monday

painting and hulahooping to blackeyed peas tunes all day

got holes in roof fixed

trapped the ducks in their pen all day until they escaped at 6pm felt guilty that they were trapped in the first place..but do you know how much ducks poo? a very lot. and they have to do it near my back door. not funny. but when they are standing at the back door looking at me through the glass....they are so cute, making me forgive them for all their pooping.

wore two layers of wool so that i didnt freeze to death

loved that the kids were still asleep at 9am

found more video of our kids when they were much littler

decided tomorrow is THe day to make movies with the kids

how could you not love holidays?

holidays

school holidays are here. im off playing with the kids, fixing up my new room and not moving too far from our warm fire.

oh yeah baby

its here! monday foggy morning after talking to mother nature all weekend asking her to put the rain somewhere else (sorry about that melbourne ;-) .. i thought the fog was going to stop us...but nope! she arrived in two pieces on two big trucks and with an awesome crane that lifted it up , and with a lot of twisting and turning and holding my breathe.....we put her where we wanted to. yay! we are not sure what to call my new room...not classroom please!! we have enough of that every day already! art room? play room? not studio. . mummys room? just in case they have any ideas of taking it over- which they do!

it needs alot of making it nice. but i feel so happy when i walk inside.

today a man is coming to do new guttering so if it rains it doesnt sink into mud, although muzz suggested we could just tie cherry barrels to it and it can float off into the dam. a houseboat would be nice :-)

i need to re -line some of the walls which i might do today if i can shake this cold....though im feeling worse and dont think i can ignore it much longer...time to double the echinacea dose.

and it has nice floorboards. and no power yet. need to investigate how much for solar power.

i wish i had more physical strength. i tried to eat like my farmer boy does at lunch time yesterday. that was funny. i left half behind. and then he told me the kids take after me. hahahaha...

lucky them :-)

not really!

time to go get my warm little people out of bed..oh i dont want to but its just 3 more days of having to go somewhere on a freezing cold morning.

happy day to you and to me x

p.s Swimmy by Leo Lionni. iloveit.

friday

7.30am i went outside to do the mud test. i stepped onto the site....and my feet slipped a little and sunk a little. drats. a truck would make a big mess. no classroom today either. monday hopefully. fingers crossed for no rain this weekend ..even though i feel guilty for even considering wishing rain away. my impatience.

this tree in our backyard has perfectly red berry type fruits on it. they look delicious but taste of nothing. inside is yellow and mushy. i need to find out what this tree is.

it has dropped red dots all over the green grass. beautiful.

millie our cat has decided, i think, that shes going to join us in being human since her brother spotty cat died. she jumps onto tables and talks to us in a new language that sounds like her attempt at english. im not imagining it. poor milly.

i love friday night. it feels like i should be eating fish n chips. a childhood ritual. instead im going to cook some cauliflower and broccoli, a craving i had at 3pm.

x

my (lack of) creative space

well today was supposed to be the day that my new creative space arrived on two trucks plus a crane-its an old school building that i have grand plans for (as do my kids)...

but last night as i lay in bed dreaming up plans for it...the rain began. this morning i was welcomed with mud. and then it absolutely poured and was wildly windy and even thunder roared. there was no way today was going to be my new creative space day.

so instead i made a rattle for a new little baby being born next week into my sweet friend Kellys family....baby number 5! much excitement here as we freeze our toes and noses off.

more creative spaces at Kirstys :-)

skinny chooks

whilst mum is away chasing sunshine in lightening ridge, im looking after her chooks. yesterday i almost bundled them into my car and took them down the drive way back home with me. they are sad and skinny. im not sure if they were always that skinny, but mine definitely look fat compared to hers. i didnt bring them home because im sure there would be a chook fight and i think mine would win. which would be worse than sad skinny chooks.

i like walking around her garden.. she grew it all from a big patch of dust and gravel.

so anyway, i picked the chooks some silverbeet and myself a bunch flowers and went back home again.

hmmmm.

tonight

sunday farmer market love

today ......i went to our local farmers market and i saw a lady with her trailer load of oranges, weighing and bagging them there

i also saw a trailer load of beautiful pumpkins for $1 each! i would have brought 1 or 2 but we have a pile here already

i tasted some freshly cooked rhubarb..and took home some of her rhubarb and raspberry jam that she grows and makes. her rhubarb stall was beautiful.

i collected two knitted water bottle covers from an old lady who is seriously sweet if thats possible.the kids loved them, after sindri did the rub on his feet test to see how soft they were!

and then i chose a box full of little trees to plant..

the minor problem with that is i dont quite remember which tree is what..making planting them a bit tricky. im getting good at knowing the leaves though. i like that. and the smell of my fingers after rubbing the leaves...delicious eucalyptus mmmmmmm.....

i came home so happy.

the rest of the day i spent outside getting dirt on my hands. when i went inside for a rest i played briscolla cards (an italian card game with special cards) with sindri. i taught him and my farmer boy to play yesterday. l o v e. every time i see sindri he has the cards in his hands ready for another game. so so cute. how i wish my dad was here so we could all play together.

i loved this sunday.

pretty

room to move

today i went for a drive to a place called Torrumbary to see this. theres not much else there actually. but by chance i found out that this was there. and maybe just maybe it will be coming to live on the farm and it will mean a big space for me to play in with all of my STUFF. it needs a lot of work to make it pretty, but those windows with sunshine coming through them make me happy. the trick will be getting it to where we want it to sit without dropping it from the sky to get it there. its a maybe right now, but tomorrow im going to see if i can do some magic.

. . . .

my red cupboard is full of fabric, but that doesn't stop me.

it feels like i have been watching these for a year on my kitchen window sill, willing them to grow. first i thought they were only going to grow roots. then some green shoots popped up. if these flower im gonna scream.

every day Amelie showers me in love letters and beautiful drawings. im collecting them, soon im going to make a beautiful book. maybe she will forgive me for having no videos of her if i have her beautiful art in a book.

Veda was impatient and wanted to knit. We couldnt find the knitting needles so this was her improvisation.

not so dark

okay so its morning, well afternoon actually.. i got some sleep, though it didnt feel like sleep because i dreamt all night and when i dream its so real its like ive been busy all night and wake up not feeling like ive been asleep. and as you can see, i need to put on some rosy cheeks.

8 things

Kate gave up some of herself and so here i am giving up 8 things about me (well a lot more actually!) .....firstly i will tell you that 8 is my favourite number and is also the date i was born on. And secondly I tried to find a nice photo of me but there aren't any. So I took this one just now. Dark, tired and not ready for the weekend to be over is what i would call it. If I knew how to photoshop I would paint rosy cheeks on me.

My favourite meal to eat is anything someone else cooks. Cooking since my fussy loveheart children came along has become something i dont get excited about. I loved cooking baby food...but at around three they turned fussy.. grrrr.....So if somebody else is cooking I would like it to be vegetarian mostly...although i eat chicken but try not to think about it when i do so,... i could eat pasta in any form every night..... tomatoes feta pesto olives creamy mushroomy garlicy y u m. i used to love indian food then moved on to thai and now i think im loving italian. but i do love them all. and chillis. and chocolate every day.

Do i have a quirky eccentricity? most probably. many. but none come to mind. i'll think about that one. How about I am an awesome speller. I always cut cheese crookedly and it drives my farmer boy crazy and that makes me laugh. Oh and every day i make my cheeks rosy with blush. I couldnt be bothered with makeup.

My middle name is sort of Mary. I dont really have one but when I was being christened as a baby the priest said Amanda is not a catholic name so my parents gave me the holiest one they could think of as a middle name, to please the priest. So its not on my birth certificate but is probably on my christening certificate if it exists somewhere. I like the name Mary but dont like Amanda. I like Manda more and people who love me call me that.

I am passionate about my children. family. creativity. I torment myself all the time about my kids having the freedom to be kids in a world that doesnt agree with me most of the time.

I also really love trees and flowers and being close to nature. Id like to plant a forest on our farm.

Thongs or birkenstocks? Definitely not thongs unless Im living at the beach which unfortunately Im not. Birkenstocks yes I have summer and winter ones...my winter felt clogs need to be fixed...Im going to sew the strap back together-its on my to do list. In the mean time I have been flip flopping around in them with a broken strap. Maybe I should do that tonight...except Amelie is waiting for me to go snuggle her to sleep, which i will , and then probably fall asleep with her. Birkenstocks have to wait.

Who was I before I had kids? I was crazy, reckless, and unaware. I was child number 7 in a family with 9 kids. I was chasing all the wrong sorts of boys and having a lot of fun getting up to mischief with my sister and brothers and my friends. I met farmer boy and off we went on our own adventure to live in Perth then Melbourne then to his family farm near Kyabram, then to India and back to the farm. We never planned on staying, but here we are still on the farm. Before kids I didnt value life like I value it now.

Have I ever been arrested? Um no. Parking fines galore years ago.

This weekend I watched my three kids knitting together, helped Veda make a dress, chased the ducks off my back door step- I think its time to show them where the channel is. We had dinner at a friends house on Saturday night and I drank too much pink wine...ooh i really like pink bubbly wine. I felt my friends tummy as her little baby wriggled inside...in only a few weeks I will be snuggling that baby. How nice. Today I got out some old camera tapes and we watched the kids when they were babies. The kids were delighted to see themselves. Our poor third child Amelie....I really need to take some video footage of her as soon as possible or shes going to be mad with me when shes bigger.

Phew.

Goodnight :-)

x manda x

apples

every time i drive past the orchards i am in love with the trees all lined up in beautiful patterns. i promise myself that next time i will bring the camera. today i did. i missed them in full autumn colour. now the colour is on the ground and they are shadowy tree statues. still beautiful. on the other side of the road are trees dripping in apples. so many have fallen on the ground i was so tempted to go pick some up and fill my pockets, but i thought i might get in trouble... instead i went to the supermarket and paid money for some- that are probably from a fridge and a year old. that was probably a bad choice. i think i need to plant some more apple trees. we have only three and with the way the kids have been eating apples lately, i think i need 3+30 .

my house is so cold. as soon as our wood heater fire goes out the chill creeps in. time to go get some wood and make the house warm.

i want to go make a skirt for me.

and im hungry. im really bad at putting my hunger last. i should put it first and maybe i would have the energy to do all the other things. so simple silly manda.

ammie went to school today after having two days at home, shes got a mild cold. i didnt want to send her but she wanted to go. i hope she doesnt come home exhausted.
i really really really like when she is home with me. i taught her to knit the other day. she is so clever and loves it. in around under and off. why dont they teach them such things at school.

time to go feed, warm, and clothe me. so primal hahaha..... i got a text saying gorman was having a big sale today. if i was in melbourne i would probably be out there shopping in the city wilderness with all the other mad people.