Growing Family

Waiting

I should start a whole category for blogs on Waiting. 

In a conversation I'm having with my dad I discovered that he likes to wait until he has something good to report, rather than share the struggle of the journey. We all like to stick a flawless landing, in front of an audience, pushing our chests out while the judges flash up Perfect 10 cards. Practicing the same move, over and over, falling half the time, well, it is easier to do that alone.

Sometimes I don't want to write because I'm not "there" yet. I haven't stuck the perfect landing. I'm just in the falling down stage, and I don't really want to put that out on display.

Right now we're waiting, and it is taking most of my energy to not be really pissy about it. Back to that in a minute.

The Captain and I had a big, huge, two-day conversation about what to do next with our lives. We're at a natural junction where we could pull up the stakes and go, or lay down some bricks and stay. It's either pull out now, or dig in deeper. We talked, and we talked, and we talked.

We'd take a break to feed the kids, put them to bed, and then we'd talk some more. Finally, when we were all talked out, we prayed together, and let it rest. We went to bed, and in the bright dawn of the next morning I woke up with my heart full of Australia. When I timidly confided this to The Captain, he breathed a relieved "me too". So that's it. We love it here. We want to stay until it's time to go. We want to dig in. 

I think I felt about five minutes of peace with our decision, before I started getting totally OVER being in a rented house. Renting was fine when our future in Australia was still undecided, but now that we know we'll be here for a bit, I want a place of our own. I don't know why I want it so badly, but I do. 

I grew up in a family that moved over and over again, always to houses that needed *ahem* renovation. I will forever be amazed at the transformations we could make with paint and elbow grease. And windows! Nearly every house we lived in ended up with my dad knocking down walls with a sledge-hammer and introducing walls of windows. I loved all of those transformations. I grew up reading the Boxcar Children. I know how to make pretty much anything into a home, and I love it.

Being in a rental where we can't paint, hang pictures, change the landscaping, or renovate the hideous bathroom is really stifling. I dream up all sorts of improvements, and I want to put my hand to them, but I can't. And for me, a creative person who likes to get stuck in to improvements, well I'm just about over it. Okay, I'm waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy over it.

So we want to buy, but the Sydney house market is insane. It's on par with places like San Diego, New York City, etc. Buying a house is not within our current means. So we're waiting. I'm chewing my lip and stalking real estate sites just in case someone wants to undersell their property. We could get a townhouse or apartment, but I want a GARDEN. I want windows. I want dirt. 

I love the house we are in and I would love to transform it into what I imagine it to be. In the meantime, I have to hold on tight to what is making me happy, and try to let go of what is eating at my joy. Here's to finding the joy in front of us!

My neighbor's roof and the Aussie sky.

Swiss Chard - Silverbeet

My husband

Kids and a kangaroo

 Water play!

The season's first mango

A boy and his bear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mulberry Magic

Life needs magic. Children need it in great heaping doses, and so it is good that they are more able to access it than we grown people are. 

Today I loaded my three children up in my new garden wagon and pulled them to the park near our house. Each one had their hands around the next one's waist, their little arms acting as a series of seat belts as I huffed and puffed them up the hill. 

The playground equipment sits on the top of a rise, and the park slopes down to a great Mulberry tree whose branches sweep the ground.

"There's a cubby house in the tree!" Small Sun and his friend yelled in excitement.

They took off at a run.

And indeed, there was.

There was magic in the Mulberry Tree.

 

Sometimes magic starts off looking like a bunch of clutter, or things out of place. Feet and debris under the skirt of a tree, for instance.

 

 But push through the branches and you're there, in another world. Old sofa cushions, plant pots, a drum and pram litter the ground, a skateboard and record player are wedged into the branches of the tree.

A place like that can transform two regular boys into wild things just as they push through the green.

 

   

  

 

Is there anything more amazing? More splendid?   

When I Grow Up

I figured it out!!! I know what I want to do when I grow up! 

For the last five years I've had my head down and have been working hard caring for very young children. Three very. young. children. 

I have other interests, really, I do! I just have not had very much energy left over at the end of the day to dream or plan or... You want honesty? I fall asleep on the couch at the end of the night, watching James Bond movies. Like sleeping on an airplane with no neck pillow, my head falls forward, back, and to the side until I realize I MUST get to bed! 

Living as an expat with no family ready to help watch my kids on a regular basis, there is the hurtle of childcare between me and pursuing any interests. And those interests have to be really riveting to warrant 15$ an hour of committed childcare. 

Earlier this month The Captain and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary (yeah! go us! another celebration for another post!). We sat drinking chai lattes, swinging our legs over the wall we were sitting on, gazing out over the Hunter Valley winter vineyards, and talking about the future. We talked about my interests and how I don't see any clear thing I want to DO with them. We agreed to keep thinking on it together, and to ask for me to have clarity on what I should be doing when the kids magically go off to school. 

(Spicers Vineyard - Hunter Valley)

Last week I was talking to my fabulous, dear friend from High School. While I've been barefoot in the kitchen, she's gotten a Masters at Johns Hopkins and is awaiting security clearance to get her Diplomat Status and fly around the world like superhero, solving the world's (or at least South East Asia) problems. I'm pretty sure she has a cape in her closet. Ahem. No comparisons in productivity going on here. None at all. 

She's really great for me because while I'm so literally tied to children in this season that I can't see the future, she sees me as a person with a history and a future and helps to call that out in me. She was asking what I saw down the line when the kids are in school (which is when I always said I would do "something else"). As I described to her the passions that are really consistent and keep my interest I stumbled upon it - I described to her that elusive thing that I want to do!

(Small Sun making sand kites) 

Are you ready? Or are you bored and stopped reading about three paragraphs ago? I know, I'm long winded. 

I want to work for a landscape design firm to create gardens for families that incorporate sustainable design principles as well as provide invigorating and imaginative areas for children to play outdoors and explore the natural world. 

(Finch learning to kick a ball in the backyard) 

So basically the gardens would be useful and enjoyable for the whole family and would incorporate several parts. First of all, they would include an edible component. There would be a veggie garden of some sort and the supporting players to veggie gardening which can include compost methods, chickens, and worm farms. 

Next, the child-specific aspects of the design would encourage imaginative play, adventures, and fantasy as well as fine and gross motor skills. Sand and water play areas are vitally important, as are play structures like tree houses or playhouses. There is no end of exciting ways to incorporate these features into a garden, regardless of size or budget. 

(Sprout trying to write her name at the beach) 

I am completely enamored with Bunny Guinness and her book Creating a Family Garden: Magical Outdoor Spaces for All Ages. 

I think Sydney is a perfect environment to introduce this kind of gardening. For one thing, it is a very popular city for people to raise their children, and Sydneysiders are really into backyard veggie patches and chickens. (Have I ever told you about Rent a Chook?) 

I am so passionate about the kind of childhood we provide for our children and I think "magic" is such an important thing. I grew up out in the country, and home schooled, so I have heaps of memories of building forts, making dams in the creek, having picnics in the pasture, climbing trees, and going on adventures. Children are just oriented towards imagination and fantasy and I think they can sometimes quickly lose that wonder if we don't shelter it. Especially in a career-oriented big city short on space and free time.  A magical backyard garden that provides space for adults to relax and entertain, provides sustenance for the table, and nurtures the creativity and wonder of children is something I'm ready to work for, for myself and others.

(Small Sun and Sprout feeding a duck that wandered into our neighbor's yard from a nearby reserve) 

Now that I've got the dream sorted, I just need to work on getting there. My degree gives me credentials on the child development side of the resume, but my experience in horticulture and design is only at a hobby level, and underdeveloped as I'm still learning an entirely new part of the world with different growing conditions, pests, and flora and fauna. I now have about two years until Finch is at preschool and I'm left twirling my thumbs. My green thumbs, that is. First up is a three week class taught through a community college. Hopefully the instructors can point me in the right direction for study after that. 

What a relief to know what I want to do when I grow up!

What about you? Is anyone else working on a post-young children dream?

Late Winter in the Garden

Sydney weather can be tricky. Today I'm all rugged up against a cold, grey day, with layers of leggings and wool sweaters. But in the last week we've had some gorgeous, sunny, warm days where we poured out of the house like warming honey, to spend all day until dusk just luxuriating in the brightness. We don't need to set up any "play", we just put our hands to whatever's on hand. My children are like eager explorers, their imaginations full of pent-up created worlds waiting to be released through outdoor play. I can't say I'm much different.

I've been working on the end-of-winter garden jobs which are a joy on an electric blue sky day. 

End of winter means seedlings for the garden! I bought three varieties of tomato to plant this year (beefsteak, roma and cherry). One set of seedlings I planted straight into the garden, but the others I needed to sprout in a more protected way. 

At the end of my monthly budget, I started thinking creatively about how to plant out my seeds without buying any seed trays. I remembered a great article in the June edition of Gardening Australia Magazine. Millie Ross gave a step-by-step instruction guide to making your own biodegradable pots out of old newspaper. Here's how mine went.

 

First I took a piece of newspaper and folded it in thirds. 
 

 

I experimented with rolling the paper over a tin can or a narrower vase, trying to get the right size pot.

 

After rolling the paper into a tube, I slid the canister out, and folded the bottom of the paper in on itself.

 

I used tape to secure the top and side of the tube. You could also use paper clips.

 

Here is a finished paper pot, made from one sheet of newspaper.

 

Here are the finished pots (I tried different heights and widths).

 

Here are Small Sun and Sprout filling the pots with soil. I gave them a bowl of potting soil and a large spoon each and they loved helping me with the job!

 

Next it was time to plant the seeds. I had them lay a small piece of grass on the top of each pot they had put seeds in so we didn't lose track. 

 

These are the seeds we planted.

I put the pots in a casserole dish as they need to stay damp, and you can just put 1-2 cm of water in the bottom of the dish to keep them from drying out. They should sprout in 6-12 days and boy, are the kids excited!

When the seedlings are big enough to be planted out, I'll just pop the whole thing into a prepared hole in the garden. The paper will help retain the moisture around the roots until it decomposes. 

I love this fun way to use recyclable goods and get an end of winter garden job done, all in one go!

PS- I've decided to keep this blog anonymous, but work harder to include photos. Things have been flat out here lately so we'll see how that goes! Ha!

         

The Raised Bed Garden

We are officially in summer now, down under. Christmas is weeks away and we are enjoying hot weather, and fresh mangoes, cherries, peaches, and nectarines. It's amazing how much can change in a year. Already Christmas means luscious stone-fruit, to me!

We are starting to eat out of the garden I planted three months ago. I thought I'd give you all an update:

I have got SO MUCH packed in this bed. I'm trimming it back here and there to keep things from being smothered. From left to right you can see cucumbers, tomatoes (hidden under the squash), squash, cherry and grape tomatoes, swiss chard (silver beet), and zucchini. There is also basil tucked here and there and carrots dying in the shade under the tomatoes.

 

I'm having a problem with my squash. The flowers are falling off when the squash is really small (maybe that's normal?) and then the fruit starts to shrivel.

 

First harvest.

 

First meal from the garden: tortellini and red sauce (from the store), polenta-crusted zucchini, and swiss chard sauteed and topped with vinegar and butter.

Nothing beats eating outdoors on a summer night, with things on your plate that were growing in your garden just half an hour before!

Being a Creator

We are enjoying a long weekend, despite heavy rain and cool temperatures. Last week I got it into my head to build a second raised garden bed for our summer veggies. I chatted over the fence with my expert gardener neighbor and next thing I knew, her hubby offered to pick the wood up for me and agreed to share a load of soil that he picked up in his ute (pickup truck). The wood and soil showed up yesterday morning and the rest is history. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to create a raised garden bed, which is a really great way to raise veggies.

Day 1:

	To the right you can see the timber frame. I had the wood cut to size so all I had to do was nail the frame together. Next I unloaded four wheelbarrow loads of soil, all in the pouring rain. Do you like my hat? Some Dutch family members might recognize it. ;)
	I unloaded the soil onto a tarp since I wasn't going to use it right away.

Day 2:

	After swinging the mattock a couple times I realized that it wasn't good for my abdominals which are still weak in places after the c-section.  I enlisted the help of The Captain to turn over the rest of the grass roots.
	Once the grass roots are all turned over I lay down a layer of cardboard and newspaper to suffocate the grass and act as a barrier between the soil and the grass. Next I added a layer of partially decayed grass clippings.
	Next a layer of decomposed grass clippings and leaf mulch.
	Here is Small Sun helping me put the soil I bought onto the garden bed. Those four wheelbarrows only cost me $15 and the soil was beautiful and rich! Gardeners know that there is a real variation in soil quality and some of the "potting soil" you can buy is completely sterile and lifeless. This soil was a.m.a.z.i.n.g.
	Small Sun was most excited about getting to play with "cow poo". He is so four years old right now!
	After the manure I added blood and bone mix and some coir mulch, which is a new product to me.
	I mixed those organic additives in. Here is the coir mulch.
	Lastly, I watered it all in. Now I let it sit and breathe and rest for about a week before I plant in my seedlings.
	I know all of this will never fit in that garden but I'll grow it all somehow.

The time I spent standing in the back of the truck, in the soaking rain, shovelling the soil in the wheelbarrow, was perhaps the happiest hour I've had in a long time. The slight smell of manure, the feeling of strength in my body, the measurable accomplishment of the task, the absolute quiet as everyone hid indoors from the weather...it was joyful. Gardening is how I exorcise my demons. Nothing dark can stick to me after I spend some time toiling in the earth. I love the freshness in body and spirit I enjoy after a good dig in the soil.

P.S. big thanks to The Captain who helped me with the craziness that became my text and photos! He sorted out a real mess!

Breakfast Nooks and Garden Shops

May I just say, you all are wonderful. Your varied responses to my all-time-homesick-low were just fantastic. I think giving myself that full day to entertain the "what if" of moving back was just what I needed. By the next day I was over it and didn't want to move back any more. Of course we know that train will come around to the station again, but now I know that the life we have here isn't so fragile that thinking about home will sink it. What a relief.

It takes a lot of time to establish a life in a new location. Moving to a new country just amplifies that dynamic. I realized this week that we have come a LONG way in the last year in regards to finding our way here. I am starting to feel pretty well oriented in the city and the culture. What is essential, however, and still lacking, is those little things that add up to make you rooted in a spot. 

For example, back in Nashville, Star Bagel and Le Peep were our breakfast spots. I am a big breakfast person and I need a hook up to pancakes and crepes and waffles and whipped cream. MUST HAVE. Then of course there was my beloved Calypso Cafe which I tried to talk The Captain into eating at EVERY week. (Don't ask me how many times I have tried to recreate their black bean salad and been so disappointed that I can't figure out their barbecue sauce.) 

Well, after a year here, we still don't have our little restaurants. Sure we've eaten at a lot of great restaurants and Sydney is packed with amazing food. We have wonderful Thai and Indian restaurants in the strip within walking distance from our house. Actually, there are probably 15-20 different eateries within walking distance. So far, none of them have become our go-to place, though. That just takes time. But when it's Saturday morning and all you want is crepes with whipped cream and strawberries and fresh orange juice, you NEED to know where that place is. (And here I pause to acknowledge that this whole post is pure evidence of our privileged, wealthy Western existence because who really NEEDS a crepe?) When you have no idea where that place is in your new environs, but you know EXACTLY where it is back home...well, it's hard not to be homesick because home is the promise of desires fulfilled.

The other thing that was a favorite pastime that I am missing is garden centers. Walmart when I needed something really cheap. Lowes when I needed basics. Bates Nursery when I was looking for something special and willing to pay for it. 

There are few things I enjoy more than spontaneously popping out to a garden store to come home with bags of mulch and things to plant. Many sunsets have witnessed me planting, dusk settling as I am up to my elbows in wonderful dirt and color. The closest "Lowes" here (Bunnings) is not within "popping out" distance and I haven't really found places to get my green fix. I think I may have discovered the Bates Nursery equivalent but I haven't been there yet. I'm kind of afraid to as we have a very large garden (yard) with lots of opportunities beckoning me, and a very tight budget that doesn't really have room for my garden hobby at the moment. 

So I realized this week that those two things, in addition to not having found dance/Pilate's classes, continuing education classes, etc, are contributing to my homesickness. In all reality, Sydney has much more than Nashville in terms of quantity, but sometimes having so many choices means it takes longer to find the ones that fit.

In other news, I'm spending the weekend working on two pieces of furniture I got off of freecycle. A wardrobe and a baby change table/dresser. Sanding, priming, painting, detailing...yes, I am getting sore.

Also, Sprouty is sleeping in her toddler bed for the first time tonight. We've been trying to make the transition (and have had the bed up for her, in her room) for about two weeks now, but tonight is the first night she's actually in there. There has been some drama, and she is REALLY attached to the crib. Which is all the more reason to get it taken down and packed away for a couple months before new baby needs it. 

My brother and his wife had a baby girl tonight! After our baby arrives there will be five grandchildren! How wonderful is that? My sister-in-law had a home birth that only lasted two hours. Her first was a natural birth in the hospital that was well over 24 hours...I can't remember, was it 38? Something insane. I'm so happy for them.

Well, that sums up my thoughts for tonight. Some posts for another day would be more about Small Sun and his current questions/processing of being "dopted", as well as further developments in the discussions on "matching". Also, both of our children's experiences being ethnically unique in their Sunday School classes (Sprouty is the only white female child her age, at our church). And lastly, thoughts on three kids, which will be our reality two months from today. 

I don't usually open it up for questions, but if you have one you'd like me to answer, or want me to tackle on of the above topics sooner rather than later, hit me!

PS- Lil, I know the new baby needs a blog name, but I am having trouble deciding on one!

Sprouts

I think I'm starting to be homesick. Sure, in the first couple weeks I had some aching loneliness and the first jolts of withdrawal from home and family. This week I've been thinking about my favorite restaurants, getting together with friends, the comforts of a seven-year home.

I love gardening. I just threw myself into digging and planting to carry me through my parents' departure. Sweating under the sun, wrestling grass from the dark, rich soil, I found my soul go quiet and my spirit open up. Somehow gardening puts me right in a way nothing else does. As I bent over the earth I felt the closeness of Eden and the Creator's design of putting us in it to live in peace with Him.

I love the connection to living that gardening provides. On the phone I told my mother that the cucumber seeds were already sprouting. "Well, not exactly sprouted, but the ground is buckling." She and dad laughed, amused that my keen eyes interpret ground buckling as life. But here, look for yourself.

Here you can see one seed clearly sprouted, one about to emerge, and in the top left, buckling earth with a tiny hint of green. Sometimes you can't see the green at all, you just see the lifted earth and the cracks indicating that life is about to spring forth.

There was a message spoken at our church back in Nashville.  I think it was about hope. The point was that when God starts to do something new in our lives, it starts out as a tiny shoot, like those pictured above. That if we are not alert to the new thing God is doing, it will be trampled, or overlooked, or disregarded because it is so small and fragile. Yet, in the new beginnings, all the components necessary to grow to maturity are present, if we shield, guard, and protect the new thing. In order to do so, we must value the new sprout as much as we would value the established plant.

It is so easy to be discouraged in our lives in areas where we lack faith, lack patience, lack perseverance, to identify in our failures. That's looking for a mature plant though, when really we need to be protecting the tiny shoots.

Look at this picture. This is a bean plant that sprouted in the morning, photographed in the evening.

Isn't that amazing? Isn't God amazing?

I am so encouraged that as I am homesick, I can get quiet and look for the new things growing in my life. The friendships, the enterprises, the dreams that are only just unfolding towards the Son.

Yesterday these sprouts had just surfaced. Today I can see them from my back windows, even though the garden is at the back of the yard. God is good.

First Day of Spring: Harvest

Today might not strike you as the first day of spring, but it is, here in New South Wales, Australia. In honor of this long-awaited day, I decided to harvest my broccoli with my mom (Yay, they're here!), and Small Sun.

We cut off the crowns, then the leaves, and lastly the stems, before tossing the roots in the green garbage. The crowns will become broccoli salad and steamed broccoli with lemon butter, the leaves will be cooked like other greens - diced tomato, vinegar, etc, and the stems will be cut up for snacks, like carrot sticks.

It took so long to carefully wash each leaf of the broccoli, to make sure no aphids or caterpillars boost the protein content of the green goodness (broccoli has one of the highest protein contents of any vegetable at 5 grams per cup). I began to understand the cost behind the high price of organics. I could have sprayed the veggies as they grew, discouraging pests, but instead I carefully picked caterpillars from the undersides of leaves, and then washed them meticulously at harvest time.

We are looking forward to eating broccoli this week, and I am so pleased that I got such a good crop from one little six pack of seedlings, planted and grown in my urban plot. Now it's time to plant tomatoes and strawberries and beans and...yum, yum, yum.

The moment before the harvesting

See the sorted pieces? I'm super-organized like that.

There you can get an idea of how much broccoli a little six pack of seedlings will get you. Not a whole lot, but I'm pretty thrilled.

Garden Emoting

For a gardener, winter can be a trying time. If your passion is design, then a withered yard with no snow shows up like a skeleton coming out from under flesh. Slowly the color and padding fades away until you are left with bones. shapes. solids.

When my yard is looking bleak and it's no time to be planting anything, I, along with many other gardeners, console myself by pulling out design books and seed catalogs. I make lists and draw plans. I make it through the winter on the dreams of the bigger, better garden that will emerge from the soil, and from my working hands.

I just got a new gardening magazine in the mail. Normally that would drive me to dig out plant encyclopedias and by this time tomorrow the kitchen table would be littered with pencils, paper, markers, and pictures cut out from catalogs. This year I am wrinkling my nose and scratching my head.

Last fall I planted a river of daffodils. Every year I plan for the early spring doldrums and coordinate a crash of color and fragrance to shake me out of the gray. Daffodils. Tulips. Hyacinth. Narcissus. These are my smelling salts.

Last fall I planted the river of daffodils to be my yard's goodbye. I might get to see the tulips or they may be closed up, tight, but I know I will see the daffodils. They will be my shout farewell.

What dirt will I get to play in this year? I'll go from winter to fall to winter again. I'll be in a rental property. Maybe daffodils will be both a parting and a welcome.