Belinda Moore

March was so very wet and busy. I feel like I got my seasons mixed around as I did a lot of decluttering, tidying and cleaning in the house and yard - reverse Spring cleaning!

AT HOME: We finally got stuck into some painting and it looks great. Not quite the colour I expected, but it’s fresh and clean so I’m happy. Still some electrical work to do and a bit of finishing off - including removing windows and covering the gaps, then we can paint the floor and move stuff into there!

AT WORK: Natural Child arrived in my mailbox and looks great! I’m enjoying writing my columns for this magazine, and hope I’m inspiring other families to get into the garden. Subscriptions are available through Spiral Garden.

Spiral Garden continues to blossom. The March offer was a discount on Musical items, which was well-received. I love that I’m helping families source meaningful gifts and playthings, whilst I’m home with my own family. In April, there’ll be a special for Mother’s Day - details in the email newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed, there’s now a box on the main page of the Spiral Garden site to make it easier for you.

It didn’t take me long to find more writing work! More than I needed, actually, so I’m having to choose… I have agreed to a few more articles for Warm Earth magazine, for a start. Then I might be doing some homeschooling writing, something I haven’t done for ages. I will announce any publications here.

ON THE FARM: The last batch of trees planted seem to be doing well. Some of last year’s stone fruit are looking quite miserable though. They had bugs eating the leaves, and I sprayed with Pyrethrum as advised. But the leaves yellowed and many dropped off. I’m hoping that they come good for Spring, and don’t die!

I’ve planted out the areas of my garden I cleaned up with lettuce and silverbeet. I also put in some new capsicum plants because mine suffered with all the rain we had in early March. I re-mulched and fed the garden and planted a lot of seeds, so fingers-crossed they germinate. So far no mice have stolen any, which is great.

Right now we’re only harvesting pumpkins, various beans and spinaches, as well as plenty of macadamias.

The baby chicks are doing well with their two mothers. We have another hen sitting on eggs. During March we ate two of our roosters - one for soup and one roasted. I mentioned this in another post. It was a bit of a big deal because we hadn’t eaten meat other than fish for well over a decade. We agreed we’d do it again, which is good because another “hen” started crowing this week!

The cats were spayed this month. That was an expensive but important event!

The cherry guavas are still going well, and we’ve found four yellow guava trees so far as well. The fruit is lovely and fragrant and we’ve saved some from the wildlife for ourselves! I might try to make some jam or jelly if we can harvest enough.

HOME ED.: The children love attending their theatre group again this year, and are very excited about auditions this week.

The ATHENS excursions have been great, despite the rain. At Lake Barrine we saw giant Kauri pines and a musky rat kangaroo. At Platypus Park we saw an echidna. I’m currently arranging the schedule for Term 2.

They’re all enjoying and doing well with their Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain course. I think I should have participated too!

We’ve just started to read aloud a great novel, The White Ship by Jackie French.

Everything else is going along as usual - busy days of music practice, library visits, horse riding, walks, visits and visitors.