On The Road Again

We made it out of the house! After so many weeks of procrastination it was great to just do it. To pack the car with no fanfare or goodbyes and start driving.

We got out of the house and on the road before 10am on Thursday morning, and made good time driving north to visit Valleysprite and her wonderful family just out of Gympie in southern Queensland.

They live on a beautiful property, with an enormous tree swing

Valleysprite's kids are entering a competition to be voted wildlife warriors, they made a fantastic video, so check it out and vote for them! Give them a five star rating as well :) Click here to see it.

The next morning, after a lazy pancake breakfast, we jumped in the van and drove. and drove. and drove. We tried to stop a lot and take breaks, especially for Littletree, who got antsey in the car. After about 1000km she took to her hair with a pair of scissors, so she has an interesting punk effect at the front!

We slept the night in a rest area just south of Mackay, and drove on.

In the morning, we crossed paths with some friends who were driving south, and we stopped to chat with them. 

While we were sitting in the playground next to a gas station, a huge gang of bikers came up. The line of them seemed endless, coming around the bend; the noise horrific! It was really cool. They all pulled into the gas station to fill up. Sadly I was slow getting my camera out to snap the huge procession of them driving, but I got a snap of the queue at the pumps. You can't really see, but there were hundreds of them.

Ever northward, we kept on, not quite expecting to arrive to Cairns that night, but we did! At about 9pm we pulled into town, and got to Rapunzel's place. She lives in a big share house full of hippies, in full swing of a huge party. 

Rapunzel was dressed up as a gypsy, as was the theme of the party. We were so stoked to see her, though still exhausted from driving 2000km (1200mi) in three days.

And lo! Rapunzel had shorn off her long locks, and is now sporting a spunky new haircut. I suppose I shall have to think of a new nickname for her.

Anyway, it's great to arrive, and fantastic to see her again. Littletree is so excited to have her big sister back, and I'm about ready to sleep for 100 years! I guess we'll stay here a week or 2, and then start the long drive southward.

But who knows... we might end up living here :)

Road Trip Down Under

It's finally underway! The next instalment of the Ultimate Unschooling Field Trip!

We've been planning for about a month now to drive up to Cairns in the far north-east of Australia to visit Rapunzel. Somehow the trip kept getting postponed, first we were waiting for some things to come in the mail, then I got sick with a chest infection, then last week one the ever-gorgeous Lady Maroon came to visit us, in the midst of a crisis...

It was fun having Lady Maroon here, we caught up, reminisced over old times, and drank loads of strawberry champagne and danced to 80s pop.

But now it's time to hit the road!

The plan is to move pretty fast, and get all the way to Cairns in three days, though it's 1800km. I'd love to take our time, and stop lots on the way, but since Purple still has to work every day, and the main purpose is spending time with Rapunzel, we'll travel fast.

We've got a few people from the home school groups to visit, and plans to do lots of stuff! Shall be fun, and I will, of course, post lots of updates and take lots of photos :)

Liberated Learning

Things have been pretty hectic here the past week or two... I've been working a lot on getting a new website and forum up and running.

Kind of a long saga, the gist of it was that I used to post a lot on a Home Education forum, that I was admin on; I put a huge amount of work into it, posting and keeping things running.

At the same time, there was a discussion on another forum that I used to frequent, about girls wearing pink frilly dresses. It seemed the general consensus was in agreeance with this article. Which is all very well and good, but me, being focused on respectful parenting, unschooling, and open communication, I disagreed.

I just can't get onto a boat of oppressing my child to save her from future potential oppression. I truly believe that my child, being raised with loving respect, and lots of communication and open dialogue, will make her own choices. Some people might remember my article about Respecting Children's Choices. I wont go into all that now.

The end of it was that because of my disagreeing with key members the forum hosting that discussion, and because I was posting a lot on the home ed forum, some of the inner circle over there decided, behind my back, to take me off admin for the home ed site, without explanation, as well as making some pretty bitchy comments.

Someone else warned me about all this goings on behind my back, though she was found out by someone snooping through her Private Messages. It all crashed rather nastily. One of the other admin closed down the home education site, without warning or explanation. It's gone, and nothing we can do about it.

They started a new site, with all new admin, and a strong ethos to keep it in accordance with their own brand of feminism. I feel like I've been caught in the crossfire of some weird junior high-school bitch-drama!

Thus locked out, and receiving messages from many of the old members wanting the forum to go on as it was, I started a new site and a new forum, called Liberated Learning.

It's been a lot of work, and a steep learning curve, but it's all working now, and hey, isn't learning what it's all about?!

So, come check it out; the site is basically a forum to discuss home education, mostly focused on natural parenting styles, natural learning and respect :)

Sew; A Needle Pulling Thread

I got a Sewing machine!

Quite a few people went into giving me this wonderful gift. It all started with Purple's mother wanting to give me her old sewing machine for my birthday. I was happy to have it, but to be honest, bringing a sewing machine home from Israel was pretty unrealistic, and the shipping would have cost more than it was worth. So she suggested that I buy a second-hand machine here and send her the bill.

After spending a few days on the internet trying to find a good, old machine to buy, I gave up, feeling that there was no way I could buy a machine I've never seen before and know nothing about.

I decided to post a notice wishing for a sewing machine on our local community notice board, and trust that if I'm meant to have a machine, it will come to me.

Just a couple of days later, I called Autumn and Earth Mama to check in with them, and Autumn told me my sewing machine was there for me to pick up!

Turns out someone they know had seen my notice, and somehow knew that I was their midwife, so left the machine at their place for me to collect! I was so excited to get it. It's an old Singer; after much internettery, I found out it's from 1967, and a really great model. I put it in for a service, and bought some new bobbins and needles, and bang! instant sewing machine :)

I took it for the first test drive today; whipped up an outrageous pink spinning dress for Littletree, copying the pattern from another dress she has.

Clearly Littletree loves the dress to bits, and spent the rest of the day twirling around in it.

Basket Cases

There was a weaving workshop at this week's homeschool meeting, which was wonderful.

Someone came and set up a Navajo-style loom and focalised the kids in weaving a traditional grass mat. Naturally, I took loads of photos, and also some video, which I've efficiently edited and uploaded to Youtube. Check it out:

It was loads of fun!

After lunch we moved on to basket weaving. By then the kids had gotten bored of weaving and drifted off to run around and play together, but the grown-ups had a great time weaving little baskets from palm fruit stems.

We were all first-time weavers, and we all turned out nice little baskets. 

It's been a dream of mine for quite a while to learn basket weaving. I've tried a few times, without any instruction, and always ended up with something that looks like a pile of sticks. This time, I powered through the first basket, and started on a more elaborate one. Here's the finished product, I'm so proud of it: 

Here's the group's collection of baskets. Pretty impressive huh :) 

Community Garden

Yesterday was the grand opening of our local Community Garden down in the village. It was such a beautiful day, to stroll through the shady forest behind the market, with lots of local feral faeries flittering around.

At the entrance we passed by a bunch of kids playing in a lovely hobbit cubby house.

A bunch of folk from our homeschooling group were there, making a pottery workshop.

There were lots of people, and a great energy going around

Some random acts of music

Lots of people working together to get things happening, and establish garden beds

The kids had a great time running around the herb spiral

And painting handprints on the tree mural

The day finished up with all the hippies sitting around for drumming

It was a great day! I really love the community we live in :)

Henna

Littletree decided she wants to dye her hair, so I dug deep in our storage boxes and found some Henna that was left over from when we hennaed her hair when she was almost 2.5.

I took the obligatory "Before" shot:

Set about mixing up the Henna;

and rubbed the gooey mud into her hair.

I didn't put it into all of her dreads, but all the fringe at the front, and about half of the dreads. When it was done, she sat around for about 2 hours waiting for it to set.

Then we ran a hot bath and rinsed it all out.

Interestingly, the colour didn't really take, I suspect because the Henna was so old. It did make a difference; you can see which hair was dyed and which wasn't but it's so close to her natural colour (the parts that aren't sun-bleached), you would never tell if you didn't know we'd done it.

Littletree had red hair when she was born (as did I), but it faded to a golden ginger-blonde. She still has red-head colouring - the gingery eyebrows, mad freckles, and white-as-pale skin, so it suits her.

"After" shot:

In the "After" shot you can see the contrast of the curl from the front of her hair going over a non-dyed dread on the side, but it's nothing like the effect the exact same packet of henna made 2.5 years ago:

Circle of All Nations - New Article

Yep, the great folk at Essence of Life have published another of my articles.
The Circle of All Nations.
It's an account of our trip to a Native American ceremony in Quebec, check it out.