Elimination Communication

Elimination Communication or EC is also known as Nappy Free, Diaper Free and Infant Potty Training.

I first found out about Elimination Communication almost ten years ago when I was pregnant with Tama. At the time I was living in the small village of Nymboida in NSW and at the local playgroup I was privileged to meet a lovely Mum who was practicing EC with her newborn babe. When I saw her take her month old baby to do a wee I was fascinated. And set about asking her 100 questions about the practice.

Like many of the other parenting practices I have adopted; co-sleeping, baby-wearing, extended breast feeding, as soon as I heard about EC it just seemed so right and natural.

My two EC babes

The more I thought about it I realized that nappies(Diapers) have not have been around for ever and there must have been some way of dealing with Babies Elimination needs before their invention.

I moved interstate not long after meeting this Mum and during the last months of my pregnancy learned as much about EC as I could.

There wasn't a lot of info available at the time but I re-read the Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff (my go to book about Natural Parenting) and I found a couple of on-line sites dedicated to EC.


EC is not Potty Training

Even though it is known by other names I really prefer the name Elimination Communication. Because it is all about communication.

The terms Nappy(Diaper) Free just seem to scare people..."What! You just don't put a nappy on your baby!"
Infant Potty Training implies that the baby is trained. Just as people "train" their older children to use the toilet after years in nappies.
But this is not the case at all.

I have read so often that the general scientific/parenting consensus is that babies DO NOT have control of their Elimination until they are 2-4 yrs old. This is the reason/excuse that people put their babies in Diapers. One mainstream parenting website says that before this age Babies bladders "automatically empty".

Well, this is simply not true.
My EC babies have had bladder and bowel awareness and control by six months old.

Statistics show that half the babies in the world are toilet/potty trained at 12 months. It is only in Western countries that some children wear nappies until they are four yrs or older, the average age is 3 years.

Many cultures today still traditionally use Elimination Communication today but they do not call it this...to them it is just a natural practice.

Why then is it a big deal for some parents to get their older kids to use the Potty?
Because they have been "trained" to eliminate in a nappy. The nappy has come to feel normal and comfortable. For the child's whole life so far they have been taught to we and poo in one place and now the parent is wanting them to do it elsewhere. Of course many children will be resistant.


How does it work

EC uses signals, cues, timing and intuition to deal with Elimination needs.
It really is about communicating with your Infant. As we all know communication is a two way street, talking and listening.

Cueing is when you get to do the talking.

The most common cue is to hold the baby over an appropriate place to urinate (some people use the laundry sink or a potty or a toilet) and to make a "psss" sound.
This sound innately makes one want to wee. After I had my first baby in hospital, and it was painful to pee, a nurse suggested turning on a tap in the bathroom because the "shh" noise of water makes us want to pee. Horse trainers use this exact same technique to get race horses to pee before a race.

Before Tama was born I was a bit skeptical of my own ability to practice EC. I was worried that maybe I wasn't "in tune" enough, or "aware" enough to make EC work. Well, the day he was born I was all snuggled up with my new baby before the fire in the lounge room. A couple of hours had passed since his birth and I realized that he hadn't yet peed. So I took him into the bathroom, held him out over the sink and said "psss".
When he immediately started pee'ing I shouted out in surprise and had to call the whole family to come and see the miracle!

Signals
This is the listening part of the communication.

 All babies give signals before they eliminate. After EC'ing Tama for awhile I realized that my two older children had signaled but I had just been unaware what to look for back then.

Before T would wee he'd start wriggling around a bit in my arms. Before he'd poo he sometimes do a couple of farts(this is a really obvious signal) or he'd grunt and/or start clenching his belly muscles.

Once I had recognized these signals in my own baby I began to recognize them in others babies. AND I realized that many parents already recognize them. I have often heard a mother comment (after hearing her baby fart or make grunting noises) "I'll have a nappy to change in a minute!"

Timing
This is about learning your babies routine. Both my babies I have EC'ed have had fairly predictable Elimination patterns.
Just like most of us, they need to pee when they wake in the morning. In fact they need to pee when they wake all day long.
They often need to pee or poo after a big feed.
They may need to pee or poo before bed.

Intuition
Sometimes you just get the feeling that the baby needs to go.
When this happened to me I got a feeling of warmth spreading (almost as if the baby had already pee'd on me) and often looked to check there had not been an accident! I soon learned to trust my intuition even if the baby had eliminated not long before.



I practiced EC from birth with my two youngest children. Many people do not start until the baby is a couple of months old. Many practice part-time and use Nappies when it suits.

I know that personally after practicing EC I could not go back to using nappies. Not only does it seem easier now...yes, there is a time investment in being with and listening to your child but it saves a lot of time in washing nappies(I always used cloth nappies before, but if you buy disposables the $ savings would be great), but it also feels more hygienic. There is no nappy rash, no toilet training to be tackled later.

So with another baby on the way I have been making some EC supplies. It is very hard to find commercial underwear for a newborn babe!

EC Undies

 And all baby clothes are designed to fit over the top of nappies and so are too big for my little nappy-free bums.

EC sized pants

And a couple of double lined EC mats to use in the bed at night or on the floor.

For more info on EC checkout these sites...

http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/
http://www.sarahbuckley.com/mothering-mindfulness-and-a-babys-bottom-an-introduction-to-elimination-communication/
http://www.nappyfreebaby.co.uk/Home

Welcome to Fun Creek.

To get to our house from town you have to drive up a long, winding country road. First you drive along the valley floor between lush green hills.

And you must cross 2 bridges and 19 causeways before you reach the steep bit of road that takes you up out of the valley to where this house sits at the top, looking all the way down to the Sea.

Having so many creek crossings is the reason that after a bit of rain we get cut off from town. The creeks rise quickly but they also fall quickly...unless there are weeks and weeks of rain like recently.

We were flooded in here for 21 days during January and February!

At the last of these creek crossing, before we get home is spot you can pull over and walk down to the waters edge.

This is the place the Kids have named Fun Creek.
Why? Because it is fun!!!

And it is a most beautiful spot. A place to go and ground in Nature, a place to go listen to the forest, forget about the rest of the world and to soak in the cool waters during  the scorching days of Summer.

A place for the children to be the free sprites they naturally are.

For what it's worth

Once again I am having a familiar conundrum. I am a bit sick of this particular conundrum! It is one I have struggled with for years; one that comes up time and time again.

This conundrum involves asking for what I am worth; selling my services and art for their true value.

It also concerns the hippy yearnings I’ve had for years about living in an idealist society where barter is more the norm than the exchange of currency; the ideal that people are honest and will give as they receive. That people might actually offer to pay what they think something is worth rather than asking for a discount or bargain…

It may also be a bit about self-belief. This may also be tied up with being a happy giver but a not so happy receiver.
And it may be about wanting to be generous and realising that many people live a financially frugal life, as I have at times.

Years ago when I was a massage therapist (well I still am but don’t practise much now…) this conundrum first came up for me.

Friends would want massages and even though I intended to ask for a reasonable fee I always ended up saying “Oh, 20 bucks will do.”

At the time a massage at a Healing Centre would cost $50-60.

Now, I’m going to rave on a bit about my skill as a massage therapist…just bare with me til the end…

I am good at massage, actually I am great! Most people who I have massaged have told me it was one of the best massages they ever had. But when I have massaged at home (because that is where I am) I have always felt that I should discount the price a bit because I am just massaging in my lounge room, with my kids crawling under the table and sometimes the atmosphere is not quite like a relaxing Healing Retreat…ok, so price drops from $50 to $40.

Then I figure that as I don’t pay the over-heads that a Clinic has I should drop the price a bit more…down to $30…

Then as most people I massaged were friends or friends-of-friends I should give a mates-rates discount…so down to $20…

I can see the logic of it BUT I ended up resenting working for $20 for 1 ½ hrs at a very physically and energetically demanding occupation.

It has been the same with selling my crochet. Sometimes I finish a piece for which I have designed the pattern, taken hours and hours to make and end up selling it for $20.
Well, when the yarn cost $10 and the time it took was extensive I really wonder if it is worth continuing sometimes.

Once when I realistically price a pair of Adult sized Crochet Pants on my website I received a very rude comment on my blog about how “ridiculously expensive” they were!

And no! I have not sold many things at all! I am not rolling in money.
It seems that people see crochet as a Granny Craft, as something bored house-wives do to fill in time when they are in between chores (chuckles to self!)  

It doesn’t help that some crochet items made by Grannies and sold at Craft Markets are ridiculously UNDER PRICED!

Crochet, like any Craft is actually an Art form!
I find the distinction between Art and Craft amusing at times and insulting at other times. Apparently the distinction is that craft makes “useful” items decorative and Art is purely for pleasure; for aesthetics.

Craft is a ‘hobby’; Art is a ‘work’.

I read a great book awhile ago, “Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting” by David Revere McFadden, Jennifer Scanlan and Jennifer Steifle Edwards.

It really crystallized for me the belief that anything that is beautiful is Art!

One Author talked about “dissolving the categories of Art, Craft and Design that have fragmented the world into aesthetic and functional.”

This is so true

I have a friend who makes the most beautiful clay sculptures as a hobby; as her craft. She sells them at her local markets for $50 each.
Not long ago while surfing the net I came across some images of similar sculptures…they were in a Gallery in Sydney and were selling for $2000!!!

Maybe that is it!

If you have the balls, the tenacity, the attitude to call yourself an Artist then you can sell something for 40 times as much?

The latest visitation of “The Conundrum” is about the new Fairy Wings I have made.

One-of-a-kind Fairy Wings. (I.e. no one else will ever have the same wings as you!)
They are lovingly hand crafted using wire, nylon, wool, yarn, lace, up cycled and new fabric, with elastic or ribbon straps.

Approximately 8 hrs of design, layout, wire-work and hand stitching goes into each pair of wings.
Which in real time, because I am a stay-at-home-mum who Home schools my kids, equates to 3-4 days to make each pair. So if I get paid a pretty low wage of $20 an hour then the base cost is $160…if I added on the cost of materials, of Artistry and Inspiration; the fact that they are one off I would realistically be asking about $300 for them. But I am just pricing them at $130.

So I have decided to call myself an Artist.

I am not a hobbyist; I am not a bored stay-at-home-mum who fills her spare time decorating useful objects!
I am an Artist.

My time is precious and yet the time I spend making my creations is fulfilling, inspired and it is my work.

My skills are not incidental or cute.

These are serious skills passed down by my Mother, my Grandmother and many Mothers before that. They are not just skills of necessity or of needless decoration but are beautiful Artisan skills.


I was taught to knit and crochet by my mother when I was a small girl. At the time my Mother would spin her own wool. I loved helping card the fleece and would sit for ages while she wound the newly spun wool in a skein around my hands.

My Nana who was a Seamstress and worked, among other jobs, making Costumes for theatre Companies in Melbourne back in the 1930’s – 1960’s taught me a love of sewing. She taught me to how to embroider, how to darn socks, to sew invisible hems, to latch hook rugs, to hand sew clothing from scratch. So as well as the amazing stories and invaluable family history I learned from her while we sat together doing these things, I also had the privilege of learning my basic skills with a master crafts woman.

Oh, the stories she told were incredible! How when she was learning to sew in a factory the Boss woman would walk around making them undo stitches, redo hems if you could see so much as a single stitch on the right side, how there were no sick days or no workers comp…if you accidentally ran over your finger with an industrial sewing machine while sewing, you stayed and worked so you could keep your job and your family could eat.

She was the type of woman who valued resources. Maybe growing up during the Wars and the Depression did that to many people. She would save every button, re-use every zip and darn and fix clothes and then re make them to fit others or make them into tea towels or as last incanation they would become rags…nothing was wasted.

Nana Ninny was the one who taught me the meaning of frugality and before it was even an issue in mainstream society, she taught me the intelligence of recycling and up cycling. She taught me the pride in a job well done; she taught me that functionality does not over-ride aesthetics.


So though this mad world continues, with it’s messed up systems of value; with its esteem of Bargain over Craftsmanship; it’s insane ‘disposable resources’ mentality,

while we live in a world where a ‘qualification’ is more valuable than self-taught skill; where a GP can charge a standard $150/hr fee, regardless of whether he just prescribes antibiotics or actually diagnoses something or just refers you to someone else (yet does nothing at all for your health) or actually only spends 10 minutes with you; while we have a society where teachers are payed, yet home educators are abandoned by the government; where Midwives are ostracized yet the business of Obstetrics grows every year; where the food producers engineer, codify and Copyright our food crops ; where many Tradesmen are not Craftsmen or Artisans but bodgey rip off merchants; where Engineers are designing products not to last, but to be frequently replaced… I will continue to try to realistically price my wares.


I will try to make some money towards caring for my family and I will continue to recycle and create, to imagine and dream; to bring artistry to the mundane, to bring a useless but fantastical object into life AND I will value my Craft and ask for what it’s worth.

Rainbow food.

The two youngest kids have been getting into preparing their own food lately.

Together we have been looking up creative ways to present food on the internet.

Yes! Playing with your food is fun!

Here are some of the platters we have created.

Vege snack plate

more vege!

Chocolate Fondue with a Fruit Rainbow.

We’ve been a’ gleaning.

Glean: “to gather slowly and carefully in small pieces”

The word “gleaning” was originally used in the context of gathering the left-over’s of a crop after the main bit had been harvested. More recently it is used to mean gathering food from public land. In England it refers to folks picking berries from hedge rows and gathering herbs and greens and mushrooms from the commons.

Here in Aus we glean from roadside trees. Trees that have sprung up from seed and are semi-naturalized around here are mainly citrus and stone fruit, guava and mulberries.

At the moment it’s citrus season.

I guess gleaning appeals to the cave woman in me; it’s hunting and gathering (without the hunting bit!) It’s kind of exciting driving along when one of the kids points out a lemon tree by the road, so we pull over and all pile out. It feels like a treasure hunt.

Last week we found a pumpkin vine that had sprung up in the bushes by one of our favourite local swimming holes. Yum! Roast pumpkin lasagne for tea!!!

Other treats to look out for are wild raspberries and there are a couple of yummy bush tucker treats too like the spotty white and pink Midjim berries (there are some of these growing in the street plantings in town…we get some funny looks when we stop and start snacking on the landscaping!) and the beautiful bright blue Dianella berries.

There are lots of edible weeds on the roadsides around here but unfortunately we can’t pick these because most local councils spray the verges with horrible herbicides, but occasionally you’ll come across a spot that looks safe and we can pick some of our favourite weeds, dock and dandelion, sorrel and Nodding top…

I love anything free and there’s nothing better than free food.

Into the future

Today is our third day of being flooded in.

I’m lucky to live in a great community where people look out for and after each other.

The hill top I live on lies between two towns, one 20km to the east and one 16km to the west. Both roads are cut. There are perhaps 200 people who live up here on the mountain.

Neighbours are checking up on each other, having spontaneous working bees to help shore up each others dams, to help fill holes in driveways, dig trenches to divert water around homes, marking deep crevasses in the roads so others are aware of them, offers of food and gas. Although I think it is not just my local community where this happens - in times of need whether it’s a flood or some other event, people rise to the challenge. It brightens my heart, knowing that people are essentially good, there is always so much bad news in the media it can skew your thinking and make you think otherwise.

Today the creeks are still flooded; the roads are in a sorry state with big chunks missing, potholes a metre deep making the roads impassable for ordinary cars. Most people in 4WD’s were turning back when they saw the state of things but a few intrepid people made it to town for supplies, with shopping list of neighbours in hand. Funny how many of us are ruled by our addictions, I think the most common things people requested were beer, tobacco, coffee, chocolate… and of course food.

As well as the intrepid 4WD’ers Peace went into town today, on his mountain bike, carrying it through some of the deeper flooded creeks. He arranged one of the neighbours with a 4WD to deliver some groceries and then later turned up with a bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes for me. (He knows me so well!)

Being isolated from “the rest of the world”, even just for a few days gets you thinking about stuff. I’ve been thinking about disasters and wastage and self-sufficiency and the future among other things.

Some of my thoughts…

All I need to survive are my family around me, some friends and community and good food.

How much I waste.

Like many people on a low income I live week to week, I usually shop on a Wednesday. The day before shopping day is a bit of a Mother Hubbard day. But we haven’t left the house since Monday and although I was initially worried, when I looked in the pantry there actually was food in there. Not the stuff we generally eat but with a bit of creative cookery and a few fresh herbs good food all the same.

Most of the vegetables I’ve used in the last couple of days would usually been chucked out when I brought more. The beetroots were a bit soft, the greens a lot wilted but the beetroot and black lentil Dahl I made was yum! Really got me thinking how much I throw in the bin at the end of the week, how conditioned I am to shopping for ‘more’. Right now I’m blessing the half-stale pack of weetbixs and the millet I hardly ever use.

Self sufficiency

It has also brought back many temporarily shelved thoughts on self sufficiency. By self sufficiency I don’t necessarily mean the ability to exist without society at all, in fact I’d rather not. I quiet enjoy modern technology and convenience but it made me realise how wonderful our farm was in South East Queensland.

I often think about that though, every week when I go vegetable shopping I sigh.

On our farm we were flooded in many times. And it didn’t matter how bare the cupboard was. We could rely on the chickens for eggs everyday. Even when it was a bit neglected the garden (depending on the time of year) always had pumpkins or sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchinis, egg plants, basil, coriander, lettuce, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, onions, leeks, garlic, chives, rosemary, thyme.

We always had one variety of fruit in season; oranges, mandarins, lemonade fruit, passion fruit, kiwi fruit, strawberries, mulberries, tamarillo’s or watermelons.

Not to mention the bush tucker like Lillipillies, Midgims and Davidson’s plums or the weeds, dandelion, nodding top, wood sorrel, sorrel, sow thistle etc, and the pecan nuts, Macadamia nuts and Bunya nuts… No wonder I sigh at the fruit and veggie shop!

And there were the other things we’d planted that were yet to fruit; avocados, mangoes, lychees, bananas, pawpaws, blueberries, tangelos, coffee, olives, apples and pears.

Survival

Right now if there was a crisis situation, I think I’d survive a couple of weeks, maybe a month; and that would include catching and cooking up the wildlife!!!

But back on our farm we could have survived months, maybe even indefinitely. Sure, we’d have to live without coffee until our bush grew bigger but hey, all those shop brought convieniences  like coffee, bread, packaged food are things we’d probably be better off without.

My Future

And it’s made me think about my future. In my future there will be a garden. For me there is nothing so relaxing, so centering and peaceful than having my hands in the dirt. I get off on picking veggies five minutes before I am going to cook them. I thrive on looking after chickens and making herbal concoctions from fresh herbs.

I don’t know yet how all this is going to happen but it will be a bigger and better garden than I ever created before. A wild, tangled permaculture food forest, neat, tidy beds of annuals, fruit trees, bush tucker, flowers and herbs, tree houses and shrubs and paths to follow and chickens and ducks and beauty…just beauty.

The six year, five minute flower.

When we fisrt purchased our farm I discovered some bulbs growing off our back veranda.
I weeded around them and showed Peace where they were so he wouldn't run over them with the lawn mower.
For five years I watered and weeded around my bulbs, waiting to see what they would look like when they flowered. I thought they might be a  type crocus but wasn't sure what colour flower they would have.

Every Spring just as they were about to flower they were run over by the lawn mower!

I weeded around them and marked them with rocks but Peace seemed to often forget they were there.

So I moved out from the farm without ever finding out what they looked like.

BUT before he left Peace dug up some of the bulbs and brought them to me in a pot.

Spring has sprung and at last after six years I have seen my flower.
I hadn't even been paying attention to them and walked around the corner the other day to find this...

After excitedly showing everyone I walked away and five minutes later Tui picked the flower and brought it to me with a beautiful shy smile on her face... "I picked this for you Mummy"

At least I now know what type of bulbs I have, even if it didn't last very long!

Looking forward to tending my bulbs and having a garden again oneday to plant them in.

Sharing My Dreams

One of the hardest things about separating from Peace has been feeling that so many of my dreams have died along with the relationship.That they are no longer possible. We had so many shared dreams,so many plans for the future. So much we wanted to do together and with our children.

I have felt so empty and lost. These dreams were my direction in life, things I'd been planning for years, goals I had partly achieved. And now I feel that it is not possible to achieve them on my own.

There was the plan we'd been talking about for ages to take the kids on an adventure. We wanted to canoe up the North Coast of Queensland, near the Daintree Rain forest, camping in the wilderness.

Yes, technically,I probably could do this on my own with the kids,but it would not be the same. It would require a lot more work on my part, it wouldn't be as enjoyable or safe as doing it with another person; someone you trust, someone you know has the skills and knowledge to make it work.

It is like my dream of buying land and building a solar-passive, Eco, straw-bale house. Peace and I have been planning this for 13 years. We dreamed of buying land in Northern New South Wales, building our house, growing food, making amazing gardens, creating an adventure playground for grown-ups.

We wanted to make a place where people could come to learn and rejuvenate. Where we could share our skills in abseiling, rock climbing, massage, healing, permaculture, edible weeds and bush tucker.In bush craft and building and gardening.
A place where families could come to re-connect with each other.
A place where people could visit our home and see that living in an Eco-friendly house does not mean living in a mud covered hippy shack but in a beautiful home with all the modern comforts. And that it can all be created on a budget and by yourself if you choose.

And yes, it is probably technically possible for me to learn the skills I need and do all this on my own it would feel like something is missing without Peace.
The most enjoyable times I have spent with Peace are when we were building or in the gardens. When we are talking about plants, how much a tree has grown, looking at a spider web with the morning dew sparkling on it, when we garden together without even needing to speak but both knowing what we need to do. I find it hard to imagine myself building without being able to discus the construction of the window frames or the recipe for the render with Peace. Or the laughter and companionship.

Lately we have been talking and have come to the conclusion that maybe we can still do these things together. We can buy land and create all this and co-habit on the land in separate dwellings. We can both be accessible to the kids all the time. We can still share the dreams.

And now I am sharing the dream with all of you. I'm putting it out to the Universe and hoping it will happen.

We would love another family or two to share our land; people with similar ideas and dreams, to create a community. Maybe this will all happen one day.

Eating locally

I love the idea of eating food that is grown and produced in the local area. Whenever I can I try to buy local produce. When money is prohibitive though it is often cheaper to buy imported food. Although I do understand the economics that causes this there is part of me that doesn't get it.
How can food that's grown organically, just down the road from me, cost more than food that is grown using expensive chemical fertilizers and transported halfway around the world?

I guess the easiest way for me to eat local produce is to grow my own food and make my own products right here. I am working on getting a veggie garden going. The soil here is very rocky and dry. (I am living on top of a ridge) So I am going to try growing in containers. I have an old bath tub that I am filling with compost. When it is almost full I will add some mushroom compost and some manure and start my garden.

 

Wandering around my new garden I have found some edible plants. So I can already begin eating locally! This oregano was hiding under some weeds.

There are a few edible weeds around to provide greens, nasturtium flowers and leaves, dandelion, dock, sorrel and chickweed.

Also a paw paw tree (papaya)

It is a hermaphrodite tree. It has both the male flowers and female. So it is self-fertile and sets fruit.The fruit on hermaphrodite trees is never as sweet as the fruit on female trees but they are great to cook with when they are still green.

With Tui's help I made some green paw paw chutney.

 Mr  loves it and has already eaten half the first jar!

I've also been baking bread. I use a slow rise fermented dough recipe. For this first batch I used 1/3 spelt flour, 1/3 buckwheat flour and 1/3 organic wheat flour.

It has a lot less gluten than just using wheat flour and because the dough is fermented the gluten is partly pre-digested so it is easier for me to digest :-)

It turned out very yummy! And went really well with the chutney.

Thankyou for the garden

Thankyou to the wonderful people who lived in this shack before me.

Thankyou for the beautiful flowers

and for the fresh food.

I hope the people living in my old house are enjoying the gardens we left behind for them as much as I'm enjoying this garden.

Banana and Almond pancakes.

Banana and Almond Pancakes

Another new recipe that contains no gluten or dairy products for those of us with sensitive tummies.

First you get a really cute toddler to help mash two bananas.

Then mix in a large egg, a pinch of cinamon and about a cup of Almond meal (I grind my almonds in a blender so the meal is not as smooth as the pre-packaged almond meal from the shops).

Fry as for normal pancakes but on a lower temperature so they set harder.

Serve with a dollop of honey and scoff!

Gluten free dessert

I've been trying to eat Gluten free the last three weeks. It does seem to make me feel alot better but it's been tricky adjusting my cooking and meals to be gluten free.

Yesterday I created this dessert.

Apple and polenta cake.

First I stewed some apples in rice milk with some sugar, cardamon and cinnamon.

Then I added Polenta and cooked it until it had thickened, put it in a dish and sprinkled the top with a mixture of coconut, cashews, almonds, seasame seeds, sunflower seeds and sultanas.

I baked it for about twenty minutes until it was totally set and made a caramel sauce to drizzle over the top.

The result? Gluten free yumminess!!!

In the fairy garden.

The Jasmine vine has finally grown to cover the archway I built out of reo bar and concrete reinforcing mesh. I love walking through here into the fairy garden .

The Agapanthus that I grew from a single cutting from my Mum's bush surrounds the fairy circle. They are Tui's favourites because they are so bright and big.

This little seat which is a wonderful place to sit out of the Sun and to pick strawberries and mulberries straight out of the garden, yum!

I planted these two lilli pillys four years ago to form another arch to get to another secret part of the garden. Finally they are starting to touch, Peace pruned them into a really nice arch this morning :)

The tree with the platform is looking so lovely and bushy, a perfect spot to sit quietly and meditate.

This afternoon the kids took all the prunings from our garden tidy up and built a little humpy.

Tui hiding inside.

Now they are have started a camp fire and are roasting potatoes and cooking toast.

I have a blessed life.

Displaced wildlife and a wee little garden.

The forgotten victims of the recent flooding are all the wildlife. There are so many animals that have been affected by the floods. Their homes and burrows destroyed by raging water, food sources washed away and animals directly killed by the floods.

We have been having many visits from snakes this last week. I guess they are all up here away from the river and also are out looking for food now that it is sunny enough for them to be on the move.

This snake made it's way into a box of crockery I had packed to move.

The box was out in the shed but Peace thought the box looked too flimsy to hold the weight of the crockery so brought the box into the house to repack...and as he was unpacking it he came across this carpet python.

Carpet pythons are harmless although they do grow very big and the thought of having any snake inside the house is enough to scare the crap out of me...

He took the box out and the snake slowly moved on.

We have seen 5 snakes this past week, usually we see that many over a couple of months. Luckily they have all been pythons. Three carpet pythons, a Green Tree python and a Brown Tree Python.

This morning Mr T spent hours making things out of his block and then he helped me to make a mini-Rainbow Love Farm.

I am sad at the thought of leaving all my plants behind so we took some cutting of some herbs and planted them all into one big broccoli box, so that where ever we end up I will have the beginnings of a new herb garden.

We planted some lemon grass, comfrey root, ceylon spinach, oregano, yarrow, garlic chives and a small chill seedling. It looks a bit sad at the moment but hopefully they will all survive.

The colour of Spring

Now and Then...the kids garden

I found some old photos taken four and a hlaf years ago when we first moved in.

It actually surprised me how much everything has grown. Because I am looking at it everyday I notice the gradual changes but you forget what it used to be like.

So, joy of joys, today I was given a new/old camera and I walked around the garden taking photos from the same positions as the original shots...

Kids garden from the house

Then

Now

The cubby...

Then

Now

Looking throught the archway...

Then (well the arch didn't exsists in the first photo)

Now