Mental illness (nope, I don't have mental health at the moment)

I've been thinking a lot about ideas around accepting help, asking for help contrasted with autonomy and self-reliance in the context of mental illness. In my own self-critical way I told myself to shut-up and deal with the fact I need help, that to get it I need to ask for it, I don't need to 'prove' I need it and receiving help is difficult and weird but I'm going to have to get used to it. Thinking about this, and thinking about the process of getting better made me draw some analogies with the equivalent process when recovering from physical illness or injury. I used physical illness and recovery as a metaphor for mental illness with a friend and it seemed to be useful, so I thought I'd flesh out those ideas a bit.

In the acute stage of, say, a sprained ankle you need to take meds (anti-inflammatories, pain meds), rest and elevate the ankle, use ice and compression. You will probably need some help with what healthcare professionals call 'activities of daily living' (ADLs) because you can't and shouldn't use that ankle to hobble around to look after yourself. In the acute stage of mental illness you may need meds (which might be different to your usual meds), you need to rest (sometimes resting your thinking and feeling parts requires meds. A chemical compression bandage, if you will) and sometimes you need help with ADLs. You may be able to walk ok but the part that needs rest is the thinking and feeling part, so making decisions, sometimes even simple everyday decision like which tshirt to wear or what to have on your toast, become totally overwhelming.

In order to help a friend in this situation don't just offer to make them toast, say 'I'd like to make you toast, is Vegemite ok or would you prefer honey?' BUT if they say they don't want toast you MUST respect their autonomy (or make the toast but reassure them you won't be offended if they don't eat it - it's like the great post on consent and cups of tea)

Even when these things are possible they might take a lot longer than normal (so don't expect your depressed friend to turn up anywhere on time, and don't give them a hard time for being late, they have almost certainly already done that for themselves).

At some point the acute stage morphs into the recovery stage. With physical injuries this is the point where, if you have sort help from a medical professional, the physio might have given you a bunch of exercises to do. What questions should you ask the physio? How often should I do the exercises, will it hurt or will there just be some discomfort? When should I start to feel better and get full function back? How long will it take me to heal? What are the SMART goals of treatment? What is the long term prognosis?  These questions can and should be asked of mental health professionals. For sure these questions are more difficult in the field of mental health than physical injuries and ailments but it's really important that if you have a therapist you are on the same page with respect to these things. If you aren't recieving treatment and/or don't have a therapist it's just as important to try to work out where you want to be. A psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist may give you specific exercises - what is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) but a series of mental exercises. If you doubt this stuff works, or can work for you (which is pretty normal for depressed people) look up the research. If that is too difficult/personal/scary/etc look up brain plasticity (I liked 'The Brain that Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge) and pense on the fact that brains are incredibly powerful - if you can re-wire your brain after massive trauma then we can probably do some of the re-wiring necessary to be able to live and manage our mental illnesses.

Everybody says it, few people do it but WRITE DOWN* YOUR QUESTIONS. Doing this can be really hard when you are in the black pit of despair or when you are so anxious that you are worried about being able to keep breathing, so cut yourself some slack if you can't manage it. You could also enlist the help of a friend to do this. In fact, I have a few close friends and all of us suffer to a greater or lesser extend from mental illness. When we sense someone might be struggling we will often offer to help them make a list. Along the same lines, take a pen and paper to your appointment and try to write a few things down. Even if you ask the therapist what you should write down, it means when you walk out and suddenly realize you have very little memory of what just went on you will have something written to research or just jog your memory. Memory and cognition can be affected by mental illness, and I'm not just talking fear of impending doom or sense of self here. When I'm sick it takes me longer to process stuff, even simple stuff, and there are lots of things I don't remember so keep the pen and paper handy and don't beat yourself up when things don't go as planned.

Where does this get us? Like other illness and injury, there are steps you can take to get better, but healing often takes longer than you want it to. Even after you get back to a functional state you might find you get tired or overwhelmed more easily. As before, cut yourself some slack and surround yourself with people you feel supported but not smothered by. There IS treatment for mental illness. You can get better, even if you don't think you ever will. I have depression and anxiety and the symptoms have ebbed and flowed since my childhood. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I'm most definitely Not Fine. If I had proactive about treatment younger I might be better now at managing my 'twins' - the Black Dog and the Monster - but maybe not. Either way I am much better at calling for help now than ever before, I'm much better at allowing myself to heal, I'm still terrified by relapses and with this current relapse I'm trying to work on what might trigger these major episodes so I can avoid, to some extent, things spiraling out of control.

If you, or someone you love, is suffering with mental illness please work on getting some help  <3 p="">

Group Therapy #1

JUMP.

Oh crap, Here I am. First group therapy session. I spoke briefly to the nice psychologist E yesterday for the first time. She encouraged me to come, and here I am. She promised she wouldn't make me, or anyone, speak if they don't want to so I'm scrawling busily on a piece of paper. Busy. Maybe it's just something to do with my anxious self, I'll have to try it next time I'm at a party, instead of the ever-filling glass of wine. Crap. 
I wonder if the guy next to me can read my writing. I wonder what he thinks. I'm scribbling away before we even start and I hope I'm not making anyone else feel uncomfortable. I would be uncomfortable with someone else writing. It is like having someone in the group texting. Consciously I know everyone here is far more worried about themselves, but still, what is the etiquette?. Since I tend to since I feel like I take over in group settings, I'm going to concentrate on holding back and I'm going to use writing to help me fill the space left by talking, left by amusing people, left by emoting messily all over the place.
Nice psychologist E has asked everyone to introduce themselves. Name only, thank gods. I've got this. She started around the other side of the room, will I participate? I pitch my voice low and clear. My professional voice. It carries but is still quiet. That part went OK but I'll keep writing. Now she's explaining that the group topic is 'Values' and she's going through the ground rules. Normal stuff - confidentiality, respect, no mobile phones. Easy. Now Values. What are they, where do they come from, what stops us living according to our values, she's writing on the whiteboard.... TRIGGER.

Then Nice psychologist E started talking about about the fact we tend to beat ourselves up over.... I couldn't really hear her words any more, just the buzzing in my head, tears pricking, her kind voice saying that we are too hard on ourselves. Not me, I need to harden up, I cried in the gentlest of group therapy sessions. Then tears started to really flow the sobs were on their way, I fled. Seeing only the carpet in front of my feet (I'm good at that). Abandoning my shoes which I'd slid off and kicked decorously under my chair ten minutes earlier. 

Reading for Pleasure

My littlest one, not quite 6 years old, just came downstairs to tell me something.

He and his brother are meant to be asleep, but the big brother wanted to finish a book, probably one he's read multiple times, so the light was on. I think the little guy must have been bored because he came down to tell me.... wait for it.... He had read a book.

He's only just gotten the hang of reading, he's just practicing matching the sounds with words, and the words with meaning. This is actually the first time ever he has read for pleasure! I hugged him excitedly and welcomed him into the world of reading-for-pleasure, explaining how wonderful and powerful it was, and told him that my favourite activity in the whole world was actually just reading for pleasure. I'm so happy!

Some days are like this for me...

(From the ever hilarious XKCD)

...And blogging is like this for me some days too. I have things to say - I want to talk about our holiday, my kids school, my new fresh uni degree, religion (!), my wonderful mates, my inlaws, the list goes on - but making it all coherent isn't happening. Maybe it might work out as exams get closer and I need to procrastinate from study...

More travel!

The whole family was SO excited! Thailand then Singapore! Seeing Clare! Then Tim and Jen in Singapore! Elephants! Legoland! Singapore zoo! We found a someone to house-sit, got packed up and went to the airport for our 9:40pm flight. We started the check in process only to find that the kids couldn't travel on their passports because they only had five-and-a-half months validity. Apparently they would have just flown us all straight home once we got to immigration in Thailand. Now it's one thing to have a 9 hour flight, 4 hour layover in the early hours of the morning in the KL budget terminal then another couple of hours on a plane before reaching one's holiday destination, it's a completely different kettle of fish to be sent back after that kind of ordeal. We called the passport office, we pleaded with the airline, we looked at Asher's face as his big eyes flilled with unshed tears. We then caught a taxi home. The passport office was monumentally unhelpful, telling me that the quickest they could guarantee a passport was a week away (her: "we can have it done quickly at extra charge, which will take you two days from the interview but the soonest I can book you an interview is Friday, so you will have the passports on Tuesday" me: "WHAT?!?")

After we accepted that we were not going to get on the flight (and I stopped arguing tearfully with the passport office at 8pm) our luck changed. The kind lady at the airport post office stayed open to take passport photos, and we got the passport forms, the kind Air Aisia supervisor told us we could change the flight to the next night for free, our house-sitter is the director at Kiran's preschool and she and I sat up til midnight filling in forms and using black humour to take the sting out of the situation. We didn't really tell anyone (except to let Aunty Clare know at the other end) because we were so unsure of what was going to happen next, and to be perfectly honest I was mortally embarrassed that I hadn't seen that one coming and organised around it. The next morning a lovely, lovely woman at the passport office took pity on us and we had the kids passports within five or so hours. We picked up the passports with luggage in tow and caught the train to the airport. The kind supervisor booked us in (no queue) and gave us express passes so there was/will be less queueing at every airport. Even the hotel was very accommodating and changeged our booking without charge.

So after what felt like two and a half days in transit we arrived in Chiang Mai and we are having a fabulous time. More to come about our great visit to Baanchang Elephant Park later....

Toadstools!

I've been getting my crafty on, partially due to my natural inclination, but I can't deny that Pinterest, a dry spell (no alcohol at all for a week), Christmas and school holidays haven't been major catalysts. 

After making the dinosaur habitat for us I got all excited and made fairy gardens for two families with little girls as their Christmas present. Nothing too overboard, just a few easy plants, some sparkly white pebbles, butterflies (shrinky plastic and florists wire) and air-dry clay magic toadstools and birdbaths. I thought I might so a little tutorial here while I still remembered what I did.

First I made the stem and the cap out of air drying clay. I didn't think too much about size, I just went with what felt comfortable in my hand.

Then I used water to make slip 'glue' to join the two pieces

After carefully joining the two pieces I inserted a wooden skewer. This was to enable me to stand them up in pot plants, obviously you couldn't use a wooden skewer if you were going to fire your clay.

It also made the toadstools easier to hold while I worked on them.

I used the pointy end of one of the skewers to make the gills of the toadstool. I got a bit fancy with some of them and made them a little more toadstool like.

They took ages to dry. For the first 24 hours they should dry under plastic to avoid cracking. You will know when they are dry because the colour will change to a much lighter colour (for this clay the pieces turned white) and they will not feel cool to the touch anymore.

You can see one of the birdbaths, a couple of christmas tree ornaments and a cheeky little gnome in there too.

I used student acrylic to paint them. I just painted the top of the caps red and gave them white spots, but you could get as crazy or as traditional as you liked at this point. I think I gave the red about two coats? And the white spots about four coats so they really stood out.

I varnished them, using a glossy varnish for the tops of the caps and a satin varnish for the rest of them. I was really pleased with the way they turned out.

Enjoy!

Dinosaur habitat

My sister Clare is in Cambodia and blogging, my mum is travelling and blogging, my friend Megan is planning the trip of a lifetime and will be blogging, so I thought a post was in order. None of that exotic travel for me at the moment though. My life is all about parenting my kids, gardening and trying to make our house more organised and liveable (hence my Pinterest addiction) and here is a little project we did yesterday afternoon that covers all those bases.

I had a tired grumpy four year old and wanted to look at wardrobe systems in Bunnings, so I bribed the tired kid with the promise that we would buy some little plants and make him a dinosaur garden. We also bought a wide-ish, flat-ish pot, which was unnecessary but I'll use it for bulbs next spring. I was drawing my inspiration from cool terrariums I'd seen on Pinterest and originally planned to use plants I had at home, but I just couldn't resist the mini mondo grass ($1) and a few small-leaved sedums as well as something called 'corsican mint' which is a tiny little thing ground cover thing. I wanted all small-leaved plants because I think the scale looks better (same reason I don't like large leaved bonsai).

I probably took us about 10 minutes to put together, including taking a blade to a disposable water bottle to make the pond and wandering around the garden looking for appropriate rocks.


I wish I had chosen a sealed pot with a base, rather than terracotta, so it was easier to put in the boys room (although that *might* be a recipe for disaster) and I might work on the pond a bit (make it much flatter and fill it with blue glass decorator bead things rather than actual water) but I'm pretty happy with it. More to the point, Kiz loves it, and has given all his dinosaurs drinks, baths, and plants to munch on.

Travel Diary - The Bong

The way Cambodians pronounce the name of the city Battambang sounds more like 'BattaBONG' so we 'old Cambodia hands' refer to it as 'the bong.' The word apparently means 'town of the lost stick' in  Khmer, which is somehow appropriate. There's a Khmer folk tale, that i don't know, associated with the name but even without that the town gives off a slightly lost stick kinda vibe. if I was making up a folktale to fit it would probably talk about the three year old son of a god or hero who had a favourite stick and lost it. Maybe the child's mother distracted him by taking him to splash in the river, or the town marks the spot where he held his breath till he turned blue. Nothing as energetic as a tantrum would fit in though, Battambang isn't like that.

It's a dusty, flat town, surrounded by rice paddies with a brown river snaking through the middle. There isn't a big tourist scene (really the only thing to do, besides buying junk at the market, or cycling out of town, is the bamboo train, which requires a post of its own) but there is a small and tight expat/volunteer community that seems to be centred around the Handa hospital, CCT and Phare circus. There are probably a bunch of others as well, but those were the organisations that I encountered. There is good coffee (by Cambodian standards it is EXCELLENT coffee), beer in tins, fixies everywhere and even the odd attempt at a moustache but still manages to avoid being hipsterish, so I think it's a really good place for Clare to be spending a few months. If I sound like I'm vacillating between loving the place and some misgivings it because I probably am. That's Battambang for you.

Clare has her work cut out for her at Handa. I went on a tour of the hospital, had a drink with the director of nursing and got a pretty good idea of the scale of the difficulties. I think she's up to the challenge but I don't think the results will be as quick as she'd like. It was really hard leaving her there, at the beginning of such a big task (particularly because we were both rather hung-over) but I take comfort from the fact she has a really good friend there and an endless supply of some of the best pot sticker vegetarian dumplings I have ever tasted.

So I left Clare and caught the bus back to Phnom Penh, and spent the afternoon just moseying about. I didn't get a cap for Sanjay or a cheapie pedicure but I did get a great massage from a blind guy, a ruby ring so big that people will assume it's fake (I don't think it's fake, I think it's just a very low grade ruby, but I don't know much about gemstones). I had dinner and a beer at the Foreign Corespondents Club and tried to get a glimpse into the past and imagine how it might have been to drink there during the American war with Vietnam and Khmer Rouge years. I think I need to find a memoir to read!

And now I'm sitting at a table on the rather lovely rooftop bar of my hotel, the Kolab Sor. there is some inoffensive RnB playing, a delicious breeze keeping the mozzies away, a distant storm putting on a light-show and I'm just finishing my final beer of the night and nibbling salty-sweet peanuts. A little moment of perfect that I want to keep hold of.

Travel Diary - Where was I up to?

Apsara Dancer

Siem Reap needs pictures. Well, to be fair, the town of Siem Reap doesn't, coz it's a fair bit like so many other Southeast Asian tourist towns. Full of young Japanese, French, Australian and Irish backpackers, Chinese and Korean tour groups, a generous smattering of families with young kids (mostly German, Dutch or Australian), grey nomads (North American) and 'voluntourists' of all ages and nationalities taking a break from their good deeds. There are lots of touts, a fair amount of children begging (dirty, but not deformed as they are in India) and more than
enough neon lit bars and restaurants for all of them.

Angkor Wat and the other temples however need pictures. Ideally lovely photos taken by professional photographers but if you don't want to buy a fancy coffee table book or even do a quick Google search you can see some of mine.

This is like holding the Taj Mahal on your hand, an almost obligatory cheesy tourist shot. 

They really are SO beautiful!

Angkor Wat at a slight angle. Our tour guide was not the *best* photographer, but he knew a lot and spoke great English.

One dollar for the blessing of one the guys who looks after the temple statues. Not a regular monk (no robes) but I got a red thread and lots of chanting over the knots as he tied it. 

The causeway to the temple of Angkor Wat. My fancy new camera (Olympus TG2. Waterproof, shockproof and it seems to have decent picture quality. Thanks Tim!) has a bunch of magic effects. This one is 'fisheye' which seems fitting somehow.

It was a long hot day, but really magical. We booked our tour with 'Beyond' which is owned by Australians apparently but they deserve a shoutout. It was US$28 for the full day which included all the (chilled!) water we could drink (I don't think they want any of their guests dropping dead of heat exhaustion) a hot lunch in a nice shady pavilion, a friendly guide who spoke excellent English, had a sense of humour and was really receptive to what our group wanted to see. The maximum group size is eight, but there were just four of us - me, Clare and a cheerful Malaysian couple. Did I mention the airconditioned van that took us between temples? Considering a tuk tuk would be about US$15 I felt this was actually pretty decent value.

Travel Diary - Phnom Penh and Siem Reap

If you're here for cute bear picks go and see Clare's blog. It's ok, I'll wait :-)

Ah, that's better, isn't it. Cuuuute sunbears and moonbears! I actually had quite a different perspective to Clare. I haven't really been exposed to 'voluntourism' much before so I saw the idea of paying a bunch of money and getting to spend a day doing what amounts to a behind-the-scenes tour and learning a bit about the Free the Bears organisation as pretty cool. It was cool, and I recommend it to anyone who might have a spare day in Phnom Penh.

Now that we've had the cute, we get the other side. Our first day in Cambodia we went to Cheung Ek, also known as the killing fields, and S21, also known as the genocide museum. It was hard going, too much for us to wrap our heads around really. The contrast at Cheung Ek between the peaceful area and the horror we heard about on the audio guide was enough to give me whiplash. By the time we got to S21 I was kind of 'horror-ed out' and numb. I was hot and hungry and feeling guilty for wanting to complain when we were in the place so many people had been murdered and tortured. Dinner that night was subdued. I think we brought our books because we weren't up to talking.

I had also started reading 'First they killed my Father' by Loung Ung. It describes the awfulness of going from middle class city kid to persecuted peasant very clearly. So clearly, in fact, that I couldn't think of anything but my kids, and the terrifying thought of my boys ever being caught up in something so horrible. The thought of not being able to protect my kids is... Unbearable. I realised that it was turning me into a depressed and anxious mess, so I got some silly funny books from the second hand bookshop to keep me going.

Actually, Phnom Penh was better than expected. Less hassle and more.... I dunno. So we spent an extra day wandering around, finding coffee, buying weird fruit. We are now in Siem Reap and have seen the Angkor Temples, but talking about that is going to have to wait.

Travel Diary - why am I in Phnom Penh?

Diary and dairy, I used to always get the spelling of those two words mixed up. Unfortunately nothing about cows today....

It was one of those lazy, boozy, funny after dinner conversations, where Sanjay and Franma were discussing the party I (don't) want for my upcoming fortieth birthday. I was joining in with the hilarity but stewing with anxiety about a party for me. I like other people's parties, but not my own. I end up taught anxious and exhausted, unable to eat or chat properly to any of my wonderful friends. I was trying to convince the others that we should have an animal costume party and I could wrap myself in my doona lie on the floor and be a sea slug and when we all went to bed the issue was unresolved. Over the next few days the questions kept coming, and I became increasingly uncomfortable with the plan.

I also had my sister Clare planning her trip to Cambodia. She has a three month volunteer position and she was putting off leaving for one reason or another. So one morning I joked to Clare that I should come to. She was enthusiastic so I emailed Sanjay - can I go to Cambodia for a holiday instead of having a big scary party? He replied 'sure' and that was that, decision made.

Wordless Wednesday

Organic Gardening at our Place

Let me tell you a little secret: I don't have an organic garden. There, I've said it. It feels better to be out with it. Actually, even more shocking, I'm not really trying to have an organic garden. What I would like is a garden where herbicides and pesticides and commercial fertilizers just aren't needed. More of how I'm trying to get to that point later.

There are actually two main ways that my garden isn't organic. Firstly the typical way, where some of the things I put on my garden don't have organic certification. Certainly the compost I make isn't organic because I put in things to compost that aren't organically certified (fruit and veg are only part of it, last time I checked the SMH wasn't even claiming to be organic. In fact, some of those columnists are downright poisonous!) but also there is so much INORGANIC MATTER in my soil left from the last owners of the house, that I can only hope to minimise it, not to get rid of it entirely. The solid things like glass, metal and asbestos (!) aren't the biggest problem, more difficult to get rid of are the things the previous owners used to attempt to keep the weeds down. Well, I can only assume that they carpeted many of their garden beds in fake grass, or lined them with plastic, to keep the weeds down, although I may be wrong, they may just have had a very different aesthetic. The astroturf stuff is actually really problematic as sunlight (UV radiation) has started to break it down, leaving many thousands of little 'tufts' of fake grass throughout the soil of my garden. From my reading it seems that UV light breaks some of the polymer bonds, so the plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, which to me suggests that it gets into the food chain more easily. The problem with plastics getting into the food chain is far to big for this blog, but google on the gyre, pthaletes, BPA and endocrine disruption (Not safe for people with anxiety disorders! This is some freaky shit!). So, I remove what I can but I try not to think about it all to much so I don't wind myself into an anxious knot.

That green stuff is tufts of plastic grass

Given that I can't ever hope to have a garden that could be considered organic I do try and stay green in my garden. Just like I firmly believe in 'good enough parenting' (google it!) I am aiming for something I think of as 'organic enough gardening' which allows a certain amount of flexibility, considering what I'm working with. So I minimise the external inputs of pesticide, herbicides and fertilizer to saves energy, both in terms of production and transport and doesn't add even more weird chemicals to my garden. What I do, and plan to do is:

• Weeds: I manually weed my garden, use mulch and newspaper and I'm planning to try black plastic for some tricky bits too. High strength vinegar on a hot day is very effective on things that I can't get to easily in other ways (such as between the pavers). I'm also going to use green manure for some areas, so the weeds can't get a hold.
• Pests: Again, manual removal is excellent for insect pests. Apart from the decrease in pest numbers, it also means I spend more time in the garden. Obviously this isn't always possible, but as Peter Cundall says, just wandering around observing is very important for gardeners, so that's what I aim for. I am also doing things like a bit of companion planting (Marigolds! Yay!), exclusion (especially for chooks, possums, other birds and bandicoots) and hopefully the chickens will also help by eating insect pests.
• Fertility: We have two compost tumblers that are working well, and the added joy of chook poop means that we should have some really good quality compost by the begginning of summer. I do purchase sugar cane mulch, which I use for the hen house as well as the garden, but that should decrease when I start growing green manure and when my comfrey starts growing.

Currently we have two raised beds, soon to be three. One is planted out with lettuce seedlings, coriander seedlings and cucumber seeds the other is still resting so the compost has time to loose it's heat and the worms can start their work. We have some eggplant and capsicum/pepper seeds germinating inside and plans for sweetcorn, bush beans and sunflowers (I'll put the sunflowers out the front to protect them from the chooks and provide some much needed cheerfulness to our front yard). Yesterday the kids helped me plant some pretty, low maintenance, pollinator attracting, flower seedlings (a white, scented allysium, a small white salvia and a white and pink coastal daisy). We are also planning to put a tent-style trellis between two of the beds, made out of some weldmesh that we found hidden in our garden somewhere. We also have some herbs around the place and a potato tower that is growing brilliantly. I would also like a passionfruit vine, and I think that it would be nice near our front door, where it would enjoy the northerly aspect and keep a bit of our wall shaded.

Raised beds, with coop behind the clivias

Potato tower, needing mulch

Hen Happiness

I picked the 'chookens' up the day after my birthday, so we've had them here for about 10 days and I'm still  besotted.

Chook looking pissed off after
spending 40 mins in a box.

The people we picked them up from (City Chicks in Marsden Park) were just lovely. They showed me how to clip their wings, they let my little boys go exploring in their yard, showed them baby chicks and the advice they gave about feeding and husbandry all seemed very sane and matched with what I have read already.

The henhouse

We got home late afternoon and popped them in the coop. I fussed around trying to make sure they knew where food and water was located (we are using Dine-a-Chook and Wet-a-Chook for food and water - a bit different to what the chooks were used to, so I put some scratch grains (AKA chicken treats) around the feeder and even inside the feeder and the hens got the idea at once). The black chicken (an australorp cross) managed to escape and I realised that she was the feisty one. The kids had their first lesson in chicken catching (slow, quiet, no sudden movements and try to corner her) and I discovered that hunting a black hen through the shrubbery at dusk was something akin to trying to catch a shadow. Luckily it only took us a few nervous minutes!

The next morning I heard some noisy clucking, and when I went to check on the girls I found TWO EGGS! 

First Eggs!

We haven't had two eggs every day since, but we've had one egg most days (and one hen hasn't come into lay yet). When chooks are stressed they stop laying, so the fact that despite the big move, and despite the kids wanting to pat them and talk to them they are still laying, albeit not perfectly regularly, is fantastic.

Six year old learning to catch and carry a hen

They were named mostly by the boys - Kiz said he wanted the brown chooken to be called Henny Penny, so that was fine. I wanted the black one to be called Kali and Asher wanted them all to have the word 'hen' somewhere in their name so the Light Sussex became Henrietta and the black chicken became Henny Kali.

So far the thee chooks are doing everything I'm 'paying' them for. Providing eggs, teaching the kids about caring for animals and providing all of us with amusement (Asher said to me yesterday "We have the most fascinating chooks mum!"). Of course, I now need to get the planned raised beds with bird netting sorted pronto, and some more fencing organised - the chooks are scratching up my seedlings, stomping on my new lavender, discovering new and creative ways to escape, pooping in  remarkably inconvenient and I strongly suspect Henny Penny has started laying her eggs under a bush or somewhere because the last few days have only been one-egg-days. Despite all that, they are funny and friendly and the whole family is glad we have them.

The girls saw the treat bucket!

Today is my birthday...

They are pretending to be frogs

...and unsurprisingly it started like a regular morning. I was woken up at some ungodly hour (not just your regular gollygoshthisisearly 6am but more of a holyfuckingshit 4:30ish am) by my eldest who has been having nightmares and coming into bed with us. Unfortunately he sleeps like he's wrestling tigers which is, ah, uninspiring in a bed mate. So he cuddled me and rode his dream bicycle and I tried to sleep, with a kind of desperate terror that this would be IT and I wouldn't get anymore sweet, sweet sleep til I went to bed, far too many hours in the future. At some point he sat up a bit and said sleepily 'happy birthday mum' and, despite knowing that was the end of any chance for sleep, my heart got warmed in a way it rarely does. My kid's first thought for the day was of ME.

Despite finding things pretty overwhelming some times (OK, a lot of the time) I just adore those two kids and I'm surprised and thankful by what pleasant people they are turning into.

(Chickens should be coming tomorrow - I'll post pics!)

Chook-shed progress

Y’know how they say ‘measure twice, cut once’ well we now say ‘measure more than three times, AND get someone who isn’t hung-over to check your workings, before concreting once’ – because a concreted-in post is hard to move, and if you don't get it right you don't have much wiggle room. 

The high vis gear was just for show.

Despite small challenges such as these Michael and I worked hard and over two (part)days, we got the chicken coop floor installed on our steeply sloping, poorly terraced site. The shed itself is a kids kit cubby house that we are re-purposing. I then spent Sunday painting the trim and giving the inside a coat of this rather unpleasant cack yellow that I got very cheap at Bunnings. It’s just to protect the cheap pine from chickens, not for looks. The outside is a storm grey with white trim, and a green colourbond roof.

Installed floor, from above. The hole is chicken-access to what will be the secure run underneath.

The next steps are to cut pop doors for the chickens and egg collection in the walls of the cubby. There will be two chook doors and a person door – the two chook doors will be on different sides, so we have the option of making movable day runs, using chicken wire and star pickets. This should allow us more flexibility to do things like to rest the run area, maybe grow hen-fodder or even attach a broody box if we ever get that far (shhhh! don't tell my husband of my expansionist plans!). The person door will now need steps or a ladder - we ended up raising the hen house higher than planned.

After the pop-holes have been made we will touch up the paintwork then install the walls and roof. We are going to use weldmesh to screen the bottom part so that the chooks will have a fox proof area underneath the coop itself, for dust-baths as well as food and water. We are planning on raising the roof , gable and all,10cm or so, and putting mesh around the gap for ventilation. I can't really imagine a chook getting too cold in a Sydney winter, but I remember cubbies being pretty stuffy when I was a kid, and apparently stuffy is BAD for chooks. There is also a window that we will cover with weldmesh, a hole in the floor for the chickens to go downstairs and the plan is to cut a hole in the person-door to allow for ventilation. If we work out that it's not enough we will add more vents.

Installed floor, showing the sloping site.

The logistics of putting it all together will be more daunting than I expected too - I was thinking I could do it myself, with a bit of help from the lovely husband, but since it's all a bit higher than planned it's going to be more difficult.

I think I might end up having that barn raising that I've been joking about after all!

The New/Old House

I’m at work. Yes, I know I shouldn’t be blogging at work, but I’m doing ‘creative’ work and for me that requires a certain amount of effing about and procrastination. At least writing something here is better than repeatedly clicking refresh on my email and favourite forums. So, if I wasn’t sitting here what would I be doing? Well, the things that have been taking up my time recently, apart from hanging out doing school holiday things with my kids, have all been centred around our garden and house.

We moved in about six months ago, and we are still unpacking and organising. Although the house is a lot bigger, there are fewer closets and places to store ‘stuff’ combine that with the fact that family members have given us piles of ‘stuff’ that they either think we should have (I’m looking at you, ugly barstools!) or things they want us to store for them (Yes, I know I’ve left boxes at my parents for years and now they are finally exacting revenge – we have their car and a whole pile of their belongings while they are off travelling).

The other thing about our ‘new’ house is that it’s old and a bit rundown. It was given a quick coat of paint, the cheapest possible kitchen and cheap carpet when it was put on the market. This is a good thing – the new bits mean that it is totally liveable for us but it also meant that it was a bit more affordable (at least the owners didn’t have a fancy remodel that they needed to recoup costs on), we aren’t too precious about our kids staining the carpet or scuffing the walls (ahem, toilet training!) and when the time comes and we have plans and money (hah!) we won’t feel bad about ripping things out and replacing them.

Our first steps in making this place just the way we want it is just to live in it. We are seeing what works and what doesn’t in each season of the year. So far we know we need to do something about the outside covered area which is roasting in summer and freezing in winter (it’s also ugly!). We would like a bit more street appeal (the last reno was probably in the late 60s or early 70s and is…. Unsympathetic) and I feel that we need an architect to help us with flow and using space better. I want a roomful of built-in bookshelves as well, but that’s not necessary in the short term.

Since we don’t want to do much to the house, considering we might have to un-do it reasonably soon, when we have more of a plan, we have been concentrating on the garden. I am desperate for chooks and veggies and we are starting that process now: we have a potato tower, a few beans, heaps of herbs, some of the over-abundant weedy vegetation that was smothering the yard cleared and a site for the chook house. We are composting and I’ve been collecting fallen leaves from the deciduous trees on the street for mulch. The chook house and raised veggie beds are next on the list, with the lovely Michael, my brother and chook-shed-engineer supremo, helping me out (it helps that he’s skint and I feed him. It’s a cheap and truly wonderful birthday present as well!).

I'm going to include a few more house and garden type posts here, just so when we have a lovely, flourishing garden and a pretty, organised house I can look back and remember. I'm having a great time withPinterest too, pinning mostly ideas for home and garden, as well as some kid stuff. So follow along, or better yet, send me things that you think I'd like!

 

Today my baby, my first baby, turns six

Last night, as I tucked the blankets around him, I hugged him tight and told him ‘this is the last time I’m going to get to say goodnight to my little five year old’ I saw his face light up. It lit up with the realisation, not just that it would be his birthday in the morning, that there would be presents, and cupcakes to take to school, but that things were changing for him. I consider six to be one of those liminal times, where the mother-centred life of early childhood elides into something more external and outward-focussed. If I remember correctly, in his book ‘Raising Boys’ Steve Biddulph talks about six being the age when boys go from being (and I wish I had a more elegant way of saying this) their mother’s children to being their father’s children.


It’s a happy coincidence that his birth happened so close to the winter solstice – these are the darkest, most home and hearth focussed weeks in the year and as the light increases, we tend to become more outward looking. Less interested in hanging around home with our nearest and dearest, more likely to head ‘out’ somewhere. This mirrors what I feel is happening for Asher.

I’m feeling really good about this blossoming. I feel somehow safe, like this is the right time for this. I don’t want to keep him a baby or push him away. I want to walk half a step behind him, ready to answer his questions and share his joys, ready to note points of interest and encourage him to get up when he falls. I want to watch him grow into himself.

I think I might start him catching the bus to school after these school holidays, just one or two days a week. That way I can let him know that I trust him to be safe as he goes out into the world.

I luv youse all!!!

This afternoon I went to the park with a bunch of other Kindergerten parents. I'm shocked at how 'on the outer' I felt. I know I'm prone to these feelings (try being bullied at school and growing up with a bit of social anxiety - making nice-nice with the other mothers becomes torture. Ugh. Anyway, it brought into stark contrast what awesome older friends I do have. I was late home, so they hung around my back yard, with their preschoolers. They cheered my kid's first ever wee on the potty then made me lunch and coffee while I went and put my tired kid to bed. They laughed at my jokes, they commiserated with my failings and difficulties. At other times they have ensured that a drunken Keda got home safely, they still love my kids despite having seen them at their worst, they appear to cheerfully tolerate my grubby bathroom and they do a really good job of pretending to be interested with whatever my current project is (Chooks this month). In short, these lovelies, and my other old mates, are the ones I want around my when the proverbial hits the fan. Thank you ladies :-)

Loving The Crazy

This is not going to be a post about loving partners with mental health issues, just some of the ways it's nice/not so nice to be back home with the familiar crazy.

Spending a bit of time away it was easy to call lots of things 'crazy' - in Singapore the kiasu thing seems extreme and leads to behaviour that I would deem crazy (imagine driving along and trying use a roundabout or merge lanes where no one will accept being last). We also played 'spotto' with crazy fashions - there are plenty of 'what not to wear' exasmples. Everything from warm jackets and coats (which must be more than just snuggly on a 30C day with 90% humidity) through extreme short skirts and shorts, to cute little families all wearing matching outfits. Then there are the harajuku-esque sartorial weirdnesses that I'm impressed by, but can't hope to describe.

Back in Sydney we get opur fair share of fashion oddities (like the girl with the gold sparkle ugg boots and the little black dress I spotted on my way to work this morning) but our crazy dressing is generally weird in a different way. The warm jackets don't usually come out in summer, but as soon as the weather drops below about 20C you see people walking around with scarves and beanies on. If it's windy this might be only a short stretch from sensible, but it weirds me out totally when the people with the rugged up heads and necks are also wearing skirts and sandals.

The other type of Crazy, the one I really wanted to talk about, is the specific breed of crazy belonging to my workplace. It's not only the stories my colleague tells about his partner who is convinced she was abducted by aliens and buys countless boxes of cereal when it's cheap in case they ever run out (really!), it's more the weirdness actually IN my workplace. The mad push to get a project finished, only to hear, at final draft stage, that it won't be needed any more, or that it's being put back another year. We also have an 'emperor' who get's completely riled up at the length of people's coffee breaks, but instructs their assistant to spend hours, days even, scanning family photos and transfereing music from analogue to digital format. The people here who are most successfull look busy all the time, but don't really do much, because work that gets completed tends to get holes picked in it. It's a nice stable job, but I'm not sure how long I should stay here for....