narrating kayoz

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?

The fluffies and their sisters

Yesterday I went to Hall Markets with my Mum, who bought me some new chickens for a belated birthday present. Actually they're little more than chicks really, 10 or 12 weeks old, and very cute.

We got two white Silkies and two Australorp-Wyandotte crosses. Liam and I named the Wyandotte crosses Dottie and Speckles (short for Dottielorp and Spekulaas-Wyandotte). Dottie looks more like her Australorp parent, while Speckles is more like her Wyandotte parent, who I think must have been a either a buff laced or blue laced Wyandotte, based on the pics on the Australian Wyandotte club site. But we can't tell the Fluffies apart yet, so we are just calling them that - Fluffies They really are very cute.

I had hoped to get some blue or buff Silkies, but they didn't have any there, and I could bring myself to wait another month, so white it is.

Pics to follow at some point when it's not pouring with rain outside. (Yay rain! In my favourite chook book, Backyard Poultry Naturally, Alanna Moore has a chapter about different breeds, and for some of them she says they need a nice dry run. Luckily she doesn't say that about Silkies, Australorps or Wyandottes!)

Those golden nugget pumpkins (or whatever they are)

In the back you can see the pumpkins.
In the middle front you can see the poor, downtrodden zucchini which I planted despite the lack of room, because I figure if I get any zucchini's out of it that's better than none. There's an even smaller on at the side, which you can't see.
Of course, I could have just ripped out the pumpkins - or one of them - since we don't use that many pumpkins and I have two butternut pumpkins planted already (they didn't fit in the tiny garden though) - here's one climbing the lemon tree:

but I couldn't bring myself to do that to such healthy plants:

"The journey to live a simpler...more sustainable existence"

In searching for information on golden nugget pumpkins* this morning I came across two interesting sites. One is the blog of a woman who describes it as a "diary of her home and family on a journey to live a simpler, more thoughtful and more sustainable existence". It's called The Tin House. The second was a SMH article by Jackie French called "Self Sufficiency on a Balcony" (though she covers a back yard as well).

I haven't finished reading either of them (not that you ever really finish reading a blog, but I've really only skimmed a few posts so far), but the idea, particularly of the blog, got me thinking. Maybe I should do a similar thing here. Not that I don't still use this blog as a baby book, memory dump, soap box, etc, but maybe I should also use it to document our efforts to move towards a more sustainable, ethical life.

Because documenting things can often be enough to motivate one to do them better. It works for me anyway (that's how I've lost 12+ kilos in the past seven months, bringing back to my several-years-pre-pregnancy weight).

The thing is, as soon as I came up with the idea I started getting cold feet. Why? Because of all the things we could be doing but aren't, or are doing but could be doing more or better. It's frankly embarrassing.

Things we are doing to some people seem great, to others seem token. Things we aren't doing to some people seem over the top and to others seem essential.

For instance, we decided to buy a freezer last year, so we could buy in bulk and cook in bulk and have somewhere to put it all. But we spent many months over the project because we wanted to buy a second hand one, for environmental as well as economic reasons, and we didn't want it to be too old or the lack of energy efficiency would make the whole exercise a little pointless (we figured). So that's good right? We're trying to teach Liam that to reduce or reuse is better than to recycle. But in the past year we also bought (new) an iPod dock, various picture frames, large plastic boxes (for storing hand-me-down clothes till the kids grow into them), a plastic drawers thingy for storing stationary, a plastic water jug, a toy pram for Mikaela, a baby monitor and no doubt a thousand other little things that I don't happen to be able to see from where I'm sitting. Oh, and this laptop upon which I am typing.

Whereas my sister and her husband made a pact at the beginning of last year to buy nothing new but groceries and underwear. I don't know for sure how well they've done, but I know they are still doing it.

Does that mean they don't buy cling wrap? I don't know, but I know we do - I try to minimise it's use (eg using containers with lids to store things in the fridge), but I suppose if I were trying sufficiently hard we wouldn't need to buy it any more.

Also we've changed most of our lightglobes over to the long life fluro ones, we've got water saver shower heads, and small tanks on each down pipe (and a big one to feed water into the toilets and laundry is in the pipeline), which this year are supplying most of the water for our garden. But we also have an evaporative cooler which we use frequently in the summer. And three computers! (One is pretty old, and one is not very new and was bought for us by Chris's dad, but still.)

And we buy some organic produce, but lots of not organic (and some imported), simply because of the money. But of course if we didn't buy laptops and iPod docks maybe we could afford more organic produce. Then again we are doing out best to grow our own. And our chickens are supplying us with all our eggs, but of course, their food isn't all organic either.

 

See what I'm saying? To document our journey towards a more sustainable existence I have to admit to where we are on that journey now.

Anyway, The Tin House has a list of blogs she likes to read with titles like 'Aussies Living Simply' and 'Down to Earth', so I'm off to browse the web for more inspiration.

 

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*Because the zucchini plants we bought from Liam's school fair turned out to be some kind of pumpkin - I *think* golden nuggets, or maybe minikins - and I am trying to figure out how to tell, and also how to tell when they're ready to pick.

Garden notes

• Planted some of that lovely blue daisy, pulled out from my mum's back yard in the garden next to the massage room, and another bit out the front under the bedrooms. Hopefully the 34 degrees celcius predicated for today won't kill them.
• I stuck a bit of the same kind of daisy in a pot a while ago (late Spring?) and it has grown phenomenally quickly.
• I planted two new zucchini seedlings in the vegie garden during the week, to make up for the fact that the first two I planted have turned out to be some kind of pumpkin (golden nugget I'd guess, cause they're bush forming, not running - the actual pumpkins are growing very slowly though, wonder if I should feed them more?).
• Also a row of different lettuces along the edge of the garden.

garden notes

• Finally planted out two bits of rose geranium that have been sitting in water for weeks and had nice roots  - one in the (currently vacant) chook run and one in a pot
• Watered in the lambs ears and native gerberas (are they really native?) Liam and I stuck in the ground yesterday.

From time to time I decide to start garden blogging - you know, recording what we plant when, what works, what doesn't, when it flowers or fruits etc. But then I forget about it (much like the garden). So what's different this time? Nothing. but I am feeling very excited about the garden again.

Since the beginning of Spring we have been working fairly consistently in it, getting veggies in, mulching and planting natives out the front (over what was lawn), weeding and mulching existing beds that have been neglected badly since we moved in six and a half years ago. I've been afraid that it's going to turn out like our house does every time we tidy up. At first we're determined to keep it tidy, but each day it gets a little worse, until it takes another huge effort to make it presentable. But so far we are keeping up with the gardening we've done - I think there'll be years of work to reverse the damage the couch grass is doing, but we're pulling it out as it comes up again (and trying to get the whole root) and trying to plant more and more other things to supress it (like gazanias and violets), if that's even possible.

For the record, our vegie garden is currently nurturing tomatoes, zucchinis, borage, buttercrunch lettuce (most of those are in a pot on the deck actually) and butternut pumpkin seedlings. Actually none of those are in the vegie garden proper, cause we've temporarily moved the chooks in there. Most of these seedlings are in a new bed, pretty small (2x2.4m) which we (mostly I actually, since Chris had hurt his back) built a few weeks ago - a few sleepers around the outside, newspaper over the little bit of grass that was growing, and lucerne, cow poo and straw on top, with the seedlings pocket planted. They are all doing really well I'm happy to say. And the pumpkins, which I planted outside the garden since there was no room in it, are also very happy. They're in what was chook run, so they're probably digging down to very nice soil underneath, though I pocket planted them on top with some straw fliched from the new garden.

The only foods we are currently able to harvest from the garden are the remains of the parsley (it's gone to seed but we can still pick some - what the chooks are can't reach), lemons (oh so many lemons) and the fabulous buttercrunch lettuces which I only planted two or three weeks ago. Oh and of course a few spring onions and garlic chives which we have in pots on the deck. The garlic chives are perennial but both they and the spring onions have also self seeded from last year. So not much at the moment, but it is still so satisfying to be able to eat out of the garden at all, after about 4 years (from when Liam was born) of doing almost nothing with it.

Monday morning free-write (gardening, chooks, writing, teething)

The motivation to write is definitely limited by the Spring weather calling me to the garden. There are so many jobs to do out there, many of which have immediate payoffs. That is, the effect is immediately visible, like when you sweep the floor after a week of not picking all the toys up… not that I ever do that, of course!

Here’s my list of garden tasks:

• Weed the front garden bed next to the house
• Weed the front garden bed next to the driveway (more work because of the horrid couch grass)
• Get a couple of trailer loads of mulch
• Get some eco-pine sleepers & stakes
• Rebuild retaining wall for driveway garden bed
• Mulch above garden beds
• Newspaper and mulch the new bed to be made out the front, and plant some screening plants
• Dig in some manure to the bed next to the massage room, and mulch it
• Divide and plant lots of violets and in all those beds, and the one outside the study window, quickly while it’s still not too hot and we’re getting some ain
• Finish getting couch grass out of garden bed next to back fence and newspaper and mulch it
• Get a bail of  Lucerne hay for chooks to scratch up
• Move fence around veggie garden to make a slightly bigger space with some shade
• Build new, temporary chook house in veggie garden enclosure (out of straw bails)
• Move chooks down there for a couple-few months, to tractor it up.
• (After Chooks are moved:) replant the Chook yard with rosemary, wormwood, and other chook friendly plants, protect their root systems, also protect the root systems of some of the other trees and shrubs in there (eg with besser bricks or sleepers). Chuck in a sprinkling of grass and clover too, even though they’ll just eat it all and scratch it up as soon as they get back in there – it’ll be a little treat for them.

Okay, this is really not working out to be a proper free-write, as I’ve definitely been stopping and thinking as I go, so it’s not really serving the usual warm-up purpose – more just finding a way to think about what I really want to be thinking about (the garden) instead of what I need to think about (the writing).

I am finding that my motivation re the writing is low right now, not only because of the Spring weather, but also because I am having to rethink the project to try to make it into a 16000 word project, rather than an 80,000 word project, which is what it seems to want to be.

But, I am also starting to really understand the instruction that must be in every writing book ever written, to try to write something everyday. I only work (mostly) on Sundays and Mondays. It’s great having whole days, but it also feels a bit like starting from scratch each Sunday.

The week after next Chris is taking a week off and I am planning to work four days in a row! Which will be fantastic, except as far as Mikaela and Liam are concerned. Yesterday Mikaela woke up from her nap screaming after only half an hour, and since Chris couldn’t resettle (or calm) her, and since I was inside having lunch, I ended up nursing her. That calmed her, but when I said “Mummy has to go back to work” she instantly started screaming again. She’s not suffering much from separation anxiety in general, I don’t think – I think this might be more about getting her second two-year-old molar (despite still only having six other teeth so far!), since it’s been happening a bit at night the past few days as well. And since that molar is partly through, but seems not to have progressed any in a few days. But still, I don’t think she’ll be too impressed about me working four days in a row. C’est la vie, we’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, back to the issue of writing every day. I don’t do it when she’s napping, because that’s when I either do housework, do garden work, or, if I’m feeling lazy, faff about online (though Liam doesn't usually stand for that for very long). I could write instead, but then I would be feeling even more frustrated by the garden stuff (and I can’t get out the front when Kaely is awake, since she will instantly crawl off to the road if given half a chance) and the flour wouldn’t get swept for two weeks instead of only one!

So that really only leaves night time to write, if I want to write every day. And the fact is that mostly by the time the kids are in bed I am wiped out. Especially lately with the screaming in the middle of the night (for instance I was basically awake from midnight until 3:30am on Friday night, although I did get her down for 40 minutes at one stage in there. And Chris got up with her at one point for about 40 minutes too, but of course I didn’t get back to sleep in that time, because I could hear her not settling down for him - at least when she's with me she can calm herself by nursing, and I can sit down and sort of rest). Plus, in addition to being wiped out in the evening, there’s the fact that that is really the only time Chris and I have together, seeing as how one of us is working every day of the week. And with the kids not being in bed till 7:30ish, and me trying to be in bed by 9:30ish, there’s not a whole lot of time for me to write and spend time with my husband. In fact, by the time the kitchen’s cleaned up (mostly by Chris) and maybe some washing’s folded, there’s not a whole lot of time at all.

But, that leaves me back with writing on only two days a week, which is just not really working well for me, so I am going to have to come up with a solution.

Right now though, I have to get into it, or the morning will be over and me no further ahead in my work.

RIP

Nine years since we picked him up for my birthday - a kitten from the RSPCA. Died today. We will miss him.