A new Gumnut Guide

Piper was enrolled as a Gumnut Guide earlier this month - the day after Mr McKrahn arrived, actually. (Gumnut Guides being the youngest age group of Girl Guides.) I was a Guide when I was a kid and got so much out of it. I can't describe the feeling I had, seeing her all dressed up in the uniform - some warm cross between pride and excitement and that feeling you have when you're introducing something really cool to someone...


More to the point, Piper really enjoys going, and I appreciate the influence of other caring adults in her life.

Deck work

Matt and Gord have been working on building a deck out the back of our place. We (ha - that means Gord) cleared the space last summer and now it's finally coming together.

It's been pissing down the last few days, almost non stop (raining, that is). It's amazingly wet, which is fantastic, but not so fun for working. Even so, Gord (and to a lesser extent, Matt - he is on holidays, after all!) has been heading out there to keep pecking away at the work. Once he starts a project, he finds it hard to relax until it's done. And it's fun and exciting too!

Matt's birthday

Gord's cousin Matt is out visiting us from Canada. A post about him is way overdue! Here's him on his 31st birthday, facing a trigger-happy Gord. The only reason he didn't flip Gord the bird was probably cos my folks were round and he'd only been in the country a couple of days! (Have to include a lot of photos for the rellies in Canada who are dying to get a glimpse of him!)

For Gramma & Opa - thankyou...

Family update

(Gord and Jethro today - we're celebrating the Saints grinding the Pies into the ground!)

Jethro is growing, but it's catching me by surprise because he has eczema and that's more what I think about when I look at him. Still, despite his red forehead, he's feeding well and chubbsing up into a boodgy bubba, just like he's supposed to do! And his eczema does seems to be settling down. Gord commented the other day that Jethro knows he's part of a mob - he's kept company in the back seat of the car by two other talkative gits, and entertained by them when he's lying on his playmat, and cheered by them at the end of the day when he's just about ready for bed. Fantastic seeing them build their own relationships with each other.


(Bit of Playschool watching!)

(Jasper the Ape-man, after an attack of the facepaint - on his legs!)

Jasper's a tremendous mimic - of Piper in particular. Here's he's doing a funny face of Piper's, one that's often pulled for the camera. He knows a few letters, and not surprisingly, these are P and I. I heard him saying them to himself over and over to himself just recently. He's like an echo of the eldest! And great fun...

While Jethro slept (for ages!) this afternoon, Piper and I sorted out all her clothes - somehow they had accumulated, and on top of this, we were trying a system where she didn't have to fold her clothes in her drawers, so it was total chaos and she had trouble finding stuff, of course. Anyway, I was bemused and perhaps disturbed by the MOUNTAIN of clothes that are now no longer part of her wardrobe. I was reminded that she's a part of this affluent Western life many of us take part in...

The clothes and a myriad of other bits and pieces from our household will get taken to the Really Really Free Market, an event a friend and I are organising where people turn up with stuff to give away and share. It's kind of a loose cannon event - not sure how it will go down - but here's to experimentation and challenging societal norm!

On a different note, on Monday (two days away), Gord's cousin Matt arrives from Canada to stay for a month, so September is semi-holidays mode. Gord's taking two weeks off, we're heading down to Lorne, and somewhere else too (not sure yet). Matt and Gord will work on building a deck out the back, and that, along with the terracing job finished with redgum sleepers, will really change the feel of the backyard, I reckon, just in time for my 30th bday dance party!

Much love to all!

(taken in my parents' front yard - September 2009)

Spring in September

Spring is in the air here! Bulbs are blooming in splendiferous quantities, everywhere you look when you go for a drive out here in the hills and likewise in our own yard. Trees are budding, especially the ten or so fruit trees we ordered this winter which seem to have settled in (almond, pecan, fig, apple x 2, plum x 2, nectarine, peach, quince, grapefruit, and apricot - lillypilly, avocado and tahitian lime waiting till slightly warmer weather to go in).


Raspberry canes and blueberries are greening up; broadbeans, peas, silverbeet and garlic lead the way in the vege patch; broccoli (thanks Paul!), radish, rocket, and beetroot are in the ground ready to spring forth. Numerous natives and flowers in pots in the backyard wait to be planted...

And much digging (by Gord) is taking place in the backyard, shaping a piece of it into terraces for a salad/herb garden...

It's a definite delight to own a patch of ground and take responsibility for it and dream about it and plant stuff in it. I've never ever thought of myself as a green thumb, but now I can see that you don't really set out to be one, it just happens out of a continued relationship to some land. I'm enjoying how this part of myself is evolving, and I'd like to think that one day someone else might call me a green thumb, in about forty years!