My Vege Patch

Our Garden is growing so beautifully lately; I've been doing a lot of work in it and the recent thunderstorms have it really blooming.
I've got heaps of Comfrey


Tomatoes all over the place

Papayas in abundance

Nastirtiums all around the fence

Lavender and herbs to my hearts content

And we've just put in carrots, silverbeet, spinach, pumpkins, capsicum, broccoli, salad greens, calendula, petunias, basil, sugarsnap peas and more...
There's still a lot of weeds
but slowly slowly I'm working on getting it all cleared and looking good. and anyway, I dont mind too much the weeds, coz its all about letting nature grow as it wants to; mother nature definately knows far better than I do. Besides, leaving the weeds provides more food for the bugs, so they eat less of my veges.

Littletree's Little Room

This weekend our new landlord came over and did some more work on the cottage, he fixed the leaking shower too.

I didn't yet mention Littletree's new room that he built.

When we came back from the rainbow, we found that heaps of work had been done on the cottage; a lot of the cracks had been filled, the termites had been treated, and we have new stairs (to replace the rickety old bamboo ladder).

Amazingly, B, the sweet English girl who lives up the road had come into the house while we were away at the rainbow and oiled and varnished all the wooden surfaces in the house! It looks fantastic; somehow makes the place seem less rustic. She said that she'd seen how much work we were putting into making the rainbow happen, and she wanted to give something back. So she came and did some work on our house!!


But the most amazing thing was that the landlord manifested my fantasy deck. Where the front stairs used to be, he's built a beautiful wooden deck, and turned the old front door into a window. So now, insead of having the wasted space of stairs and a door that we never use (there's 2 other doors), we have an extra little room.

He also cleared a path and some new stairs outside, leading up to the patio area out the side door, which is now our front door. :)

I had originally thought the space would be a good office space for Purple, but when I saw it, it was clear; a playroom for Littletree. Its just a little space, like 1Mx2M, but its perfect for her. She has her toyboxes in there, and her little bench and chair. She just about lives in there; she eats all her meals there and hangs out and plays.

The best part is that now her toys are contained, rather than being spread over the whole house. And the stairs space underneath is now a storage area that is accessable from the outside.

Even better is that I asked him if we can build an oven like the one we made at the rainbow, and he is totally into it! I showed him the pictures of the oven, and he thought it was great!

What A Week

Whoooee!

I just realised it's been a whole week since I posted. Lots been happening, I suppose...
Mostly I've just been staying home with Littletree, spending time together.

Been working on the garden, which is now getting close to its pre-gathering state and about ready for some new improvements. I saw an incredibly beautiful spider in amongst the weeds, it was quite small; a little too small for me to successfully capture with my little camera, but its body was shiny gold and silver.

Been reading lots; since we went to the library and borrowed books. Littletree is really starting to get into reading and writing. She is constantly asking how to spell things, and asking me to help her write: she says what she wants to write, and I tell her how to spell it, and how the letters are formed. She's really writing legible sentences.

I bought a little electric oven, so we've been baking cakes and muffins and pizza - Yum!

Rapunzel came to stay with us too, which has been really nice. Littletree loves her to bits, and the two of them got into the jar of glitter, which is still covering the house four days later!

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So while the glitter-fairies are dressing up like princesses, I've been studying a lot; I got a new midwifery textbook, which is great to sink my teeth into. I start feeling ready to venture into the world of birthing again, maybe network a bit and get some clients.

We've been having quite a girl's party, with Rapunzel staying, and also Rinka came to stay for a couple of days too.

It was interesting mostly to see how Rapunzel is so real and honest with what she eats, munching chips and sweets to her heart's desire, while Rinka was doing a fruit cleanse.

Mostly we just hung out. Playing ticklemonster with Littletree, chatting about healing, and birthing, and education, and family, baking, we went over to the cafe across the road, we swam in the pool...

Today was storytime at the library again, Littletree made a teddybear puppet. Her's was definately the least "beautiful" one of all the kids' (read: not neatly cut and glued, nor coloured within the lines), but her's was the only one that was done without parental assistance.

It's been a nice week. and Purple is due to come back on Monday.

Littletree's Garden

We went to the Storytime at the library today; something I've been meaning to do since we moved here.

I was a bit nervous about the idea, because I know how freaked out Littletree gets when there's lots of kids around. But I figured she would love the stories, and they do a craft activity after the story.

Of course, it was just our luck that when we got there double the usual number of kids came. There was literally 30 kids, with their assorted mums in this one little room of the children's area in our tiny local village library! It was like a circus!

So Littletree was painfully shy, and clung to me for dear life, wanting to go home. I just hugged her tightly, thinking that if she would get really upset we'd go. Anyway, though she wouldn't let go of me, she managed to sit through the two stories; one a non-fiction pop-up book about insects, and the other a beautiful story called Mrs Millie's Painting, about an old woman who paints pictures of flowers that come to life. It was really such a beautiful book.

So then they had the craft activity, which was glueing random stuff to make a garden picture. Of course, 30 kids and only space at the tables for about a dozen was quite chaotic. So I just grabbed a few things for her to work with and we sat on the floor. Littletree slowly came a bit out of her shell with all the glue and sparkly things, and she made a beautiful garden picture :)

A Song Written by Purple

Purple wrote this amazing song when we were at the rainbow;

When I take her to the park to play
I want to hold her hand
And not let her run away
Or fill her mouth with sand

She drives her little scooter
Nearly smashes into the wall
She goes up the highest slide
I almost scream – she’s going to fall

And I love her…

So I let her run free
Be who she wants to be
She can learn from her own mistakes
Live in every breath she takes
She’ll have time for her own tears
She has no use for my old fears

When I see a wild flower
Do I chop its head; put it in a vase;
Watch it whither for three days
And never let it grow?
How can I do it to my child?
Why should I block her flow?

I show her rocks and birds and trees
I help her catch and throw a ball
I’d teach her everything there is
But all she wants is a Barbie doll

I want to tell her it is bad
A danger to her self esteem
I want to show her how I’m sad
That she takes part in such a dream

And I love her…

So I let her buy three
Be who she wants to be
She can learn from her own mistakes
Live in every breath she takes
She’s a person whose opinions count
She has to know I have no doubt

When I see a wild flower
Do I chop its head; put it in a vase;
Watch it whither for three days
And never let it grow?
How can I do it to my child?
Why should I block her flow?

She’s taking out her water paints
Her drawings can be neat and fine
But then she pours them on my shoes
Clearly she has crossed the line

Anger flashes through my eyes
‘I’ll show you what, you little brat!
There’s consequence to what you’ve done
I’ll teach you that you can’t do that!’

And I love her…

So I hug her to me
She’s sorry. I can see.
She can learn from her own mistakes
Live in every breath she takes
My shoes – they are already lost
But she knows I love her at any cost

When I see a wild flower
Do I chop its head; put it in a vase;
Watch it whither for three days
And never let it grow?
How can I do it to my child?
Why should I block her flow?

I really love this song, it totally expresses our parenting philosophy, how we are raising Littletree with unconditional respect...

Invisible Posters and Thread Killers... UNITE

MDC closed down my beloved thread; Invisible Posters ... and Thread Killers... Welcome oh the pain!!!

Anyway, it got sorted in the end and we have a new thread...
And Littletree sang a song about birds to cheer me up

Elimination Communication

My latest Natural Parenting article was published on Essence Of Life.
Its about Elimination Communication, which is a way of having babies without diapers and paying attention to their signals to know when they need to go. In general it means having "toilet-trained" kids at around one year old.
Again, I'm not thrilled about the editor's cut, but what to do? they pay me anyways ;)

Littletree Magic

Here is Littletree doing a magic trick. I have no idea how she does it!

I asked her, but she said, "a magician never reveals her tricks"

So I figured I'd try out the new Blogger Video feature... See how it compares to YouTube...

*Update*

I couldn't make it work on Blogger, so I did it on YouTube. even that took me a lot of effort. I think our internet connection isn't up to it :(