Mandolin!

Before we left Bali, I made a visit to the music man.

This guy is amazing. He's just a sweet, quiet guy, sitting in the back of a tiny little hole-in-the-wall shop - about half the size of a one-car garage, making guitars, ukuleles and mandolins.

Unlike most stall holders on Bali, he's not standing out the front, hawking his wares or hassling people to come in his shop. He doesn't quote inflated prices that you then have to haggle over. He just loves his instruments, and they are truly incredible works of art - guitars with Balinese filigree carving, ukuleles clearly made with love and care...

He sits, works, and plays music. If you go into his shop, he'll have a friendly chat, jam with you, show you the latest masterpiece he's built (with a gentle, humble manner), and not try to sell you anything.

I love this guy so much, I stop by his shop every time I'm on Bali... I play a little music, I drool over his craftsmanship...

And this time, I bought myself a mandolin! just a simple, cheap mandolin, but I love it! It was $60, with a hand made, very high quality case. I used to play mandolin years ago, but I haven't had one in years... I've been vaguely planning to get a new mandolin for a while, but unable to afford it.

I'm so stoked to not only get a mandolin, but to support a local craftsman. Honestly, I also support this particular guy because he's so quiet and humble. I suspect he makes just as good a living as anyone else selling stuff in the area, but without the intense hassling and overcharging and bargaining. I think everyone should support this guy, and artisans like him.

Most of all, I love my new mandolin, and I’m so happy to have it!

Littletree’s Little Business

Littletree’s entrepreneurial talents have been full-speed ahead lately; in addition to her usual brownie and muffin selling, she’s been making loads of earrings and selling them, frantically saving up money.

Faster than I ever would have guessed possible, she had enough to buy herself her current coveted item – an iPod Touch. Well, this was also expedited by Apple bringing out the 5th Generation iPod Touch, and phasing out the 4th Gen ones, which meant that they suddenly became very cheap in stores, and she’s very happy to have it, regardless of being “last year’s model”.

First there was the great unboxing

And the magical moment of peeling off the screen cover

And voila!

Of course, then I had to spend a couple of hours installing iTunes on her computer and reminding myself how much I really hate iTunes and wondering why it has to be so damn difficult…

But I’ll chalk it up to an educational experience.

And Littletree is stoked; listening to music, playing games, messaging her friends, reading e-books, and learning stuff. She even bought herself a cute cover for it.

Now she’s redoubled her savings efforts, with the goal to buy a better telescope.

Water Dragon

Happy New Year of the Water Dragon

There has been such a constant stream of so many beautiful people flowing through my house recently, with Wind and Coola living in the flat downstairs, and our good friends Belle and Anasho have been staying, since they are temporarily homeless, as well as frequent visits from an assortment of random hippies and my beloved Ocean.

As group of us got together yesterday for a sacred ceremony to honour the new moon and the start of the Chinese New Year.

We all wrote out pages of our intentions and manifestations for the coming year, I chopped some wood,

We lit a sacred fire, ringed with the surprise rose apples we found growing in the back of our rainforest.

Then we said some prayers and set our intentions before giving the pages to the fire

Then we sat around playing music and dancing and singing before having a yummy feast.

Awesome start to the year!

The Piano Girl; Reloaded

Remember three weeks ago Littletree said she wants an electric keyboard for Christmas and to learn to play piano?

Well, my super-awesome friend Ammonite put some time into trawling Gumtree.com.au (an Australian classifieds site similar to craigslist), and she found a local listing for a Casio LK100 electric keyboard for only $80.

It's perfect - cheap enough, and it's a "teaching piano" that has a feature where the keys light up to show you which keys to play with a corresponding LCD screen that shows which fingers to use.

Oh the awesomeness!!! She’s been playing on it several times every day since we got it (3 days ago), and making some progress already. I’m sure we’ll be having videos of amazing music before too long :)

The Piano Girl

Littletree came and said she wants to get an electric keyboard for Christmas, and to learn to play piano. I said an electric keyboard might be a bit out of our budget at the moment, but we can save up for it.

She shrugged at that, and flounced off… An hour later, I found her set up in the living room, having made herself an electric keyboard, practising her piano skills.

Apparently it’s got all the best features and she’s been playing some awesome music on it already! ;)

Flashback Friday–Travel Money

Here’s the next instalment in my Flashback series. One of the most frequent questions I get asked about travel is about money; how did I afford to travel?

When I started out travelling, I was driving around Australia in a 1979 Ford Cortina, and I was on disability pension, so as long as I lived frugally, I could get by day-to-day and I busked for extra cash. When I first decided to go overseas, I had a broken leg, and no money, but I did have an oven and a love of baking… so I spent a few months freezing in Hobart, Tasmania, baking organic goodies and selling stuff in Salamanca Markets. Didn’t take long before I had enough to fly to Germany…

Only once I’d forked out for the plane ticket, I found myself hobbling around Frankfurt (still recovering from the broken leg), with only $200 to my name, nowhere to stay, not knowing anyone, and not really speaking any German. And I’d left my trusty guitar back in Australia, so I couldn't even busk!

Just as I was feeling I’d made a terrible mistake, a funky-looking young woman came up to me handing out fliers for a party. I explained that I couldn’t speak German, and she asked me about my dreadlocks. Once we got to talking, and she realised I was essentially homeless, she invited me back to stay at a squat-house she lived in. Awesome!

So I had somewhere to stay, and for people who know how to live very simply, food isn’t hard to come by in a rich country. And for crafty mamas like myself (I had been blessed by a gift of some yarn from my aunt before I left Oz), hand-crafts are always an option.

I set to work crocheting like mad and I made up about a dozen water-bottle holders to sell, like this one

Then I sat on the main shopping street in the city, crocheting more, and hoping people would buy some. I had a little sign that advertised 5Deutschmarks for each one (about US$3 at the time). I sat there most of the day, and no one bought any. Just as I was about to give up hope, a smartly-dressed businessman came up and asked me about them. He told me they were too cheap, and he’d buy one for 10DM, but only if I promised to change my sign to 10. I thought that was insane – way too expensive… But I did what he said. Within an hour I’d sold 7 more! And I learned a valuable lesson about economics.

So I made enough to get by. My main form of transport was hitch hiking, which is generally free, and in Germany, often results in free food, money, and accommodation as well as transportation. I never paid for accommodation; always “couch surfing” with people I met, or else camping out in forests or under bridges. Yep, I was 20, free, and a little crazy!

At some point, I was given an amazing gift: a backpacker guitar! It was in bad condition, but I rebuilt it, cut a new soundboard, made it good as new, and painted it all pretty. So I was back in the busking business!

I busked my way all across Asia with my funky guitar, hitchhiking, camping, and living very simply on a budget of around $3-$5/day. Overland travel meant I didn’t need to spend on expensive airfares and I got to see the world along the way.

(Playing my funky guitar in Nepal, Age 21)

Sadly, my awesome guitar was stolen in India, and I didn’t have enough money to replace it. But I was blessed again – an awesome friend went around at the rainbow gathering I was at asking for donations to raise money for me to get a new guitar! It ended up not being enough for a guitar, but I could get a mandolin! And thus, I learned a new instrument, and travelled with that busking around India and Africa.

(Playing Mandolin in Lesotho, age 22)

I did stop for a while in a few places here and there working, but not really earning much. After I got pregnant with Littletree, Purple went to Israel for a few months, working like a mad thing to save money, and we lived off that (again, living very frugally) travelling around Latin America till Littletree was a year old. I think our budget then was around $15/day for the whole family.

In Peru, I spent a large chunk of the last of our savings on buying hand-made silver jewellery, which I then sold for a tidy profit in northern California, which sustained me through the expenses of traveling in the US and Canada. Littletree and I also teamed up with a group driving from Mexico to British Colombia, and we’d do group busking.

Our best effort was an afternoon playing music at the Grand Canyon – we got about $50 in half an hour.

Now I make money through my writing, and birthwork. I write articles for Essence of Life, which brings in a bit, and when I travel to births, the tickets and expenses are generally covered by my clients, so while I don’t really make money out of it, our travel is paid.

In general, we live pretty simply, we stay in cheap places, we eat local food, we camp a lot. It’s mostly about living with less, prioritising the truly important things, and trusting that the universe will provide everything that we need.

Loren–Who Walked This Path

Last week one of my friends needed people to be in his new music video, so I went along to help out.

I love this song, Loren used to come to the village life drawing classes  and play his music for us while we were drawing; it was awesome! So it was nice to come out and support him in making his art, and great to hang out with everyone down by the river :)

Check it out:

Who Walked this Path–Loren

Edited to add a link to Loren’s website: http://www.loren.com.au/loren.php

Balinese Music Workshop

This week our homeschool group hosted a Balinese music workshop with a traditional orchestra including gamelans – it was totally awesome!

The kids had a great time helping to set up

and then listened as the instructor taught us about the instruments and we learned a few words in Indonesian

We got a quick demo of all the instruments, and then it was time for the kids to have a go

They had a great time making a tremendous cacophony which eventually sounded like good music, here’s a short clip about halfway through (they did get better, but I didn’t film it)

Now we’re busy packing to go to the Australian Rainbow Gathering, not sure when I’ll get to post again :)

Unschooling Conference Talent Show

I finally got the videos from the Unschooling Conference talent show edited and uploaded. The whole show was fantastic, I enjoyed it immensely – I would love to have filmed the whole thing, but I just have a couple of clips.

Here’s Littletree’s act – I only filmed half of it, and sadly the audio isn’t so great – you can mostly only hear the clapping and backing music; the lyrics are a bit hard to make out. Basically the song was one she made up about how the world is in danger and it needs saving and god gives her the magic to save nature with music.

Here’s a mixed clip of a few different acts

you can see more pictures from the conference at http://flickr.com/groups/australianunschoolingconference

The Village Dance

The little village we live in is very old and historic, and there’s still lots of quaint throwbacks to its former glory, like the post office with it’s 1908 sign, and the village dance.

I don’t go out dancing that often, but I do try to get to the village dance party every month (well, yeah, for some people going dancing once a month would  be a lot!)

I got all dressed up and ready to boogie

It’s so nice to see the local youngsters out on the dance floor

This month we grooved to the phat tribal beats of Ganga Giri, drum, bass and digeridoo.

It’s an alcohol-free event, but the local herb shop makes a herbal punch and chai, and there’s always a cake stand with a range of gluten-free organic cakes.

There’s always a few kids running around outside, people hanging about chatting, fire twirling.

Littletree was running about, playing with the other kids; we all had a great time.

It’s so nice to be a part of these old traditional village events ;)

Express Yourself

I’m leaving today to drive down to Victoria for the Homebirth Australia conference, so I’ll be gone for a week. I’m pretty excited to see Anne Frye speaking.

But just to tide you all over till I get back, here’s one of Littletree’s recent songs, it’s all about expressing yourself, and only believing what your heart tells you, rather than what other people tell you to believe, and taking charge of your own body and life. :D

Busking Baby

Littletree has been practicing guitar lately, and went out busking at the market today with her friend

They played for about 20 minutes – until it started raining, but they managed to make $3.60. Not much, but it’s a start.

Littletree has been saving up all her pocket money lately, and practicing her gymnastics and guitar so she can busk, because she’s desperate to get herself a 10” Netbook computer (Preferably pink).

She spends hours trawling through eBay and other computer shops online trying to find the exact one she wants – of course, it’s all a bit of a moot point since she has a lot of saving-up to do before she can afford a computer – the ones she wants are all around $300.

I have been quite impressed with her determination though; she has been forgoing all treats and sweets in favour of saving up her pocket money for the computer – being radically unschooled, she has an unrestricted diet and can eat as much of whatever she likes, but we have an agreement that we don’t buy extra treats for her from the family grocery money.

Obviously, if it’s something that we’re buying for everyone we get it, and we do a lot of baking our own cakes and cookies and I make ice cream, so it’s not like she’s in any lack of sweets, but if she wants candy bars, she has to buy them with her own pocket money.

I’m noticing she isn’t making up for the lack of chocolate (which we don’t buy because I’m allergic to it) by eating extra cookies at home; she’s just forgoing them, on her own motivation. And to think I was assured by just about everyone that if I let her eat candy she’d eat nothing but candy!

Anyway, on behalf of Littletree, she is making a request for anyone who wants to help her buy a computer. (At least it sounds “educational”)

Happy Solstice

It's the shortest day of the year! Littletree has been waiting for the start of winter for ages.

This year we celebrated by having a dinner party. I invited some friends over and made a special feast following the Chinese tradtion of consuming "yang" foods at the winter solstice.

I made ox kidneys in a mushroom sauce, served with Purple's Arabic spiced rice and dahl with a salad.

Preparing the kidneys was an involved process, starting with making organic stock 8 hours earlier. We bought the kidneys from the local organic butcher, and I followed a recipe from the book Nourishing Traditions.

Starting with cutting the kidneys up and soaking them in lemon juice (fresh lemons from my friend's tree) while the stock was simmering in the pressure cooker. Then I browned them in organic butter, set them aside to keep warm in the oven, sauteed mushrooms and then made the sauce - stock and red wine, reduced by half, creme fraiche added and reduced again, finally the browning juices added and simmered some more.

The whole process took most of the day, but the end result was delicious! It was my first time eating kidneys, and I was surprised how good they were. Though possibly that was also due to the preparation process.

We had a great evening, and enjoyed a bottle of "Bulls Blood" wine with it.

The next morning the local market was cancelled due to rain, so we all went down to the cafe to hang out and it turned into a spontaneous jam with a bunch of my friends.

Here's a video I made of the jam:

I had a fantastic Solstice, and ended up feeling empowered and gorgeous :)

Belly Dance

I'm finally getting settled in at home, and getting over the jet lag. It's been really nice to hang about with friends in the village, and Littletree is so happy to be home.

She's been practicing her belly dancing a lot, especially since Purple bought her a belly dancing costume for her birthday

The video is a bit dark, but you get the idea.

l

Last night we went to a little party at a neighbour's house (well, actually Littletree went with some friends, Purple and I just wandered down to check on her after a couple of hours), and they had a harp there, which Littletree spent ages playing on, while singing her current favourite song:

Earth my body,

Water my blood,

Air my breath and

Fire my spirit.

So now she really wants to get a harp. Not guitar or violin as previously desired. Ah well. One day when I'm rich ;)

Lush Out

It's been fun the last few days having the house to just Littletree and me, especially after the last few weeks of it being so full and hectic with various visitors.

Purple is back in Israel, and Lush went back to England and broke up with me. I spent a day crying, but I feel fine now.

So on our own, Littletree and I have been going out a lot and having friends over. We went to the market, where Littletree busked with Anasho.

I didn't yet buy her a violin, and her guitar is in Israel (Purple will bring it when he comes back), so she took my recorder and blew on it tunelessly while doing improv ballet.

I had a great time at the market, hanging out with friends and I had a really good dance at the drum circle.

We also went to the beach for a play with some friends, went out for dinner in Byron, hung out at the cafe a few times, been swimming in the pool, visiting friends.

It's been really nice to spend time just the two of us and lush out a bit, spending time snuggling and watching videos in the evening, reading stories, doing crafts, making yummy food.

 

Busy Little Tree

Littletree has been keeping me pretty busy lately too. She's recently started going to a weekly art class with some other homeschooled kids, which she really enjoys (though the kids tend to do more playing than art ;) )

Littletree announced that she wants to get a telescope so she can look at stars. It seems astronomy has taken over dinosaurs as her newest fascination, so we've been getting books on stargazing from the library, and we downloaded Stellarium, a cool software that simulates the night sky as seen through a telescope. it's very cool; check it out.

I've also been looking into buying Littletree a telescope, so that means a lot of learning for me, since I know absolutely nothing about it!

Littletree also decided to take up violin, she's been asking me to buy her one pretty frequently lately. I think she was inspired by a friend of hers who has a violin and busks with it. Of course, the friend can't play violin at all; she just screeches the bow over the strings, but being a cute little girl, manages to pull in a fair amount of money in a short time.

Now, I'm all for encouraging children's interests, but I'm not quite ready to take the plunge into the whole 'tortured cat' kinda instruments. Seems she just wants to make money, so we're going to take her guitar out and try busking a bit :)

Since we've been doing so much house hunting, Littletree said she wants to help pay for it (all the places we really love are out of our budget). She insisted if we buy her a violin, she'll busk and make a million dollars to buy a castle made of diamonds!

I love that unschooling gives us the freedom to live gently and follow our interests as they flow :)

Ballerinas

We went to a friend's house this week so Littletree could join in a homeschooling art class. Of course, the art class went well, but after about 20 minutes the kids got distracted and gave up on painting to do dance performances.

The did a few practices and then made a show.

We had a lot of fun, and it looks like the art class will be a weekly event :)

Activities For A Sunny Day

Amazingly, it hasn't rained at all since we got the rain gauge, but Littletree has been putting it to good use.

Making potions!

She's been having lots of fun lately with food dyes, baking soda and vinegar.

Here's one of Littletree's latest songs, I add new ones from time to time on my Youtube. It's really interesting to see the progression from her early stuff, like the Heart Transplant song to this one. It's almost like so many singer/songwriters who started out doing really powerful, deep music and then they sold out and began doing bubblegum pop LOL

Somehow reminds me of Shakira.

It's A Boy! ... Oh Boy!

Everyone's been asking what's happening with the birth... on Tuesday the 24th of June, at 3:45am, Noah Orion Leopold was born.

It turned out to be a pretty long labour. Starting on Saturday the 21st, Frangipani's water broke in the afternoon, followed by some mild contractions. Seemed like labour was going to start, so we went out to keep active, and do some last minute shopping.

Frangipani was leaking gushes of amniotic fluids though a slow leak all evening, and by night she was starting to look like being in labour. I went to get a couple of hours sleep, and told her to do the same. Of course, not long after midnight I got up to find them awake, and timing contractions on this funny website; ContractionMaster.

Contractions were still quite mild and irregular, but coming every 5 minutes or so. At sunrise Frangipani decided to get into the birthing pool, but that slowed things down, and she ended up going to sleep for a bit.

All through Sunday, she was still losing water, but not really in active labour. I figured prodromal labour, but started suspecting asynclitism (when the baby's head is on a funny angle). Only I wasn't sure. Oh if only I had been more confident in what I felt!

A friend of Frangipany's came over to play with Littletree and keep her occupied, which was nice. By evening the contractions got stronger again, and we settled in to have a baby, with good contractions lasting more than a minute coming every 7 minutes or so, and getting closer.

Crazily, we passed the whole night that way, with no real change, and still irregular. Again, with the dawn, things slowed down a bit, and Frangipani got a chance to rest, but not really, with contractions waking her up every few minutes.

Monday, another friend came over to take Littletree to the Phuket Aquarium, and Jo had a sleep. I kept Frangipani active, but in the early afternoon we got a bit discouraged and decided to do a vaginal exam, though Frangipani had planned to be as intervention-free as possible.

She was at 9cm, with good descent! Thus encouraged, we decided to do some dancing to shift the baby out. It was great, to see Frangipany wriggling her way through contractions to funky reggae!

(ETA - I finally got the edited video uploaded, so i've put it in: note this isn't the same video that I posted earlier today, that one can still be seen on youtube if you search for sequoialittletree videos)
By evening, the contractions were getting pretty intense and closer together. Phew! Finally :)

Only by midnight, there was still no change. I still suspected that the head was deflexed (looking up rather than with the head tucked in) and asynclitic, so we did a bunch of postures and things to try shifting it, but no dice. I did another vaginal exam, only to find Frangipani was still dilated to 9cm, in the exact same position as 10 hours before! At least the baby's heart rate was fine throughout it all.

We tried a couple more measures to shift the baby, but in the end, suffering miserably from exhaustion, after missing two and a half nights' sleep, and trooping through such a long labour, Frangipani decided to transfer to the hospital.

We arrived into the ER at around 2am, and the doctor was called. The obstetrician came in and confirmed my diagnosis - baby deflexed and asynclitic, impacted at 9cm in a brow presentation. When I told him I'd checked her and she'd been at 9cm for over 12 hours, he called for a cesarean section, which Frangipani agreed to.

The nice thing was that the doctor and nurses were all very respectful, and totally accepted me as an authority. I managed to convince the doctor to let hospital policy slide and allow Jo into the operating room, and to take the baby as soon as it was delivered, rather than taking it off in a plastic box to the nursery, and also for no vaccinations, eye drops or vitamin K. They also agreed to let Frangipani have skin-to-skin contact and initiate breastfeeding as soon as possible. :)

It all went well, and Noah Orion Leopold was born, healthy and fine, 3.33kg and 54cm long. Though with his head dented in the shape of Frangipani's pelvis. The swelling went down really fast though. Now mama and baby are recovering well, bonding and breastfeeding like crazy :D

Ketchup

Another busy week. Seems like I've been having lots of those lately.

Littletree began her busking career, after I refused to buy her infinite treats. She played her guitar at the Markets... well, long enough to make enough money for a frozen fruit ice block.

The wonderful Rapunzel ran off to Confest, of course we'll miss her terribly, it was so lush having her here.

We hosted a little picnic by the pool in honour of her. Well, mostly as an excuse to have some friends over. Of course, as happens every single time we have people over, it rained, so we crammed eight people into my little cottage and had great fun.

I just got my new Pinard Horn (a kind of funnel for listening to the heartbeat of a fetus) and stethoscope, so we had a spontaneous workshop on listening to fetal heart tones, and distinguishing all the various sounds in Earth-Mama's belly. Then Littletree went around listening to everyone (and even some things) with the stethoscope.

And most excitingly (for Littletree anyway) was the acquisition of a second hand trampoline.