Belinda Moore

I really like summer.  It’s not our best season as far as weather goes.  In fact it’s usually incredibly wet and we’re prone to cyclones where I live!  But summer is full of promise of parties, growth, change, adventures…  It marks the change from one calendar to the next here in the southern hemisphere, and for me that potential is exciting!

AT HOME: As usual I can never remember anything that happened around the house when it comes to reporting back on the previous season…  I do know we did some major spring cleaning and decluttering, an overhaul of the pantry and food storage… Oh, and we got a new roof on our house!  After again focusing on outside improvements, we are hoping to tackle a couple of room renovations during the coming wet season.

AT WORK: Spiral Garden is always growing and changing.  It’s such a joy to work with amazing products and caring, lovely customers!

We love imaginative toys!

My volunteer work has been a little quieter these past months.  I’m trying to find a balance with my involvement in community development.  There are some amazing projects happening where I live - we are certainly an area in transition.  I have learned so much and met incredible people through my community work.  Being involved with the recent regional planning process has given me insight into our governance and the people involved.  I was inspired in my role as a grass-roots networker and appreciated the feedback from people I’m not usually in contact with.

Hosting Polly Higgins at The Herbal Gypsy, Malanda

My article on Play was finally published in Stepping Stones first print magazine, and I also posted it on this blog.  I came across some a folder containing old writing printed out a decade ago or so - I was such a prolific writer then!  Whilst digging, I unearthed some unfinished projects - let’s see what comes of them…

ON THE FARM: We’ve been eating fruit from our trees - YUM!  How delicious a plum full of sunshine tastes…  And this Spring a bumper crop of tomatoes and beans because we had plenty of warm, fine days with just enough rain to keep everything growing.

Imogen’s new horse was bitten by a snake and died.  It was really sad as he hadn’t been with us for long.  Rosie, the mare, is quite lonely with only a heifer for company, so we’re looking for another horse right now.

The crows have been a lot of trouble with our younger and smaller poultry this Spring.  I think the dry weather brought them east to us and I wish they’d fly on back to the outback!  They particularly casued havoc amongst my Australorps because they were raised by hand and not with a mother, so they lacked instincts to hide from danger.

The wild dogs ended up wiping out our whole flock of muscovy ducks.  This has happened before and is commonly the case.  They will go to a farm and do everything they can until a whole flock of poultry (particularly water fowl) have been decimated, then they move on.  Mostly, these are feral dogs and a real pest, but very hard to catch in the rainforest.

Pig is growing big and fat.  In fact we were thinking of butchering her and might just move her on…  I think to raise pigs you really need to want to eat pork (or get a mini pig who doesn’t hint at biting your foot off when you come too close!)

This is our swimming pool!

I wrote about Rocket’s battle with a paralysis tick at the Home Grown blog…  We have had our share of dramas this Spring, haven’t we?  On a happy note - we have 2 healthy and cute-as baby guinea pigs!

I’m having two months off milking, which is a surprising relief.  It’s a busy time of year, so I’m glad for the break.  I do miss homegrown milk and homemade cheese and yoghurt though!  Lucy is due to calf right around Christmas day, so that will be a nice surprise.  The borrowed cow, with her healed foot and fat belly, went back to her work at the dairy.  We really miss her!

Wags, our homegrown steer, was butchered this week.  I wrote about it at the co-op blog because it’s been a really interesting experience for me, a mostly-vegetarian!

We have had repairs to outbuildings, major earthworks and a bit of tree lopping mean that things look quite different outside at the moment.  We’re looking forward to planting lots of trees this wet season to complement the changes.

Fun on a rock!

HOME ED: We attended the Australian Unschooling Conference at Airlie Beach a month ago.  It was an amazing experience.  We combined a whole-family holiday (us and the 6 kids) with meeting up with extended family, enjoyed an excellent conference and met new friends!  I was a bit nervous about jamming all of that into one week, but it was just bliss!

Unjobbing Panel, AUC 2011

Two of the girls’ participation in the local theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd has keep us busy and focused on costumes and songs for some weeks.  The show is half way through (3 down, 4 to go) and it’s really quite amazing!  I have enjoyed snippets of this comedy/melodrama whilst volunteering on the bar at the theatre, and look forward to watching the whole show this week as a seated audience member!

Folk Festival 2011

Three of the children enjoyed their participation in a series of activites - Sound Structures.  They did art and movement, story telling, stilt waking and more!  Above is a photo from the parade at the Tablelands Folk Festival.  Bryce is the bug on the right.

Our days are full of lego, music, Maths, reading chapter books, DVDs, Minecraft, script-writing, photography, knitting, NaNoWriMo, drawing, sewing, rehearsing, circus, new gardens, outings, cooking, friends and lots of laughter (and the odd arguement)…

Snapshot of me at Airlie