My small, small world

I've been blog-surfing a lot just lately, dipping in and out. A guilty pleasure, I'm always feeling I ought to be doing something else instead. Something 'more productive'. And feeling disappointed that I seem to acheive so little compared to all the other fantastic bloggers out there. 

The last few months, in fact, have been dominated by my own thoughts rushing me .... 'I should be doing this / doing that/ tidying this / finishing that/ organising this /de-cluttering that...' I keep impatiently pushing forward to the next moment and the next. Harried by all that has to be done. Anxious about cooking & cleaning even - I get frustrated about how long everything takes. And frustrated by all my unfinished creative projects all over the house -craving that 'me' time where I can indulge in creating something tangible and beautiful and useful. It culminated yesterday in me snapping at Mr Pepper because I thought he wasn't helping me do-everything-I-need-to-get-done, enough.

The truth is, my world is very small right now. I have a 10 week old.  This time is precious - I'm told that time with a newborn disappears quickly.  So, I need to stop and just be HERE. In THIS moment. Because I'll never have it back. She is so so precious. She is my entire world. She is more important than anything that needs to get done.

So, I am off to practice being in the moment. Enjoying now. Doing what I can. Being with my child.

How do you balance it?
How do you prioritise all the tasks that need to be done?
How do you rest in the moment when you're being pulled in multiple directions at once?
How do you practice being mindful?

Let's see how I do in the next little while...
x

Chicken love!

We are newly rural. I grew up on a small farm, and tB grew up on the road, in caravan parks and at various people's places (mostly farms) - but for both of us, most of our adult lives have been spent in cities or towns.

So, last July we brazenly bought 5 acres with a small 100 year old cottage and several sheds, with the idea that we could recreate what we remember as children. This has been one of our primary goals for the last 10 years. Woo hoo!

Now that we're here, we realise, we know nothing. ...Surprise!! I have not miraculously & unconsciously absorbed all the generations of knowledge and skills that my lovely (late) grandmother contained, despite the hours and years I spent with her working out on her farm. I remember seeing her fixing fences. But, umm, how, exactly... ? Grubbing thistles, managing laying chooks, all the heavy lifting of rocks and enormous lumps of wood, sorting out electric fences and water tanks and how to run the bore pump... How did she do it all on her own? I have a new respect for her.   I wish I could phone her up and ask her stuff, but regrettably I'm too late for that.  Oh dear, we are such townies...

However, we have knowledgable, gentle (and bemused) friends, and a neighbour who is a REAL farmer, who has already provided us guidance. And we are both very capable of learning... so all is not lost. How hard can it be?  

In August one of our first jobs was to fix up the chook yard to receive our first housewarming gift - six lovely chooks - the only livestock we currently have of our own. I am still in awe of them. How cool is it to have these creatures provide us with eggs every day?! Grandma had heaps of laying chooks and I remember the delight of collecting eggs, playing with tiny yellow baby chicks and being frightened of the big white chickens.

 

I soon abandoned my facebook competition to find names for them ("Tandoori, Marylands, Honey Soy, BBQ, Curry, and Satay" were the first names offered. & the first to go. "Boiled, Scrambled, Poached, Fried, Curried and Devilled" were a close second...)

and instead, gave them names of our favourite female authors.

Introducing (tah-dah...!):  

  

Maya (Angelou)



 

Keri (Hulme)

  

Sark


  

Anais (Nin)




Katherine (Mansfield)

 I have trouble telling the white ones apart unless they're standing next to each other. Their tails are different - Anais's is quite a shapely, sexy tail, Mary's is smaller, and Katherine's is bigger, slightly ragged & more solid. Mary is the most timid of them all, and Maya is the most confident. The brown ones will run up to us now when we come to feed them or collect the eggs. And, I'd  never realised, white chickens lay white eggs, and brown chickens lay brown eggs. Who knew?







And, while trying not to intimate any chicken-based rascist-ness, they hang out together according to colour! When they roost the brown ones are together on one side, and the white ones on the other. Same when they are hanging out in the yard. I have no idea what that's about.

We let them out in the afternoons to roam. They are very good at putting themselves back to bed in the evenings and usually even come when they're called. We just have to watch the dogs don't get out when the chooks are out.  We did have a rooster for the whole of 5 days, called Banjo (Patterson), but Girldog got in the chicken coop, chased him out and all the way down to the dam where he had a heart attack and died. Girldog stopped at that point, stood there as if to say, "hey.. what happened? We were playing chasies..."  We haven't discussed getting another Banjo yet.

                                

But, the girls are marvellous and everyday I go out and thank them as I gather up their offerings.

And, once again, we have a beautiful basket of  home-grown, free-range, happy & ethical eggs.

My life is complete.

Pepper x

What happens when I'm meant to be asleep...

I have just returned from 45min spontaneous calisthenics in our farm yard, with "MOVE, you bastards!!" ringing in my ears, and am reflecting on the farm lessons learnt:

1) Do not allow the neighbours14 cows (including the alpha bull) push down your fence and get into your yard (apparently, the grass IS greener...)

2) Rule #1 is important as it is virtually impossible to get 14 cows back through said fence to the paddock where they belong. (Tell me...how do you keep the 11 you got back in the paddock in there, while you round up the last wayward 3?)

3) Cows can do unexpectedly nasty things to gardens and retaining walls (yes, as solid as these creatures look, they can jump UP a 4 foot retaining wall).

4) Jack (boydog) is a surprisingly good cattledog.

5) Jemima (girldog) is a spectacularly poor cattledog (she was cowering under the ute watching the show).

6) In the highly likely event that you can't return the cows to their rightful paddock, DO NOT not put the alpha bull into the only other alternative paddock that contains five rival, testosterone-fueled, adolescent bulls.

       

7) To stop the said adolescent bulls bellowing for weeks on end, provide them with 13 young girly cows with which to have their way.

8) If rule #6 is nigh impossible to achieve- turn around, go inside & pretend it wasn't you.

                          

                               

9) Rival bulls can spend hours (...ummm, days??) in a headlock. 

                         

10) Remember to change out of your PJ's before trying to get 14 cows out of your back yard. 

Main lesson learnt:
Next time when I'm home sleeping after and prior to night shift I will not look out the window and feel a responsibility for the neighbours cows which have got out of our paddock (because of our dodgy fences).

Instead, I will just turn around and go back to bed.

                                 

Pepper x

PS. I have cow poop on my PJ's.

PPS. I did ring and inform the REAL farmer, and he sent his boys around to remedy the situation before the bulls did serious damage ...Whew!

Wordless Wednesday (on Thursday...)

What's on my kitchen bench today:

.

This post has started because of a lettuce.

At least a week ago we were given several lettuces by a friend - organically & hydroponically grown- and being hydroponics, I put each of them in a vase of water.  And I have resisted eating this one because it's too pretty. So, I took a photo of it instead... Maybe it will finally become lunch today!

Other objects currently hanging out on my kitchen bench:

Piggy chopping board: I made this pig chopping board when I was about 12 years old. It has served me as my meat chopping board since I left home  (so that's now 20 years!)and remains an essential member of our kitchen. He's currently is recovering from being used for the dog food this morning.

Fresh eggs from the last two days laying. We were given 6 hens, and then a rooster about three weeks ago. We are virgin hen-owners, so the delight from having 5 or 6 fresh eggs every day has not yet worn off!














Flowers: I started belatedly pruning some of the miniature roses last night. 'til it got too dark to keep going. There's few actual flowers left, so these were the only ones were intact enough to make it to the kitchen.

Native orchids and toy kombi:  The Tasmanian native orchids were given to me about three years ago,  they were tiny little single shoots, now all three are huge, comparatively. They haven't flowered yet though. Don't know what's going on there. The kombi is a tribute to our real one, Joy-Joy, who's currently hiding out from the weather in her big shed.

Cow jug: I love this jug! We picked it up in some second hand shop years ago in Sydney. It turns out it's made by Arabia, made in Finland and is quite collectable. We looked it up on Ebay a few years ago - I forget the details now. But we love it!

There's also an empty chocolate packet hanging out on the bench at the moment but I'm not going to display the evidence for all to see....