ms. dolittle

thats me.
the only way to keep the 16 birds alive was to bring their cages inside. them and the three cats.
if there were room for 100 or so cows we may need to bring them in too because they are not looking too happy standing out in dry paddocks with not many trees around to hide under.

last night. . 11pm veda cant sleep. too hot. im trying to go to bed early so i can get up in time for the morning school rush that is a reason enough in itself to home school.
the short story is that on this hot night there was my farmer boy, me veda and amelie all squished into bed together. it would have been really sweet and snuggly in winter. last night. well not so sweet. add to that...the budgies that were so unbelievably noisy we thought that coco cat was attacking them in the middle of the night. my boy jumped out of bed to save the budgies and they were fine..just noisy. he covered their cage with cloths and told them to be quiet. which didnt work.
of course us adults woke up grumpy... veda all bright and cheery ready for another day at school in 44 degree heat. what is wrong with my child? heehe... so not like her mumma.
when i went to pick up the kids from school...spraying myself with water in the car on the way there...the temperature said 47 degrees!
oh dear. another week of this and we all might be fried. ...tempura people.

in the next week or two as amelie hopefully feels happy to stay at kindergarten without me.... i will find myself with two days a week to do as i please. that is one big scary exciting strange thought.

my sindri is loving school. he told me his teacher, a man, is nice and kind. i love that he described his teacher as kind. my beautiful boy.

sorry i have no photos. its too hot for taking outside photos and inside my house...which is where i have been for the last 5 weeks....looks like a zoo. really.

white table

yes we are melting, the sun is scorching leaves and bodies and animals.
the days that have been blurred for the last month are now coming into focus as separate, out of necessity, as school starts tomorrow. i have one girl excited to go back to her friends, to maths equations and to reading reading and more reading. I have one boy who doesnt really want to go back. its not the scared terror he had in grade prep. its the nervousness that comes with entering a new class and rediscovering friendships. and I have one little girl who is excited about a new kindergarten and uncertainty about whether she will let me leave her or not. if she feels safe and finds sweet friends, she will be fine. if not. im not sure what will happen. and it could easily go either way. what will be will be. but i do hope she comes to love the place. and i hope i do too.

i just had a close call with a love bird. there was a red back spider in the cage. oh shit. i had to try kill the red back without killing the love birds and quickly so the red back didnt kill the love birds. talk about drama. i sprayed the red back with killer spider spray...it ran away-hopefully to die...and the love birds sat there puffing in the heat. i then sprayed them with water until they were soaked. one poor baby fell backwards off its perch i picked it up thinking it was dead...but no it jumped back to life. now im on water spray duty....every ten minutes. we desperately need an aviary or to set them free. the poor budgies are out there panting and puffing too.

its actually beyond melting weather.,... id describe it more as frying. how my farmer boy goes out to milk his cows in this heat....leaves me to believe it is a genetic farmer condition he has. actually...to withstand all that they do, im thinking dairy farmers are definitely genetically different to other human beings. its funny i know... to think there is a gene to blame/thank ,
but im serious. other people would not do what dairy farmers do. and i dont think its learnt either.

anyway...what was i talking about? who knows.
my white table thats right. its in the kitchen area and its working perfectly well. i can sew without the one hour preparation. and pack up. not that i ever did pack up.
i made sindri the cutest shorts out of a tshirt that was my dads, that i had given him. sindri loves them. and i love him in them. and i think my dad might like them too.
i made amelie a pair of shorts out of an old skirt of mine. she saw them and said...how did you know that was my favourite fabric? i thought it was a skirt. and i also made veda her shorts ive been meaning to make for months. i make them the day summer holidays are over. good one manda. better late than never right?

together on saturday

what do you do when everything around you is topsy turvy?

you drive to melbourne to see mice doing ballet.

nienie . . i go here often to see how she's going. inspiring. and full of love.

heart

breathe.

yin and yang. up and down. dirty and clean. messy and not. happy and sad. broken and whole. black and white. sick and well. hope-full and hopeless. a day of hope today for america has a new (spunky) good hearted it seems, president. watching the happenings of the world on the tv this morning. amelie sitting next to me, not so hot anymore, but still not so well. hope for a better world.
and then the day turned to hopeless and helpless as we got news that our friend with three little babies is losing the fight for her life. maybe she has lost the fight.
i have to say it . life sucks. the sunflower is beautiful, as is the sky. but life sucks.

girl power

so the weather has cooled down....just for a moment or two.. and that itself is a relief. for everyone.

the cool wind came along today as well, hopefully she took away the worries of the people who worry.

the kids have made capes and masks and cardboard daggers- which is scaring me a lot. . . especially the way veda uses it with such conviction. . . although im also thinking at the same time that there is a purpose to their game that i may not know about, and they may not know either. veda apparently had a big white wolf with her, just behind her. i liked that idea. anyway, today they played outside in a world only their imaginations could see. i sat on the trampoline watching them, eating(not really) their folded leaf food they brought me and taking snapshots of them.

im thinking thinking of where im going to set up my sewing machines...im feeling the itch to sew. theres clothes that are needed..for the kids...and a dress or two for me would be nice. im in such a dress mood lately. i love wearing dresses. as i was folding up some washing i was shocked at how many pairs of jeans my farmer boy has. i have maybe two pairs. but then i realised silly me, that i wear dresses and skirts mostly.. he wears pants. and more pants. how boring. im so glad im a girl.

so i have the hose flooding the garden because it is dying in the heat. the paddocks which were green are now straw coloured. it seems summer is here. and im hoping she goes away as quickly as she came. in the mean time the kids like to ask me for icypoles at anytime of the day. we get to eat salads which lets me eat too much fetta cheese. love.

and now my little amelie has fallen asleep in my bed. maybe i will snuggle in next to her.

what day is it?

so we survived yesterday.

my farmer boy put the thermometer outside in the sun at lunchtime and the mercury went all the way to the top which was 50 degrees. if it could have gone further im sure it would have . inside our house was cooler but still struggling against the dragon breathing fire on it from the sky.

we brought the love birds into the bathroom for refuge. they liked that idea. coco the cat liked that idea too. she would have eaten them for lunch im sure.

we sprayed the poor budgies with water all day. i wanted to set them free.

millie cat had her operation to remove a giant lump on the side of her leg.

we went to pick her up at about 5pm when it was like walking around in an earth sized oven.

poor millie is very very sore.

our fingers are crossed that it was nothing more than a lump.

and then we returned home to find a budgie had died while we were gone.

seeing sindris way with his dead budgie , well my heart melted.

and then we received news from the milk factory that we supply, that they are dropping the price that they pay for milk , to a price that just about makes it impossible to be a dairy farmer.

and my farmer boys best cow had to have an operation yesterday...she will be lucky to survive also.

and im thinking.. . .. actually, im trying not to think.

life is colourful and magical. but it also hurts. and its messy.

this morning i picked twelve bursts of sunshine from the biggest squash plant in the world. that was fun. its a cloudy day. . ..simple things make me happy. clouds. yellow . my veda sneakily reading her book in the middle of the night.

gosh i think ive got a headache.

summer holidays

we have slowed down to just barely walking pace around here. i still have the little voices in my head saying we should be going and doing. but we are happy just being.

monday

Sindri makes double sided pictures now. wow.

i like my new book

day four

ive emerged from the cocoon ive been in the last few weeks and it feels so good to feel mostly alive again. yesterday i went to the supermarket to buy a bit of this and that to make salad and i came home with a new pink dress and pink shoes. im in a real pink mood. and i adore this tummy and the way she likes to tie things around her waist. and also the the self portrait....thats what her hair often looks like.

we met up with friends on a sunny saturday, friends and their little people, who we haven't seen for years, and share so many fun time memories with. we had a great day. the pink champagne - which my friend and i both brought along.. was fun too.

their garden is struggling with the lack of water and so they have many rocks. my kids love to run and tumble on the patch of grass at my mums, but they also had a great time with the rocks in this new garden. meet vedas rock friends.

and now day four begins. my friend is threatening to come and help me clean out my wardrobe. i think i had better get in there and make it safe for her to enter :-)

hello 2009

my boy went to buy milk this morning...late this morning...breakfast became lunch actually.. so that sindri could make pancakes, and he returned a little while later knocking at the door with a surprise behind his back.

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the colour is almost fluorescent orange

the buds are pink

this tree has just started blooming in town. my boy has been spying on it for the last week. today he climbed the fence for me .

i told him to get on his knee right now. he laughed. nervously.

i said yes anyway.

he laughed again.