Shattered glass like diamonds . So I recorded it.

My goal here is to help you hold onto a healthy, earth-friendly way of living. To support you with a few facts and lots of encouragement. And gardens. Gardens!

I felt like doing something new today and made you a voiceover of the post!

I miss recording the bedtime stories for you. I must get back to that real soon - but you know - baby in the house!!

I can’t write fast enough. Life is tumbling past at a shocking rate. But I wanted to begin today by saying thank you - to all of you - for being here.

So. Thank you!

My goal here is to help you hold onto a healthy, earth-friendly way of living. To support you with a few facts and lots of encouragement. Because it is the right thing to do. I know “earth-friendly” is such a naff term but it does say exactly what we mean. We’re working to live a little simpler, so humans can stay on this planet a little longer. And each of our contributions looks different.

A painting fell off my wall this morning - with an enormous glass smashing crash. Shards of glass collapsed into a diamond pile on my carpeted bedroom floor. This picture.

It is big - bigger than a regular sized poster and has followed me from house to house and now I have to frame it all over again. Framing is expensive. Sigh.

I look at everything - everything that happens and ask myself “what am I supposed to learn from that?”, “ why did this happen?.” I am not sure what I am learning. She hung fine in the dining room but I wanted her in my room - she is more of a boudoir image - but …

This painting is called Cecilia.

My daughter heard the crash from her bedroom - thankfully it did not wake the baby - her text said “Was that Cecilia?”

“Yup. Threw herself off the bedroom wall, again”.

Yes. This has happened twice but this time she smashed her glass.

Which reminds me of a beautiful mirror than threw itself off the wall and broke the morning I married a man. But it meant nothing. Should we be watching for signs? I am not superstitious. Maybe I should be.

Anyway. I am thinking of replacing the glass with acrylic. It is clear, lighter and won’t shatter into a million pieces if cecilia decides to hurl herself off the wall again.

Now, glass is made from sand and acrylic sheets are made from a plastic called polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), which is produced from - oil.

So is it better for the environment to reframe Cecilia with acrylic or glass?

Oil or sand.

More on that soon. In my next post.

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Guarding our privacy

You can tell it is getting warmer - people are out in the neighborhood. Walking the streets. Their kids running in front and behind or being pushed along in perambulators. Though to be fair Australians walk their babies and kids all winter too. We are always encountering other parents with babies in prams. No matter the weather. Something I never saw in rural Illinois.

But there seem to be more strollers out this week.

In this area we can walk to the shops. So we do.

Our backyard was noisy on the weekend. Kids laughing and screaming and bouncing balls and chasing dogs. There are sounds of gardening, mowing, chopping. But all this activity played out behind the walls that surround our garden. We hear everything but never see Anything. We are private. People are so interesting - how we guard our privacy so hard. Living behind locked doors, curtains and gates and fences. Yet we write and put our pictures all over the internet.

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I find the progression of a baby to a toddler fascinating.

The sheer primeval push to move. To improve. To take one little movement and build it into one big movement then build on that again.

They take each new observation and build it into the next one. They begin their lives all wrapped up like parcels of fish and chips, sleeping marooned on their backs. The first massive change just holding their heads up, then aiming their hands at something and grabbing it, lifting both feet up and miraculously rolling right over into a more comfortable position on the stomach. I think babies must feel safer on their bellies.

Then awake they are slithering backward - often in frustrated fury because their intention was to wriggle forwards towards their toys instead they are backing away.

And as their arms get stronger, they lift their bodies then they lift up their bottoms, rocking up onto their knees. Soon this will be crawling.

Our wee boy can sit unsupported now. But only if we set him down like that. He is not crawling but laid on his tummy on the floor he has just begun to get up onto his hands and knees and rock back and forth before falling forward.

After a while he will be able to sit himself up from lying down. The hardest manoeuvre, in my opinion.

Every moment of their young lives is a lesson. Learning. Learning. All the time learning.

It is innate.

Built in. The certainty of the pursuit of forward motion.

So. Stay in touch with your inner child! Keep going forward.

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At baby swimming class on Friday.

Two adults are needed at baby swimming class. One adult takes baby into the water and does all the fun things, the other adults sit in chairs that are lined up beside the pool. The dry adults in the room. When the class is finished, it is time to get out. But. No one climbs the ladder with a baby. Ladders need two hands. So the parent who was swimming with baby moves baby through the water to the edge of the pool and lifts him up, so her dry adult can collect baby and take him away to wash and change while Mum dries and changes herself.

In preparation for this maneuver, as the end of class approaches, there is a ripple of minders and parents and grandparents gathering up towels and bags. As I took my baby towel out of my bag I glanced across and saw the man next to me doing the same, but also pulling his partners crocs out from under his chair and turning them so she could slip her wet feet straight into them.

I was struck with how loving this small gesture was. It made me pause a moment. Such kindness. Unseen.

I take one of baby’s towels out, sling the bag over my left shoulder then walk right to the edge of the pool to meet mother and baby, she lifts baby high up and bending down at the knees I lean right down and right out over the pool, balanced with the bag on my back shoulder - and with my long right arm I gather up the wet giggly bundle to my body. I stand up again, all baby and bag and towel and hope like hell there is not another granny passing too close behind me. There is a very long in between, an almost off balanced moment when I reach for him leaning out over the pool. We end safely every time with a sopping happy baby enclosed in the towel against my chest all in one confident swooping movement.

Mother climbs back up out of the pool gathers her things and we proceed sedately down the stairs and to the showers. Mother and mother and child.

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The lovely moosh of the garden.

When a plant grows too big for its buddy it does one of two things. Takes it over completely and smothers the others or they develop a kind of symbiotic growing pattern - growing together.

This is a metaphor - but I am not sure what for. Giving ourselves plenty of space to grow - or allowing for the tuck and smoosh of real life?

What do you think?

I am researching silicone and plastic and acrylic and glass. Which would be the least destructive to our planet. That may sound dry but it is actually quite interesting. It will be in my next post.

I showed John this photo - I intended to have tomatoes for Christmas (it is just not warming up) but we have it a good try!

… anyway John sent me this picture in answer to my tomato picture.

(this is a new tomato variety that will grow inside in low light. He has them down in the laundry. We hope it will be a good winter tomato! He is trialing it for us).

They are expecting two big storms to roar through (Central Illinois) for Thanksgiving so he has the plow on the truck and the barn is closed up.

I showed fourth son (Wellington, NZ) this photo: Potatoes growing in bags.

And he showed me this one! Harvesting his potatoes already. They look so good! He thinks he may have blight - lots of rain - so he is harvesting early.

Life is full of food!

What’s in your garden?

Comment. Share. Talk soon!

Celi

Let me know if you liked the voice-over!