Settling in and settling down

  So. We are here. After many years we don’t have anything that needs doing somewhere else. No big move to plan, nothing elsewhere to worry about, no big plans for the future. We can be be here………….and live.

  It’s really weird.

  I’ve almost forgotten how to have a home, how to settle down into a place and belong there. I’m used to being the fly-by-nighter, with it always in my thoughts that in six months, I won’t be here. When that’s always in the back of your mind, it does affect the way you live. Lazy with friendships, no involvement in the community, always living in the future-that’s me for the last few years.

  I’m used to having a big something ahead of me. I can plan, I can pack, I can get everything in the house into a storage unit and be on the road with very little disruption to our life. The kids don’t even notice. I’m really good at being busy and efficient and getting an insane amount done easily. It’s pretty normal.

  Normal, however, is not normal. In the three months since we moved in here the husband and I have had many freak-outs. Maybe we should have moved somewhere else instead! Oh no, it’s cold-let’s go to the tropics! I find myself feeling antsy and irritable, and realise that it’s because i’m a bit lost. I’m not used to this normal stuff. The idea of finding social circles and groups and putting down roots is rather daunting, and I think it’s because this is it. There’s no more changing things by taking off somewhere else. We’re here, and there’s really no reason at all to go elsewhere. One thing I realised in our travels is that there is no utopia. We went to notorious alternative areas, intentional communities, and places people raved about. They were all pretty disappointing. The alternative places were full of drugs and not somewhere you’d want to bring up kids, ICs were not full of farmer-types like us, and most of the other raved about places were yuppie-hippy-wankery. So while here is completely unremarkable, it’s perfect precisely because of that. It has the climate, the beautiful land, the relatively safe town. It’s a good place to bring up children in a farm lifestyle.

  However, I have gained some wisdom-I am doing nothing. Which means i’m not trying to expand my business, throwing myself back into study, or coming up with any other hare-brained schemes. We’re not madly searching for a property to buy or doing anything else huge for a change. I’ve definitely gotten the urge to, but i’m not acting on it. Instead, we’re collecting animals, making a garden, and attempting to make a home (furniture would help). I’m knitting a lot while the husband plays the guitar………..and we’re slowly starting to feel a bit more human. The stress is draining away and i’m feeling less raw. Like always, I didn’t realise just how stressed I was until I had time to stop and pay attention. I still don’t feel like getting out much, even though i’ve met some lovely people-right now we have everything we want right here, and as right here is where we’re planning on staying, we’re enjoying it. There’ll be plenty of time for life here, and it’s a good feeling.

Winter Solstice

  The whole Christian series of holidays has really been starting to grate on my nerves over the past few years. I’ve become the Scrooge of Christmas and Easter, because let’s face it, if you’re not religious, what is there to celebrate? A great big consumerist excuse for buying a heap of crap and having stressed-out meltdowns in the lead up. Not really our thing (understatement of the century). And starting Santa? Big mistake. I hate having to come up with ever more intricate lies, so I just shrugged when they asked probing questions. The husband has been telling them he doesn’t exist, but they think he’s joking (I think the girls are cottoning on although they haven’t said anything, probably because of their brothers. They’re too smart and too removed from external reinforcing to be sucked in for much longer anyway).

  We solved the problem early this year-let’s become pagans! Not in any sort of belief sense, but in acknowledging the change of seasons. We live outside and seasonally in so many ways it made sense. So now each quarter (two solstices and two equinoxes) we have an excuse for an occasion. Summer Solstice will involve gift-giving, solving the thorny issue of relatives freaking out at us rejecting yet another basic tenet of society, and the rest are a chance to enjoy a good, seasonal, home-grown feast.

And this winter, a huge fire. Because everyone, deep down, is a pyromaniac.

When it was truly dark, it was an excellent excuse to break out the sparklers.

  Funnily enough, the kids haven’t complained about the loss of the jolly fat man in red AT ALL. And I feel as if I can throw myself back into it all again, with no reservations.

Bitten by the knitting bug

  I learnt to knit as a little girl. I grew up with my nanna, and if she was sitting, she was knitting. She taught me how to, and I would diligently start a project………….and then get bored with it, and put knitting aside for a year or so, until I started the next unfinished project.

  As an adult, I got heavily into sewing (no surprises there). Every so often i’d mention that my kids needed jumpers, or pants, or beanies, or scarves, or toys, and like magic a package of handknits would appear in a few weeks.

  Until her retina detached. She soldiered on with deteriorating eyesight for a few years, but now, ten years since her eye problems began, she’s given up. I think it’s been about two years since she knit anything, and after eight (I think) eye surgeries and waiting for the next one who can blame her? But I did start thinking that I really needed to start knitting. After all, i’ve already requested that my claim on her houseful of yarn, needles and patterns be put in her will. And I managed to teach my girls to knit, and they’ve already produced more than me.

  So I cast on for a dishcloth (from The Knitter’s Year, Debbie Bliss) about six months ago, in cotton. It crept along at an absolute snail’s pace, and I remembered why i’d always deserted knitting-it’s so slow. Halfway through I decided it was time to ditch throwing, and learn picking, or Continental knitting. It was quite fun to have that challenge again, of feeling all thumbs and getting tangled constantly-it’s been a while since I learnt something completely new. But once mastered, it was much faster. I lost the pattern a bit while travelling, and some up the top is in ribbing rather than moss stitch, but for a dishcloth that’s fine.

  Next up, I cast on for a beanie for myself. With my big hair I can’t wear standard beanies, and I tend to look like a wharfie in most of them. This one is from an unremembered book but is called the Simple Squishy Slouchy Hat, in Paton’s Totem wool from an op-shop. I realised with this one that I was wrapping the purls the wrong way, so the first few stocking stitch stripes look herringboned. Other that that it all went easily-I made it longer than the pattern called for to fit the hair.

  The husband has nabbed it now though, so i’m still hat-less. OK, so you can’t see the beanie well in this picture, but don’t we live in a gorgeous place? Him riding the kids’ horse, with our goats in the background……………

 

The first main goal is to make myself socks-I have a funky sock fetish plus feet like a corpse. They’re always cold. So circular knitting needs to be mastered. I made myself a K2, P2 ribbed headband to teach myself the Magic Loop technique, but it ended up too messy for my perfectionist tendencies (mostly because of the fluffy, loosely stranded yarn). So I pulled that apart and am now knitting a beanie for Shorty, to my own pattern, brim-up using two-colour helix knitting with Magic Loop. I figure why learn one new skill with each project when I can tackle fifteen?

  Already, I have plans and supplies for a jumper for my girls and cabled armwarmers for myself (my hands get as cold as my feet, and I LOVE cables). I’m officially obsessed in a way I never have been with crochet-I think it’s something that appeals to the mathematical, pattern-loving side of my brain. And when I work out how to turn a heel nicely, i’m sending a pair to my Nanna. She’ll find it amusing to be on the receiving end for a change.

Two solid years of dreadlocks

  I think it’s sixth time lucky-after stuffing them up five times, i’ve finally worked out how to keep my hair in dreads and keep them looking good. For two whole years!

April 2011-new, wispy dreads.

April 2013

   That I haven’t screwed them up must be a good sign. I mean, look at my history…………

Dreads #1-Done by an African lady. Looked great, but I couldn’t lock the roots up when they grew out a few inches. A circus performer I met told me to wash my hair with soap and scrub it right into my head, so I did, and it worked great at knotting my hair up-it all matted together at the base into a helmet with dreads poking out. Complete write-off.

Dreads #2-The previously mentioned circus performer did these. Again, no luck with the base growing out. About a year later, I brushed them out because they were all hair at the bottom and looked fluffy and crap.

Dreads #3-The husband had a shot, and did a pretty good job. But we were in Tasmania in the dead of winter (ie March-October), and being someone who hates spending excessive (read:any) time on my appearance it only took two months or so for me to get sick of timing washing my hair to the weather, and having it sit icily on my head for hours. Got the brush onto them again.

Dreads #4-The husband again did them, but insisted I needed to have them thicker. He did them far too thick and tight and lost a lot of length as a result, and I felt as though I had turds hanging from my head. I think they lasted two weeks.

Dreads #5-The husband made atonement, and did a better job. These worked really well, and i’d figured out how to care for them. This time it was a mental thing. We were at our property, and with it being so hard to wash everything, from clothes to bodies, I started to think that I was looking icky. Looking back at photos I was just paranoid-we all looked fine. But mental trickery worked on me, and after about eight months I went back to boring normal hair.

   Now I can look after them with no issues i’m fairly confident i’ll one day reach my goal of having my hair waist length, for the first time in my life. At the glacial rate my hair grows i’ll probably have grandchildren by then, but oh well. It’ll give them something to play with.

7 months and 10 days in Tasmania.

  Not that I was counting or anything. Oh, but how glad I am it is all over-and so quickly! We expected to be there for much longer, living in limbo, waiting for the freedom that selling our house would give us. And it was all over and done with before winter began. 

  We decided to make the most of it, and while renovating our house started visiting the local attractions-North-East Park

  Ralph Falls and Cash’s Gorge

The majestic White Knights, at Mathinna. Somewhat ruined by the astonishing amount of leeches there, and us not having salt in our kit.

 

I forgot the camera for Columba Falls. Oh, and Lilydale Falls. The site of the infamous snake episode, years ago. None spotted this time thankfully!

And basically tried to settle in as much as possible-and when you’re us, and you have half an acre of beautiful soil at your disposal, that means producing food. Hello meat, for the first time in four years! We bought five sheep, and ate three. As my sister-in-law told us, we lost our vege-tinity.

Doesn’t he look tasty? But Sam the Lamb escaped the slaughterman (for now), and was sold with the house.

  13 Rhode Island Reds kept us piled with eggs.

And hatched seven babies!  A chicken book the husband was reading recently stated that RIR’s do not go broody. Obviously a book Mrs Broody hadn’t read.

   Um, we ate three of those babies too. Our friend was willing to teach us how, so we had a tatt-covered bloke turn up with lots of very sharp knives. We had lots of giggles about being friends with him-i’m sure most people assumed that with the overload of tattoos and dreadlocks between the three of us, we were up to something more illegal and interesting than sitting around drinking herbal tea and talking animal husbandry.

  I’ll keep the photos of the next part of the process to myself though, as i’m sure the vegans wouldn’t appreciate them. Come to think of it, most meat eaters wouldn’t either. IF slaughterhouses had glass walls etc…….

  We gardened. This is what a couple of months, a pick and a shovel can do to a patch of grass.

  Considering the hail storm we had in late October (see below), we ended the summer pretty well. While people rave about gardening in Tasmania, i’m not a fan. Give me more pests and a longer growing season any day. We literally got about six weeks of okay summer growing weather, and by the start of March when we left we’d had two ripe tomatoes. Considering we’ve lived in places where we’ve had tomatoes all year around…………..they can keep their brassicas!

  I finally started my herbal medicine study, but that’s on pause, maybe never to be resumed, as I was horribly disappointed with the quality of the course. I’m still waiting for a resolution of my complaints about references and accuracy-it’s time to go to the next stage of making sure they can’t ignore me, I think. But we grew many herbs, I made infused oils from comfrey and calendula that work amazingly, plus many other practical experiments. I feel like a mad scientist, which is probably why I like it so much.

  And that was about it. After living in a few places in a row knowing they were going to be temporary, I just couldn’t muster up the energy required to get out and do permanent-type things there. So I spent most of my time at home, got a hell of a lot of sewing and tie-dyeing done, got obsessed with the classical method of home education and began weaving that into our life, and basically kept myself manically busy while I crossed my fingers that this last hurdle of ours towards a permanent, stable life would be over quickly. And it was! When the house settled we had grand plans of travelling all around Tasmania. In the end we spent four days at Lagoons Beach (spectacular, free, highly recommended)

Then we decided we’d had enough, booked tickets, spent six days enjoying the north-west, and got on the Spirit of Tasmania. A night in the ocean recliners was enough to convince us that we never want to live on an island again (the mainland doesn’t count), we all cheered when our tyres hit the ground in the morning, and we were ready to head north again.

So, we were happy there. But now it’s done, and i’m nothing except glad. Phew.

Homemaking and Unschooling

  As we have our house for sale, and are maintaining the excessive neatness required by that, i’m reminded of just how messy this unschooling life is. Consider our last house here-four hours earlier, this room was spotless.

  Or our dining table, regularly needing to be shovelled off so we can eat.

  Although i’m not the cleanest person alive, I do like order. I was struggling with mess recently, so I started browsing online for what other homeschoolers had to say, and was again reminded of why i’m so not radical.

  The radical unschooling solution? Who cares, it’s just your high standards. You shouldn’t force them on the rest of the family. If they’re your standards, YOU uphold them cheerfully, demanding no help from anyone else. Give your family the blessing of a clean house. Theoretically, your children will see you and automatically pick up your good habits, and eventually exhibit them to your satisfaction.*

    After finishing my laughing fit and picking myself up from the floor, I started musing about how this method started. The reason I came up with is because most people hate housework. They see it as repetitive, neverending drudgery-and if you don’t want to do it, why would your children? This is mostly due to clever marketing-many people own every ‘labour-saving’ device there is because of this belief. People bitch and moan about having to clean. The message to children is ‘Housework is horrible. Avoid it any way you can’. So I can understand RU-ers thinking totally avoiding mentioning housework is a winning strategy-if you don’t force them, they may not end up with an aversion. But nor will the parents end up with any significant help in the vast majority of cases.

  But we are crafty parents. We learnt the secret trick with children years ago-you can make anything fun. And if you do, they will believe you. Like the husband having dishwashing races with the kids last night, where he washes them as fast as he can while the child drying has to try to keep up. It usually ends up with suds and dishes all over the kitchen (luckily they’re all stainless steel, so throwing doesn’t matter) and masses of shouting and laughing. Hence, our kids have no issues with doing dishes when they’re asked. 

   Instead of avoiding the issue, why not make housework enjoyable, by doing it together? By showing them that keeping house is a worthy task?  Unless they’re mega-rich they’re going to have to do it every day of their entire life.Turn it into a job they can do well, and take pride in-children like being useful. I think many people have forgotten that. They enjoy knowing they’re making a contribution to the family, and love knowing that their work is valued and appreciated. It also helps to cultivate an appreciation for actually having this all of this stuff-once you know how many people in the world live in poverty and how lucky you are in comparison it seems selfish in the extreme to complain about washing the dishes after your fabulous meal.

  Plus, there’s a lot they don’t notice. For them, the cleaning fairies really do come. I was asked by my seven year old recently what I was doing. The answer? Scrubbing the bath. She’d never realised it had to be cleaned. I imagine many children could move out without realising, especially if you clean when they’re asleep. Without a conscious effort to show them what is done and how it’s done, there’s every chance they won’t know until they have to tackle the job in their own house.

Sure, I could wait for their lightbulb moment, when they decided to be clean and tidy of their own volition-but i’d rather take the initiative. And then take the extra time I have to spend time with them.

*Cynic that I am, I confirmed my suspicions by doing some digging on the websites-all three who recommended this had 1-2 children and free rein on technology. A small family of screen addicts creates so much less mess than a large family of craft addicts!

Magic painting

  This is an activity that is great fun for kids and adults alike-we never lose our love for secret messages. It’s simple really-draw or write on plain, sturdy paper with a candle, pressing quite hard. Give it to the recipient, who paints over it with watercolours or dilute food colouring and voila! The secret is revealed. It’s a really nice wat to write lovely messages to the kids.

 

 

 

  I tried this with Frosty last week, who liked it for a little bit-but then spent the rest of his time emptying and refilling everyone else’s water. He’s going through a water stage right now.