Spring is in the Air!

There has been a definite change in the weather in the last week or so. We're pulling jumpers off by 10am, and changing into shorts at 10pm! Nights are cooler, but nothing like what they were a mere few weeks ago. I swear that the sunshine even LOOKS different, and it just FEELS like spring.

A few days ago, the wood ducks that live on the neighbours dam bought their 3 tiny ducklings for a wander across our paddock, and the flowers are covered in bees.

In the spirit of this seasonal change, we've had a very relaxing weekend. After a somewhat rocky start, we spent Saturday at the beach on Bribie Island. The water was still cold, but that didn't stop DD getting as soaking wet as she could without actually immersing herself. We collected shells and rocks worn smooth by the waves, and even managed to get the kite in the air. We were all pleasantly relaxed and exhausted after that, so we came home, had a barbeque dinner, and had an early night.

This morning spring grabbed me at the markets, and I bought up big on fruit trees to add to the orchard. I bought a peachcot (cross between an apricot and a peach, never tasted one before), a yellow Dorset apple (different to the apple I have now), and a Eureka Lemon. I also bought another passionfruit vine to plant in the front garden. This brings my fruit tree total to 20 (I think, I'll have to count them again to be sure!) I've also ordered a pair of kiwi fruit vines, which should arrive in the next few weeks. I'll have to figure out where I'm going to put them though!

We also bought another 30m of hose, and ran it up the back, as watering the garden and fruit trees has become a nightmare. I'm afraid to say that for the most part my garden takes it's chances with water. I water when planting, and sporadically here and there, but mostly my plants have to make do with the rainfall. Unfortunately it's hasn't really 'rained' above a 2 minute sprinkle for a month or more now, so the poor garden is feeling it. Everything is miraculously still growing, but I'm sure it'd be doing better for a little water.

So this afternoon, with DH's help, I watered every tree in the orchard! DH sat on a stool and filled buckets for me (the hose only just reaches the orchard, it won't reach most of the actual trees, and with water restrictions it's supposed to be bucket watering only anyway) while I delivered them to all the trees. It was quite a job, but hopefully we'll see some results in the trees. In reality, we should do it again in a week if it doesn't rain.

I've had a half dozen mulberries off the mulberry tree though, and the peaches are growing and look so cute! We also have a half a dozen baby nectarines, and the citrus trees have all been flowering for the last few weeks. The passionfruit has buds on it (only the black one, not the yellow one yet), and the loofah vine, far from dying, is putting out new shoots and flowers.

Growing things is so exciting! I go up often just to see what our trees are doing, and each new fruit or flower, no matter how small, gives me a real thrill. I can't wait until the orchard is really productive, and we're picking enough fruit to really make a contribution to our meals.

Flying Along

DD came up to me today with this picture she had drawn, and told me they were balloons. She solemnly explained that 'those ones are a long long way away, and these are closer', and that the balloons were really all the same size. I was totally blown away by her grasp of perspective, as although we've probably mentioned it to her before, I didn't really expect her to take in what I think is quite a complex concept.

Sometimes I think we defeat ourselves with our own expectations. We expect a child to be able to do certain things at a certain age, and that is all we see. If we don't listen carefully, we will miss these little moments that show us that a child's mind is amazing, and not something you should ever underestimate.

I have no idea when children normally develop this concept, DD could be right on track with it for all I know, but none the less I am amazed at how her brain develops. It's a privilege to have the experience of watching it as it happens.

And it's so obvious right now, she's jumping ahead in leaps and bounds. Along with her drawing ability (which is sketchy and intermittent!), she's really into constructing things out of blocks, boxes, paper, anything she can get her hands on. We cleaned up these 'pop-onz' the other day in one of our decluttering races (will have to post about those some day, they're fun!), and she's had a wonderful time making all sorts of structures out of them, and putting them together in ways that wouldn't even occur to me. She immediately decided one of the blocks was a window box, and has added flowers to decorate it.

It has also been amazing the last week watching her interacting with her new baby cousin. She's already besotted with her, and when she had a cuddle today, the expression on her face was akin to the expression on my sisters when she first held her too, simple wonder and love. It was beautiful to watch. And she is so gentle and patient with her too, quite different to our usual bouncy, excitable child. I am really looking forward to watching their relationship develop over the next few years.

As for formal homeschooling, we're waiting for next year, when hopefully we'll all be settled into our new home properly, to start. I have lots of plans, but right now we're so busy still, with decluttering, organising, and of course, cuddling the new baby, to really be thinking about schooling. And of course, we're learning so much every day that who has time to stop and do worksheets. Well, aside from mazes, which DD enjoyed the other day, and a few dot-to-dots...

Welcome to a new Baby

Sorry for the recent lack of posting, but I've been otherwise occupied. On Sunday morning, my sister gave birth to a baby girl. My mother, DD and I stayed near the hospital in a motel, and attended the birth. DD slept the night away in an empty birthing room while I got to privilege of seeing my first real birth. Yes, I've given birth myself, but you don't quite get to see that, you're so caught up in doing it.

My sister was amazing. She was planning on using the gas, but it made her feel sick, so she went totally natural, and did a wonderful job 'singing' her baby out.

While I hope to find more time to get back to posting now, it might be a few more days before we have pictures, as I lent my camera to my sister when hers broke in the heat of the moment. I did get some beautiful pictures for her though, that I'm sure she'll treasure for years to come.

Homeschooling Resources - Puzzles

Since the early days of planning to homeschool, I've put a lot of effort into collecting resources that will enhance DD's experience and learning. We started with puzzles very early on, somewhere between 6 and 12 months (my memory is a little fuzzy at this point), and DD was soon whizzing around doing the simple wooden peg puzzles with ease. These have now been packed away for my niece who is due to arrive within the next month.

Finding more complex puzzles was a bit of a challenge though. They jumped from simple single piece puzzles to ones that were far too complex for a toddler. But persistence paid off, and here and there we found some real gems. My mum found this bear dressing puzzle, with lots of different costumes for the bear family.

These shape puzzles I found for a couple of dollars each at a bargain store. They are surprisingly complicated, and offer a lot of opportunities for developing an understanding of fractions.

These shaped multi piece puzzles we bought at Judius, an educational store that supplies many schools and educational resources (along with some great musical supplies, which I'll detail in another post when I find the box they're all packed in). She loves these dinosaurs. The bird and dolphin aren't quite as popular, but still get done on occasion.

However, my all time favourite are these ones that I bought at Dragonfly Toys last week. To start with, they are simply beautiful to look at. I could stare at them all day, couldn't you?

But more than that, these puzzles offer real opportunities for developing creativity. Unlike other puzzles, there is no right way to put these together. Yes, they come in an original configuration, but the possibilities of these puzzles are limited only by your imagination. They each come with pictures showing some possible combinations, and DD quickly tried out some of these, following the pictures surprisingly easily.

She then quickly moved on to coming up with her own patterns. There is so much to learn in what appears to be a simple rainbow puzzle. The colours of the spectrum, size differences, visual discrimination, manipulation skills, and probably half a dozen other things that I'm not even aware of.

Even I was inspired to try my hand at some different patterns. I think that's the sign of a really great toy, that it's simple enough to inspire children, and even the adults want to have a turn playing with it. We played with these puzzles for nearly an hour when they arrived in the post. The other two puzzles are a little more complicated, and while DD has enjoyed pulling them apart and putting the pieces back in random colours, she probably still has a little way to go before she's ready to start experimenting with colours and patterns. No doubt we'll have a lot of fun with them over the next year though.

With so many puzzles, it's a challenge to keep them organised. Our order to Judius included this puzzle rack, which works really well for the flat A4 sized puzzles, which we still have plenty of. In this stack are some letter and number puzzles, a map of Australia, and some other multi-piece puzzles.

That still left a lot of puzzles with lots of pieces, but no boards. Originally we stored these in plastic cliplock bags, but aside from my dislike of plastic, these would quickly get crumpled and dirty. I wanted some sort of reusable storage for these puzzles. My first thought was drawstring bags, but the fact that you couldn't see what was inside was a definite drawback to that idea. So I decided to make them out of netting. DD loves these, and loves putting the puzzle pieces into them (very helpful when it comes to the tidying up part of the day), and it's very easy to see what is inside of each one. Unfortunately, the netting doesn't appear to be very strong, and a few of the bags have ripped already. I plan to line them with a second piece of (hopefully) stronger material from our mosquito nets, which should remedy this. I'll probably make a few extra bags too, since I think there are a few more puzzles that could benefit from ending up in bags.

Washing Liquid

I had a whole list of things that I wanted to get done today, but seeing as many of them related to organising DD's playroom, a project I'm stumped on right now, they didn't get achieved. I did manage to make another batch of washing liquid though, and since I haven't mentioned it before, I thought I'd do a post on it.

For quite a while I've bought a laundry liquid labeled as 'green', although I've never really been satisfied with the list of chemicals in it. Just because something is derived from a natural product, or is biodegradable, doesn't automatically make it safe in my book. Then I read this article about 'greenwashing' (click on 'show transcript to get the full article), which is basically how companies use key phrases to make their products seem more green. It's a fascinating reading, and just confirmed what I was already thinking. Since we have a biological home treatment plant, with all the water being pumped by drip irrigation to my fruit trees, what we put into that system is of even more concern to me. Unfortunately it seems that as in many cases, the only way you can be sure of what your getting, is to do it yourself.

Rhonda over at Down to Earth has this recipe for home made laundry liquid on her webpage. Personally I'm not too happy using borax. It's one of those natural, but not really safe chemicals to me, and anyway, it's a no-no for septic systems. So I cut that out. Washing soda, which is basically a salt, I didn't really want to put in either, and after looking around the web, it's mainly used for softening hard water. Since we have tank water, it's about as soft as it gets, so I figured I didn't really need it anyway. That leaves... um... soap and water. Nice and basic. I bought the el cheapo home brand washing soap, and from memory, it was less than $2 for 4 bars. I'm not completely happy with it, since it still has fragrances etc added, but it was all I could find. Once this packet runs out, I'll use my own home made soap (which is another post for another day).

Anyway, it's really simple to make. Basically, you grate a cake of soap, put it into a saucepan with 1.5 litres of water, and cook it until the soap all dissolves. (Watch it carefully, it boils over really easily, although it's just as easy to clean off the stove. I was distracted making origami paper water bombs at the time.) Then add that to a bucket with about 8 litres of water in it, and mix it all up. That's all there is to it.

I store it in this plastic 10 litre lidded bucket that I bought for $2 at the markets. It used to hold yogurt. Then I put about 2 litres at a time into a leftover plastic bottle from my last lot of commercial laundry liquid, and use a capful at a time in the machine. It goes quite thick initially, then thins down and becomes globby after a while. Not sure if that was because I didn't dissolve the soap well enough, or because I didn't add all the washing sodas and stuff to it. It works fine though, and the clothes come out just as clean as they always did. (Which isn't that clean, given that I have a 4 year old in the house). It works out at about 10c for a 2L bottle, so you certainly can't argue with the price! And best of all, it's just soap, so no worries about it going down the drain.

Hen Hilton

Last weekend (well, so it was Monday/Tuesday, but that's the weekend for us), saw us finishing off what is hopefully our last big project for a little while. Although the chicken shed had been cleared out, and they could get into it, they had still been sleeping (by choice) in their little shelter outside. Since it took them so long to actually sleep in it in the first place, with us having to go out every night for a week after dark and move them into the shelter, I figured that they only way to get them to sleep in the new shed would be to lock them in. However, the lack of windows meant that it was very dark in there, and I didn't really want to lock them in in the dark.

So DH cut out two panels in the colourbond, and we replaced them with some clear corrugated polycarbonate sheeting. The second 'window' is on the left hand wall.

We also added some roosts. We used natural branches rather than bought wood, as it's supposed to be better for their feet. The support boards are hanging off the shed support there on L shaped brackets, so that they can be removed if we need to give the pen a through cleaning.

And finally, some recycled nesting boxes. We're really hoping for some eggs soon!

The chickens were a little disconcerted to find their usual shelter gone, and wandered around clucking in distress for a while, and yes, after dark I had to go out and lock them in. We had one attempt to fly through the polycarbonate, then they settled, and tonight, wonder of wonders, they put themselves to bed. Now to teach them to roost...

Cool!

We had our air conditioning installed today. Yes, I know, it's not very environmentally friendly, and most of the year I doubt we'll use it (it's very warm here in the house after living in a shed!), but for those really bad days (like this one earlier in the year), I'm sure we'll be glad we have it. We were only planning on one unit in the bedroom, but prices were less than we expected, so we have one in the bedroom, and one in the living area. I decided against putting one in DD's room, as I don't think it's good for children to sleep in air conditioning. For one thing, they adjust to it, just as someone in a colder climate adjusts to that climate, and find it hard to live without it later (DH is a perfect example of this!) I also don't think DD is old enough to monitor her own temperature and set it accordingly yet. If it's a really hot/cold night, she can always join us in our room.

All went well (aside from the larger unit having no gas in it, we're going to have to contact the manufacturer about that), but it was a very unsettled day having people in our house all day. I had lots of gardening and craft planned for the day, but ended up doing very little. In the end, not wanting to have nothing to show for the day, I pulled out this material I bought at Spotlight a few days ago. It's two metres of poly/cotton (I'd prefer cotton, but couldn't find these colours in the cotton), and it is destined to be a rag rug.

First, I tore all the material into strips, a little over an inch wide. I thought tearing would be faster, and the easiest way to get straight strips, but the little bits of cotton fraying off the sides were a huge hassle. Next time, I think I'd probably fold the material, and cut with a roller cutter.

Then I joined the strips together following the instructions on this cool tutorial. Much better than most places, which suggest sewing them at a 45 degree angle. I joined them in an arranged random pattern (pink, green, pink, pink, green, pink, green, green), as I don't want it to look too neat, but I just can't do random. No matter how hard I try, I think about it too much, and it begins to take on an order of it's own.

Then I rolled it all up into a big ball. I'm planning on crocheting my rag rug, not knitting it, as I don't have big enough knitting needles. I do, however, have this nice large crochet hook, I'm not sure of the exact size, but it has a 10.00 on the side? Isn't my huge ball cool? Oh, you thought the title was about the air conditioning...

Finger Knitting

A friend recently posted a link to how to do finger knitting, so when DD asked me, as she usually does when she sees me knitting, if she could try, I gave it a go with her. If you haven't seen it before, it's worth checking out. It's not knitting in the style of two needles etc, but it does produce a long, knitted looking strip.

DD didn't get quite that far, but she did managed to produce about 3-4 inches of 'knitting', and was thrilled. It became a 'pony hammock', and when daddy came home from work, she made a second one to show him. Best of all, she felt like she had actually achieved knitting, rather than feeling like she wasn't big enough to do it.

The knitting she saw was for these new red slippers, which I finished last night. These are one of the first things I've ever pulled out because when I initially knitted them, they were too big. I did the usual 30 stitches for the slipper pattern, which worked fine for 8ply wool, and the thicker ply I had, but for some reason this bobbly stuff just didn't knit up the same. I undid it (2 nights knitting!) and re-did it with 24 stitches instead. For anyone who's wanting to try different sized slippers (especially for kids ones), the pattern works fine so long as you keep the number of stitches to a multiple of 3.

I'm glad I went to the effort, because they are just the right size at 24 stitches, 30 would have been far too big. Out of all the slippers I've knitted, I think these ones are my favourite. The bobbly wool makes a thick, soft slipper, that really is comfortable to wear. The extra thickness took me a while to get used to though, and I really felt like I was going to slip on the wooden floors initially. I'm find now, but if you think it might be a problem (again, especially with kids), you can get some puffy paint at a craft store to put dots on the bottom, which should lessen the slip risk.

Pictures of a Neglected Garden

Today's Harvest

With the new house being finished, and moving and major projects taking up all my time, my garden has been sadly neglected. About the only time I've visited it is to put scraps into the compost bin, and pause to pick a few things. It seems like no-one has told the garden it's being neglected though, since it's still producing just fine without me. The tomatoes are still chugging along. I've harvested probably a couple of kilo's of tomatoes off of the 6 plants, and have been freezing them to make tomato sauce, which hopefully I'll find time for in the next few days. The goosberries seem to like the cooler weather, or maybe it's the fact that I revamped their bed with new compost before all this started, because they've put on new growth, and lots more blueberries. The climbing peas have all fallen over and are totally tangled, but we get a handful of peas like this off them every day or two. They are certainly a good producer if you're going to grow peas! We actually cooked them tonight, just very lightly, and as with all homegrown stuff, they taste so totally different to what you buy in the stores. Almost like they're a different vegetable. DD even ate two, and she's never voluntarily eaten a pea in her life!

We also picked the first strawberry today. I've been watching this one for a few days, and this morning pronounced it good enough to eat. DD and DH shared it. Surprisingly enough, the one next to it, which isn't even showing any colour in this picture, was red enough to pick this afternoon, and I ate it before I told anyone else about it! It was beautifully sweet, without a hint of the tartness that seems to characterise store bought strawberries these days. With all the fertaliser I've been giving these, they're much bigger than they were last year, and the plants are loaded with flowers. I will be having huge jam making sessions this year. That is, if I can keep them from the hungry horde (and me)!

The potato patch that I planted about two months ago is doing well. I've been hilling the plants with dried grass and some sugarcane mulch, but no matter how much I keep hilling, they keep growing! Hoping to get a good harvest this year. There are 25 plants there, and I'm hoping for over 100 potatoes. We could start burrowing under the grass and probably harvest some small ones now, but given how many potatoes our family eats, I think it's more economical to wait till they're full size. Hopefully these will be ready to harvest within the next month. The sheets over the back fence is my half hearted attempt at frost protection. So far though, there has been no sign of a frost. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

This second, smaller potato patch near the compost bin is also doing well. There are about 16 potatoes planted here, in a much smaller area. They're probably a month behind the others, so hopefully overall we'll get enough potatoes to see us through a few months. I will plant some more soon, as I believe you can plant potatoes close to all year round here. Only problem is going to be finding seed potatoes to plant.

The seeds I planted a few weeks ago are coming up. The ones in the bottom left corner are Roma tomatoes, about 20 plants, then some sunflowers and nasturtians. Can't remember what the rest are, but I guess I'll find out!

I've also planted up some more climbing peas after the success of the last lot. I have a special spot planned for these guys though, which I shall be posting about the the next week or so hopefully.

Warm Slippers

I've been knitting slippers for our family since I went searching for a new pair, and couldn't find any that I liked. I originally started out with a self-designed pattern for a sock style slipper, but couldn't quite get it right. On top of that, they kept wearing out faster than I could darn them, possibly because of the acrylic wool I was using. So I took a leaf from my mum's book, and used a simple rectangle pattern, knitted with two strands of wool.

I started knitting this pair for DH with some leftover pure wool I had, but since they were a little too tight for him, I wear them. I do love the way the two different colours combine in these ones though. Unfortunately I ran out of wool near the end of the second slipper, so had to finish the toe in black acrylic. You can definitely tell the difference, on a cold day, that toe is a little colder than the other one.

The pattern is very simple and easy, perfect for a beginner. Basically, using two strands of wool, you cast on 30 stitches. Knit in garter stitch for a bit less than the length of your foot (they tend to stretch, so don't worry if they seem a bit tight at first). Then in the next row, knit 1, knit two together to the end of the row. The final row is knitting two stitches together all across the row. Then break off the thread, thread it through the remaining stitches, and pull them up. Use the rest of the thread to sew up the top, and the casting on thread to sew up the heel. Repeat for second slipper.

It doesn't really matter what ply you use, or what size needles. I used 8ply and 6mm needles for the first, and I think the green wool was 10 or 12 ply. For the 8ply, two 50g balls weren't quite enough, so you'll probably need three, or two and some scraps. For the thicker wool, I used nearly 2 50g balls for just one slipper, since obviously you get a shorter amount for the same weight because it's thicker. Of course, experimenting with two tones, or even stripes, could be really interesting. I use wool I've bought second hand, or have already, making them very frugal. The blue/black slippers were free, since I made them from leftovers, and the green slippers cost about $4 for the pair, from wool bought for $1 a ball at the markets.

I can knit one slipper in about 2 hours, but I'm a pretty fast knitter. Even so, they are comparatively quick to make, and they certainly are warm!

Bargains!

As usual for a Sunday morning, we headed off to the markets this morning as soon as we were awake. Didn't get much in the way of fruit and veg, as we still had plenty from last week, but in our wanderings, I spotted this wool at the back of a table. 10 balls of 100% wool, for $1 a ball! It's rather rough, so I doubt I will use it for clothes, probably it will become a lap rug or a floor mat.

The real bargain however was hidden half under the wool. A little plastic bag with these patterns in. I only saw the top one, and asked how much they were, and she said $1 for the lot! When I snapped them up, she said apologetically that they were very old! I wasn't game to tell her that these go for $5+ each on eBay!

I love looking through these. The kids clothes are so cute! A testament to the days when children were dressed like children, rather than miniature adults. Nonetheless, if you update the materials used, many of these wouldn't be out of place on today's child. Other's, of course, would certainly stand out! The patterns are simple, all drawn out from measurements rather than provided full size, and look easy to follow. I'm definitely looking forward to trying some of these for DD.

I love these adult women's clothes too! I just wish they were still in fashion! Sometimes, I think I was born in the wrong era. There are still plenty of these that could be modernised though, especially some of the teen fashions.

I'm still inspired to be crafty, but unfortunately the energy to do so isn't there. Still working hard on getting the house and garage organised. Bought down half the remaining food in the kitchen cupboard in the shed today, as well as washing two loads of materials (that the mice decided to make a bed in!), and bringing the washing machine down. That was quite a challenge with the bumpy ground, with it sliding off the trolley half way there! It still works fine though.

So instead of actually making anything, I've comforted myself with beginning to arrange my sewing room. I'm lucky enough to have an entire room for my sewing now (I'm sure my mum won't mind sleeping surrounded by crafty stuff when she comes to visit!), but even so I suspect that there isn't going to be room. We moved these two bookshelves into the built in wardrobe yesterday, and I've folded the first lot of material today. There are about two to three more loads like this, then several more boxes of material that has been sitting in the garden shed waiting for this time. I see these cupboards easily being filled with material, probably with some left over.

This leaves plenty of other items with no home so far. I've decided to dedicate this set of wire draws to the wool and knitting/crochet supplies. Again I suspect it will easily be filled. I did discover that this kitchen cutlery organiser makes a great storage for my knitting needles and crochet hooks though. Except that it could do with being an inch or two longer...

Still to find a home for my ribbons, laces and other bits and pieces, but no doubt I will find somewhere. Oh I can't wait till it is all set up, and my brain has room to actually begin on all the projects in my head (and saved on my computer).

A New Home!

For the chickens that is! We finally finished cleaning out the 3m x 3m garden shed that was planned to be for the chooks today. It's not totally set up yet, but we threw some sugarcane mulch in the corner, and a few old sticks for them to perch on in the middle, and cut a hole in the metal at the back so that they could get in and out. We curved some split hose around the edges so that they couldn't cut themselves, and secured it with race tape. Not pretty, but it works.

The chooks weren't so sure about it though. I think they were put off by the noise of cutting the metal, because when it was full of stuff, they raced in every chance they had and sat in there.

I went out to check on them at dusk, and there they all were, sitting in their tiny old house! I put them into the new one, and they sat there making pittyful clucks, then came straight back out and into the old one as soon as my back was turned! I think we're going to have to pull the old one out, and lock them in the new one for a few nights so that they get used to it.