TKG Sustainable Sunday: Boy in a Tree, Lemon Oil, Compostable Fabrics.

A Story. A recipe. A Tip for your Sustainable Lifestyle. Something for everyone this Sunday.

A story from when I was a young mum with little kids. This is a long post so don’t forget to click on .. read more. I have read a little in the voiceover if you want to begin your reading with me. Thank you so much for being here!

Boy in a Tree

Summer feet smell different. Sturdier, rugged: summer feet have a shiny, honest, worn down, dry, dirty feet smell.  

At the start of summer on the beach we inch and pick our way in bare feet across the hot stones to the sand. By the late summer we stream barefoot across the carpark, through the beach weeds, over the gravel and through the hot sand to the sea and her tide.

Our feet glide, no longer feeling the prick and jab and heat of the irritated recalcitrant beach. All we feel is anticipation.

It was mid summer. We were way into the glide. The summer holidays when I was a solo Mum were filled with rivers and beaches and walks. Every day. We were a water family. Preferably water in its natural habitat. On this day the children and I had spent all day at the beach. We had arrived back to the big cool farm house on the orchard late in the fiery Hawkes Bay summer afternoon. Hot and delicious from the sun and sea. We had not worn shoes for days. My bare feet felt cool on the dark old farmhouse floorboards after a day on the beach reminding me of that saying my ex husband had, that he would repeat with a big laugh, something about keeping your wife ‘barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen’. I laughed with him but only on the outside - it was not as funny as he thought.

The three boys were already under the big tree in the backyard with the usual instructions to strip, hose the beach off each other, hang up their togs in the tree and come in for a bath then dinner and stories and bed. Every evening they struggled against bedtime. Since time immemorial children have fought coming in to bathe and get ready for bed.

The big oak tree spread wide over the garden, it’s trunk was the width of a two seater couch and it’s ancient branches had the girth to support a big family of children. If it were a horse we would call it a Clydesdale with too much white in his eye. It had a personality this tree and would not be pushed too far. It deserved respect. And got it. We love trees. Under and through the tree ran the remains of an elderly wrought iron fence. This was one of those old indestructible metal railing picket like fences that stand erect for a hundred years never giving up an inch of their ramrod pride.  Part of this fence had even been claimed by the tree, natures take-over, the tree and the fence had been together that long.  The tree had grown through and around the fence, incorporating it. The top of the iron fence was lined with disarmingly dangerous hearts. Insidious hearts like knives. The point of the heart was sharp.  Which I had often thought was a kind of garden poetry. The most archaic of security systems. Hearts that would impale a person and make them bleed. The weather that had stripped the fence of it’s white paint had sharpened these decorative blades into rusty points.

The brothers, three of my sons, pretended to be busy under the tree. My tiny toddler daughter lay under a bright blanket on the couch in front of the window. Fast asleep, breathing the summer air easily.  The family dog lay stretched out on the floor below her.

I lugged the last of the beach bags into the house.  I guessed I probably had twenty minutes to get all the beach clothes and towels into the washing machine, her brothers cleaned and dinner on the way before she woke up.

I leaned out the big sash windows and called into the garden softly so as not to wake her. “Did you hose yourselves? Oh that breeze is nice, it is cooling down … excellent. Come on. Get cracking.”

The three small boys, ranging in age from four to nine, crouched around a watering can under the tree, they turned their heads in surprise. Three sea blown curly blonde heads, three sets of pale startled blue eyes and a tangle of summer browned limbs all rose and sighed as one wild barely tamed animal. The boy-bodies drifted into three parts at the sound of my voice, paused, then drifted back, heads closed back together, rejoined, twisting, craning, bending and lowering until the whole mess of limbs and faces settled back down into one again and each little brothers face refocused on the watering can.

“What’s in there?” I said.

“Nothing.” they answered in unison.

“Hmm” I said. ” Get those togs off. Hang them on the tree. Hose each other down and come in for the bath. It is almost time for tea. You can eat in your jarmies. Come on now, the sun is going down.”

The three-headed boy nodded in unison.

“What is in that watering can?” I asked again. I heard the baby stir behind me at my raised voice.

The dog picked up her big black head then laid it back down with a small beat.

The phone rang. This was an old fashioned phone. Heavy. Important.  It’s bells rung loudly from the corner of the kitchen bench where it was anchored. Calling out like an insistent under fed black cat.

“Hose!” I called “Wash that sand off. Bath!”   I pulled my head back into the kitchen.  One hand reached for the phone, picking up the receiver to still the bells. The other hand opened the fridge door and searched out pastry left over from yesterday, (I always made a double lot). I grabbed a bowl of eggs and a packet of bacon. I looked at the baby, still asleep, I could  hear small boys voices outside. “Hold on.” I said into the receiver. The dog stood, moved three steps and threw herself back down on a cooler section of the floor with a sigh. I shut the fridge door with my foot, dropped the food onto the bench, and dragging the phone with me, it’s cord unspooling from the phone base tethered to the wall, walked into the bathroom.

I rolled the golf ball that served as a plug into the plughole and turned the bath tap on. Cold first, always cold first when there are kids around.

“Hullo?” I said into the phone as I walked back into the kitchen and turned the oven on.

“So what are you making?”  Donna said, directly into my ear. Donna was my friend. She and Deb were my dearest women friends.  I was young and alone raising these children, a too young motherless mother myself and my child-less friends were my gold. Deb had moved away but we talked every week and Donna and I talked on the phone every evening. My father used to say when you find a good friend bind them to you with a steel girder. We three were bound from the beginning.

“Bacon and Egg Pie. With peas”. I said.

“You can’t put peas in bacon and egg pie.” Donnas voice always had a hint of gravel in it, a touch of red earthy lipstick and more than a smidgin of wool and garden dirt. “How was the beach?”

“They need their greens.”  I said, reaching for the flour. “We timed it right, the tide was low when we got there, by the time we packed up there was almost no beach left, the tide came up so high. Perfect day really. No attempted drownings. ”

I tucked the phone in between my shoulder and my ear. It was quite comfortable. Old phones were good like that.  The receiver so heavy you could lean it on your shoulder and move about with confidence just as long as a person did not run out of cord. We all knew our limit to the centimetre. I sprinkled flour on the board and began to roll out the pastry.

“Did you wear your long shirt; you didn’t get sunburnt did you,” Donna was good at being the mother in our group of friends. “Did you eat today?”

“I am cooking.” I said hoping that would answer the question.  She worried that I was too skinny.  “Wait.”  I called out the kitchen window. “Hey, you lot, the hose, then the bath”. Still on the phone, I walked back into the bathroom, turned off the cold and began to add the hot water. A stream of summer air gusted noisily through the house, through the steam of the hot water, and out the open bathroom window, pushing the scent of ripening apples ahead of it. Then it was gone, replaced by the click of the heating oven.

At the bench we chatted as I rolled out the pastry and fitted it into a baking dish.  What did you do with your day? Isn’t the weather gorgeous? How do you make that kumara curry.  Did you hear from Deb today? How are your peaches doing?  There is something so comforting about this kind of undemanding connection.   So decent and good. So complete. Friends like this only come once. Each question could come from either of you.

I heard a commotion outside.  My head tipped sideways.  The phone slipped. A pause.  I shuffled it back to my ear. “Something is up.” I said to Donna, rolling the flour bag closed.

"Can you hear them?" she said.

"Mmm hmm”. I opened the bacon. 'They are under the tree. The big tree.'"

"What are they doing?"

"Something bad." Counting out 6 rashers.

"When it is quiet, then you can worry."

"I say that all the time," I said.

"I heard it first from you," she answered.

"Mum." The youngest of my little blonde-haired sons was at the door.

"Are you hosed?" I said.

"Did you get the manuka honey on the way back?" said Donna.

"No, they were closed; we were too late."

"I’ll bring you some tomorrow. I’ll pick it up on the way."

"Mum, Sam wants you," said my little son.

"You boys need to hose off, then come inside for a bath. Tell Sam to hurry up. Just get the small jar though, Donna; it is expensive. Thanks, honey." We laughed.

"Mum."

"You are still full of sand; you can’t come inside. Go and hose yourselves. Your bath is ready."

"What are they doing?" said Donna.

"Not what they were told to do," I said. The son had disappeared. I smiled. I laid strips of bacon across the pastry.

"I love them," Donna said. "They will be my babysitters when I have kids. If I have kids."

"You will, Donnie," I said. "It will work out." Dragging the phone cord behind me, I turned off the bath taps. Reached down four towels.

Another small boy was at the kitchen door. The middle son. "Hold on, Donny," I said.

"Sam is stuck in the tree," he said.

"What did he say?" said Donna.

"Can you get him down?" I answered. The boy ran back out. "I am coming!" I called. "Tell him to hold on. Just sit on the branch ‘til I get there. Just let me get dinner in the oven!”

“Sam is stuck in the tree. No one is listening to me," I said to Donna.

"They will." she said. “When you are dead.” We laughed.

I cracked a dozen eggs on top of the bacon, then with a fork, I broke the yolks of six of them. I sprinkled a little salt and lots of pepper over the whole dish. I could hear the music from Donna's stereo over the phone, the clank of dishes in her sink, and the tap of a spoon.

"What are you making for dinner?" I asked Donna. "Couscous and seaweed?"

"Close," she said and proceeded to talk about small and clever things.

I popped my head out the window again and called, "Someone bring me in some parsley, please. Pick it from the plant by the tap."

Soon the smallest boy ran to the kitchen door with two tiny sprigs of parsley.

“Thank you Tigger, but that is not enough, darling, bring me some more.” I said.

“Sam is still stuck in the tree.” he said, handing me the parsley. Ducking down and looking up to catch my eyes.  He was becoming insistent. “He needs you to get him down.  He might fall.”

“I know darling, I am coming,” I said. ” Just tell him to wait. And tell him not to stand on a branch smaller than his ankle.  Don’t worry.  None of you has ever fallen out of a tree. Now, you go and hose yourself and your brother and get in the bath, it is going cold. I will get Sam in a minute. Go on. ”

Baby woke up and toddled groggily into the kitchen. She fell onto her padded bottom. She blinked. Then stoically she stood back up again, reached her arms up and arrived on my hip without any conscious decision on anyones part. I swung her from my hip to the bench.

“Talk to Donna, honey” I said and gave her the phone.

I called out the window again “Tell him to get out of the tree, get hosed and come in for the bath, you will all have to get in together now, dinner will be ready soon.” I chopped the parsley up  and sprinkled that over the eggs, laid on the top sheet of pastry, quilted the edges fast, brushed it with egg  and slid the pie into the oven. I worked fast. One hand on the work, one hand guarding against a falling child. I could hear Donna talking loudly to the silent girl. The toddler babies eyes round as she listened. She handed me the phone and I listened to a little bit of Donna’s baby talk myself.

“Go on” I laughed “I am listening.”

“I was telling her that I am a better cook than her mother and we all know peas are not a vegetable they just happen to be green.” We laughed some more. Baby laughed with us.

The smallest blond headed son was again at the door.

“Mum, Sam is really stuck, he wants you.  He is going to fall!”  He ran off.

“MUM”. The youngest little sun boy was immediately back at the door.  He was shouting now.  “Sam needs your help, Mack can’t reach him! Now, Mum” he said, “ You have to come now, he is falling out!”

"Out of what?" said Donna.

“Out of what?” I said.

"THE TREE!" said the tiny son.

"He fell out of the tree?" said Donna.

"No, he has not fallen out of the tree," I said. "These kids are monkeys; anyway they bounce when they fall." We laughed.

We both listened.

"Can you hear anything?" she said.

"No," I said.

“Quick,” Donna said.

And scooping up the Baby, dropping the phone on the bench, I ran through the kitchen door, down the steps and outside and across the lawn to see what was going on and why haven’t you hosed yourself and look the sun is almost gone and no one cleaned or in their jarmies. I rounded the corner, and there suspended beneath a great branch above the fence was my boy. My small senior son was hanging far above the ground; he must have fallen then caught himself because he was hanging directly above the sharp pointed iron hearts. His face screwed up into a terror of concentration, his young fingers clutching the bark. And he was losing his grip. Macka was laid out on a branch above him grabbing at his brother's T-shirt, which came off in his hands as Sam, as though in slow motion, lost his grip on the branch and then hung with one hand. His legs scissoring the air. He twisted his head to me. All I saw was the blue of his eyes. I smelled the heat of fright. I fled to him like a mother. That moment when a mother’s speed becomes superhuman. I leapt for him. Time folded and snapped. Holding the baby on my hip away from the spikes, I was suddenly underneath him. Leaning to cover the fence. My free arm up and across almost touching his feet. He fell silently. Straight down my arm like a slide and on top of me where my body was now a shield over the spikes. Impossibly his little summer feet dropped to my shoulders He landed with a thump on his mother, his bare summer feet curled for purchase into my shoulders, his body folded over my head, baby yelped, his brother screamed, his hand shot down onto my arm, gripping hard, his other hand around my head. Working his arm right around my neck. Then he shakily slithered his legs off my shoulders and down my side like an eel, moving around his sister, his arms going from my arm to my shoulders around my belly and down. Climbing down the ladder of my whole mother body. Then he stood, on the earth, very still, holding onto my knees.

The muscles in his arms twitching and shaking.

Our bare summer feet on the ground together.

A breeze rose on our bare skin. The smell of stonefruit and tree bark and roses and water and salty child and hot dry summer feet bloomed around us.

In that moment, we were all completely alone. And absolutely fragile. Breakable. A solo mother alone with her children. There was no help coming. I almost missed it. I almost did not save him. Little son moved in, and middle son was out of the tree and moving in too. We stood together in shocked stillness. All five of us. Leaning on each other. Baby on my hip reached down and patted her big brother’s head.

For a breath, for a moment in time, for a horrible second I had seen him fall straight onto the spikes of that fence. His feet slashed and his belly spilled open. My mind grappled for air. The breeze fell away. We were all deeply silent. “I should have come sooner,” I said. “Yes,” said the youngest son. “I tried to tell you.” His words were gentle though.

The old black Labrador stood in the light of the kitchen door at the top of steps and woofed softly. Silhouetted. One tired sound.

So we all filed back inside. Up the old worn wooden steps and through the big solid kitchen door. The dog moved back to her mat by the couch and threw herself down. I set baby down beside her. In the kitchen I picked the receiver of the phone back up and gave it to senior son so he could tell the tale to Donna while the middle two climbed into the bath. Too cold for the hose now. Too dark.  Too afraid. The points of the iron fence under the tree glinted in the dark behind us as I moved to shut the solid kitchen door on them.

After they were all in bed, I went back out into the gathering mid summer gloom and the night was quiet. I looked at that tree and that fence. The black dog stood behind me. We looked at the fence growing through the trunk of the tree. Stretching out behind the dog kennel. I wondered about covering the spikes with little soft hats made of something. On the way back in I peeked into the watering can and, by the gentle glow of quiet light that drifted out of the window and into the garden, I could see a puddle of dirty water. Whatever had been there was long gone.

The dog lapped at her water under the tree then followed me back in.

Celi

PS. Donna died suddenly a few years ago.  She died of an aneurism that chose to burst while she was up in her beloved mountains drinking coffee and watching the sun come up. I began to write this story before I remembered who was on the phone. Isn’t that funny.  A memory story has a slow reveal.   Suddenly she was there. Our lost mother/friend. I found myself struggling to write it because having her on the phone again was really hard.  I did not mean to hear her voice and there it was. She was on the phone and wonderfully ordinary.

PS This was first published here on September 16, 2012

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The Recipe:

Donna had a huge lemon tree that kept us all supplied with big sun ripened lemons. She would have liked this dressing.

Step One. Lemony Oil Dressing

(I think I saw a recipe like this on the substack of

emily nunn

a while back but I am not sure. She is worth popping in to read anyway!).

For this you need a whole lemon. Do not peel. An Organic lemon from your best friends garden will be best but if you have to buy one at the supermarket scrub the wax off it with a vege brush and hot water.

Slice one whole un-peeled well-scrubbed lemon as thin as you can. Paper thin. (Pick out the seeds). Stack the slices into a jar with a sprig or two of rosemary and cover in good local virgin olive oil and one tiny whole (halved down the middle) dried chili. (If you do not like chili omit), (if you prefer thyme to rosemary - go for it).

A little salt and a lot of pepper - pepper and lemons are best friends.

Allow this to sit for the day to exchange flavours.

Use alone as a dressing or in your dressings. Store in the refrigerator up to a week. This is great with EVERYTHING. I poured a drizzle over pumpkin soup the other day. Amazing!

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The most read TKG Take 10 of the Week

You saw it Here First

When Little Quacker flew in from the wild and stayed a few days.

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The Most Read Blog Post of the Week

A Visitor from the Wild

And Little Quacker is still here. Quacking up a storm in the slowly de-frosting pond.

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The Sustainable Sunday Tip

Buy fabrics that you know will make great rags when the garments are past repair then consider whether they will compost. I call these full circle fabrics. Like sheets and towels and dish cloths and floor rugs, handkerchiefs, shirts and socks. Lean into natural decomposable fabrics.

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The Opinion.

You can’t get it all right all the time. So be kind to yourself.

Raising kids by yourself is hard so be kind to yourself some more.

Look at the words you are using. They have power.

• Listen more. (even when you are desperate to jump into the conversation).

• Think more (even when you think you have thought enough).

• Speak less ( and make your words count).

Celi.

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And don’t forget to pop into The Kitchens Garden in the morning. I’ll be there!

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We begin TKG Travel on Wednesday. I am not entirely sure what that will look like so you will be in for some experiments like this one, and some surprises. Chime in. Tell me what you like. Comments ROCK.