All is well

The garden has been calling to me, reminding me that I am needed. The barren beds, the abundant weeds, the ripening tomatoes and the empty pot plants. I surveyed the blooming pink camelia, the wandering passionfruit vine, the fragrant lavender, the spent roses, the ghost of the mulberry tree - bare branches reaching into grey skies, the clumps of strawberry leaves, the new shoots on the lemon tree. I answered the call with a visit to a farm-like produce store yesterday and a flea market today. 

My pants are dirty at the knee, my fingernails retain traces of soil, empty pots are piled up in the shed and empty seed packets adorn the bin. And new life has been brought to my garden. A lilly pilly plant for jam, a Mathew Flinders bottlebrush for the birds, gooseberries, gerbera, strawberries, beetroot, lettuce, broccolini, spinach, carrot, peas, beans, cress, azalea, lavender and pansies. The beds are weeded, the lawn rid of dandelions and prickles. All feels well in the world.

Homeschoolers

1. Handknit socks from the craft cottage at Logan Village, 2. The suns rays as it dips down in the late afternoon, 3. A most delightful collection of clouds

It's a funny thing when wishes come true. A surreal, 'pinch me' feeling has been my companion this week. Like, everything is so much better than it should be, surely something will go wrong. I'm generally prone to that 'touch wood' feeling when things are going right, but this time instead of waiting for a negative, I have been embracing the positives. This wish has been a long time coming.

We are officially, unofficially, homeschoolers. Yesterday we celebrated our first-week homeschooling. What a relief it has been to leave the struggles and anxiety of school mornings behind us! No more last minute lunch boxes, early morning homework, and teary, anxious goodbyes. Instead, we have had slow, free mornings and days filled with our choices. I feel like we have squeezed several weekends into this last week already, as we have lived, created, explored, experimented and adventured together. It was terrifying at first to take the plunge, but the relief is palpable.

Our days are full, yet relaxed. My focus is on interest lead learning, in addition to short daily lessons in writing and math. We have begun the slow journey to deschooling, building trust and connection between parents and children. I am getting to know my children more deeply that I had before, despite years of attachment parenting. 

Learning with my children this week has been a gift. I am keeping a journal of our educational pursuits, and the moments when the children surprise me with questions, answers or observations far above what I would have imagined possible at their ages.

At times my three little ones irritate each other. They squabble and fight, and irritate me too. And yet, they are learning to spend more time together. They are reminded how to share, be kind, be thoughtful. And they are looking out for each other, reaching out to each other, and communicating in new ways.

So, pinch me and knock on wood! Here's to many more joyous weeks homeschooling my three dear babes.  

Spore Prints

Overcast and rainy days at last! 

It was such a long time without rain that these recent grey clouds have been welcome indeed. Along with the clouds and the overnight rain, there were once again mushrooms in our garden. This morning, after letting the chickens out, we picked mushrooms from the grass in order to make spore prints. We snipped off their stems, set them down on paper and placed cloches over them (though you can use a cup) to impede breezes. Within an hour or two we had beautiful, highly defined, fascinating spore prints.

We scouted the front garden too, looking for different varieties, to no avail. We are all looking forward to duplicating the experiment with different mushrooms as soon as we find them!

October Days

1. Jacaranda flower carpet, 2. Kinetic sand toddler play, 3. Air dry clay bowls made by Miss Five and Master Three as Christmas gifts - still to be painted, though Mama is loving them all white, 4. Blueberries taking a teasingly long time to ripen

The days have just rolled by lately. The blur of school holidays, the return to school and finding our rhythm again, working in my business. There have been many full days, but even more beautiful moments. You know the ones you want to hold tight to? And you find yourself wishing you could take a photo with your heart, to truly remember how it felt as you stroked your toddler's hair while reading him a story. Or listened to your daughter's joyful story about her morning of riding and grooming miniature horses. Or the pride you felt that brought you to tears when she overcame her fear of swimming and got in the pool. Or the other hundreds of little moments that make the sulking, squabbling and ignoring bearable. Still, this Mama's heart is already pretty full with all my love for my three little/big people.

-

PS: I brought home six chickens yesterday! They are settling in now and quite shy. No doubt there will be many photos of them gracing my blog soon. xx

In the garden

Three beautiful visitors to our backyard - Laughing Kookaburras

More new pets, some kind of hairy caterpillar. A big one and a tiny one.

Emerson's (5 yrs) drawing of the above caterpillar. I love the way she has sounded out her writing!

'ise gub' - itchy grub

'beb ise gub' - baby itchy grub

Worms, flowers, lizard and fungi.

We spent Sunday morning in the garden and Sunday afternoon in our Nature Journals. While weeding our flower bed, we found worms, a lizard and fungi and brought them inside to draw. Meanwhile, the toddler called me to the window to show me a kookaburra in the Mulberry tree. As we watched, it was joined by two other kookaburras, one which looked quite young. I have never seen three kookaburras in our yard before! The adults stabbed their strong beaks into the soil before returning to the tree, where they remained for quite some time. Such beautiful visitors!

Open Garden

This past weekend I participated in my first open garden as part of the Logan Food Gardeners Group which I found on Facebook through a friend. This month many keen gardeners visited the President's gorgeous garden and took part in a giveaway table - crammed with seeds, seedlings, pots, fruit and jars, an insightful meeting and a guided garden tour. I missed much of the wisdom imparted during the tour, as my little two made friends and were off exploring, keen to share their discoveries with me. Still, I was awed by the numerous selections of fruit, veggies, nuts and wildlife that the garden supported as well as the various methods involved, and felt incredibly inspired to get home and get to work in my own garden! What an awesome experience it was to explore such a productive garden, the result of passion, research and hard work.  

I spent the rest of the afternoon pottering around in my own garden, planting out seedlings, marking out a new garden, moving the compost bin and daydreaming about possibilities.

All the things

1. New cotton from Bendigo Woollen Mills for making more washers, 2. Reading and knitting - A slow childhood, 3. Peeks of sunshine through the curtains, 4 - 6. Playdough and wooden animals = loads of fun, 7. Reading and crochet - The Danish Way of Parenting, 8. The seeds are sprouting, 9. The pineapple heads have roots, 10. Pretty morning shadows, 10 & 11. Making 'sundried' cherry tomatoes by adding a little oil, salt and pepper and leaving them in a low oven for a few hours. These didn't last long, I ate them warm from the oven on toast. Delicious!12. More cherry tomatoes ripening on the window sill, perhaps also destined to become sundried tomatoes? I had high hopes of freezing some...

I've been trying to balance the busy and the slow this week. As always, I suppose, though I've been more mindful of it lately. Part of the struggle of working from home for ones self is the feeling that you could always be working. Or should be working. Especially when my job box is as full as it is currently. While home and children call me to do so many other things. Chores, groceries, play, library visits. Carving out the time I need to work can feel impossible. I am blessed that my father in law comes once a week to baby sit my toddler, so that I can get to the bench and be productive. A play date during school hours gave me another day to work through my custom orders this week. And in between such things I have been trying to find a little time for me - to read, knit, crochet, water my garden, check in on my seeds, make use of the many cherry tomatoes that I'm picking daily and pause to notice the light as it changes with the seasons and creates shadows and highlights in our much-loved home. I'm not the kind of person who gets bored at home. There is always so much to do.

I have to keep reminding myself that there will never be 'enough' time to do all the things I want to do, so instead of trying to fit as much as possible in a week or a day, I have to allow myself time to take a break, knit a little, read a little, or sit down and play playdough.