that's how a healthy, productive garden should work. Permaculture, really.

On a separate topic - I can't wait to be eating fresh tomatoes out of my garden, instead of the tasteless shop-bought ones. If that's all we grew every year, it would still be so worth it.

Kids, garden, worms and more!

A post in dot points.

What? It's Spring, and I'm pregnant. I don't have time to do better than this! But lots of things are happening.

• Mikaela, for instance, has been out of nappies (except at night) since last weekend. We picked an awful time to do it, given she was sick - quite sick by Monday - but oh well. It's going reasonably well so far. A few more accidents than we had with Liam, but she is six months younger than he was. I know some people do it about a year or more earlier than this, and put up with accidents for longer, but I just don't have it in me for that. I'd much rather deal with nappies than accidents! But she was more than ready, and the weather is warming, so we've taken the plunge.


• Liam started Hapkido last week. He was over the moon with excitement about it afterwards. He's gone along to his second class today. Chris has been doing Hapkido on and off for a few years (though his real background is in Taekwondo), but mostly off for the past couple due to various injuries (not to mention ankle surgery). However, he is back for his first class in a year today and very happy about it. They have a 'parents & kids' session - two classes side by side - so we're hoping that will work out for the two of them for a while. I am more than happy to have it not be an after school activity that I will have to drag Mikaela and the baby to next year.
  
  Getting Liam into a martial art has been something Chris has always been in favour of, though he agreed with me that he shouldn't start too young, so he's happy too. And I've ruled that it's going to count as his summer activity (instead of cricket, tin pin bowls or basket ball, which were Liam's other plans), so I'm happy. I'm a bit strict about limiting out of school activities - he's always had swimming on Sundays, but aside from that, the AFL this winter was his first regular extra-curricular commitment.
  
  I'm mean about it partly out of a philosophy that really wants to limit those sorts of structured activities, and partly out of an awareness that eventually there will be three of them to ferry around.


• Liam also started knitting at home this week. He's been knitting at school since the start of second term (ie about April), but on Friday he convinced me to buy him some needles (5.5mm) and wool from the Orana shop, and he's been working on a 'stick holder' (don't ask) enthusiastically since. One row at a time (or less), but almost all his own work. I was a bit worried that he would end up asking me to do most of it, but so far so good.


• It is Spring and the gardening fever has hit. Well, in theory anyway. In practice I'm trying not to ask too much of myself, given I'm only just getting over the morning sickness part of pregnancy (despite being 16 weeks now, and a few days).
  
  I was looking at my vegie garden the other day, and realised that if I did nothing but maintain it (weed, water and harvest) we'd most certainly have silverbeet, parsley (both of which are still there from last year), and volunteer tomatoes - at least tom thumbs - peas, maybe snap beans, and probably potatoes. Which wouldn't be so bad. Oh, and cos lettuce, some of which have already come up, self seeded.
  
  However, I don't plan to leave it at that. So yesterday Kaely and I got out and planted some sugar snap peas (seeds) and some rocket (seedlings). Next month we'll get in some zuchinnis and tomatoes, and hopefully between now and then I'll sow some carrot and spring onion seeds. Oh, and I really want to get some basil in this year. And Liam wants corn.
  
  Pretty basic. I'm not going to bother with beans this year - unless maybe one or two plants - because we just couldn't keep up with them last year. We're not really bean eaters, except raw in salads or straight off the bush. And having realised that if I do nothing, we'll still have some harvest, I now feel that anything is a bonus. But I have set myself up for better success this year by not planning too much.
  
  Same with the rest of the garden. We've got weeds galore coming up out the front, so I must get out and pull them up after the next rain, but aside from that if I get nothing but maintenance done I'll be happy. We put in a second apple tree and a medlar at the very last gasp of the bare root tree planting season (or slightly beyond, if the truth be known), and next year we'll try for some more fruit trees. But I remind myself that we will shortly have three young children, and that neither one of us has (or even really wants) a good protestant work ethic. We like to read, rest, sit around and chat, that sort of thing. So if we don't get the garden to look as good as my parents' garden does, well, it's nice to remember that theirs wasn't anything close to what it is now until I was in high-school. So as long as we get some more fruit trees in over the next couple of years, we'll be right.


• Also on the gardening front, I got a garden bed worm farm last weekend, which we are planning to use to process all the poo Lochie produces. Seriously, that dog is just a pooing machine! Obviously we won't haven't put it near any food plants, but I am hoping that we can move it around the garden to a different spot every six-twelve months and really build up the worm population in our soil, as well as deal with the poo problem. The worms supplied with it are a mix which includes both composting worms, and a kind of earth worm which will work more to take the goodness of the worm castings down into the soil. It sits directly in the garden bed, so there's no need for us to remove the castings ourselves. Lovely system. Hope it works!
  
  Unfortunately Chris wormed Lochie right before we got the farm, so we've had to wait a week to begin feeding them the poo. And that's going to be an issue for one week of every month. But processing the poo to be useful (instead of polluting) three weeks out of four is still a huge improvement over what we've been doing.


• I'm 16.5 weeks pregnant. I *think* I've started feeling the odd movement - as of Wednesday morning - but I'm not completely convinced yet. I know that with both the other kids I had a similar experience, and then later when I was sure I decided that's what I'd been feeling all along. But I also know that there've been times between pregnancies when I've felt some gas moving around in my gut and thought it felt exactly like the baby moving around in later pregnancy. This early it's a different feeling, but still, I'm withholding judgement. It's still exciting though.


• Edited to add: And Liam's reading is coming along in leaps and bounds. I got him some new Zac Power books from the library, not realising these were longer with smaller text. At first he struggled a little (though not as much as with Harry Potter, of which we are still reading a couple of pages at a time in between Zac Power books), but a few days later and he's doing really well with them.

Okay, I'd better start getting dinner organised now. I promised Kaely we would make pancakes for dinner, so she's been agitating to get started for half an hour already.

She don't like it

It's raining - a thunder storm in fact. I love it. The garden loves it. Liam and Chris love it. The animals aren't so sure. Mikaela says:

"I don't like it. I cover my ears, make it go away."

She says it very matter-of-factly mind you, with no hint of distress in her voice. And then she falls asleep in my arms.

Things I would be blogging about if I wasn't so tired...

• Web 2.0 in government - it is fun to be getting to be part of this conversation (in my work, not on my blog - because of the tiredness y'see). Interesting post from Lindsay Tanner (and some interesting comments) on his blog at fairfax digital.
• Funny things Mikaela is saying these days - like how she says 'Munooz' for both muesli and music. I keep meaning to record all this for the 'baby book', but I am not doing very well lately.
• How Liam thinks he is going to be Joseph in his school nativity play on Friday morning - he's pretty sure, he says, because he was Joseph again in the practice today and he can carry the candle really straight. This is a sweet little play they do in kindergarten where all the kids sing the whole thing, but some kids also have 'parts', while others are the angels who file in around the outside. It lasts for maybe ten minutes (including the procession in), and then we all get morning tea and school is over for the year.
• The vegie garden, which is finally starting to look like one - we are picking silverbeet and snow peas and stacks of parsley and will very soon be picking zucchinis and cherry tomatoes as well.
• How Liam decided he wanted to get involved in the garden and so he has his own little patch in which we (he and I together) have planted potatos and cucumbers (I know, not really a match companion planting-wise, but they were two things we hadn't been able to fit into the main garden).
• Our littlest Silky chook who has (I think) Mareks disease, which I am treating with, I kid you not, a mix of cranberries, brazil nuts, garlic, plus to drink pomegranate juice and gatorade. I got it from a chook forum (okay, I'll find the link... Backyard Poultry forum), and it seems to be helping.
• Out new car, which we've converted to run on LPG which I'm pretty sure is a good thing (and was helped by a $2000 government rebate) (but how we have to hurry up and sell the old one so I don't get into the habit of driving to work like I did today).
• How hungry I am right now
• But how I need to go to bed and so I think food - and more blogging - will have to wait for another day.
• g'night.

The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood

I've just been listening to a radio interview with Rachel Power, author of The Divided Heart, along with two of her interviewees, and just listening to them talk inspired me to get back to writing something - even blogging.

I have written virtually nothing since I started work two months ago. A few blog posts, a few more half blog posts*, nothing else.

I blame it partly on settling into my new routine that includes three days a week in the paid workforce,** partly on a sort of post-intensive study/writing lull, and partly on the fact that I've been sick four (4!) times since I began work. That's roughly every two weeks. Currently I m just getting my voice back after two days without it, but to compensate one of my ears is completely blocked (and weeping!) and every sounds reverberates inside there, mixing in with the constant ringing. And that's not even to mention the sore throat, headache, wet cough etc. And this began two Sundays ago.

Of course another factor is Spring - I always have a hard time settling down to writing in the Spring, when what I really want to do is get out into the garden. Today it is a beautiful, sunny, 16 degree day, and what I really long to be doing is getting out into the vegie garden which has a lot of preparation needed before the Spring planting begins,*** but I know that what i should really be doing is resting, and even standing here at the bench typing on my laptop (which is the only way Kaely will let me get any writing done) is more restful than digging paths and lugging manure and mulch and sawdust. So when my brain is still available at night I've been re-reading books on permaculture and vegetables and herbs, and drawing out plans, trying to figure out how to make the best of my south-west facing block.

But back to the point of this post, which was writing and motherhood and Rachel's book. Rachel Power, I realised half way through the interview, is a very good friend of a friend of mine. A few years back when Liam was a baby, and her first child was a baby, and I was in Melbourne for a month while Chris completed his Rolfing triaining, our mutual friend was trying to get us together, and I remember she told me that Rachel was writing (or perhaps just thinking about at that stage) this book. We both had babies and lived on opposite sides of Melbourne and had transport issues, so we never did manage to connect. But it was partly talking to that same friend, a year or so later, that inspired me to start the Masters degree. I suppose I felt that studying and working part-time would simply not be possible at the same time as being the mother I wanted to be for my son.

Of course me studying did impact Liam. And (equally of course) that is one of the refrains of the book - the balancing act between doing the work you want/need to do and being the mother you want/your children need you to be. One of the women interviewed said that of course her children were impacted, but that for her it was about finding the compromise she could live with. Of course, that's something I suppose all working mothers (and to some extent fathers) live with, but there's a definitely difference between working for a certain pay check and working for a *maybe* pay check, somewhere in the future. For me, I suppose that I could make a living writing if I really really worked at it, but it would be a lot more work for a lot less money. So my writing becomes something that I fit into my 'spare' time, and hope to get bits of peices of published here and there.

Another difference between the at work mother and the artist mother is that the latter, whether she's paid or not, is very often a work-at-home mother, so her work is constantly interrupted and fit in around. Rachel Power spoke about the self-discipline required - that now she has finished The Divided Heart, it's so much easier to make the beds than to sit down and start a new project. Especially, I add, when you know that you will be interrupted over and over again. So far in the time I've been writing this post I have also

• changed a stinky nappy
• set Mikaela up with the trainset
• set Mikaela up with the barn and animals
• set Mikaela up with a pencil case and paper (and moved myself from the kitche bench to the dining room table so as to keep an eye on her and make sure she neither sucks any of Liam's textas (markers) dry, nor draws on my pile of gardening books also sitting on the dining room table)
• put on a load of washing (nappies)
• helped Mikaela with numerous pen lids, and rescued the same from her mouth.

One of the mothers on the radio mentioned the guilt over knowing that your children want to be with you, and yet you are argonising over the exactly word or phrase you need while they watch a video. Mikaela's not yet of an age or temperament where I can count on the tele to keep her occupied for more than about five minutes (although sometimes it will), but I have certainly experienced that guilt with Liam. For me though, when I was studying on a Sunday, it was more the sense that I was depriving not only the kids, but the whole family of 'family time' (since Chris was also working on Saturdays). So now that I am not studying, and Chris is not working on Saturdays for a while, I am relishing our long, two day weekends, but also half wishing I could justify shutting myself away in my study again. I said I was write in the evenings, but so far I haven't done it. Some women get up at the crack of dawn to write or paint or whatever before their kids are up, but my kids are up at about 6am lately, and I frankly am not going to get up significantly earlier than that - I don't get enough sleep as it is.

I am still planning to make the evenings thing work for me, but for the moment I really just need to try to get my health under control, and try to write a little more during the day I think, the washing be damned.

On the up side, I was interested to hear my experience reflected (and I gather this was also a common theme), in that having children actually makes the art easier, the work more efficient in some ways. There's something about knowing you only have ten minutes, or two hours or whatever that can focus the mind, reduce the procrastination, and enhance one's ability to make fast judgements. One of the women also commented that having children makes your emotional nerve endings that much more sensitive, which can actually be quite useful to an artist.

But now I have literally used up all my time for writing this morning. Kaely is moving towards melt down and needs to be fed and put to bed in time to get her up again to go pick Liam up for school. It's possible her nap will give me more time, but just as likely that she'll spend half of it in my arms and then wake up twenty minutes after I put her down. I don't mind too much - I love having her sleep in my arms, and it gives me an enforced rest too, which I could use. Then again I could also use the time to hang out those nappies before while the sun is still high in the sky, or to think about dinner, or perhaps I could plant some of those tomato seeds that arrived in the mail the other day, so they'll be ready to plant out in the garden by the beginning of November... right now though I'd better go organise lunch.

________________

*Because most of the time when I start writing Kaely interrupts after about two paragraphs if I'm lucky, and then again another para on, and so on until I completely lose the thread and the interest. Which is why the posts I do write are so jumpy from one thought to another - no time to stop and think or save a thought till later or re-structure afterwards, if i do that, it never gets posted at all.

**Which i am still quite enjoying by the way, and at least there I am getting to do a teeny bit of writing - currently I'm working on a story on WWII shipwrecks in Australian waters, as random as that sounds - though mostly I'm doing more mundane work of updating websites with other people's content.

***Our vegie garden has lain fallow since we moved the chooks back into their run a couple of months back, but we are about to get serious about it again - and see how that goes with Lochie and what we might have to do. In the meantime, on the weekend we finally got a couple more Silkies (another white and a blue) to be friends for Fluffy, which was very exciting and is another reason to be spending time outside.

Befuddled and bothered by climate change and colds

I read a(nother) scary article on climate change the other day - how it's happening faster than experts were predicting, etc, and how dry continents like Australia specifically will be impacted over the next forty odd years. I must say it was sobering to realise that in forty years I'll be rather past my prime, but even more sobering to think about the world my kids will be trying to make their way in.

I wondered - if we really took this seriously, would we be trying to have another baby? Not for the reason I remember my peers spouting back when we were in our teens - that the world was just too nasty a place subject them to - but more just in terms of the added burden more people place on the planet's resources, and more specifically on our own resources.

Well, we are still going to try for a third baby, climate change (and many other practical considerations) be damned. But we're also going to sit down and plan out a bit more concretely what we should/can/will do to climate-change-proof our own lives. We already turn off things at the wall, use (mostly) energy saver lights, and will have replenished our roof insulation within the month. But bigger projects we've talked about like getting a big tank put in, a proper grey water system (as opposed to the hose out the window type), solar panels - those things we can't afford right now, but can be more seriously about planning for. And then there are other things like putting in as many fruit trees as we can fit and getting better at growing our own food.

Of course, some of these depend on whether we are really staying in this house for the long haul or not. It is west facing, on a weird shaped block which gives us little good sunny yard space and has one less bedroom than we'd like. But it's got a great view, it's in a good location for our needs, it's got some lovely things about the yard as well, and one less bedroom means a smaller carbon footprint anyway.

That is some of the sort of conversation we've been having in our house over the past few days. Interspersed with conversations about planting heirloom tomatoes, getting another Silky chook or two and why we have come down with yet another cold. But much time and many kid-focussed activities have passed since I started writing this post this morning, and additionally my brain is now anti-histamine befuddled.

Eggs!

Having weekends in which to get things done is great. But some things can even be done during the week with kids in tow.

Our new, permanent chook-run fence still needs a gate. We bought a screen door from a junk yard, but it's a little narrow for the space. The plan is to reduce the space just at the points where the hinges go by screwing in some cut-offs from the hardwood sleepers we used to edge our new vegie garden last year, and on the other side do the same thing where the latch fits. Except I think we're one piece short. Also we still need to get a face plate (I think that's what it's called) for the door latch to fit into, but my step-father reckons he probably has one lying around somewhere.

The problem is, Chris and I are both seriously lacking in the handy genes you need to do all this sort of stuff. And add to that, Chris likes to do things properly. Me, I'm more of a "get it done, good enough will do" sorta gal. But, now Chris can't really do much of this stuff anyway, because of the tendonitis in his hands, which is just the sort of impetus I need to get it done myself - sort-of. So on Tuesday, while Kaely got soaked half emptying one of the our small rain-water tanks, and Liam got filthy digging in the dirt, which quickly became digging in the mud thanks to Kaely, I wired in the screen door. I wired it in on both sides, so it's not openable, but it does stay in place, right in the middle of the gate space. And it does keep the chooks in and Lochie out.

The part of the yard we are giving over to the chooks is the part that has the gate into it from the front of the house, so we can get into the chook yard through that gate, and we can get into the rest of the yard through the back door. The back-yard also has another gate down the other end that we don't use much, but we can. So this system will work, even if it's not perfect. I do plan to get that gate done properly at some point, and the downside of my 'get it done now' method is that getting it done properly is now no-doubt further away than ever. But in the meantime we have collected four eggs, and discovered that our little australorp-wyandotte cross, Speckles, has started laying. She's just a little thing - about a third the size of her rooster brother - and she has a really dreadful scoliosis, so we weren't sure laying eggs successfully was in her future.

Added to that, this week has felt almost like Spring - or at least like August - and so I am getting inspired to get serious about the garden again. It's an exciting feeling for me.

Dottie & Speckles

I take back what I said about Dottie being completely intimidated by the old chooks. When I fed them this morning she - I mean he - got in there and got his fair share right along side them. A week ago he was still running off the moment they looked at him. Poor Speckles is still missing out on all the best bits. She gets enough, but it looks like a stressful process. Once we have that fence finished (I know, I've been saying that for a while now) I will bring Fluffy around the back, into the vegie -garden-chook house, and I might experiment with moving Speckles down there too.

Another rooster

Have I mentioned yet that another one of our chickens has turned into a rooster? She - or rather he - didn't start crowing until well over 20 weeks, which I thought was supposed to be unheard of. And he is completely non-aggressive, nothing like the silky rooster we gave back a few months ago. The big chooks, who are about half his size now (he is enormous) have him completely intimidated, but he isn't aggressive to the other remaining 'new' chook, Speckles, (who is tiny, about half the old chooks' size, or a lot smaller than them anyway), either, and in fact those two are basically inseparable.

They - the new chooks - must be about 35 weeks old by now, so quite fully grown. Out of four we bought the first weekend in February, two have turned out to be roosters, one, speckles, has a massive sclerosis and is very small, and the last one, Fluffy, our remaining silky, has moved out to the front of our house (still a fenced space, though she could get out if she wanted) to escape persecution. We're still planning to get a (silky) playmate for her, though surprisingly she seems relatively content on her own.

We haven't decided whether to get rid of Dottie, the roster, or not. We were planning too, but Chris suggested this morning that we just ask the neighbours whether she is bothering them, and if not maybe we can keep her. I mean him. He is a gorgeous bird, a Australorp-Wyandotte cross, with rich green feathers and a glossy tail. We're all quite attached to him now, and Liam is very attached to the idea that he could mean we get baby chickens next Spring (though Liam doesn't yet know how this works). He made me promise that if we do get rid of him we'll get some fertilised eggs - of course, first we need a broody chicken. The problem I foresee with getting fertilised eggs is ending up with more roosters who we haven't the heart to eat... But anyway, that's a problem for another day I suppose.

Last day of the month (another post in dot points)

Today is the last day of my post-a-day month. It's been interesting but I don't think I will keep it going, quite. I have liked that it's forced me to post some things I wouldn't have gotten around to otherwise, but I wouldn't have gotten around to them otherwise because - well, time is in short supply. Right now I am posting instead of having time with my husband (though granted, right now he's cleaning the kitchen, but he'll be done soon), which I can only justify for so many nights in a row! On the other hand, I think I'll keep the calendar there in the sidebar for another month, just to see how it compares.

However, here is my last post-a-day post, in dot points, because I couldn't narrow it down to one topic.

• Mikaela went to sleep by herself today for perhaps the second time in her life. The first time being when I popped her in the hammock when she was sleepy on about the third day of her life. I was so thrilled she went to sleep on her own that day, but then she never did it again. Until today that is. Today she just did not want to nurse to sleep - she didn't want to go to sleep at all. She wanted to play in her cot. She kept saying she wanted to be in the cot, so I'd put her in and go do something else for a little while, then dutifully try our nursing down routine again when she started to protest. Finally I got sick of that and left her there for longer. I figured she would either go to sleep, or she wouldn't. Usually when this happens (which isn't very often actually) I'm not prepared to let it go on for so long because it gets too late for her to have a nap, but today I decided to just see what happened. She yelled out for me from time to time, then got distracted by a book or maybe by her own sleepiness. And eventually she went to sleep! It was about an hour and a half after we initially started the nap routine, but hey, she slept.
• I am not all that impressed with TypePad's new 'compose post' screen. It is too slow and can't keep up with my typing. This may be a problem listed in their 'known problems', I haven't checked, but if it is, you'd think it would be something they'd fix before releasing it. I rarely have a bad thing to say about TypePad, but this is irritating (so much so that I am typing directly into the html- lets hope I don't stuff it up).
• I have not yet become a dog person, but I am much more of a dog person than I was, say, a year ago. Still, some days I do wonder insanity gripped me when I said we could get a dog. But, today Chris got a little more work done on our permanent chook run fence. When it's finished the chooks and Lochie will be separated, and we won't need to tie him up and listen to him bark while they eat (in order to prevent him from eating their food) and he won't get all their eggs. That will improve things around here quite a bit. Plus the little bit of lawn we have will be able to recover from the sad state the chooks have it in, which will also be nice.
• Now I know I was planning to write a post tonight that was something about Kaely and Liam, but I can't remember what it was. So even when I do post every day, things still slip annoyingly through the cracks of my mind, to dribble unseen onto my dirty floor, never to be recorded. Damn.
• Have I mentioned that my masters project is meant to be completed by Monday? Yeah.

Now I'm going to take my tired brain and drink the cup of tea Chris is just making me (I think) and watch some West Wing on DVD. The good thing about not getting a lot of time to watch television is that these series take a long time to run out. I think we are still watching season two.

That's all folks.

A sunny autumn day at the park

This morning when I got up (after a bit of a sleep in, only somewhat disturbed by Liam yelling right outside my door from time to time), Liam said to me
"Mummy, I have an idea."
"Yes?" I said "What is it?"
His idea was that we should - as soon as he got dressed - walk down to the oval to practice playing soccer (or football, as we now call it in Australia, aligning us with most of the rest of the world). It was a good idea, though it had to wait a little longer than he planned - for me to get dressed, get Kaely dressed, have breakfast, and generally wake up.
It would have been nice to take Lochie down with us, but as he is still not well trained to the leash I decided not to - it's too hard to control him and the stroller at the same time. In fact, last night he managed to get out of his 'soft collar' (which goes around neck and snout and makes him a little easier to keep hold of) and run off. A black dog in the dark - not easy to find. In the end he did come home, but I wasn't going to risk it happening again today.
Anyway, eventually we got organised and went for a lovely walk on this perfect autumn day. It's less than a ten minute walk down to the ovals Liam had in mind, but we managed to be out for nearly two hours by the time we played soccer, met some dogs, played some more and walked home - Kaely deciding she would walk, rather than ride in the stroller for most of the way home. The only sad part of the day was how unfit I was proved to be, by getting puffed fairly quickly while running around trying to get the ball from Liam. Actually there was another sad part, which was that Chris was working. But in only four more weeks I will be finished uni for the year, and then we will have Sundays off all together as a family. I am looking forward to that.

Update on our 'no shopping' compact

Just lately we haven't been going so well with the compact. We pledged to not buy anything new (with a few specific exceptions) for six months, starting in February. Actually, what I specifically said to Chris was 'until I go back to work', which would only have been about five months, but I've been saying six months, so I'm going to try to make sure we stick to that. Which is better financially anyway, since that means not till I've been working for a month will our 'spending freeze' end (actually, I think financially it might be better if we keep it going, but that's another discussion to have).

From the point of view of lifestyle change though, I don't think six months is enough. It's too easy to want things, and just put them off for a few months, rather than think of alternate ways to make/fix/do without them. It's still been good, it has made it easier - as I've said before - to 'just say no'. But for a lot of things it's more a delay than a real change.

Our latest failure is in building a fence. We need to build a permanent fence to separate the chooks from the dog, so that we can actually collect more than an egg a week or so. I'm sure they're good for Lochie's coat, but really, we want to eat them ourselves! My vision is that we would go to Revolve and find bits and pieces of timber, old gates, whatever, to reuse. Which we did do for building our chook houses (combined with straw bales), both the permanent one and the temporary one. But we are not very handy, and we do not have a lot of time, and... well the long and short of it is we went to Bunnings and bought wooden posts and fencing wire brand new. We will be able to reuse the chicken wire we already have I think, but that's about it. We still need to build a gate, so maybe we can get out to revolve to find some timber for it. (For that matter we still need to build a fence, but we have cemented in the posts, which was a bigger job than it sound, what with digging nice deep holes.)

Aside from that we've been pretty good I think, but in my head we are coming towards the end (even though actually we're only half through), so when I see something I really want I think 'well, maybe in August I'll get that'. So after we make it through this six month (and then buy all the things I've waited to buy!) I am going to try to talk Chris into going twelve months. I think that will be far more effective.

May is fix it month at Simple Savings (a site I just discovered last week), and I plan to really make an effort to do just that. I've already fixed a pair of Liam's sneakers (which he is so thrilled with, it makes me very happy). I'm sure I can come up with lots more things around the house that have been sitting around waiting to be fixed or thrown away. Some of them I may need to pay someone else to fix, but that's still better than throwing it away and buying a new one.

Rain upon the roof

I love the sound of rain on the tin roof of my study.* 

It's so much easier to work in here when it's raining out than when the sun is shining. I do hope it's not causing problems for the fence posts Chris and a friend were just cementing in this morning though. We really need a permanent fence for our poor chickens, and soon.

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*aka the rolfing studio

what I have been thinking lately (roosters, dogs, kids and writing, for instance)

I don't seem to be doing much with this blog lately. Even the baby book entries mostly just get written in my head, and end up being simple lists of words when I finally get something out.

It's frustrating because I have things to write about.

The kids, of course. How Liam seems to have turned a corner from the (slightly difficult) five and a half year old he was, to the six year old he is now, even though the books say six is supposed to be harder. How I think school plays a part, since he's now one of the older kids in his class (which has two years together, 4-6 year olds) and he seems to be feeling the responsibility (in a good way). How Mikaela is so delightful just now, but I'm still a bit afeared about what is around the corner, because she is such a determined little thing.

About future plans too. How I had a little freak out the other week that if we had another child we might end up with a "special needs" child of some sort and be stuck in this part of our lives (the part with seriously dependent beings) forever. But how I'm moreorless over that now and feeling a bit excited about starting to try to get pregnant again in a few months time, despite the very real possibility that it will take even longer than last time (me being 36 and Chris almost 40 now) or that it won't happen at all.

And that would naturally lead into the post where I suddenly remembered the fertility specialist saying to me that I might, possibly, have an early menopause, because of only having one ovary and who knows, the other one might not be all that great either (though I secretly think it is), and me suddenly realising the other day that I don't want to go through an early menopause for more reasons than just fertility - which is what I had focussed on up to now.

And then I have these posts I want to write about sustainable living, and how Lochie squashed most of our summer vegetable garden, has broken into both chicken runs and let the chooks out, let the chooks into the winter vegetable garden (which is toast now) and eats the eggs. But we're still glad to have him (mostly), though that was all a little depressing for a while. And Chris is starting obedience training with him next Tuesday night. And how one of our two Silkies turned out to be a rooster and started terrorising his sister, so we got rid of him and now she is much happier but I still think we need another little Silkie friend for her (or two, or maybe three).

And of course about The Compact and how that's going and how I feel about it, with a little more detail than that last post.

And then about writing, and how I am back to working on my fiction now (not the essay which I still haven't even got a draft of, or a conclusion for, despite it all being due in less than 2 months!) and am really enjoying the revision/re-writing process. I fact I *love* it. Who'd have thunk? (I always dread revision, and always love it once I get going. Weird.)

And no doubt a bunch of other things that don't come to mind right now because I can hear Kaely in the kitchen and I am wondering what she is doing, and because Liam is off sick today (just a cold with a mild fever I *think*, but there is chicken pox going around the school), but I've just remembered that I have to get everyone dressed and go into the school anyway, because I am the 'class co-ordinator' and I have to put out some pledge forms for the community hours scheme before term ends, and term ends tomorrow...

And now Liam is calling me, and I think Kaely is harrassing him, so I will go be a parent, and save thinking more about this blog for another day.

Lochie

They're not the best pics, but here he is:

Lochie and Jodi Panayotov (not related to one another I hope)

It's official. We're getting a dog. Today. In about two and a half hours from now, Chris will be bringing home Lochie, who is about to become a part of our family. I wonder what Thea (our cat) will think? I don't imagine she'll be impressed, but hopefully she'll adjust. She's a mostly indoor cat, and he'll be a mostly outdoor dog. I wonder what he'll think of the chooks? Hopefully he'll scare off any foxes that might have been eyeing them off.

I have to admit it's still feeling all a bit bizarre to me. I've never had a dog, so to suddenly have a fully grown, large, enthusiastic Labrador does feel a little overwhelming. Still, he seems like a lovely fellow, and Mikaela (who came with us to meet him this morning) seemed quite impressed, although not so keen on the licking he tried to give her face. Still, she coped okay with that.

Liam was not keen on the idea when we first mentioned it on Saturday, but after we looked at some pics of a black Labrador on the web, and he saw a real one ("and it was alive") at the park yesterday, he changed his mind. He does like dogs, but he'd probably prefer a smaller one. He'd probably prefer a puppy, but frankly, I would not. No way.

Lochie is unfortunately not so good with the training, but he's okay with sit and drop, though not perfect. Chris (who's going to be the one primarily responsible for him, just like I am with the chickidees, but with a bit more effort for him) will have to work on that. His current owner said she never lets him off the lead when they are out for a walk because he just runs off, which is a shame because there are 'off the lead' areas just near us (five minutes walk) where he would no doubt have fun chasing a ball. So Chris will be working on that too. Any book recommendations on dog training much appreciated. Chris has had dogs before, but not as an adult.

In other news, what I should be doing right now is studying, but am trying to read Jodi Panayotov's book*, and am finding it rather irritating. First thought this was due to own fertile mertil selfishness (after all, only took 17 cycles and one miscarriage to conceive Mikaela so am obviously smug mother, completely oblivious to pain of others' infertility), but then realised was due to absence of pronouns, possessive adjectives and articles (definite or otherwise). Could be content also annoying me, plus putting to sleep. Though that could be fault of own sleep deprivation.

The review I linked to (which I have only just now read) suggests that the book's faults are largely not Panayotov's fault, as they are issues which a professional editor would/should have helped her deal with. Fair enough, and yes it sux that publishers don't provide that nurturing to new authors any more, but still, the fact remains that I'm finding the book a trifle hard to get through, and not "at times laugh out loud funny" at all. On the other hand if it helps to raise the issues associated with infertility and reduce the 'taboo-ness' of such openness (especially about pregnancy-loss), then it's doing something valuable. I'm just not sure many people who hadn't already lived in that world would be interested in slogging through it.

[edited to add:] On yet another hand, I've just read an article by Ms Panayotov in The Australian, which comes off rather better than the book does. I like her last line: You see, when people speak of infertility, nobody mentions that it has an insanity clause.

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*BTW, the book is called  In Vitro Fertility Goddess

A black Labrador

This morning I am feeling rather excited, because we just might be getting ourselves a dog this week. It's funny that I should be so keen, and also that I am the one that initiated the whole process, because it's Chris who's always wanted a dog, and me who's always said "Not yet." In fact precisely what I've said is "Not until our youngest child is four and finished with naps."

Well, this dog is a six year old black Labrador, so already trained (sort of - good at sit and drop anyway) and past the chewing stage. And he's used to living with a toddler, which is essential from my perspective. And I do like Labradors.

He's also got epilepsy, which is making it hard for his owner to re-home him (which she has to do for other reasons), and which may yet be a sticking point - I am hoping to speak to his vet this morning to find out what costs and trauma we might be in for if it gets more severe. At the moment it's fairly mild, but it's also recent. It won't break the deal if the vet doesn't scare me too much, but if we are going to be in for big expenses then we would really have to say no, as we are already going backwards financially (and have been since I stopped getting paid) although we are now trying to claw our way back with strict budgeting and participation in the Compact. We've agreed that if we do take him, his food will have to come out of our existing grocery budget, which is already less than it was three weeks ago, but I think we can manage that.

[This just in:] In the mean time Chris has spoken to a homeopathic vet who lives just a couple of streets from us, and she was quite positive about treating him and said she has had good success with other epileptic dogs who had not responded to conventional medicine, so that's positive.

Anyway, there it is. More later!

Updated to add: I just spoke to the vet and that didn't sound too scary or too expensive if it does get much worse, so I'll talk to Chris about it, but... it's looking good. We'll be off to meet the dog soon :)

Chook pics

Here's one of the Fluffies (they still don't have individual names, but I'm working on it) standing in front of the scarecrow we made last year when we got sick of sharing eggs with the ravens.

She's a white silky, somewhere around 11-13 weeks old.

Here's one of Speckles, who in retrospect looks more red than buff - maybe she's half red Columbian Wyandotte (and half black Australorp)? I don't know...

Snug inside their straw bale house with one of the Fluffies, after being out in the rain. Silkies really do the bedraggled look well, don't you think?