Belinda Moore

Well, this month marks two years of posting my News to the world on this humble blog.

Here is our news from May 2006.

And here is my May 2007 post.

AT HOME: As usual I’ve stopped and started with the renovations! I tend to get distracted by the garden too often, for that is more joyful than painting a wall, for me. Our extension room is a little closer to being finished, though, and we’re looking forward to getting stuck into the finer details during my husband’s time off work this month.

AT WORK: I am behind on my writing tasks! I have been writing blog posts here, for Down-To-Earth, on my Garden Blog and for Spiral Garden News! I will catch up on my articles during May, though, because I hate to miss deadlines. I haven’t made any progress with that homeschooling writing I’ve been procrastinating about. Maybe once I catch up I will see more clearly if it’s the right thing for me to take on…

I’m happily taking on some editing work again. Right now I’m concentrating on smaller writing projects, websites and articles. This is something I’ve only dabbled in since my time as section editor at Education Choices and editing Chrissy Butler’s debut picture book in 2007.

Spiral Garden has three great offers on right now. Two competitions and a free postage deal. Check out the News site for more details.

ON THE FARM: My sick-looking stone fruit trees seem to have recovered. They do have blossoms on the new wood, though, and I’m not sure they should. I really need to do more research about the many varieties I’ve planted and the care required, but like most projects I’ve just rushed in and started…

We ran some water pipe this month to save carting water to animals and trees. It was a full weekend’s work, but worth it!

The garden is going wonderfully, as reported on my Garden Blog. I won’t bore you by re-telling it all here.

The ‘baby’ chicks are now quite tall. They seem to have three mothers now as the one who was on eggs last month didn’t succeed and ended up joining the baby-raisers in caring for theirs. This seems quite uncommon to me, but this communal parenting does work, so I’m glad. We culled another two roosters and roasted those on the weekend. The meat was more mild this time, and the three of us who were less keen the first time enjoyed the meal.

Imogen bought two hens and a rooster at a local poultry sale. They are bantam Black Leghorns. We made them their own cage and hopefully they will happily breed as they are lovely little birds. Some friends gave her a silky bantam rooster and three mixed-breed (I think) bantam hens. We hope to increase our flock of larger laying hens in time as well.

I made a lot of guava jelly from the yellow guavas, which is nice and tangy. I also made a syrup with yellow guavas, Davidson’s plums and pink grapefruit to stir through homemade yoghurt. It is tart but sweet at the same time and saves me buying flavoured yoghurt.

HOME ED.: We have our annual Beach Camp coming up in May, which the children are very excited about.

The ATHENS excursions have been enjoyable and Term 2’s schedule will see us venturing further afield on the Tablelands.

We’re still reading The White Ship by Jackie French, a bit slow because we’re out of practice with our regular read-aloud sessions. Some of the children raided the local library’s section of joke and riddle books and read aloud to each other, in fits of giggles.

Overall, our days are full as each child pursues their ever-changing interests through reading, activities and projects. Home education continues to allow us an enjoyable and rich lifestyle. We are blessed.