The past week has been a beauty, the first half was full of STRESS getting our Playcentre ready for the education review, then the weight just lifted because the review went pretty smoothly and we are all feeling optimistic about the report. We know Playcentre is the most awesome place for kids to learn and a good report will help confirm it.
If I was gardening I'd be clearing and mulching for winter in the beautiful weather but I'm not quite ready to test my back out yet so in the mean time I've let the chooks out to clean up the bugs, turn the compost and hopefully scratch out some weeds. I'll break up some garlic for planting and prepare myself for a more witchy weedy garden next year. It will be hard as I'm a bit of a control freak in the garden, the nettles are already making their presence felt. I love them, but the kids complain. Alot of their friends have not come across nettles before and walk right into them. This week I'll try to cut down my coffee habit a bit and drink some organic nettle tea. Aparently it is full of iron and vitamins and I can use it as a hair rinse if I don't like the taste!
If I was gardening I'd be clearing and mulching for winter in the beautiful weather but I'm not quite ready to test my back out yet so in the mean time I've let the chooks out to clean up the bugs, turn the compost and hopefully scratch out some weeds. I'll break up some garlic for planting and prepare myself for a more witchy weedy garden next year. It will be hard as I'm a bit of a control freak in the garden, the nettles are already making their presence felt. I love them, but the kids complain. Alot of their friends have not come across nettles before and walk right into them. This week I'll try to cut down my coffee habit a bit and drink some organic nettle tea. Aparently it is full of iron and vitamins and I can use it as a hair rinse if I don't like the taste!
I'm on the road to recovery. My old chiropractor was good and had alot of old injury's to work through, but the new one is great he uses a gentler method which doesn't involve me having my whole back cracked twice a week. He's very good at taking time to explain theories and steps in my treatment. I'm pretty twisted up still after years of physical work, a couple of accidents and four babies. I've started thinking more about my everyday activities and how I can do them safely. Also it seems I'm going to have to look at how I handle stress and do gentle excercise instead of doing lots of shoveling and carrying. I've resolved to get my teenager in to have some treatment too as he has had several trampoline accidents. Apparently having your bones heal out of alignment can affect your whole wellbeing and even growth. I havn't gardened for a while, but enjoyed a long walk in the autumn sun yesterday afternoon. The toadstool from my walk reminds me of my childhood where I played under a beautiful grove of oak trees imagining faries and their friends living in the toadstool communities that thrived there.
Yay I even felt well enough to finish a small knitting project it fits in quite well with the fairy/ pixie memories. I've been inspired by Helen's "week of wool" 
Then on Sunday I put my back out really bad again, I wish I could figure out what's causing it because I wasn't even doing anything I'd consider to be heavy work. I felt like an invalid and was so depressed watching 50 year old Suzanne Paul whirl around the dance floor on dancing with the stars the other night. Thank goodness for the drugs the Dr's given me! I couldn't move yesterday, even knitting hurt! 
Last week I started these baby gowns, finishing them off yesterday. One will be for my friend who just had her third baby girl. The fabric of the yellow one and the blue one is viyella or clydella which my grandma had in her stash. She had 8 children and handmade all their baby clothes. Fabric was precious and she saved all the smallest scraps too. The blue piece must have been a favorite because it appears to have been bought and not made into anything. It's my favorite but the colour might be too boyish for a girl?
A very cleaver friend of mine who was at the boot sale, took a fancy to one of my bags a few weeks ago so we have done a swap. This is a beautiful example of the handmade nappies she does. I'm going to provide her some flannelette to do another one. Baby G the red head, doesn't say many words but he said "warm" when I put this on him and that says it all really.
Austrian oil seed pumpkins you just cut them in half and dry out the seeds for storage.
You know it's ready when the pumpkin starts to go orange. I got about 3/4 of a cup from the first one I did, which isn't too bad considering if I'd bought the seeds from the shop they'd probably have been heat treated to stop them sprouting and flown here from goodness knows where, so I guess I'm doing my bit in my own garden to help towards stopping global warming. Now if only I could use the pushbike instead of the car sometimes. The catalogue says the flesh is lovely to eat but I find it quite watery like squash and give it to Skatey Boy's pet rats or the chooks, who incedently have stopped laying, autumn is obviously turning into winter for us here in the southern hemisphere. Wharepapa our Mt Arthur mountain range had a sprinkling of snow the other night but it would be very rare for us to get any down this low.
I also found some handknitted then felted bags, I wish I'd had my camera as I've been thinking about making myself one this winter. My stall didn't look as good as it usually does, I still havn't figured out why it didn't come together nicely.I think I need to figure out a good way to display bags and probably book L his own site for Manuka seats, he sold three. Also I had a friends T shirts on my stall which was probably a mistake as they take up alot of room. I caught up with lots of friends and sat quietly in my friends coffee cart watching her run off her feet, by 3 o'clock talking to herself "flat white, flat white, flat white" so she'd remember what she was making. It's still making me smile three days later. Market folk are great.
