she came

She hung around the shadows yesterday afternoon.
Looming
Teasing
Hesitant.
Her wanting was palpable as she stirred the breeze on our skin and seemed to pluck the need from the soil.

She waited....

but she came.

On dusk she came falling, crying heavy drops amidst her growls from above. A steady rhythm with which to end the day and a drumming percussion on our nest to soothe tired limbs to sleep.

She kept company with the night but by dawn she was gone.

She departed leaving only a memory of her heavenly scent and a new fresh day washed clean by her too brief visit.... perfect for drinking perhaps the last of winter's tea and for longing for just a little bit more....please?

over the back fence

This is a sight often seen at our back fence.
You see, we are blessed. We have great neighbours.
There is a besser block platform on our side and a ladder on theirs.
It is our meeting ground, a place for a chat or a beer, a point to plan who's house we will congregate at for dinner or a spot for just a quick hello.
We joke but I know there will be a gate built there one day....someone has to spare the dress wearing Mama from climbing that ladder too many more times.

We gathered at our house for another impromptu dinner last night that rightly turned into a feast....of food and friendship. A half baked pie was quickly transferred...via that ladder...to our oven. A salad was picked from the garden and tossed on the table to add to the BBQ'd food we already had grilling. The best kind of pot luck dinner!
The wine flowed and the laughter grew louder...as did the children before it was time for a quick splash in the bath together. The very kind of thing memories are made from.

We have been lucky to add another neighbourhood family with another little one of their own to our melting pot this week too. We have lived across the street as long as we have been here. Sometimes it takes a little longer to put the *ladder* up you know, but when you do it is a special thing. It feels a bit like turning back the clock to times when I was young and almost all the houses in the street were common ground. It's a shame the world has become such a cautious and withdrawn place.
But we have created a small sanctuary of community....our tribe.
A community where our children can grow together and we can watch out for each other, plan more camping trips together (the more the merrier) and though it creates some regular late school nights....lots more pot luck dinners together at one of our three homes.

And as for the family on the other side? Well those wild tomatoes have been staked to their side of the fence and are quickly fattening and turning red. Every now and then I hear them talking and make out the words *tomato* and *red*. It makes me smile...not because I don't have luck with fat red tomatoes that should be growing on my side of the fence!...but because I'm inadvertently sharing my harvests, hopefully a passion for growing food and, friendship....in a round about way. There is hope.

Maybe I won't be so hasty as to move away from civilisation to my dream patch of paradise....well, unless our tribe comes too.

of earth, sand and straw

I dug my feet into the clay earth, sand and straw today.
This is what I built....together with about 19 other *cob oveners* and family (wink) at a workshop run by this beautiful place.
We built it in the kitchen garden of a local state school.
Lucky children.
It just needs to dry for a bit now before the door is cut and the final render applied.

Hopefully now we'll see that dream of a smaller, perhaps artier version of the same pop up in my back garden very very soon....
what do you think?

and with it comes october

Today brings the end of our Spring holiday.
It's back to business and the rhythm that was before the ending of September.

But oh we've been feeling the Spring here in this time doing the little things.
Little things like mending some of our beloved friends.
Little things like collecting nature's treasures (of course) and creating with it. Printing and crafting creatures and critters, like dragonflies, bugs and palm sheath centipede puppets.
Little things like taking a trip to visit Grandma and Grandad on the farm to fly kites in the wind and to make new pals.
Little things like finding Grandad's new bridge in the forest and discovering the jewels of the milkweed tucked safely in his pumpkin patch.

And as today sees a brief ending to all those little things that we have been loving so much... with it comes October and all it's promise of more sweet things to come.