River cottage

I guess i'm making up for lost time, i havent been able to post for awhile, either that, or i'm just procrastinating....

Anyway... I love watching/reading about people who are leading the kind of life i'd like to have...
Living in the country, running a smallholding, and so on...
I really like shows like "River Cottage Spring" if you are in oz you can watch it on Iview
but I have to say that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a little, well, annoying. His heart is definitely in the right place, and his shows are great.

But i can't help feeling jealous of his beautiful cottage, with its pretty vegetable patch and its neat paths. And all his employees..... no wonder the house is neat and tidy, his rows of vege are straight and weed free.... He has a team of gardeners and people to look after his livestock.

He is, if not rich, comfortably well off and a bit out of touch with "poor" people, (like me), who out of necessity, put budget ahead of other considerations. When you are living on $250 aud a week, which is what the single parents pension is, nearly all of that goes to rent. So even a couple of dollars more a kilo for free range, or organic food, is simply impossible. Instead of belittling people for choosing cheaper food, we need to educate people about growing their own, and preparing food from scratch. (Which I admit he is trying to do... in his own way... but still average Jill will be intimidated by the fact he has loads of people to help him.)

I cannot afford organic, free range meat, so we simply do not eat meat. If we could harvest our own meat, and be sure of the animal's quality of life and it being chemical free, i'm sure we would eat it sometimes, well not me but HH definitely. We generally can't afford organic fruit and vege either, so we try to grow as much as we can ourselves, which isn't easy, living in a rental and working/studying/parenting fulltime.

Obviously, I don't have a solution or I would be living it already. I think generally simplifying where you can is the answer. Eat simple food, which is as ethical as possible. Take baby steps, for example, buy free range eggs, before jumping in and setting up your own chicken coop. Eat at home more often, and prepare as much food yourself as you can, before agonising over the environmental costs of rice farming, or soybean production.

Just start where you're at.... Bloom where you're planted... and don't beat yourself up if you can't keep up with the Greenes'...

This quote from Homemaker Ang kind of sums it up:

"Instead of eating the white bread we all grew up on, one of us decides to break the mold and start buying whole wheat bread at the grocery store. We feel so proud of this accomplishment because we are feeding our family more healthy than how we grew up. Then we meet a woman who buys organic whole wheat bread from a posh health food market, and she meets a woman who bakes her own organic whole wheat bread in her bread maker everyday! Then she meets a woman who bakes her own organic whole wheat bread but kneads it by hand everyday rather than using a bread maker…. But she meets a woman who grinds her own organic wheat berries each day and bakes her own organic whole wheat bread and then she meets a woman who GROWS her own whole wheat to bake her own bread but this lady even meets a woman who grows her own whole wheat but hers is actually organic! YIKES! I could keep going on and on couldn't I…?"

She goes on to say "Ps. I don't like the woman who grows her own organic whole wheat…"

Ode to Pepe

"pepes home im very happy
my song /im vary vary hapy my cats home
happy happy happy happy
my cats home la la la la la la da ha"

-By Jella B. (Number one son), NB: "vary" = very


Our cat went missing on Tuesday 22nd, we didn't think too much of it, he can sometimes stay away for a couple of days.

The dust storm happened on Wednesday, and he didnt come home.... He still wasn't home by Friday and i was very worried. I walked up and down the street, rattled his biscuit box, called his name, a number of times, but still no Pepe. On Sunday, I snuck into my nieghbours yard, who is away, and called out again, not much hope by now, but I still had to try.

And guess what? There lying under some bushes, alive, but skinny, and dirty, was our cat! I picked him up and noticed his back leg was all floppy. I took him home and called the vet, thinking he had a tick, or had brocken his back. Of course being sunday, our vet was closed, I had to take him all the way to Brisbane vet hospital, in Albany Creek. My knight in shining armour (my sister), drove us out there, the gps getting us lost on the way... I love technology....

It turns out that he had smashed his upper back leg and his hip socket, which required massive surgery and a few days in hospital, (and a big chunk of the savings for our house deposit!). He was probably hit by a car, because his claws were shorn down.

It cost a heck of a lot of money. But I know it's worth it, especially when I know my son has cried himself to sleep for the last week, and I shed (more than) a few tears myself, thinking he would have to be put down.

Right now, the patient is sleeping in a make shift bed, with a certain 7 year old lying next to him on the cool bathroom floor. He's looking a bit punk/emo, with a pink arm cuff (painkiller patch) and his leg, thigh and random patches of fur shaved. He is also a bit groggy, but he can limp around and he's alive, so i'm breathing a sigh of relief.

We can always earn more money, but we can never get another Pepe.

i read a news item out loud to my son, because it said that doctors were telling people to stay inside, and i wanted to convince him that im not the meanest mother in the world for making him stay inside today.... but some how he picked up on the advice to clean all surfaces with a damp cloth.... and he is now washing all his hot wheels cars...

"people should minimise their exposure, cover their mouth and nose if going out, and damp wipe and mop their house to further get rid of any lingering dust."

Dust storm Brisbane

I'm bunkered down inside my house, all the windows are shut. It's sweltering hot, and the light has an eerie orange quality. There is a beautiful breeze, pity i can't let it in. We can barely breathe the dusty air inside let alone the thick orange cloud outside. We are both feeling a little wheezy and our noses are running.

10 am this morning facing south west from my back verandah:

12pm (note the crane- its almost the same view)


10 am facing south from my verandah:

and again at 12pm:

my neighbours backyard:

UPDATE

Braved the dust and went exploring, my son was jumping and running around like a skittish kitten, strange how kids and animals are affected by weather....

floating islands to treat storm water runoff

Parenthood is....

...standing on an incredibly sharp piece of bionicle and not only are you not allowed to swear through the pain, but you have to console the owner of said bionicle because you got blood on his toy.

... getting up 1 and 1/2 hours before sunrise and making breakfast in your sleep. Only to be told you made it in the "wrong" bowl.

... sweating over the contents of a lunchbox every night. Red light food vs green light food; no peanuts, tree nuts, or eggs; no excess packaging; no preservatives, colours or flavours; nothing that might spoil or go soggy; nothing politically incorrect, (e.g. nestle or coca-cola amatil,) trying to stick to local/organic/fairtrade.... and then finding the untouched lunch in his bag come 3pm.

As i was walking

i love geckoes, i miss them in winter.
this baby was sunning himself on a fence this morning... totally lifted my mood :)