Christmas, family and the electric fence - building great traditions

As I mentioned in my recent articles, I just love Christmas. Christmas is a great time of year for traditions.

I’ve decided after much thought and observation, that traditions create a sense of security, comfort and togetherness. Traditions shape childhood memories, and they are usually fond ones (unless your family traditions included walking barefooted through a bindi patch on Christmas Eve…unlucky).  Traditions may just be something you have just always done. It doesn’t have to have any great meaning behind it, it doesn’t have to be symbolic or spiritual, it just has to be done…and then done again the next time…and then the time after that (that’s what makes it a tradition).

The familiarity and predictability of rituals or traditions not only create a sense of security, but are also a great source of fun, excitement and anticipation.

We live in such a fast paced techno-gadgety-digital-drivethru-world I think it’s good to take a time out from it, and spend some quality time with the fam-bam making warm and fuzzy memories.

It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it usually involves quality time, which means not staring at your phone the whole time. Sometimes as a parent I actually have to force myself to not take a photo, and to just be in the moment. I do like taking photos, but I don’t want my view of my children’s lives to only be through the screen of a iPhone held at arms length.

Growing up there was an entire neighbourhood that would decorate their houses with painted timber cut outs (of Santa, elves, Nativities etc) and lights. Unbelievably fairy light weren’t invented when I was a kid (does that mean I’m old?). The lights people used were those big coloured light bulbs on a string or spotlights shining on the cut outs. Our family (with many others) made it a tradition every year to walk the whole neighbourhood and oooh and aaah at all the displays. It was pure magic!

We also used to visit a particularly nice Nativity scene at a shopping centre. I remember every year trying to see baby Jesus’ face in the manger…I could never quite see it. I would have loved to climb over the railing and pick him up and just get a good look at Him.

On Christmas Eve we started having a family dinner with all our extended family. There were all the usual festive foods, crackers, carols and laughter. Christmas Eve dinner has become a real highlight for me.

Christmas morning, after the presents, we went to church. All the kids proudly taking along their favourite toy and blatantly showing it off to all the other kids doing the same thing.

Christmas lunch, we again had a family meal with the extended family. On both sides of my family it was tradition that the family patriarch would be ‘Santa’ and sit by the Christmas tree and call the cousins names out to come and get their presents!!   

With my kids, we still do dinner on Christmas Eve, we look at light displays, but I’ve started a new tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm and cutting down a real tree. We also have a craft day with the cousins and make something Christmassy. This year we are making candles and decorating pine cones.

This was last years tree selection process. What this picture doesn't convey is how hot it was...42 degrees!! Far different from the snow dusted scenes in story books. 'Watch out for snakes' I kept reminding them, which was a bit silly as it would have been way too hot for snakes.

 

 

My Dutch friend told me about Sinterklass (Dutch Santa). Apparently his birthday is the 6^th of December, he was a real person after all, and if you leave your shoe by the fireplace before his birthday, he comes and leaves chocolate and biscuits in your shoe!! We did it this year and the kids thought it was great so that’s a new tradition that we are going to adopt.

We have loads of little traditions that I won’t bore you with, but the important thing is we do them, and we have fun as a family. Hopefully one day my kids will pass these traditions down to their kids.

This years selection process. Chose a much milder day, and waited until late afternoon...very pleasant.

For kids the Christmas magic is in the belief and in the anticipation, for parents the magic is in watching their children’s excited faces and I imagine for grandparents the magic is watching their children watch their children. Now that would be pretty special.

So what are your family traditions? Inheritance isn’t always money or property…it may be a tradition you have started!

We all probably have some similar traditions like carols, crackers, paper hats and ham, but why don't you start a new one that is unique and meaningful to your family. "Now come on family its time to tie an onion on your belt and all hold hands while grandpa touches the electric fence."

I'd love to hear about any special or unique traditions your family keeps.

Have fun and be merry and keep family traditions alive.

x

The lazy persons festive bunting. Quick and easy.

Deck the halls this Christmas with my 'lazy persons festive bunting'. I love the idea of lovingly cutting out fabric and stitching it all together...but it aint going to happen. It's quick, easy and cheap. I made some last year to decorate the house for a Christmas party thinking it wouldn't last and I could just toss it after Christmas, but I packed it away and what do you know...it looks as good this year as it did the last! It was so effective that throughout the year I've made easter bunting and birthday bunting as well.
All you need is a stapler, scissors, ribbon and a festive themed pad of scrapbooking paper (which you can pick up from dollar shops or Big W etc).

 

 

 

 

 

Below. Fold opposite corners of the paper together to make a big triangle. 

 

 

 

Then fold the corners together again to make a smaller triangle. Press the fold line together well.

 

 

 

Cut across to make two triangles as shown. These will have the paper print on both sides.

 

Use all different colours and patterns if you feel adventurous. Lay them out flat ready to staple. You will end up with a spare bit of paper that you can make other Christmas crafts with.

 

Staple the side together to stop them opening.

 

Now staple them onto ribbon. Make sure you use even spacing, this will make them look nice.

 

I use three staples along the top.

 

Here is the finished product.

 

 

 

 I have probably made 15 metres of it and wouldn't have even used half the pad of paper.

 

Have fun.

x

"Hey Mum, Is Santa Real?"

Christmas is around the corner. Truthfully, I get really excited about the silly season…maybe even more so than the kids. I remember as a kid standing on the back steps searching the starry Christmas Eve sky for Santa and his sleigh. I actually convinced myself that I saw him!

I think most people remember that moment when they found out Santa wasn’t real. I wasn’t very old, maybe four or five. I had left Santa a gift under the tree. A rubber from the church bookshop that said ‘God loves you”. He needed to know! Anyway, later on in the year I happened to find the same rubber in my mum’s wardrobe and I just put two and two together.

My kids have grown up believing in the guy in the red suit. If they asked me directly if Santa was real I wouldn’t lie to them, but they just never have. Every year we thought it would be the last.  We expected them to come home from school with this knowledge passed on by friends, but this has never happened!!

As a nurse I try to distract patients with chatter while changing dressings or jabbing them with needles etc. I’d had a discussion with one patient, an elderly man, about when I should tell my son about Santa. I never thought we would be the ones to break it to him…I just figured childhood would take care of it for me. But he was getting older and more than anything I wanted to prevent some major embarrassment at school. The patient said “oh no, don’t tell him. Let him believe while he is a child. Once you take that magic away from him you can’t get it back. Let him be a child for a bit longer.” It’s true. We seem to be in such a hurry these days to make our kids grow up. Suddenly the whole Santa issue seemed to signify childhood and innocence and it made me sad because it meant my baby was no longer a baby…he was growing up (sniff).

Not so long after that I said to my husband that I think it may be time to give our oldest the birds and the bees talk (he is currently 10). My husband who has the remarkable talent of seeing all things clearly said “he can’t know about sex and still believe in Santa”. So true. So he told him about Santa. Talking to my son about it later I asked if he was disappointed. He said “kinda. I figured the Easter bunny wasn’t real, or the tooth fairy (because that’s ridiculous), but Christmas is so magical, I’m a bit sad”.

I know some people are firmly against the big guy in the red suit. They don’t want their kids to have trust issues because they lied to them about Santa. Each to their own. I’m yet to meet an adult who links their trust issues to their parents actively promoting St Nic. A more likely source of trust issues would be being abandoned by one of your parents, or finding out your Dad had another family somewhere. If anything people seem to enjoy reminiscing about the excitement and anticipation they had as a Santa believing child. Adults would pay good money to be able to experience the same kind of excitement and glee that kids get out of Christmas. I feel like this is an opportunity that exists in childhood and I don’t want to rob my kids of that.

If you don’t want your kids to believe in Santa, that’s fine, but do me a favour, can you also tell them to not ruin it for everyone else? Last Christmas we met this little girl at a party. The first thing she said to my kids was “Santa isn’t real”…ahem. Some hours later I saw her run back over to her parents and say “no, we had it wrong, Santa is actually real, he really is”, all the kids standing behind her like excited chipmunks. The other kids at the party had infected her with Christmas magic. The dads face was hilarious as he looked at his daughter and the 10 other kids behind her. I gave him my best ‘go ahead. I DARE you’ look, but he didn’t.

With all this Santa talk I don’t want to take away from the real reason for the season, the birth of Jesus. My kids are well aware of this fact and love celebrating Jesus’ birthday. We even have a Nativity based lights display out the front of our house so we can share this with our neighbours and friends. I remember singing silent night and away in a manger as a girl thinking they were the most beautiful songs in the world. The words really painted a picture for me of the miracle that took place in that stable all those years ago.

Christ is always going to be the centre of Christmas. Over the years (or millennia) cultural and religious traditions have formed around Christmas. I know there are lots of people who will tell me I’m wrong, but I feel that in Australia we have so few cultural traditions that I have decided that I’m going to milk this one for all its worth…that includes Santa.

I think I’ll leave it there. I think my next post will be about building traditions in your family and given the time of the year it will probably be about some fun Christmas traditions and activities.

Until then,

X

Insta...sham and Fake...book

"Love my reading room. Its my quiet place,
no kids allowed...aah, the serenity"

First of all, I want you to know I love social media. I think it is great. I get to keep in contact with friends and family in other towns, states and other countries. I get to see my nieces and nephews several times a week, even though they live two hours away. I’ve never had a problem with negative comments or internet trolls (despite having a friend that’s a troll….you know who you are Smeng Shmolson), after all you can pick and choose who gets to view your stuff. I love that on Instagram you can search your favourite hash tag and find people all around the world who share similar interests. They can inform you, inspire, educate or make you laugh. I usually search gardening related topics. If you search ‘home grown’ you find a lot of pot growers. I hash tagged ‘tampon’ once because I posted a photo of my 5 year old who had made a boat that he had decorated with tampons (he has no idea), then I searched the hash tag to see what else came up…well thousands and thousands of people all over the world with nose bleeds popped up, and they all of course had jammed a tampon up their nose. They all had the same great idea. People are funny.

There is of course the more overtly negative topics you can search, which I have no interest in dwelling on, but many would, and access is as simple and easy. In a few years my children will be teenagers, and the fact that so much harmful content is so easily available frightens me, but that’s a whole other topic and not what I want to talk about today.

Amongst family, friends and acquaintances the negative side of social media is more subtle. Sunshine, rainbows, concerts, parties, waterfalls, kids looking angelic (not at all like the little monsters they are), tender family moments, exotic holiday snaps and healthy food pics…all these pictures scream “see, isn’t my life perfect!!” Photos are cropped, styled and filtered to look their best. It’s only natural that we want to share fun and interesting things, I mean, who wants to see the boring bits of your life? Not me. That’s what Twitter is for…because everyone wants to know you are in a line at the supermarket. Not. That’s why I’m not on Twitter.

I’m as guilty as anyone of doing this. When I look back over all the pictures I’ve posted…I’m impressed. My kids look like they are having a great time, my garden looks to be flourishing, I give the impression I’m eating all things healthy straight from the garden. These things are true sometimes, but not all the time, but all you ever see on social media is the ‘sometimes’ moments and the viewers are left with the impression that it is ‘all the time’. For adults, I think this is where the main danger of social media lies. We watch all our friends having the most wonderful time during their exciting day, and their kids are having the most magical, educational experiences. You see a snap of your friends kids participating at a ‘how things move’ workshop at the Powerhouse Museum on your newsfeed. You glance over your shoulder at your kids plonked in front of the TV watching Postman Pat, in their pyjamas, eating an evil ‘grain’ based breakfast, at 10 AM…and you feel bad.

"So healthy organic dried home grown bananas
fertilised by the grass fed cow I keep as a pet. The kids eat
them like lollies. Personally I like to follow with a
chaser of a raw, gluten free, vegan, organic green
smoothie made in my thermo mix. "

We just can’t help comparing and potentially having thoughts of ‘I wish my life was that exciting, my kids are missing out, why wasn’t I invited to that party?’ etc

There is a group on social media that I have dubbed ‘the hubby lovers’. Women who post pics of their husband with gushy comments. ‘Love this man, best husband ever, love my hubby, my hubby and me, me and my man’ etc. That’s nice and lovely, but the max quota for this kind of pic is twice a month…not every day. It’s like you’re trying to convince everyone that you have this amazing relationship, or maybe you are trying to convince yourself?? Who knows, but if I was a troll, I’d comment “get a room”. My husband doesn’t engage in social media, so I don’t bother posting my sentiment for the world to see…I like to tell him to his face.

There is also a lot of product placement that goes on, which for the most part is probably intentional. It was this fact that motivated me to write this article. Someone I’m following had posted a picture of the kids playing in the backyard, but had unnecessarily angled the photo so you could see the ocean in the background. I get it, you have a house on the beach. Now we all know and think you are appropriately awesome. A picture of your cat may seem benign, but have carefully placed your new Louis Vuitton handbag right next to it…we can’t miss it, and even though you caption may read ‘I love my Snowball’, it actually says, ‘check out my new $5000 handbag, yeah that’s right, I’m rich. Didn’t you know? Well now you do.’ I personally think spending that much money on a handbag makes you stupid, and probably in debt, don’t get me started.



"I remember that one time
this room was clean
before the kids trashed it and I had to hang the washing out
in it because I only remembered late last night I'd left wet
 washing in the machine and the kids needed dry uniforms for
 the next morning
...aah, the serenity"

I hope I don’t sound cynical. I really just want to remind you that when you see and read things on social media it is usually just a snapshot of the best bits of people’s day, week or year. Enjoy, appreciate and admire their experiences, but don’t ever let them get you down, because their life has as many boring bits as yours. When people product place in their photos, see it for what it is, and wonder why they feel they need to do this.

I was going to create a insta-sham day for your enjoyment (complete with product placement), but I have run out of time and energy. So my two brief examples will have to suffice.

"Yummy, dehydrated bananas. Better feed them
to the kids to offset the Happy Meal they ate
in the car."

 

Until next time

x

 

How To Grow Raspberries

 

There is nothing better than fresh raspberries. They are this amazing combination of taste and texture. They are these velvety little vitamin bombs that explode taste when you squish them to the roof of your mouth. I have always felt that buying raspberries at the supermarket is an extravagance. They have to be the most expensive item per gram in the fresh food section. I remember seeing punnets of raspberries (which is really probably 2/3 of a cup) selling for $14!!!! When I say selling, I mean just sitting on the shelf, because who could honestly justify paying that much for a handful of berries. The only kind of person I can think of that might justify that cost, is a would-be-boyfriend trying to impress a girl with a home cooked three course meal, desert requiring fresh raspberry garnish. Oh the dilemma. Come up with a new desert to impress, or fork out for fresh berries???

I know they aren’t normally quite that expensive, but it got me thinking about how hard these berries must be to grow to be so pricey. After doing a little research I discovered it’s not that they are hard to grow, it’s that they don’t ripen after they are picked, so they have to be picked ripe and therefore don’t have a long shelf life. They also can only be handled once, as they bruise easily, so they are picked and placed straight in the punnet, packed into crates and transported to market.

Well I’ve decided I want loads of these tasty treats so I’m giving growing my own a try. Below I’ve covered the steps for planting raspberry canes. I’ve only planted mine recently so I can’t say I’m sipping on home grown raspberry daiquiris just yet, but maybe next year. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve embraced a ‘no dig technique’ with my gardening which is basically as it sounds. Instead of digging into the ground you place soil/mulch onto the ground building a mound in which to plant things. What you will need is newspaper, soil/mulch, raspberry canes and a trellis. The trellis is used to support the canes. I concreted two posts into the ground and strung some wire up between them, but an existing fence or star stakes and wire would work as well. Raspberries like a rich, well drained soil in a sunny position that is also protected from strong winds.

 

1.       Layout newspaper where you want your garden to go. This will kill off the grass underneath and stop weeds popping up in-between. Picture below is showing my two original canes so we laid the newspaper around them.

2.       Mound up your soil and mulch. I’m using mushroom compost mixed with soil as that’s what I have at hand.

3.       Plant all your canes allowing half a meter or so between each one, ensuring that their roots are totally covered (a little helper comes in handy).

 

4.       Raspberries don’t like to dry out so make sure you water them in well.

5.       Apply a thick layer of sugar cane mulch over the soil as this will help them to not dry out (not pictured).

The canes will eventually send out suckers and other canes will pop up next to the original. Canes produce fruit once or twice a year depending on variety, then they die back. By the time that happens new canes have appeared and they will produce the fruit for the next season. The idea is that your original cane multiplies into a thicket. I bought 8 different varieties from www.diggers.com.au which will fruit throughout the year which will hopefully mean I end up with something like a regular supply.

Well, for those feeling adventurous why don’t you give it a go?

 

This is me digging a post hole for the trellis...if you've never dug a post hole, well...you don't know what you are missing out on.

 

 

 

 

How to re-vamp, re-use and restore.

I try to decorate my house with things that I like, that are interesting and have a story. Sometimes the story is in how I came to find the piece, which more often or not is eBay, or council clean up.  It’s some sort of subconscious challenge I give myself…to get something awesome, for nothing. It’s not about being tight (although saving money is definitely a big plus), it’s about the creative challenge and finding unique pieces that can’t just be bought. I definitely think it is a skill to be able to find the potential in something that has been thrown curb side, and not everyone has that skill. If you think you have an eye for it, but lack the hands on know-how to revamp your find, then keep reading.

That’s not to say I don’t like new things…I mean who wants an old lounge or an old mattress, yuck. Even I have my limits. I definitely feel myself rebelling against societies pressure to have everything new, up-to-date, the latest trend. I loved that my Grandparents house always stayed the same. My Grandma would serve tea in the same cups that her mother did. The playing cards that we played with were the same ones my Dad played with. Grandma mixed ingredients with the same spoons for 65 years until they literally wore down. There was certainly a sense of comfort and stability that came from the familiar objects in their home.

When Grandma died, I got her spoons. That’s what I wanted. To me they tell a story of a bygone era. Where women were housewives, they physically worked hard yet were expected to appear well ironed while doing it, they bought or were given quality items when they were married in the hope they would last a life-time and serve their family well. Grandma baked and cooked from scratch every single day of her life, that is how those spoons were worn down. Women still work hard today, but in a different way. Today, nothing gets worn down. It either breaks and is tossed, or a newer, better one comes out and it is tossed to make way for the new purchase.

It’s kind of sickening all the waste that happens and not just from an environmental standpoint. I hate that society as a whole is made to feel that they need the ‘latest’ to fit in and be acceptable. Young women will put a $5000 handbag on a credit card because they just ‘needed’ it, or at least made to feel they did to fit in and be seen as a worthwhile person…seriously? To me it’s a kind of illness.

I want my home to be a welcoming place. A place where relationships can grow and memories made. A place that represents creativity, stability and family. I know it comes down to personal taste, but I definitely don’t want it to look clinical or sleek. I want it to look like a family lives here. I want to see evidence of life in the objects it holds. Everybody has a personal style, and my house definitely all me. Is your house you, or have you let the marketing genius from the 2012 summer collection decide that for you? Baaaaa (if the answer is yes, then yes, you are a sheep).

Anyway. Here is a quick ‘How To” re-vamp something that is old. I recently bought on eBay this pine dresser for $70. Pine generally is pretty crappy and it looks really 90’s country. They used to make furniture out of oak and walnut, but they are too slow growing for our societies taste for disposable furniture. Pines are a fast growing tree, which makes it a practical choice for plantations. All that said, this is a really solid piece of furniture. We have a walk-in pantry, which also doubles as a laundry. Bit of a bad combo. I had open shelving for all the food, but practically it was a really bad idea. Aside from looking really messy, it wasn’t really big enough and everything was getting covered with lint every time I used the dryer. This dresser will hopefully solve some of my problems. I decided to paint it a solid colour. Fortunately I had paint left over from another project, so I just used that.

<cough> I know, its bad.

 

 

1.       Give the whole thing a light sand. You need to create a surface for the paint to stick to. Ideally it should be sanded back to the timber…but there is no way I am that bothered. Also remove any handles and the glass if you are able. A professional would say to remove the doors and hinges, but I’m not a professional, so I just pained right over them. When you are finished, wipe it over with a damp cloth to remove all the dust.

 

 

2.       Next apply an undercoat or primer with a paintbrush. This is important because it is designed to stick better than the top coat, while also providing a better surface for your paint to stick to. The one I used also promises to block out stains which is important when painting timbers as the tannins will want to bleed through to the top coat.

 

 

3.       Paint the top coat. I did two coats. I also used a gloss, because this is just what I had. Glosses are hard wearing. I would normally have probably chosen a satin finish which is somewhere in between a matt and gloss. I find matt finishes are harder to clean and get grubbier quicker.

4.       I put new handles on. I happened to have these already from another project.

 

 

5.       I lined the shelves with scrapbooking paper, just to protect the shelves really while the paint was hardening…also looks nice.

 

 

6.       Da-daaaaa. Installed in my pantry/laundry.

 

 

These steps could be applied to any furniture. Next time you’re driving along and see an old timber chair on a curb-side clean up pile pull over and jam it into your boot.

Just to show you a few more re-vamp projects I have done. I bought our bed on eBay. It came from France and is 100 years old. It was upholstered in blue velvet that smelled 100 years old so I re-upholstered it in a white leather (pleather really). It has hand carved roses and forget-me-knots at the head, foot, sides and legs. I love it and want to keep it until I'm a little old lady.

The bedside tables I found on the side of the road. They were white, but I just painted them a bright watermelon colour. I wanted something fun to take away from the antiqui-seriousness of our bed and I think they do the job just great. I was trying to post more pics but my computer has chosen this moment to have a melt down. Until next time...x

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home Grown Blog #1

I’ve been encouraged by friends to start a blog. When I voiced I had nothing interesting to write about I was reminded that I don’t live like the average Sydneysider and other people may find it interesting. Don’t worry, It’s not too whacky. If you are looking for a devotional, food-for-your-soul, heart wrenching, hilarious, motivational blog, well this may not be the one for you. It’s going to be way more practical than that, in the most literal sense. I think it will be more of a city-girl-moves-to-the-counry and all that entails type blog.

We made the decision a few years ago to move from Sydney suburbia to Sydney rural, and are embracing the change. So what is country life like? From where I sit now, out of all of my windows, I can see acres of paddock, horses and morning sun streaming through the gum trees. Fresh air, space for the kids to run free, wood fires, far away neighbours are just some of the benefits. My morning rituals now include (after a coffee) going up to the hen houses to collect eggs and make sure everyone has food and water (aah, did I mention I have taken up breeding chickens?), and watering the veggie garden, seedlings or the new orchard I have planted. When we move in I bought the kids leather boots as protection against snake bites. They ended up being kicked off in the yard and rained on. Ruined. Now they just go bare footed. I have drilled in snake bite first aid. “What do you do if you get bitten by a snake?”, all three reply in a drone “lay down and call for help”. They know how to call an ambulance and apply pressure dressings. We saw a red-belly and a brown snake the first season after we moved in, but since cutting the grass low (and getting a dog) we haven’t seen any.

Another rural hazard in our area are deer (yes, seriously). Particulary when I drive home from work late at night I continually scan the sides of the road for deer waiting to leap suicidally in front of my car. Judging by the road kill, kangaroos, foxes, possums, turtles, lizards, snakes and rabbits more suicidal/stupid than the deer. I remember Miss 7 pouting with arms folded across her chest in the back seat of the car after I pointed out a fox carcass we zoomed past too fast for her to see. “It’s not fair. You never stop so I can see them!”. True, so then next time we passed a fresh, mostly intact fox, I pulled over and all the kids piled out to examine. I must admit, it was kinda cool seeing one up close. Nasty sharp teeth, but beautiful fur.

Road kill does have one benefit. Septic systems basically run on bacteria. Sometimes the bacteria numbers can be affected by excessive water, household cleaners or a disproprotionate amount of vegetarian poo. If a septic is working correctly it doesn’t smell. If it starts to smell, there isn’t enough bacteria, and this is where the road kill comes in handy…just add a ripe carcas to your tank (vomit) and voila, problem solved! Everyone who wants a septic tank raise your hand now….umm, no one, that’s odd.

Without really knowing what I will blog about I imagine it will be fairly practical around topics such as gardening, chickens, parenting and the art of living simply. I’m sure there will be a series of ‘how to’s’. I do have a personal goal of living self sufficiently…I use that term loosely as I don’t plan to live off the grid, or collect methane from the septic tank to heat the house in winter. I would however like to grow all our own fresh fruit and veggies. I have been inspired to do this (unbeknownst to him) by my Dad and his veggie patch. My parents live on a regular suburban block, yet manage to produce a huge amout of food for the table. At the moment they have one mandarin tree that is laden with fruit. In summer there were so many tomatoes we ended up making the most delicious sundried tomatoes in the dehydrator, and made litres and litres of ‘Grandma’s tomato chutney’ which is being stored in jars and will last until next season. They have herbs, spring onions, spinach, Chinese cabbage, passionfruit vines over the fence with hundreds of passionfruit on them, ginger, sweet potatoes, corn and beetroot. Nearly every time we eat at Nanny and Pa’s house my mum sends the kids down to the garden to pick the meal! I can tell you now, my dad doesn’t spend a huge amount of time in his small garden and none the less, it is so productive.

Chickens! Well chickens are just fantastic, and unless you live in a unit, you should get some. That actually reminds me…a Real Estate agent friend of my husband said once he had complaints from tenants in an apartment building that black water was running down their walls. He went to the apartment above to investigate the cause and was flabbergasted to find the people in the upstairs apartment had converted their lounge room into a rice paddy! True story. They had also removed their kitchen cupboard doors and replaced them with chicken wire and had a chicken run in the kitchen. They must have had the self-sufficient dream too! Anyway, chickens are really easy to keep, they will eat all of your kitchen and table scraps, they will eat your grass clippings, they are quiet, they produce eggs, they don’t need a big area, they produce the most amazing fertilizer, they make the best pets and kids love them. Need I say more.

On the topic of parenting, I’m not going to pretend I know it all, but I have developed a few theories on things that I would like to share. Take it or leave it. I have to be honest, I think parenting advice is often the most annoying kind of advice so I will share sparingly as to not drive you all away. I will say I am incorporating gardening, chickens and living simply into my good parenting strategy, I have my reasons, and will expand on these at some point. In a nutshell, I think it is important that children are given ‘real life’ experiences, not just synthetic, man-made, marketing-at-its-best, all-the-cool-kids-have-one, type experiences.

I hope you enjoy my blogs. Stay tuned for more and don’t worry, they won’t all include road-kill and septic tank management.

X