Community Gardening . . .

I have just found a great community garden located not too far from me :) I wish there was one closer, but there isn't so this will be fine for now. It is run but Disability Support and they meet up 3 times a week, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. At this stage I will only be going on the weekdays because nNn isn't too keen on interupting our weekend . . .

By just going the past 2 times it has opened my eyes to how much I still have to learn about, well, everything! Besides the food growing side of things, dealing with the centre's clients who range from non-verbal onwards. It is a very big learning curve!!

The people who run it are lovely too. They won't let you go home empty handed, so I am learning to cook with many new foods . . . I even made moussaka for the first time when they gave me several egg plants! On Wednesday I am going to officially join, which is a $10 fee for the whole year. I have received more than that amount in food and it feels really good to be among it all.

I have met Ellice from ALS and her gorgeous little girl Zahli and have arranged to regularly buy fresh eggs from her. I know that Em will love Zahli and she had a great time last Wednesday diggin in the dirt :)

I am really looking forward to tomorrow afternoon :)

Broken the Clothing challange . . . already :(

But it wasn't intentional!!! Em threw up all over her skirt at the shops today (feeling much better now) so I had to buy her a pair of shorts . . . well I did't HAVE to, but it was either do that or have her walk around in just her knickers, and when the car was parked at the library, which is across a main road) I thought better of it . . .

But one small $4.19 hiccup is not going to deter me!! I will keep trying!

On an unrelated note, I sent my first letter to council today :O I have requested some books at the library via their online service and when the first book arrived, I received a letter. I have mde the suggestion that since you can make requests onlinne, perhaps they can advise you of it's arrival via email . . . no doubt I'll get a letter for each of the other 3 books I've requested lol

Blergh weekend . . .

Everyone is sick here at the moment :( When I went to pick Em up form kindy on Friday they said that she hadn't been herself and she had coughed and sneezed at the same time at lunch covering her sandwich in strawberry flecked phlem . . . nice. She started throwing up overnight and we were still going at 4am this morning. No sleep happening here. And now it is the other end . . .

I think Nn has the same thing. Although he hasn't actualy thrown up he has felt like he has needed to all weekend and has spent most of his time in bed :( Z is okay (touchwood) but has just got her first tooth comig through so she is cranky anyway *sigh* And I have a cough I just can't shake. Z gets her 6 month needles tomorrow can't belive it has gone so quickly!

As a plus though, I got outside yesterday while everyone was in bed and pulled a tonne of weeds out of the lawn (before they flowered too, so hopefully that should stop so many coming up again)

Our first tomato is nearly ready, just going red now, and we have another 6 in formation and ANOTHER 8 flowers on it at the moment too!! Love it! Our tiny capsicum is just starting to bub up again - I counted 8 buds - on a plant no higher than 15cm?? Weird! We have chillis flowering too :) I pulled out the last of the broccoli yesterday - didn't really eat much of it! Z didn't like the florrets, but would eat the stems pureed (after scraping away all the woody bits) so at least it wasn't all wasted! I don't think I'll plant them again in a hurry.

Three of the 5 lettuce seeds have sprouted and I am going to do another sowing this week. Our last lot of lettuce have bolted, so I am waiting for the seeds to finally be ready to plant because I don't want to buy any more seedlings and I really likes those lettuce.

We have 2 strawberry plants. One has 1 berry a few days away from picking and about 14 more flowers . . . the other has nothing!! Not sure what to do with it. In Jackie French's book, Backyard Self Sufficiency, it says that she hits hers with the whipper snipper after their first fruiting . . . maybe I should clip this one right back and hope it produces next round??

My loofa is coming along :) going a lot slower than I had expected though?? I was hoping that the actual 'fruit' would be ready for Christmas pressies, but I can't see it happening. Oh well, there is always Mother's Day and birthdays . . .

Better go and wash Em's sheets yet again . . . I hope she i better again soon - it is horrible to see them sick :(

Going to be an Auntie again :)

Hooray!! We found out that my SIL is pregnant with her first bub :D Due the day before Em's 3rd birthday.

I am estatic for them (they had been trying for a bit) but I'm feeling, well, a bit jealous. Not neccessarily jealous that they are having a baby (sure there is a bit of that :P - even though Z is not even 6m old yet!!) but also jealous that she'll share her pregnancy with her Mum . . .

My Mum wasn't well when I was pregnant with Emily, and she was pushing us all out of her life, so even though she was 'excited' for us, it didn't seem real if that makes sense. And when Em was just 10 wks old, she took her own life. I was a brand new mother , breastfeeding still hadn't been established (and that dried me right up) and I needed her support. Just before she died we were taking and she said that she was disappointed that she had changed hundred's of kids nappies (she was a daycare provider for 12 years) but hadn't yet changed one of Emily's. Less than a week later she was gone, that still makes me . . . angry? sad? frustrated? I really don't know if I can pigeon hole it . . .

I went all through Z's pregnancy with no-one . . . I mean yes, I do have Bec(and not discounting her great advice and help) but I needed my Mum and she wasn't there . . .

I just think over how many things in Em and Z's lives that she has missed out on and it hurts so bad.

Jade is incredibly close with her Mum, the way I was before Mum's sickness took over . . . I just hope she appreciates how lucky she is . . .

I wish her all the best and hope she has a very calm, uneventful next 8 months.

The little things . . .

. . . can make you feel so good :) I went to our local fruit and vege shop (well not the most local, but it is near Dad and they grow a lot of their own produce) and took along some home made f+v bags. Nothing special, just tule bags with a drawstring, figuring that even if I save 5 plastic bages a week with my f+v that it saves 260 plastic bags a year. I paid for my purchase and as I walked out I heard the person who served me say to teh other person working there (perhaps the owner??) "Did you see those bags she had? What a great idea!!" and the other person agreed with her and said that they are surprised more people don't do that!!

That put a smile on my face for the rest of the day . . . :)

Swapping goodness :)

I received my swap from an "Upcycle Swap" I participated in on Nappycino today . . . a copy of Backyard Self Sufficiency by Jackie French :D:D:D I have been looking for a copy of this book for MONTHS!!! It is out of stock at the publishers and I haven;t had any luck finding one secondhand either.

A HUGE thankyou to my swap buddy Amy for such a thoughful gift . . .you stalked me well lol

Garden notes

This post is more a diary entry for me to remind me when I planted things lol

Today I planted:

4 garlic cloves (don't know how these will go, they are meant to be a winter crop up here . . .)

1 tomato sprout (only popped up a couple of days ago!)

5 lettuce seeds

2 rockmelon seeds which I found sprouting in the worm farm!!

I removed the pak choy - which had gone to seed, harvested 3 carrots (very small!!), moved the capsicum from the top tier to the second . . . um I think that is it!

I have quite a few tomatoes coming up and have harvested 3 (small) capsicums from that plant but no other flowers in sight. My loofa seeds have also sprouted and I am quite excited to see how that grows! I have visions of giving the female in laws home grown loofas and ho,e made beauty products for Christmas . . . who knows if that will happen though!!