New Article – Parenting Partnerships

A new article of mine was published on Essence of Life about having respectful partnerships, and how we as parents can work together to model open communication for our children. You can read the article HERE

The timing is quite apt, being that today is Purple and my anniversary – 8 years since we snuck off to an office in Cyprus for a “passport wedding”. It was a fun adventure, and the paper we got out of it certainly made life easier for a lot of bureaucratic dramas we’ve since had to navigate. We certainly don’t take the ‘legally wed’ part of it very seriously.

Our relationship might be somewhat unconventional, being polyamorous, and some what challenging, but through open communication, honest sharing of feelings and lots of patience, it works for us… well, most of the time.

Little Christmas Tree

Littletree had a few friends staying over for a little slumber party last week and the kids found an old box of tinsel and baubles that we had stashed in a closet.

For the record, I would like to point out that these decorations were bought by Littletree in late February last year because she thinks they’re pretty. Which makes them just decorations, not Christmas decorations.

Anyway, the kids found the decorations and decided to make a Christmas tree. They went outside and found a suitable bamboo cutting and then set about decorating it.

Then they got all the old baubles and threaded new strings on them

and made stars and new decorations out of paper and colours and glue

Finally, the finished product standing all sparkly in our fireplace

Not really my cup of tea, but the kids had a great time doing it :)

My Little Houseguest

It’s been very busy this weekend in the Majikfaerie household, with the village festival happening and the scout council for the next Australian Rainbow Gathering being hosted in my house.

We’ve all been busy helping with the festival – Purple was on the crew helping to set up stages and whatnot and I was one of the official First-Aid crew, while Littletree was performing in two of the acts.

There’s been about twenty rainbow people staying in our home, which has been crazy and wonderful – the best part being that I’ve not had to do any dishes all weekend!

And my favourite houseguest of all:

It’s Beautiful Here

Two years ago, my dream was to find a large parcel of land that we could buy; at least 100 acres, on which we could live, and share with several other homeschooling families. Where we could have communal veggie gardens, and fresh water, and forest land, and everyone could build their own houses from straw-bale or cob or whatever, and we’d all live together and raise free-range children.

At the time, we didn’t quite have the cash capital to manifest that dream, at least not without mortgaging ourselves to the limit and having to live off instant noodles for the next 30 years.

By accident (quite literally by accident – I crashed the car here), we stumbled across the village we now live in. It’s not a community in the commune sense, but it’s surely a community in the unity sense.

We live in an awesome village – there’s 5 or 6 families with children in Littletree’s age-group within a 5 minute walk from our home. Most of the people in this small village are very like-minded; no one looks at us oddly because we have bare feet or dreadlocks or children in public out of school hours. There’s an organic store a few minutes walk from our house, and many communes and organic farms in the area.

There’s a wonderful sense of being a part of a functioning community. It seems almost every day there’s some kind of activity, many workshops and classes available in the village hall (like yoga, dancing, singing, drawing, herbs, tree-planting, wild foods, permaculture, meditations, etc), live music shows every week, a farmer’s market, a craft market, a book exchange, a cafe, a herbal medicine store, free complimentary therapy clinics, homeschooled kids, an arts collective, regular jam sessions… and on and on.

There’s always some friends hanging about in the village, someone playing music or crafting something, someone to talk to.

Lately I was hanging around the village green after the farmer’s market; loads of people were about preparing for the village festival. Heaps of kids were running about freely, a small group of people were working on various art projects

some were making a sculpture from recycled tea bags

a few folk were weaving elaborate stuff

there was a group of musicians together for the usual spontaneous jam

Of course, the small village lifestyle isn’t for everyone, but I love it! This is my home :)

Goji Goodness

A few years ago Purple and I started experimenting with making our own liqueurs based on the cherry wine recipe that was handed down from Purple’s grandmother.

The cherry wine was simply divine, and we quickly found out that the cherries can be substituted for cranberries, which was fantastically delicious. As was apricot, mango, chai, pineapple, lemon, date and various other yummy liqueurs we tried making. My all time favourites remained the original cherry and the cranberry

When we moved to Australia, dried cherries and cranberries weren’t as easy to come by as they were in Israel, but still we kept on experimenting…

And now we’ve come to the best ever – Goji Berry liqueur. Oh it’s AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!

I started with a cup of organic Goji berries (AKA wolfberries) in a bottle cleaned out with boiling water.

To which I added 2/3 cup of organic sugar, a cup of white wine and a cup of vodka

Put the lid on the bottle and give it a good shake

Then let it sit in the cupboard, giving it regular shakes, for several weeks, until it’s ready. This batch was perfect after 6 weeks.

Sadly, the process has a by-product: alcohol-soaked goji berries. So my poor guests have to suffer through being served my organic, raw, homemade ice cream with adults-only goji berries. And goji berry steamed puddings. And all sorts of delectable delights.

Of course it’s all healthy and good for us, because the goji are so packed with antioxidants and amino acids and whatnot.

New Article – Connected Communication

Essence of Life has published another of my natural parenting articles, this one is about communicating authentically with children, and supporting them respectfully in expressing their feelings in the way they need to.

You can read it HERE

Incidentally, Littletree also wanted to show off her new sparkle hair-spray

Poi Twirling

This week we were back at home school group, which met for a Poi Twirling workshop – loads of fun!

The kids had an awesome time learning new skills and practicing old ones

Littletree even managed to master a few tricky tricks

I guess soon she’ll have a new talent to add to her busking act as well!

Fresh Salad

We came back from the Rainbow Gathering to find out veggie garden bloomed while we were away, so now we’re eating fresh greens from the garden every day.

It’s awesome :) I love that the first thing we do now when it’s time to make food is to step just outside the door and pick fresh veg.

and the salads are super-delish!

It feels wonderful to eat locally – we already get most of our produce from local farms; friends of ours have an organic farm that’s bicycle-riding distance away. But now we’re eating food that’s grown about 5 metres from the kitchen, and fresh-picked 5 minutes before eating.

Combined with the cheese we make ourselves, and cassava from our own garden, we can have entire meals from our own land. mmmmm :)