these days

this week... some stills with a distinctly autumn tone to them.

we have had a slow week mostly at home, giving some much needed time to catch up on some things. (hence all the shots are once again from around our home). 

my eyes were drawn to earthy colours and by the end of the week it was starting to feel a little more like autumn around here. the mornings so dark... we seem to wake up late but when we do venture outside there is that feeling in the air, that softness of autumn. the days are a little cooler and in the evening that feeling is there again... that autumn feeling, as the sun is setting, the days growing ever shorter.

1. jess and i created a autumn leaf hanging with some very crunchy leaves saved from last year and some wooden beads.

2. an early easter present arrived from granny. bunny ears and tiny easter chicks. they are adored and played with for hours and hours. granny always gives the best presents.

3. falling... leaves...

4. a cold(ish) morning chia tea about to be put on to brew.

5. we have very wide verandas around three sides of our house so the only time the sun actually shines in is in the evening or early morning. i do love the play of light and shadow cast across the walls.

6. i brought home a huge box of peaches from a local farm earlier in the week and their smell is beautiful as they await on the kitchen bench to be preserved. these, the last peaches of the season will satisfy our taste buds come winter and spring.

7. waiting for the chai...

8. fennel seed heads caught in the evening sun.

9 & 10. sisters. both with messy top knots, baking muffins together.

11. upon my kitchen bench... a new batch of kombucha tea fermenting away. little jars of sage and garlic infused honey, one ready to send off to my eldest daughter daisy and one for us, to sooth sore throats, if needed. and the most gorgeously packaged jar of coconut butter (the photo not doing it justice i am afraid!) it looks so lovely i almost don't want to open it. so absurd!

12. my knitting in the morning sun shine.

joining in with the super lovely Em.

17

my beautiful girl turned 17 today.

oh how time flies. it seems like yesterday that she was just a little girl. how could 17 years have gone by so fast?

happy birthday eloise

x

the tale of a frog

about seven years ago, i was working at the florist when i found chirpy our green tree frog. he must've got himself packed in with some tropical flowers from far north queensland and made it all the way down south, jumped out of the box unnoticed while the flowers were being unpacked and survived in the florist shop for who knows how long. i suspect it was a while because when i found him he looked unwell and dehydrated. i was working alone that afternoon and didn't know what else to do with him but to take him home. i couldn't do the deed of putting him out of his misery but i think i thought that the man of the house may be able to.

well, eloise at eight years old back then, took one look at him and decided we needed to keep him (she has a thing for stray animals) and gave him the name chirpy (um... frogs don't chirp they croak). the next day alistair took eloise to the pet shop and bought some crickets for chirpy to eat, a home to live in and got some advice on frogs. we looked up frogs on the internet and discovered he was a yellow thighed green tree frog. the males croak and chirpy used to croak around spring time although it has been quite a few years since we have heard his voice.

... and so we had a frog.

we tried to convince alistair's parents to take him to northern new south wales with them on one of their trips and release him back into the wild but they weren't keen. he holidayed with my florist friend and her children whenever we went away. we bought a box of crickets fortnightly for seven years. we even bought him a friend (thinking he must be lonely) but his friend squirt (tiny when we got him) grew four times the size of chirpy in no time at all and ate all the food. he only lived for six months and we suspect he died of a heart attack. chirpy sat in his tank in our kitchen for years. alone. he was never handled just looked at. sometimes we ignored him for days. he was never really any trouble although we hated cleaning the tank. 

... today he died. 

i watched eloise take him out to the garden and bury him under the rhubarb. i think we both shed a tear or two (me). i wasn't surprised when i went out later to find a little grave with flowers around it. we will miss chirpy's quiet presence in our home.

i told jessica that chirpy had died and showed her where he was buried and said that his spirit had gone to frog heaven. frog heaven is lovely, there are lots of other frogs and they all play games and look after each other. jess seemed very pleased with this. she added a few more flowers and skipped off.

later, as i knew it would, the topic came up again and as toddlers do, jess repeated many times what chirpy was doing, how he was playing games and the other frogs were all singing "lardy dardy da". she then proceeded to sing that frog song (what she can remember of it) for ages at the top of her voice. it was a joyous send off for chirpy.

i believe that children no matter how young they are should be told the facts about death. chirpy was probably quite old, he didn't feel well and died. we buried him and (i believe although i am not religious) that his spirit has gone to a heaven of sorts. i don't think any child benefits in cover ups about death. one day soon we will have to deal with the death of our old dog and that is going to be a lot harder than the frog so i am almost grateful for chirpy's death first.

rest in peace chirpy. we really did love you.

sowing the seed

i love to grow plants. 

i love that you can plant a tiny seed and in a matter of days it has germinated and in a matter of weeks you can be eating the produce from that seed.

i hope to instil that love of growing to my children.

recently, my eldest daughter daisy, who lives away from home, has rung excitedly to say she has just eaten the first snow pea she has grown. that makes me happy.

my older daughters never seemed all that interested in gardening while they were growing up. they saw me spend plenty of time in the garden pottering around and would sometimes join in but often they were just happy playing their own games nearby.

during their early teenage years they thought i was a real drag... always gardening! they certainly never wanted to join in then.

but now i see a change. daisy has a few pots on her balcony where she grows a few things to pick and at school this year eloise has taken on the school garden as part of her studies. they are often asking questions along the lines of 'how and what to plant'. even if they didn't always garden with me in their younger years they both seemed to have picked up something. they will both know that if it comes down to it they could produce their own food. both the older girls can recognise the difference between the taste of supermarket produce and that which comes straight from the garden. they know the names of fruits and vegetables. that may seem a strange thing to say but i don't know how many times, at the supermarket checkout, a young assistant has asked me the name of a fruit or vegetable (sometimes even the common ones!)

at two and a bit its too soon to say whether jessica will have a love of gardening. she likes to help plant seeds, to harvest and certainly loves flowers but whether it will become a passion or not remains to be seen.

at the moment, if asked 'what did you do today jess?' she will answer with 'gardening' even if we haven't done any!

in the meantime i aim to give her lots of gardening opportunities, to talk about plants with her, to teach her their names and to let her see me enjoying my passion.

i hope to sow the seed!

tomorrow i will be over at rowan and oak talking about where my passion for gardening comes from. pop on over and take a look around this lovely blog.

in black and white

my big girls have both been doing some art work this afternoon.

the top photos are of eloise's art major and the bottom two are of a birthday card that daisy made for a friend. 

clever girls. i am one proud mama.