Better & Worse

We seem to have a had a real catalogue of disasters since my last post - most of them relatively minor (but annoying!) domestic problems such as the light bulb in the fridge blowing, the doorbell falling off and some parts disappearing in the night, the handle of my daughter's window breaking meaning we can't open the window.

Others have been more worrying - another round of colds meaning none of us get any sleep, the fact that fell down the stairs getting up with my son in the night and hurt my back quite badly. This last one has set back many other things too - planting the rest of my onions and garlic, getting parts and mending the items damaged in the recent wave of domestic disasters.

It's very frustrating to be able to see what needs doing, have the time to sort it, but be unable to walk or cycle to the hardware shop, not to mention being unable to bend down or lean over to do the work itself.

But on the other hand, it was really nice to have a friend round yesterday and chat about stuff that had nothing to do with the kids or their education. Hooray for talking about other stuff!

And I also had a builder from a local green construction firm round to give us some advice about all our damp and condensation problems. I wasn't sure what to expect - maybe a hard sell for their firm to come and sort things out? But no, he was incredibly nice and incredibly patient. He looked at all the problem areas and gave me his opinion on what to do to sort them out. By the time he left, I had a list of stuff which would all help, in order of priority and in order of expense. None of the things were that expensive, a lot of it we could do ourselves, and one suggestion he made seems to have helped already, overnight. So, I'm feeling a bit better about the house now, hoping we can stop the damp and mould in its tracks. It's been a real weight off my mind, I had been so stressed about it all.

This year is really getting away from me though. I can't believe it's almost my birthday again. I'm determined to actually do something nice this year as last year everyone had a sickness bug for several weeks around my birthday and we couldn't do anything at all. Maybe a bit of celebrating in the greyness will help.

This post is brought to you courtesy of Philips Bright Light my cheery winter breakfast companion which, together with a couple of days of sunshine, is helping me continue on my weary way with at least a thread of humour...

Little House Not On The Prairie

Today I've felt very much like Ma from the Little House series, or (for Georgette Heyer fans) like Jenny from A Civil Contract - all housewifely! So a quick run-down of my day:
- got up and fed my son for half an hour to help clear blocked up ears from a minor cold he has.
- put the washing in the washing machine, sorted out breakfast.
- got me and children washed and dressed.
- Mum and Dad came round and we all went to the allotment where we weeded, dug and harvested.
- got lunch for everyone.
- put washing out.
- washed up.
- boiled, peeled, chopped and pickled 2.5 lbs of beetroot from the allotment.
- peeled, chopped, blanched and froze 2.5 lbs of carrots from the allotment.
- made a lemon drizzle cake with the lemon my mum brought me.
- made pizza dough.
- washed up.
- comforted my son when he punched himself in the mouth with the end of the sink plunger which he was sticking to the floor and then pulling up with a popping sound. Came up unexpectedly hard that time.
- finished pizza and got tea on the table.
- got washing in.

And now I have to start getting the kids to bed, reading to them and getting them to sleep. Well, at least I've got a lot done today!
- made afternoon snack.

Onions

I've just had to buy my first onions since June/July when I started digging up my homegrown allotment onions. I *hate* having buy onions, I've decided, and next year will plant loads more onions and garlic too on the allotment as they grew so well and were so tasty, and now that I know how to dry and store them properly. Now if only I could remember how many onion sets I bought last year to give me this 2/3 month's worth crop this year.

Can anyone give me advice on storing potatoes? I have a bumper crop and the nights are starting to get cold, so I want to be digging them well before the first frost, but we have nowhere dark and cold to store them - no root cellar, no garage and no rodent-proof shed. What we have got is a plastic toolshed (with the lift-up roof from Argos, you know the kind!) on the north wall of our house. If I store the potatoes in that, inside a cardboard box and newspaper, will they stay good, do you think? Would the forst get at them in there? Or does anyone have any better ideas (other than digging a root cellar)?

Allotment thoughts

This is our second allotment year, although I count is as the first 'real' season because we only took the plot over in March of last year, so didn't get much of a run-up to the growing season to clear it. And I've learnt so much this year already, and I already know there are some tings to do differently, or more of, next year.

I will plant more onions and also some garlic next year now that I've got the hang of drying and hanging them for storage. I will make sure the entire plot is properly weeded, cleared, dug and mulched over the winter this year, as well as planting the onions and garlic over the winter. The part that was mulched last year is definitely in much better shape than the rest of the plot.

I will get my compost bays constructed before next spring, and level the heaps of earth I've been left with from digging the pits for the shed and the compost bays. I will make fewer, but wider paths next year and more clearly define their edges somehow - stones? Sticks? Not sure. I would like raised, no-dig beds, but not sure how feasible this is in terms of actually getting it done.

I need to sort out my succession planting so that I have a steady stream of produce rather than gluts. This applies particularly to beetroot, courgettes, carrots - things which can't be stored so easily. I'm only going to stop planting this year when July ends. Once it's August, when I get bare ground after digging stuff up, I'm going to dig it over and prepare it for onion planting in the autumn. I've also got to research other winter plants. I have a small amount of purple-sprouting broccoli planted as an experiment.

There's a lot of work to be done, but I'm really enjoying it now. I've realised I like the growing and digging and weeding, what I don't like is the 'infrastructure' bit of the allotment, like constructing sheds and stuff. But it's great eating my home-grown produce!

It feels really good...

... to eat our own produce for tea! So far, we've had strawberries for pudding, a lasagne made with our own onions and our own courgettes, had roast potatoes which were our own potatoes with our own rosemary. I now have 2 strings of onions hanging up in the kitchen (although the first string is much depleted as we use onions so much. I think I'll have to plant even more next year now that I've worked out how to dry and store them properly!) and another lot of onions that I'm drying to dry out before I hang. Though the rain the last few days has somewhat scuppered me.

It has just been announced that our town is starting its own Transition Movement, which is great and something I had been hoping for. So, even though I am somewhat busy at the moment with setting up the Home Ed Group, doing my course, the allotment (not to mention the kids), I *have* to get involved. I totally think the Transition Towns things is a good idea, even though I'm not sure how exactly I can help. Maybe we'll become another Totnes with our own town 'money' and a plethora of locally-sourced food. Ah, I can dream!

Onions!

Now, I realise it's very sad to be excited about onions, but these are the first crop from our allotment this year, dried and strung, and hung up in our kitchen and so I'm very chuffed!

Patience

I'm not very good at being patient. I may take a long time to research things and come to decisions, but once I have decided something, I want to do NOW and I want to do it PERFECTLY. Obviously, this is entirely doomed to failure and then I get very discouraged. There are so many things right now that I want to just get doing and get finished - the allotment, finding a permanent home for our local Hme Ed group, sorting out our work/family situation, trying to get my book published - not to mention all the other ongoing stuff such as meal planning and cooking, gardening, being with the children, working...
Once again, everything takes over my brain and I can't see the wood for the trees, but I'm learning. Being on the allotment, by myself, in nice weather is helping me to slow down, to re-connect and to find a peaceful centre in myself. At first when I arrived there today I though 'oh no! All the weeds again! And I'm just not getting anywhere!' But after a few hours of rushing round like a headless chicken trying to do *all* the jobs that needed doing, all at once, I began to calm down and feel that earth energy. A bit of weeding revealed that the beetroot and leeks I had thought had not germinated were actually growing after all. The potatoes are doing fantastically. The shed is now secure and helpful. I planted out my butternut squash plants, and managed to do a fair amount of tidying. But the best thing today was seeing a nearby plot-holder and finding out about the site email contact list. One of the things we moved to this town for, almost 2 years ago now, was to put down roots and become part of the local community. When this didn't happen immediately, I lost hope and felt cross, isolated and alienated. But today, I have finally realised that it is happening, albeit slowly and gradually. I am part of the local Home Ed community, I am part of the local allotment coomunity. I am making friends through the local La Leche League. I am starting to feel at home here. It isn't happening overnight, as I'd wanted, but thre fact that it is happening has taught me something about things taking their own time, about gradual change and about my own impatience.

What Mothers Do

Having been to a La Leche League meeting today in which people were kind enough to compliment my mothering skills and my children, and remembering from What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing how easy it is to underestimate all the stuff you do as a parent, I thought I'd revisit the goals I set for our family life in January and see how we're doing.

• Succeeding at making at least 80% of the family's bread, cakes, biscuits and other such products.
• Succeeding in keeping the Home Education Group I helped set up last summer going from strength to strength.
• Succeeding in keeping on top of our allotment plot and garden - and have in fact planted 3 varieties of potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroots, leeks and Jerusalem Artichokes at the allotment, and strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, herbs, apples, pears, cobnuts, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and French beans at home.
• Succeeding in keeping my part-time work going and contributing a useful amount to the household income.
• Succeeding in supporting my husband through his career change and re-training.
• Still attempting to decide on what I want to re-train as.
• Currently sorting out some submissions to agents of my recently-completed novel.
• My daughter is now reading fluently, my son starting to read and we're keeping up making special times of the day to read longer books to them both.
• Succeeding in branching out in our day-trips out to further afield and longer days - even though my son is slightly struggling with this as it really tires him out.
• Succeeding in cutting the food and household budget while still providing nutritious meals mainly cooked from scratch.

The trouble is that as soon as you achieve a goal it becomes the normal thing you do, so you end up doing more and more without realising how much you do, and then wonder why you feel tired, have no spare time, and haven't added any new goals in a while. So this is a totally boastful post to remind myself of how much I actually do! Hurray for mum everywhere!

Green fingers

Lots of work done at the allotment and in the garden today. The allotment now has loads of over-wintering onions, 6 Jersualem artichokes, plus 3kg of early potatoes, several rows of carrots and 3kg of maincrop potatoes. We'll need to remove the tarpaulin that's been covering part of the plot since the autumn, see what's underneath and then prepare it so we can plant the late maincrop potatoes, more carrots, leeks, parsnips and anything else I think of at the time!
In the back garden, we've extended the strawberry patch so the runners can spread further and make lots more plants, planted lots of peas, and weeded the herbs, raspberries and blueberry bush. The children have also planted lots of different old flower seeds into pots to see what comes up, and I'm tending to 2 courgette plants in pots and awaiting some cucumber, French bean and tomato plants to start in pots.
So, all in all, a very green-fingered day - well, hopefully! I have to say I'm not really a natural or a very technical gardener. If I had to describe my approach it would be: just bung it in and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What the hell! At least the children enjoyed the planting today and it was lovely to be out in the sunshine. And hopefully some lovely, organic, home-grown food in a few months.

Allotment update

Today we went to the allotment for the first time this year and I was pleasantly surprised. I was dreading going as I half-expected that it would have gone all overgrown again, but actually it was fine. It's a rectangluar plot roughly divided into equal 6ths and the 6th that we'd covered with a tarpaulin was fine, the tarpaulin hadn't blown away or anything. The 6th we'd managed to dig over and mulch and manure properly was also fine with hardly any weeds. The 6th with the overwintering onions (also lightly mulched) was also pretty good with just a few weeds and the onions starting off nicely. So, a good half of the whole plot was fine and needed hardly any attention.
We've got a month until Good Friday and the planting of the potatoes starts, so I'm going to try and get the rest dug and weeded in that time - including getting rid of the rest of the damned carpet!!!
But all, in all, a good morning's work and feeling quite positive about the allotment this year.

The earth it sootheth my soul

Or makes me too mad to care any more! I have spent the morning at the allotment *alone* and feel a real glow of achievement. It was sunny and cold and the wind made my eyes and my nose run as I struggled with the brambles, roots and carpet (yes, carpet), and I felt at one with the elements. Just let my thoughts go in a stream of consciousness and felt much more at peace. That's the up side.
The down side is that the part pf the plot I was dealing with today is just one big root! Actually, if it was one big root that would probably be easier. As it is, the top 6 inches of soil is just a mass of couch grass roots and I have to turn the soil over and then sift through it pulling the matted roots apart and pulling them out. And, as previously related, the previous owner of the plot made sure to lay plenty of carpet down - and then left it for about 6 years, so it has provided a great source for the couch grass to attach itself to and then grow down through, thus anchoring the carpet to the ground beneath as if it was tacked down with tent pegs; and then a good layer of about 2-3 inches of soil has accumulated on the top of carpet and root. However, it felt really good to see clear patches emerging as I struggled and cursed the previous owner - may he always have caterpillars on his cabbages and weevils in his biscuits.
So now we have one allotment plot, divided up into 6 roughly equal rectangles of which one is dug and planted with overwintering onions, one is dug and covered with a tarpaulin, one is dug and covered with mulch and manure, one is weeded and free of carpet but needs digging, and two are still mainly weedy and need digging. We are getting there.

A thrill runs through the allotment...

What could it be? The whsipers started early this week, knots of people in corners - 'have you heard?', 'when will it be?' 'maybe the weekend...' and today, the wonder arrived! A big pile of manure! And it was a like a festival at the allotment - more people than I've ever seen there before at one time and a kind of holiday atmosphere with everyone chatting, making manure jokes and mucking in (ahem!) to get it shovelled and onto plots. Isn't it strange what makes people happy?

Feeling more positive

I'm generally feeling a bit more positive about things this week, despite having a really really awful night last night which ended with everyone awake, both children screaming, me really cross and shouty, and my husband rather bemused about what on earth had happened to kick it all off!

Otherwise though, the allotment is finally starting to look like I had envisaged it would - ie, nicely dug, covered in leaf mulch and planted up with overwintering crops. I think about half to two thirds is like that now, but there's still a lot to do, mainly round the edges, and I would like to get it under control before the spring growing season makes all the weeds grow again!

I had a long discussion with my mum this week about how the kids are doing, in terms of their development, education, social skills etc and she was really encouraging. Given that she's a primary school teacher with over 20 years experience, I feel she is in a position to know that the children are not falling behind where they 'should' be and although I know I shouldn't care about where they 'should' be, I find I can't quite let this go. Especially in view of all the doom and gloom spreading in the HE community currently due to the latest guidelines proposal and the potential impact of Contactpoint.

Our new HE group moved to its winter venue today and it worked pretty well. We actually had the entire soft-play to ourselves and even met another He-er there who knew nothing of the group and had come that morning entirely by chance! There seems to be a hard-core of fairly regular attenders forming, and they're all nice and the kids get on well, so I'm feeling quite positive about that too.

The cat's stitches are due to come out tomorrow too and she seems generally to be healing really well. I hope she can go outside again soon as I'm getting fed up with my bad nights being added to by the cat hurling herself noisily against the back door at 2am in a fruitless attempt to get outside.

I have an optician's appointment tomorrow so all this positivity will probably soon be punctured by finding out that my eyes are worse and that it costs a king's ransom for new glasses.

Last of the harvest & board games

I've just dug up the last of our potatoes on the allotment and am fantastically proud of how many we've managed to produce despite all out set-backs and difficulties. I've also dug half of the carrots and they've grown really well, I'm so chuffed. Now I have a much better idea of what grows well and what doesn't and will be filling the allotment next year with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic and other root crops. I've just finished planting my overwintering onions and that half of the plot looks great, just like an allotment should! It's a shame about the other half, but we'll plod on with clearing that. Now that it's getting colder the slugs are finally leaving my pumpkin plant alone too and there are loads of flowers on it - we may yet get a few small pumpkins, though probably not in time for Samhain!

This afternoon I spent some time playing Rainforest Rescue (an eco-themed snakes & ladders game) with just my son, and it did make me laugh. He's only 3, so a little young to really get the hang of a dice-throwing game though he's very good at taking turns and counting along with his counter. But, he just couldn't understand why I thought he should slide down the waterfalls - his counter was a parrot and surely I knew that parrots can fly? So, I slid down them dutifully, as a tiger should, while he flew up waterfalls and won every game. He is so lovely.