New Things

Here I am in Albury, NSW.  After 16 years living in Canada, Australia  feels like a strange foreign country to me.    There are many reasons for this- I have few friends here, the physical environment is dramatically different, and we don't have a real home yet. On the positive side I have stopped spontaneously bursting into tears.    The sadness of leaving behind my Canadian friends decreases every day.  When our boxes arrive sometime in the next few weeks and we can have some of our familiar things around us we might start to feel more at home.   While Albury is not exactly my idea of utopia I have finally decided that I am not going to be angry about being here anymore.  We will most likely spend a couple of years here so I have to find a way to be happy about it.  My plan is to find something good about Albury every week. I will keep you posted.

While I would like to think that Harper has been unaffected by our move because of his age I know this is not true.  While he has stopped asking when we can go back to Canada to the only home he has ever known , and he hasn't asked to play with his best buddy, Duncan, in a long time I know he hasn't forgotten.  He will occasionally remember something about Spruce Road and we will have a conversation about it.  It always amazes me that after five months away he can still recall the small details of our life there.  His most interesting response to our move has been the creation of his imaginary home at From Street.   I think is began as a reaction to our current living situation.  We took a temporary lease on small unit with no back yard.  As you can imagine, only ever knowing the freedom of his half acre back yard, being cooped up in a tiny house with no outside space would be difficult to deal with.  So Harper invent From Street where everything is as it should be according to him.  From street has a large back yard with a sand box and slide like the one he had in Canada, it has a trampoline, a swing set, and a pool. All the toys from Canada are at From Street.  The sun always shines at From street and treats are abundant, especially ice cream.   I have been invited to visit but not to live.  When I asked if he ever got lovely there he told me he had ten brothers. Osh, Kosh, Josh, Mosh and Tosh.  (The others don't have names) He also has ten babies, a dog, a cat and a rabbit.   His computer is never slow.  It never rains but it does snow.  He gets to stay up late.  There are no flies or mosquitos. Life is always fun. It seems that whatever isn't right  in our real world is fixed at From street.  His most recent addition is a new mother.  It seems I have been replaced.  I'm still not sure what to make of that but when I suggested that  he really only needed one mum he cried.  I guess she's here to stay.

More soon.

Dreams and Make believe

I took this photo on our recent camping trip to Nelson, British Columbia.  I followed Harper

to the lake being careful not to intrude.  He was playing quietly completely

absorbed by his imaginary game.  I wonder if he noticed that he was in one of the most

beautiful places in the world.

Out To Dry

I have lived in Canada for over 15 years and since I have been here I have had to use an electric clothes dryer to dry my washing.  Clothes lines are just not Canadian, at least for the majority.  Granted the temperature here isn't really suitable for most of the time. Nobody wants to hang their clothes on the line when the temperature is 22 degrees below zero but even when the sun does shine most people rely on the clothes tumbler. The problem for me is that it's just so UN Australian.  Every time I turn on the dryer I am drowning in this enormous sea of guilt. That's a lot of guilt when you calculate fifteen years worth.  So recently my lovely husband and I built  this beautiful clothes line to hang our washing on.  I love it sooooo much, even if I can only use it for 3 months of the year.  I know it doesn't seem like much to make a fuss about  but it is worth a million dollars to me.  I love the crisp fresh smell of air dried clothes.  I love the feeling of a scratchy towel when I get out of the shower.  I especially love the moment of solitude I experience when I'm hanging out the clothes. It is one of lifes simple pleasures.  Now I will admit that my new clothes line is no Hills Hoist but I think Lance Hill would still be proud. 

We all have our roots in Nature

I have been spending a lot of time in the garden lately and it got me reflecting on how much gardening has influenced my life. I have always been a gardener. It is innate and instinctual. I had my first vegetable garden when I was 10. My Nonna Matassoni, who was an extraordinary gardener, helped me turn a tiny patch of dry sand into a flourishing vegetable garden. In true Italian style, Nonno converted his entire backyard in a vegetable garden. His enthusiasm for the garden was contagious and as a child I loved spending time with him there. Grandfather Honeychurch had a more delicate interest gardening. His green house was full of exotic orchids and his garden was a monument to Rhododendrons and Camellias. Although he died more than 20 years ago I still have a few of his orchids. They are living memories of him.

Later in my life gardening brought me together with a wonderful lady. Muriel and I started talking over the fence as we worked in our gardens and soon became friends. I built a green house for her a few years ago with some old windows she had salvaged from an airplane hanger in Vancouver. She uses it on a regular basis but the best thing about the green house is that during the cooler months of September and October we meet there for afternoon tea. We sip tea from her mother’s fine china tea cups and solve all the worlds’ problems. Sometimes we are there for hours. She is in her 80’s and is one of my closest friends.

Through Muriel I met Jim Comrey, also in his 80’s. Jim had a beautiful organic garden with rich black soil the texture of talcum powder from years of compost and seaweed. I pulled weeds, planted seedlings, and under his watchful eye dusted sulfur on his begonia divisions. After a while gardening was secondary to a cup of tea and a good yarn. I got a first hand account of what it was like to be a Major in the Burmese jungle during the 2nd world war. Jim introduced me to Jean Sturdy. She was a lovely, gracious, courageous woman. Jean was a fabulous story teller. While tending to her garden I learned that she had served in the British air force during the 2nd world war and her husband was a bomber pilot. She came to Canada as a young war bride. We became great friends. She would discreetly slip $10.00 into my hand for helping her. At first I objected to being paid until I realized the ten dollars enabled her to ask for help while leaving her dignity in tact. She was in her 90’s and still working in her garden.

Gardening has influenced and enriched my life in so many ways. Gardening is how I make my living. The physical act of gardening makes me strong. It grounds me in a world that sometimes feels like it is unraveling at the seams. My family and many of my friends have been nourished from the food that I have grown. When I stand in my garden marveling at my beans and tomatoes I feel connected to the earth. I am responsible for its well being. Gardening connects me to the past, helps me live well in the present, and will nourish me into the future.

I was once a child in the garden being guided by adults. In middle age I am teaching my 3 year old son to plant seeds and honor bees. Through the Botanical Garden Societies “Gardeneers’ I am able to help other children connect to the earth. I feel I am responsible for passing on the knowledge that I gained from my elders. Gardening nurtures and nourishes our existence as human beings. Fortunately my story is not unique. We all have our roots in the earth.

Gardeneers

I was going to write about my flea market finds but I think I'd rather talk about my latest project known as "The Gardeneers".  Gardeneers is a childrens gardening program offered by the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden Society, of which I am a volunteer.  It is just one of the projects I am involved in.  Gardeneers started last year and I was one of the original program designers, along with five other women.  Our goal is to connect children to nature.  There are 20 children enrolled in the program which runs throughout July, every Tuesday morning.  Last year was a great success but this year we have been able to fine tune it and I am confident that it is going to be even  better.  We have a different theme for each week. Week one - Seed planting, week 2 - Botanic garden critters, week 3 - making compost and whats in the soil, week four - all about trees.   I am responsible for week one and this is what I have planned. Upon arrival the children get a seed kit which includes a packet of seeds of different kinds so they can see how diverse seeds are.  The class begins with a look at seeds and how they grow.  I have set up a demonstration that shows what a seed looks like from the time it is planted to when it starts to grow.  I did this by planting a seed everyday for a week so you can see the stages of growth.  Next  we open our seed packets and look at the different kinds.  Some of the seeds get planted into peat pots to take home. The bean and sunflower seeds get planted in the vegetable garden.  . After we look at seeds we go out into the garden for some planting time. Each week we return to the garden to see the growth, pull weeds and water the plot.  This is followed by a snack and story.  This weeks story is Strega Nonna as it fits in well with our theme of growing food and sharing it with others.  After snack we are building a bug hotel.  It consists of a bench with some flowers pots.  During our nature walk around the garden the kids pick up objects that are to be placed on the bench for bugs to move into, such as logs, sticks, leaves, and rocks.  Each week we get to see which bugs have decided to move in.  At the end of the session we get into some plant and bug art which we hope to display at the harvest festival in September.  And that is my day.  It does take a lot of work and it is all volunteer but it is so much more rewarding than a paycheck.  It is my way of addressing my concerns about the future of our planet.  My goal is to connect kids to nature so that they know what is is they are looking after in the future.  My question is "How will they care about the earth if they don't know what it is?"  We don't talk about the doom and gloom of the planet.  We simply involve kids in activities that show them how to have fun while interacting with nature.  It is my hope that my sons generation won't know any other way to live other than responsibly and with sensitivity to their environment.  www.coastbotanicalgarden.org

Don't forget to read my articles in the news letter.

Botanica confusii

What is Perovski atriplicifolia?  Answer: Russian Sage.  Does anyone else find the language of botany confusing?  I work in the plant industry and although I spend a large amount of time reading about plants I still cannot come to terms with the complicated language of botany.  The latin language of botany dates back to 1867 when an internationl standard was agreed apon.  The rules and regulations of plant naming are called : The international Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The most important levels of classification and identification in horticulture are:

Genus -A genus is a group of plants that all share some common characteristics

Species- a large group of plants that exhibit similar charactoristics.  Family names end in "aceae"
Cultivar- these plants freely interbreed maintaining the same charactoristics from generation to generation.

But thats enough about that.  How about this name - Helictotrichon or Rhodochiton Astrosanguineus. Just one more to confuse you - Molopospermum peloponnesiacum.  I could go on but for some reason these names are so complicated and intimidating that they take all the fun out of gardening.  I'm going to stick to my common names even at the risk of being considered a Botanical ignoramous.  So bring on the bell flowers, and the daylilys.  I'm going outside to enjoy my garden.

Coming Next - Flea Market Treasures.

Heart Broken

My son moved out.  Not actually out of the house, he's only 3.  He moved out of my bed. Completely out of the blue he went to sleep in his own bed.  At first I thought it was just a cruel April fools day joke but when he went into his own bed the second and third night I knew it wasn't a joke.  Even when I sublimely suggested that he might like to to sleep in my bed he still chose his own. My heart is broken ( just a little) and now something isn't right when I go to bed at night.  It's just not the same.  The balance has been shifted and I don't like it.  What am I going to do when he goes to school?