This Week.....

.... we have enjoyed an early family Christmas celebration...

All very busy opening presents.

.... we have celebrated Eden's fifth birthday...

Please forgive me for the paper plates and cups - at least we could compost them afterwards!

Birthday Girl.

Enjoying the very talented face painting by a clever kindy mum.

Eden's tiara birthday cake.

.... we have done some Christmas crafting, by ourselves and with some local friends...

The spice angels we made with our friends.

Christmas cards the kids made with their Grandma.

.... we have coped with the current heatwave by going swimming and relaxing...

.... we have had Grandma over for a stay...

.... we have enjoyed cricket and homemade beer...

Even Brannen has taken his place on the couch to watch the 'kiyet' (cricket)

.... we have done some Christmas cooking...

Gingerbread Christmas tree decorations.

.... we have made some Christmas gifts...

Lined tote bags for the girls to carry their swimming gear to swimming lessons.

My first attempt at a reversible tote with box corners - happy!

 ....receiving my university results. One distinction, and two high distinctions. I am very happy with that. I am changing my course slightly for 2014 onwards, to a double major in Sustainable Development and Community Development. I am slowly hatching ideas and plans for my future 'career' (or not) direction and am very excited about what the next few years may bring.

.... the lead up to Christmas is so exciting! What have you and yours been up to?

Oh, The Weather!

Here in our town, for most of the year, we complain about the weather. It's a local pastime. A not entirely unwarranted one, however, if this year's transition to Spring is anything to go by. Until two weeks ago, we were pretty consistently still getting very cold nights, and rainy, grey days. We got back from sunny Queensland in the school holidays and were disappointed to be considering the need to light the fire! Two weeks on, however, and yesterday we reached 40 degrees celsius, with hot days forecast for the next week, at least. The air has changed, the cicadas are out (as are the blowflies and mozzies, with a vengeance!) and Summer is definitely here. We really only have two seasons here - bloody cold and bloody hot.

However, the mornings are beautiful. Nath and I have been getting up at six most mornings, and it's such a lovely way to start the day - before the kids get up, soaking up some early morning sun on the front deck with the birds singing in the garden (and Bella bellowing at us for her morning milk!).

The arrival of what is promising to be a long, hot summer means we have to get a few things in order. We have been working on getting the retic set up in the backyard for all the vegie beds to minimise need for hand watering. We received a decent amount of dripline retic from someone on Freecycle a while ago so Nath has been engineering that into a workable system. The front yard is on an automated retic system but as it is sprinkler based we would like to get someone out to talk us through converting it into something a little more waterwise.

We are also buying a self filling cement water trough for the goat pen. At the moment they just have buckets of water but two rambunctious kids means lots of tipped buckets and on these hotter days their water requirements are quite substantial. It means buying 'new', and I feel like we've done a bit of that lately, with fencing equipment and feed tubs and beekeeping equipment and so forth, but I think it is the best decision for the health of the goats.

Also, in not very eco-friendly news, we have decided to get our backyard pool up and running. As we don't use air conditioners, the pool would be a lovely way to spend the hottest days, and a local pool pass for the family costs $250. We can get our pool functional for far less than that. We have recently learned from a friend that we can run the pool for far fewer hours than we thought so we will trial it for the Summer and see what difference it makes to our energy usage.

I really do love Summer. I love the lead up to Christmas, and all the plans for crafting and gifting, and driving around looking for Christmas lights, and taking the kids into the city to see the Christmas displays, and soaking up their wide-eyed wonderment at being allowed up so late and being in the city and going on a train! I love Christmas carols and getting geared up for Christmas camping, and choosing the Christmas menu, and cooking a roast in the Weber in forty degree heat, then not feeling like eating it because it's too hot and eating prawns instead. I love Pimms, and trips to the wineries and breweries and cideries and distilleries. I love TV cricket and backyard cricket and BBQs at the beach and lazy days swimming at the local lake with friends. I love seafood, and mangoes and berries, and salads. So many salads. And shorts and singlets and summer dresses, and bare feet, and beer at the pub on sunny Sundays. I love thinking that I love fishing, and then complaining when Nath wants to take his fishing gear everywhere we go, then, once all the hard work of setting rods up and those first few awkward casts into the water (and around jetty legs and into each others' lines) are over and done with, realising that I actually do love fishing after all. Until I get bored. I love the noise of the cicadas and frogs, the cry of young magpies, and running away from swooping, cranky, mama magpies while waving my arms around my head like a lunatic. I love longer days, with the house all opened up overnight to try and cool it down before another hot day, and evening drinks on the deck, while a bare-chested pack of kids runs hollering around the garden but doesn't come too close to the house in case they get sent to bed. I love Vacswim, and spending days sitting by the pool, or floating in the pool, counting kids' heads and meeting half the town around the splash pool. I love hanging the 'swimming bag' near the back door, where it is needed on a daily basis, and wriggling into wet bathers that we forgot to hang to dry the day before, and frantically searching for thongs, kickboards and towels when a spontaneous swim is announced. I love the constant slightly panicked neighbourhood talk of snakes, of learning again to walk with our eyes to the ground, and keeping a tally of all the snakes that have been sighted so far, and how far they are from our house, and what kind, as if to determine how close we were to actual danger. I love Christmas beetles, and Christmas spiders. I love watching my skin turn from milky white, to cream, to the colour of sand, and finally, to the golden bronze it settles on after a couple of weeks in the sun. I love the smell of suncream and salt and chlorine. I love that my hair colour wavers between the whitest sunbleached white to slightly green, pool tinged blonde, and that the kids all end up looking like little surfie dudes, all long legs and bleached, windswept hair and brown skin.

How are your plans for the festive season shaping up? Do you love Summer, too, or does it make you want to hibernate with iceblocks on your belly and an airconditioner pointed straight at you?

Keep Your Cool

We are already a week into 2013, and I hadn't intended on being away from the blog for so long. Sometimes, though, it's nice to take a break from all the things we think we should be doing, and instead spend time on things we actually should do more of.

We have been camping, and swimming (lots of swimming!), and playing cricket, and frisbee, and having water pistol and water balloon fights. We've been bike riding, and scooter riding, and kite flying, and going to the beach, and sand castle making, and kayaking, and searching for fresh water mussels in the river. We have been to wineries, and breweries, and distilleries, and ice-creameries. We've been through a giant maze, and four wheel driving through a giant forest. We have been spending time with lovely friends, and lovely family, from near and far. Nath and I went to see Katie Noonan, Mia Dyson and Wendy Matthews, playing an intimate acoustic gig at my favourite hotel in the Hills. Miya learned to swim in the river near where we were camping, and now she is like a little fish, so full of confidence. A very happy sight, from my girl who screamed whenever we took her close to water when she was younger. She was the oldest of the eleven children we were camping with, and took to the role of pack leader with reckless abandon. Our little tribe of barefoot, grubby little campers became independent explorers and friend-makers, and were right at home among the tents and caravans.

What a lovely holiday.

Too soon, though, it is over, and we are back amidst washing and work and weekly routines. It was very hard to drop Nath at work this morning. I told him it felt like he was a book I had borrowed from the library, and now had to return. Like he doesn't fully belong to us anymore.

Nevertheless, this is where we are at and our days are largely about coping with the heat right now. While the news stories focus on heatwaves happening right across the Eastern Seaboard, our little town in the West quietly goes about it's business of enduring strings of days of 40-degrees-plus. Tomorrow, it is expected to be 45 degrees with a possible thunderstorm (which usually means no rain but bloody muggy!) and as I type at 7pm it is still 37 degrees.

Despite the heat, we have managed to avoid using the air conditioner (apart from a very short spell one afternoon, when Nath's brother and his wife were staying with us from the UK. Nath's brother was unwell for a day or so and definitely needed some cool air! They coped extraordinarily well for the rest of the time!), and we even handled the weather okay whilst camping when nearly every day was above 40. We are acclimatising to the heat again, this being the first year we have chosen not to use air-conditioning, and are finding other ways of 'keeping our cool'.

We get up early to do the things that it is just too hot to do later in the day, such as hanging washing, feeding and watering the chooks, or going for a run. We use the ceiling and pedestal fans and have the windows and doors open in the evening, overnight, and in the early morning, shutting the house up and drawing blinds and curtains at about 9am. We then try to do very little in the heat of the day, to keep as cool as possible. We drink loads of water and have a thirty second cold shower if we need it. That's usually enough to manage the heat. In the evenings, we put the kids to bed, then utilise the rest of the light to do some more of the labour-intensive or 'hot' work, like cooking or gardening.

It has been surprisingly easy to get used to. In some ways, it is almost easier than having the air-con running all day, because it can be hard to acclimatise to the outdoor heat when your house is a constant 18 degrees. I often wonder at people who have their house so cool, that they need to wear warmer clothing! Some days are harder than others (I don't cope as well with the humid weather) but none have been unendurable.

We have chosen to do this for frugality and environmental responsibility, but I definitely do not think this is the right thing for everyone. We are young and fit and healthy, and used to the warmer climate, and are able to keep hydrated. People who are elderly, or unwell, or not in good physical health or families with very young babies should definitely use the air conditioner in extreme heat. Hot weather can be dangerous for some.

So, how do you keep your cool?

Weekend Home Happenings

Another weekend is wrapping up, and thankfully it has not contained the wild weather of last week! Instead, we have had two perfect days to get some things done around the house and yard. Some weeks, the chores just build up and rolled over to the next week, especially the outside chores, so it is nice to be able to tick things off the list.

The storms this week left us with leaves and twigs and debris all over our yard, which meant we had lots of raking to do. Raking half an acre is hard work! The bright side is, it gives us good leaf matter for the compost bays.

With the rest of it, we will lay out some new garden beds and leave them until the leaf matter breaks down a bit, ready for Autumn planting.

We have been nurturing tomato seedlings, quite a few heirloom varieties of them, and they were ready for planting this weekend so we popped them into the spaces in our existing beds, then we prepped one of the backyard beds that previously had daisies in them and planted out some leafy greens and herbs. I plan on replacing the daisies we have ripped out with other kinds of flowering bushes to keep our bird and bee life active in the garden.... but I can't stand daisies when they aren't flowering! We will probably plant out more lavender, rosemary and bottle brushes.

Our Plymouth Rock mama and her eleven babies are rapidly outgrowing their little coop and as the weather warms up they will need more space to make their dust baths to cool down, so it was time to extend their pen. Also, right near their pen are two apricot trees, just young ones, and the early ripener was picked clean by the 28s (parrots), so we wanted to protect the late ripening tree from the same fate. We spent most of today building a large run for the chooks and within that, closing off the young tree with chicken wire to keep it covered. The hen and her babies are most grateful to be able to stretch their wings and scratch and bathe!

Our blueberries are ripening beautifully on the bush, and I can't wait to pick them off and make myself a smoothie!

The quails are laying, we think we have at least four girls on the lay so far. They really are the most beautiful eggs! I am tempted to sell them off at a premium as they are sought after by fancy restaurants, but I think we will just eat them!

We finished drying our garlic crop out, and picked out the biggest ones to save as seed for next planting season, then braided the rest. This should keep us in garlic for a long time, and they really are the most beautiful, fat, fragrant garlic heads!

The next door neighbour invited us over to raid her overstocked, bursting-with-fruit apricot tree today as well. We came away with a bucketful AND a bagful, and will make jam, sauce, liqueur and bottled apricots for the year to come. Her peach trees are ripening now and she would like us to pick them before the parrots get to them too. Feels like Christmas!

Lastly, the girls had a lovely time yesterday going for a pony ride on our good friend's old pony. Miya was very wary to begin with, but once Miss Eden blazed the way, she suddenly found her courage!

We hope your weekend was as enjoyable as ours!

Rediscovering Home

I'm sitting at my sewing table to type this, looking out onto our deck, and beyond that our (somewhat dishevelled) front garden, and beyond that, the green rolling hills that mark the beginning of the Avon Valley. It is a warm and sunny day today, but I am wondering if the weather is fooling us again, and one last cold snap is around the corner. Pretty soon the hills will change from rolling green to sunburnt brown, the blossoms will fade from the fruit trees and summer fruits will take their place.

This time of the year brings with it its own set of tasks and rhythms. We have been busy clearing old piles of mulch, wood and scrap tin left by the previous owners, preparing for snake season. The old Hills Hoist we got from Gumtree has been cemented in, ready for the warm weather to hit so my washing can finally be dried in the sun. Garden beds have been dug out, and are waiting for the last of our spring planting to be laid out. Corn and beans are in, as well as potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, radishes, spinach.... and our ever expanding line up of young fruit trees are waiting to be transplanted into the ground out of their pots. Compost beds have been built, as the compost and mulch will get our gardens through a long, hot summer without using too much water. The water tank is connected and will be used purely for the gardens (we are hoping for another couple of days of rain, though, to fill it!)

We have our first brood of quail chicks, now. Nath is looking forward to raising them up for their eggs and their meat, but for now they are just cute little balls of feathers running around the bottom of a cage. When they are a bit older, they will live in a large run, but a cage is fine for now. We also have some new unsexed young chickens. The girls will join our layers and the boys will end up in the pot.

I have been busy preparing for Miya's fifth birthday party next weekend. She is having a garden tea party, and there is much to do to get our garden in order. I have sewn fifteen metres of bunting to string up, and have cleared the local opshops of their teacups and saucers. Next week, I will be busily baking little cakes, biscuits and quiches for the day. Miya has invited ten or twelve little friends over, some new and some old, and is very excited.

 

All this work around the home helps remind me of what is truly important in life. I feel like I lost my way for a bit there, being on holidays, then moving house immediately upon our return. Money has been thoughtlessly spent, food is not being planned and enjoyed the way it should be. This seasonal change of rhythm reminds me to take an inward breath in my daily life, and focus back in on home and the family. To slow down (again - isn't it funny how easy it is to hasten pace with the rest of the world, and how difficult it can be to slow our lives down when they get too frantic?) and enjoy just.... being.

I have made a few decisions, the last couple of days. I miss my buying ban, and the freedom it gave me from being weighted down by stuff. I am revisiting my buying hierarchy:

• Make do
• Make
• Freecycle/Pay It Forward
• Secondhand
• New, but locally handmade
• New, but Australian made and/or Fairtrade
• New, made overseas, but Fairtrade and supporting communities.

I am also returning to my food philosophy of eating only unprocessed food. This has been tricky. I have definitely grown used to not-good-food-choices in recent weeks.

And, I am staying home more. Rediscovering home, the place of my soul's content. Rediscovering rest, and the joy of completing the little tasks that keep this home ticking over. Finding time to create, and play, and read.

Kind of like spring cleaning for the soul.

Karijini and Homeward Bound

I must admit, since we left Broome, I've struggled a bit. I think we have all struggled a bit. The dirt is seeping into everything; our things are no longer neatly packed in the trailer, instead they are strewn all through it; the kids are tired; the same five DVDs we bought with us have been replayed time and time again, and are setting our teeth on edge; we are all suffering from too much convenience food; and we have been lacking space and alone time.

The day we left Broome, we drove all day until we got to Port Hedland, where we had McDonalds for dinner. Miya had a belly ache, I was resenting eating more junk food, and Eden was swinging between performing Fairies' tunes to the diners, and melting down under the table. We dressed the kids in their pjs, piled them back into the car, and decided to keep driving to a rest area the map promised was 50km Newman side of Port Hedland.

Fifty km, sixty km, seventy km, and still no rest area. Meanwhile, an orange glow that started on the horizon was becoming larger and larger, and there was no way I was camping within burning reach of a scrub fire. We kept driving until we were well out of reach of the fire, and at about 9:30pm we pulled up in the scrub behind a truck assembly bay. Up went the tent, and we all piled in together, exhausted.

The next morning, we woke early, and packed up camp. I was so tired of travelling, I could easily have driven straight to Northam and been done with it. I was snappy, the kids were crabby, Nath was trying to keep things ticking over. The destination for the day was Karijini.

I had forgotten the magic of Karijini. It has always been a magical place for me. So hard to put into words, the majesty of this place is unrivaled. We took the kids down into one gorge, and they were captivated.

Some pics from our time in Karijini:

Our scrub camp - morning light.

Karijini camp - Dales Gorge campsite.

Brannen is crawling now!!

Happy boy on Dad's back.

Ready for the hike down into Dales Gorge.

Miya became quite the adventurer.

Walking through the gorge.

Looking down into Dales Gorge.

Fortescue Falls.

Brannen enjoying the walk.

One of the amazing trees in the gorge.

The roots seeking out the water tricking down the rocks.

Fortescue Falls.

Fern Pool. So worth the swim out to under the waterfalls.

When the dirt gets too much - embrace it by having a red dirt fight!

Grubby Edie.

I got 'got'!

Afternoon light across the ranges.

I love how the sun catches all the Earthy colours.

Sunset.

Dinner - nice and easy.

We are homeward bound tomorrow, and very much looking forward to it. I am craving a simple life again. While we have enjoyed the excesses of holidays, excesses are only enjoyable if they are just that - excesses. Not the norm.

See you on the simple side!