indulging

School holidays have been providing us this week with time to indulge ourselves a little.
Time to take things slower and potter and plan and create and play.

My girl has had time to find her own feet again and taste her own rhythm....a small saunter into her growing self.
And I have found the moments within this new found freedom now to both observe hungrily and participate at her request. School holidays are growing sweeter and richer here indeed.

I've also found a few moments for myself. Not so much for the Mama but for Me. Just a few dreamy moments to feed all those other parts of myself that need nurturing... mostly through the form of books like this one (again) and this and this. A nice satisfactory selection of reading sitting right on my bedside and some following me throughout my day. Handmade Home fell lovingly into my lap from a generous giveaway by Melissa...Thank you again Melissa! I believe the universe met with my wish the day my name was drawn by your sweet girls!

As I write I can also smell more dust from our second dust storm of the week and can see, even in the dark, the misty thick signs of its surrounding us in the glow of our neighbours lights through my window. A reminder that I will have more indulging to do this next week....maybe in the form of some serious cleaning up! Despite closed windows and doors the floors and everything we touch is gritty, the shelves are layered in a fine talc and I expect in the morning I will be greeted with the sight of more than a layer of our Australian red dirt over everything outside also.
Ahh mother Earth....she likes to indulge sometimes too.

(Melissa also has some great photo's of storm number one as we experienced it on her blog too.)

he's two

Our little Bam turned two last week.

Of course it was celebrated in the obligatory tradition of a three or more day festival that both our little one's birthdays seem to have become! It's tiring for a Mama....but really I don't mind because it's so much fun and the joy it brings is worth much more......plus traditions are so so good aren't they?

So running with tradition our Bam woke to balloons scattered throughout, pretty homemade birthday bunting hanging across the ceiling (it's the bunting that hangs, as Kyle says, when you know there is something to be celebrated) and his birthday crown to wear at his choosing....for the second time.

And there was cake to be baked....chocolate cake of course....to be eaten with homemade lasagna for a dinner filled with all the birthday boys favourite things that night.

The festival continued with a small party and bbq in the park on Sunday followed by wheelie driving and scooting, paper plane flying, attempts at kite flying, swimming and paddling......and cake number two!

A late night chocolate collaboration between Mama and Papa of his very very favourite *person*. (which we found inspiration and instruction for here!)

Tell me do you not love Wall-e too?

That solitary hard working little robot who re uses and re purposes all amount of goodies, falls in love and saves the planet too?

Yes we do love Wall-e here...thanks to Bam....

and it turns out he's not bad to eat in cake form either once you figure out just how to go about it.

Hmm maybe if you just go straight in for a bite?

But however you go about it, it seems he tastes pretty good....

and so does being two....pretty good indeed!

Happy Birthday little Bam!

the colour of sunday

These are just some of the colours of my Sunday.

Golden yolks from the backyard to fill hungry tummies and fire the morning, followed by a trip to the farmers market.

An afternoon bbq with family and quite a bit of nibbling on fresh loquats and star apples bought for a steal.

A feast for the eyes... and the belly.

banksia men and bottle brush velvet

A rainy sunrise car ferry ride saw us safely to our island destination on Saturday morning.

A local piece of paradise right in our own bay.
We ventured to our weekend getaway....camping by the sea.

It was our first beach trip in the 4x4. Our first experience of sand driving....and considering the idyllic destinations that can take you to, we are now yearning for just a little bit more.

We immersed ourselves in two perfectly shiny days to play and then dream to the sounds of moonlit waves only steps away.

We made discoveries too....

and fed fat banksia men.

We scraped fallen bottle brush flowers to make soft natural velvet.

And this Mama sighed under a perfect Sunday sunrise....

and drank jasmine tea on the beach while her little ones frolicked...

and collected pumice to learn how it floats.

There were kookaburra's and a kangaroo visitor.

And there was another beach drive to a freshwater tea tree stained lake to swim in, catch fish...

and just dangle our toes.....

but best of all there were happy faces...

and just one or two banksia men and bottlebrush velvet stems to come home with us as a reminder of our sunny beach days away.

springs beauty

it's here

springs beauty

in my garden

it's bursting forth in new grape leaves from dormant bare vines

it's in the apple buds and their delicate pink petals

it's in the lemon and blood orange flowers

it floats sweetly with their precious scent

it's in the peach blossoms

it's in the furry baby mulberries

yes springs beauty is in my garden
just ready to turn into springs and next winters delicious bounty

Welcome September
Welcome sweet Spring

all grown up now

There have been some strange sounds coming from the chicken coop these last few days.
Sounds that have been almost forgotten over the winter....long unheard cries and *begurks*....

Our babies are evidently splendid in their feathery dress but certainly babies no more.
And they are really no longer the new girls either.
They have spent this winter in the big coop with the others... our Henrietta and Harriet.
It was touch and go at first but nothing a little night time perch shuffling by me and some days armed with cubed cheese and apple couldn't do to persuade them all to be friends.

And so with not being babies anymore and not being the new girls anymore must come, sooner or later, strange sounds from the chicken coop which can mean nothing else but eggs.....yep eggs. And their laying has prompted the old girls into laying a few too.

I have to admit that together with our excitement there were just one or two little mutters of "about time" .... you see these pure bred girls are a bit precious, especially about laying eggs when the weather is a tad cool....but for all their prettiness we surely forgive them.

And after all we still do really love eggs here...

and the fact we can expect lots more over the Spring now that Prudence and Emmeline are all grown up.

beautiful minds

I wonder can you imagine what it would be like to have a mind so vast and so incredibly open, active and eternally curious? A mind that was so completely compelled to theorise, create and invent?
I recently was lucky to spend some time admiring the machines crafted by Leonardo Da Vinci who's greatness seems matched only by his own benevolent beauty. Did you know he was a vegetarian?

I took pleasure in playing with friction, testing inertia, lifting weights and building a replica bridge that I must admit had me a little stuck momentarily despite having the larger version there to copy from.

I also stood in wonder as I faced *just some* of the results of this man's constant thinking and problem solving. The questions that must have rolled through his mind in a never ending stream... How does it? Why does it? How can I? What if I? What is it?

It truly excites me when I am reminded of such artists, thinkers, observers and creators as Da Vinci....though I think there are few if any that compare to our Italian friend, but nevertheless all messengers of something much bigger perhaps. The world is lucky to have them....just to remind us of how great the human mind can be and how much more we are capable of. It is beautiful don't you think?

Whose mind amazes you?

Here are a few that send me floating....

Daniel Tammet

Kim Peak

Andy Goldsworthy here and here

Stephen Wiltshire

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor who through personal and ironic experience made an amazing discovery about the brain...and happens to be an incredible public speaker. She brings a tear to my eye every time.

a nibble

With kind Winter weather and a mountain of *stuff* over shoulders and in beach bags we recently snuck an early nibble of Spring.

We waited and watched to see which waves would knock down our sandcastles.

We ate a sandy picnic lunch in the dunes.

We climbed and we ran.

We spied pigface and beach daisies and dune grass.

We dug in the sand and bared bones long covered by cool weather clothes.

And we looked forward to taking more great bites of the same with Springs true arrival....soon.

the wild things

I am loving the wild things right now.

Having been away unexpectedly from my garden and it's *space* for most of the winter it has, just a little, taken on some extra life of it's own....in a fantastically free kind of way.

There is not so much order or discipline in it's growing. And I am loving that too... it's wild abundance, it's desire and search for survival and bold liberation.
Instead I am noticing and smiling at the lettuce (and mint) popping up in the lawn....and in the gravel...

The wild rocket, aptly named, that insists on it's ownership of a bed which is also sprouting a second sowing of sweet baby snow peas...

The same wild rocket that also insists on embracing my garlic and shallots...

I spy wild organic cherry cherise tomatoes making a home out of the side of the compost bin and in a corner by the fence.
I see they are kindly accompanying, or perhaps beckoning home, some large green trails of lush nasturtiums that seem to think the grass is surely greener on the other side.


I remember my lessons in passionfruit... and think it seems maybe patience is also a lesson learnt. I am grateful it is indeed fruiting now together with caressing, clinging and re clinging to a tree that it has a preference for over it's own rather large and long trellis. I adore the search among it's wild leafiness and curling tendrils for it's round jewels.


I am watching...
still more banana's on the way
masses of papaya hanging heavily from the trees
a peach that I know should start to produce next season
kale, kale and more kale
flower buds appearing on my blood orange and lemon trees
spent snow pea crops (with a satisfied belly)
awaited pineapples, baby olives, avocado's, apples and more guava's in Summer
all wildly interspersed with herbs.....and the lettuce of course!

My eyes are also feasting on the rainbow chard and the masses of the deepest purple beetroot leaves that are right now providing the wildest splashes of colour...not to be wildly missed of course because the chard is always eaten, by chickens, guinea pigs and people almost as fast as it is sown and grown.


And while noticing, watching, remembering and loving all this wildness, abundance and colour... as the bougainvillea too stretches up through the branches of the poinciana tree above us and lazily drapes outside the other fence lining our space....


I love that when I am outside admiring it's flowers I can also spy....back in through the palings.... just as much wildness and freedom sharing this space....in the people that live here....

and our neighbourhood friends that like to come and play with us here amongst our wild things....