A little spring foraging...for nature's medicine

I have written before about foraging for wild edible plants, but I also like to forage for plants that have medicinal properties. Most often, the haul I take home will serve multiple purposes as it’s a bit difficult to separate the activities!

I have been waiting for Spring to really announce itself so I can get out and forage! And last weekend, which happened to be the spring equinox, was perfect for a long relaxing walk with the opportunity to gather some wild goodies.

Foraging is very much a spiritual and mindful experience for me. I get to exist in the present moment as I engage with and walk among nature. From the moment I put together my foraging kit (my bag contains good kitchen scissors, a small bag (preferably paper) to hold the herbs, garden glove for thorny or stingy plants), choose the walk to take, then identifying, harvesting and later preparing and using the plants it’s a special experience.

Before heading out, I usually have in mind what I would like to gather, and how much I require. If I am going to be using it for adding to a meal, I will only take what I need for a few days as the wild greens are often softer and less resilient so tend to lose their freshness pretty quickly.

If I am gathering herbs for making into medicinal remedies, I will still only gather enough to prepare and store for what I think I need over that season. Although the greens are free and I usually don’t deplete an entire plant, I don’t really like to waste what I forage unnecessarily. I also tend to only collect plants that I think I will actually use. That means I need to put in some hours of research to and make a plan for what I want to find.

I have a large collection of books that I spend many hours pouring over as I research what I want to gather, how to prepare it, if I want to turn it into a remedy or just store as a single plant.

My haul over the weekend included the following for both food and medicinal purposes:

Dandelion

Parts used: Flowers, leaves, roots

Season harvested: Gather the young leaves in Spring when they are less bitter taste, and wait until Autumn to harvest roots (although these can also be harvested in Spring).

Uses: Flowers and leaves are edible and good for using in salads or can be added to cooked dishes. Leaves when dried can be made into an infusion that can help with digestion or as a diuretic. With this collection, I used all the leaves in our dinner.

Red clover

Parts used: Flower heads

Season harvested: Spring and early summer

Uses: The flowers can be dried and stored, or used fresh. Fresh they can add colour to a salad. Dried and stored they can then be made up into an infusion and used on skin that is inflamed with eczema or can be gargled for sore throats or mouth ulcers.

Blackberry

Parts used: Collect the young leaves early in spring before flowers appear

Season harvested: Spring

Uses: The leaves are dried and crushed for storing. These can then be made into infusions that can be applied as an external use on skin that would benefit from antiseptic or antifungal treatment. The dried leaves can also be made into a tea and drunk by someone who has a cough or used as a gargle for a sore throat or mouth ulcer

Chickweed

Parts used: Leaves and stems

Season harvested: All year round

Uses: As food chickweed makes a great fresh addition to salads or cooked into a meal such as a pasta sauce or curry; it can also be made into a lemonade style drink using the juice of the chickweed as it is a good source of vitamin A and C. I used all this chickweed in our dinner. Chickweed is also great to use topically either turned into an ointment, but also to crush and use fresh as a poultice for itchy skin and rashes.

Also, since my special spaces post last week I have now found the perfect spot in my laundry to pop a small set of drawers for herb storage with the top to dry them without being disturbed. And even better, it’s not out of sight and therefore not out of mind (which can sometimes lead to forgetting all about them!).

Future posts will build on my herbal collections and include recipes on how I prepare and use them.

Imbolc

On Tuesday we observed and celebrated Imbolc here in the Southern Hemisphere. According to my moon calendar it was the 2nd August, but it seems there is a lot of information that states it's either the 1st or 2nd or both!

So anyway, Spring is on the way! The earth is waking up, the days are continuing to get longer (and at a faster pace now), and I see signs of spring everywhere I go.

I've been walking the kids to and from school this week and it's been so nice to go at that slow pace and take it all in. I've seen a lot of Jasmine vines all coming into flower, as well as daffodils and many other plants that have been in hibernation over winter. My own plum tree is now in full blossom.

Photo taken this morning before the
 sky completely clouded over.

Over dinner on Tuesday night, the kids and I chatted about the things we all each look forward to over the coming year. We had a meal based on the colours white, yellow, and orange to represent the return of the light - a chicken and chickpea curry served on rice!

After dinner I headed off for an Imbolc celebration with my women's group. We gathered outside and were able to be at a venue with a lovely firepit to sit around and discuss what things we'd like to let go of over the next year, and what things we'd like to work on creating. We then shared a delicious hot cup of chai tea! It was pretty cold out there in the beautiful, crisp, clear night, but nice and toasty by the fire.

Signs of Spring...

No photos...but today as I was pottering in the garden I noticed...

Buds on the grape vines beginning to bulge and ready to sprout leaves.

Flowers on the strawberries.

Plenty of new growth on the wild blackberry that set up camp at my place.

The plums on the tree are about 1/2 cm in diametre now.

My daffodils have almost done their dash, but I can see my other new bulbs growing steadily alongside them.

The herb garden is suddenly starting to look full and lush with new growth and flowers on the lavender bushes.

I finally planted out my tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, cucumber and zucchinis - eek, hopefully the frosts are gone...

Spring garden update

Woohoo! So Spring officially started on the 1st but we seemed to have dipped back to mid-winter temperatures with 3-4 frosts over the past week. Gorgeous blue skies but cold Southerlies breezing up from Antarctica...brrrr.

It was so tempting to get all my seedlings out during all that lovely weather, but I managed to contain myself and keep them in pots on my sunlit porch for longer.

Yesterday I did decide to plant out the hardier of the seedlings - brassicas, spinach, silverbeet, beetroot, leeks and lettuces. My tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers and zucchini's and beans are still waiting till the frosts are over.

A few weeks back I discovered a HEAP of spring onions (green onions) in my garden that I sowed about a year ago - I thought they were onions that didn't do what they were meant to but just left them where they were...well, upon closer inspection I realised they weren't brown onions afterall! So I now have lovely plump spring onions all ready to use.

I have my potatoes out sprouting (last year I got caught out with heavy spring rains flooding the patch I'd chosen for the potatoes which caused them to rot and I had to start again!).

Pesky chickens keep changing where they lay their eggs. After discovering we have no eggs to collect for a day we watch where they disappear off to when I let them out the next morning and retrieve the little gifts left behind. The chickens just love the kids and spent a bit of time hanging out near them when they are down in the garden.

The Planting Plan

This evening I've been working on how I will plant out the garden this year. I like to rotate the plants around and also companion plant (for beneficial as well as avoiding antagonists) as much as possible. I don't have a set rotation plan that I work off but kind of play it by ear yet taking into account what was where over the past 2 years (just as well for blogging...).

This year I am not doing corn - have had disappointing and mixed results over the past 2 years and I have other things I'd rather concentrate my time on I think.

I will be dotting 10 pumpkin and squash plants amongst the garden (including two in the back on an old compost heap).

I will be dotting sunflower plants everywhere - apparently good companions to pumpkins and squash (and they'll look good ;)). But need to keep them away from potatoes.

I will put my peas up the teepee with the beans.

I have created a wide bed on the right hand side of the garden this year that will have tomatoes up along the fence line and in front will be intercropped with beneficial plants (onions, carrots, spring onions, leeks, lettuces and celery).

Other plants will be plonked into beds with companions (that sounds dodgy).

Although my garlics are already on the go, I will put some beetroots amongst them and see how they go - apparently good for each other and since I don't seem to have much luck with beetroot, this will be a good experiment.

More Spring prep

I was on a roll today.

The sun was shining and there was no wind so don't mind the cold when it's like that.

I was out there at 10.30am and started to dig over the paths between the beds (just turned the weeds and grass into the ground). Then overlaid them with cardboard that I had soaked in the water trough. Simon arrived home with a wool sack full of mulch that came from my parents house and he set to work re-making the pond as I then spent most of the day digging and laying mulch and topping up one vege bed with surplus soil that was quite low. I had so much energy to burn (after being cooped up in the house all week with awful weather for the most part) that I think I did a week's worth of catch up.

I finally came in about 4pm and got stuck into the housework!

My poor, poor back is going to suffer tomorrow I suspect going on how I feel at the moment.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with the results of what we did and I had a few neat ideas on how to develop the garden further to make it seem more permanent. I've always felt that it's lacked definition and boundaries (despite being within a fenced yard) and I've really got a thing for gardens that have vertical structures within them. I need to take into account that the chicken coop gets moved around.

Before (well, a few months ago)

The kids kept themselves busy doing a bit of this...



Where it's now at...

I intend on mulching down the path from where I'm standing to take the photo and create a few terraces as steps going down (after slipping over today I thought up this idea!). I also will create a mulch border all the way around and complete the wide central one down to the pear tree. At the top left hand corner of the vege beds I will make a lowish (60cm) fence from some sticks we have to give it a nice organic look (running down the left hand side and across the top of the beds). I may then also plant some herb borders. I will continue to work on the food forest at the bottom - it only has the apple and tamarillo trees at present, but intend on adding to this over time.

During the week I got some seeds into the seed trays with help from the kids and have that set up in my bedroom to do its thing.

Garden Planning

Well, Spring's still 7 wks away but with a break in the rain and a few warmer days has me thinking of my garden and what I can plan for now in advance. I had out my local gardening calendar that has been a great little resource to help me remember when to do what.

I noticed the garden beds had lost their definition and that I hadn't really thought about how I was going to rotate the veges this coming year. So this afternoon I cut in around the beds and moving a few along. Since several had become overgrown it meant I could "recut" the bed where I wanted it. (The chickens were pretty happy to see me back working in the garden and jumped with glee on the bed I was digging to snaffle up the grubs and insects and the kids were pretty happy observing all the worms in the soil). Now I have 8 nice 2x2m beds (4 of which have things currently growing). There is also plenty of room to dig up and put the potatoes in without needing to re-use the same area as last year. We had mulled over whether to put in some raised beds, but then that defeats the purpose of having the chickens in the tractor weeding and fertilising for us (not that much of that goes on since they free range all day lol) not to mention a bit costly to set up when I have my soil in a good condition where it is.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to re-read my Linda Woodrow Permaculture Home Garden book to figure a few things out. I also intend on using her idea for the paths by digging up all the weeds, laying thick cardboard down and laying mulch/sawdust on top. I did this during my first growing season and it looked really nice and kept things tidy. So Simon's going to head to my parents place tomorrow and help out mulching up their hedge and bring it home for laying on the paths.

I sorted through my seed packets and checked if there were any packets I don't have (after having lost my big bag of seeds last year). But I seem to have all the basics and I think I'll stick with that this year rather than branching out too much. I just want to get back to continuous planting which I didn't seem to pay much attention to last year.

I have a few packets of seeds set aside that I will get going into the seed trays in the next few weeks.

My poor tamarillo tree is looking a bit sad - it was doing well when it had the frost cloth over it, but one night the cloth blew off and suffered as a result. It may bounce back perhaps, so hoping for the best.

A Simple Spring Day

We've had quite a bit of wet blustery weather (and yesterday had a cold southerly coming up which added an icy feeling to the air) that has kept us inside a lot and meant racks of wet washing sitting inside the house for a few days (and the days I could put them out on the porch the air was too damp to dry anything anyway).

Yesterday evening I checked the weather report for overnight temperatures and noted that it would get down to 4 degrees and that the wind had dropped off and the sky had cleared to a perfect blue - so not wanting to risk losing my potato and tomatoes we went down and covered everything over with a bale of straw that we use for the chickens nesting box. There was no frost, but I slept better knowing that it wasn't of concern.

So we welcomed the sun back today and just a gentle breeze to air the house out again.

The chickens were out for ages in the potato patches - scratching, dust bathing and basking in the sun.

Nathan had woken with bright ideas jumping out of his head lol - he retrieved a mug from the freezer that he'd frozen a toy dinosaur in the day before, removed it from the mug and spent a while smashing it from its icy surrounds. He was then keen to make a dugout in our dirt bank. So, he and Simon set to digging out a hole - of course, the bank wasn't really big enough to do much with, but he's now keen to put something inside it and rebury it.

The kids had fun collecting up the straw and leaping in it and pretending to be baby birds. Then gathered some lettuce and beetroot from the garden for lunch.



I caught up on more laundry and made lunch to enjoy in the sun.


The kids came in from the sun and sat down to draw for a while...

Simon took the kids down to the beach in the back of the bike trailer while I decided to make a gluten free pumpkin pie for dessert to take with us to my parents...

Now find other uses for the rest of the pumpkin. Still not halfway through it. I think we'll be having pumpkin soup tomorrow night.

Pumpkin Pie

sweet pastry:
175 g all purpose wheat free or gluten free flour (use appropriate flour depending on dietary needs)
100 g butter, softened (plus extra to butter the tart tin)
2 tbsp sugar (unrefined preferred)
1 large egg yolk
1 tbsp water

filling:
225 g pumpkin flesh, mashed if fresh (alternatively use tinned)
50 g sugar (unrefined preferred)
½ tsp mixed spice
1 large egg, beaten
185 ml evaporated milk (we used Carnation Light)

preheat oven/initial cooking temp: 220°C, fan 200°C, 425°F, gas 7
reduced heat after 15 mins cooking: 180°C, fan 160°C, 350°F, gas 4

1. Lightly butter and dust with wheat free or gluten free flour a 20cm (8") tart tin, if it has a removable base then it will be easier to remove the pie from the tin when cooked.

2. Into a large mixing bowl put the wheat free or gluten free flour, softened butter and sugar. Mix together until it resembles large breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolk and water and knead into a smooth ball of pastry dough. If the pastry appears too dry and crumbly then sprinkle with a little more water until it makes a smooth ball.

3. On a lightly floured surface (again using wheat free or gluten free flour) roll the pastry out to a size large enough to completely line the tart tin including the sides, trim the edges to neaten the pastry. You may find that the pastry is too fragile to roll out, in that case simply press it into the tart tin using floured hands, then trim the edges.

4. To make the filling place the sugar and spice into a large bowl and mix together. Add the pumpkin flesh and mix until well combined.

5. Add the beaten egg and mix until well combined. Then stir in the evaporated milk. You should now have a smooth batter.

6. Pour the pumpkin batter into the pastry shell, you can fill the pastry full as the batter won't rise, and put in the oven at the initial baking temperature shown above. After 15 minutes reduce the oven temperature to the lower temperature shown above and bake for a further 30-40 minutes.

7. Check how the cooking is progressing after approximately 25 minutes (at the reduced temperature) by gently slipping a thin knife or skewer into the centre of the pie. If the pie is still very runny it needs further cooking. The pumpkin pie is ready to remove from the oven when the filling is set all the way to the centre of the pie.

8. When fully cooked remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tart tin, serve at room temperature or cold. The pumpkin pie should be stored in the refrigerator.

The garden today

The main garden beds. Not all that clear due to not being raised not bordered. Simon got the push mower out and redid the paths between the beds today so they are a lot tidier than they have been.

The peas along the front of my house.

The potted tomatoes. Much bigger than those in the main garden bed.

Braving the Spring weather

Well, the weather seems to have warmed up quite a bit, even if it has been rainy and windy on and off over the past week or so.

So, I decided to give it a shot and get the rest of my spring seedlings out.

~ I planted one bed with corn seedlings.
~ I sowed two more beds with corn seeds (had to fight the chickens off from nicking them before they got covered over).
~ On each of the corners I transplanted some pumpkin seedlings from my garden bed at the front of the house where they had popped up. And I think two of the plants might have been cucumber??
~ I then dotted about 4 bean seedlings into each bed - a bit random really, but hope it all works out all right lol. So that is the three sisters ready to do it's thing. Wasn't planted out as the online instructions usually suggest, but we'll see how this goes.
~ In one bed I put my 9 tomato seedlings around the border and will need to put some stakes in tomorrow since last year they got away on me and I got too lazy/overwhelmed to try and implement a system at that point and they splayed out all over the ground which made it tricky for walking down the paths and for harvesting. Four other tomato seedlings are down in the lower garden against a trellis wall, five other seedlings are in large pots on my porch and another three are at the front of the house. So I'm hoping this will give me a larger crop to prepare a longer lasting stash for use throughout the year.
~ The little chickens are really brave around me now and come up quite close without jumping away if I move too suddenly or close to them.
~ We moved their tractor off the garden beds and situated it down the bottom of the section where there is only just enough room to move it sideways once before needing to put it back to where it was. These two patches will need to suffice till I have harvested the other planted out patches.
~ I now have ONE spare 2x2m patch to find something to go in it once I've dug it up/dug in the straw and chicken poo. Should be nice and soft still from last year though since we don't stand on the beds (aside from the chickens) once they've been dug (and the kids have been trained to always go around too lol) to maintain their airiness.
~ At this stage, I only have capsicums to find a space for - but may put these along the front of my house since it's a sun trap there and plenty of space next to my peas (will need to check for companionship I guess).

And, to reinforce the mantra the kids like to chant once we've planted out...

GROW LITTLE PLANTS, GROW!

Spring!

What a lovely day it was to welcome in Spring.

I spent most of it just pottering around. I'd sit down to read some more of my How to Grow More Vegetable book and come across an idea that just had-to-be-done right there and then, so I'd get up and wander off to do that. The whole day went like that.

Simon took the kids out for a couple of bike rides - I need to find my own bike-love, but garden-love is there right now. Especially since the time is right to get things going in the garden. Although I get quite a bit of time during the week with the kids to pop down to do things in the garden, I try not to spend ALL my time down there since it's not the kids most favourite thing to be doing (although they do love being outside I am mindful of their needs too!). And as the days warm up, we will have plenty of time between 10am-3pm out of the sun to do other stuff, so better try and get in as much work now while I can.

It's amazing how much time can be lost just looking at chickens lol. I love watching them pottering and scratching. Both the little ones had a dust bath today which was neat to watch. Moon decided to come and join them and just plonked herself in the tub of sandy soil with Peach and rolled around with her and on top of her.

I planted out some Maori seed potatoes I'd been given (I forget which variety, but they are purple skinned and yellowy inside) into an empty patch of garden trying out an alternating pattern from the How to Grow book. I popped 5 tomato seedlings into tubs up on my deck. I will move them all around to my front porch where they get more shelter and all day sun though. I then popped 5 tomato seedlings into my front garden amongst my daffodils and sunflowers. They will also get great sun and complete shelter - only issue is they will need constant watering since the soil is still quite sandy despite the heap of compost in there and the rain doesn't drive in on that side.

Tomorrow afternoon after playcentre I intend on dividing some of my herbs up and putting them into spaces within the herb garden as suggested in one of my other gardening books I was reading today. It will keep the herbs going and help keep the weeds at bay by filling in any spare spaces!

I need to get some beans and pumpkins started soon so when I pop the corn seeds directly into the group in October they can all work together to form the Three Sisters.

The garden today

Just because I like to look back at start of season and end of season photo's. Here it is with a couple of potato patches all freshly dug with trenches. The kids and I spent a bit of time putting in some of the well sprouted seed potatoes and the rest of the brassica's. The hole with the muddy bucket next to it will be where the pond will go.

The garden was certainly useful in transforming tonight's dinner from a lifeless one to a fresh one. I harvested some broccoli shoots (I harvested the main head months ago but I kept the plant still in the ground to get the side shoots which produce a meals worth about once a month), lettuce and silverbeet/spinach. We had a frittata and salad on the side (the only vege's left from my vege box was a carrot, a small leek and an avocado.

Spring must be coming!

(not my tree)
The blossoms on our plum tree are in full bloom and the days are feeling a bit warmer and definitely longer...

So, despite (or maybe because of) the stormy weather we've been having, today I felt completely inspired to do a bit of clearing out. The doors were opened to let the warm sun in, air out our home and bring fresh vibrant energy in.

I rearranged furniture in Nathan's room to make room for a new chest of drawers we'd been given, put some of his unused toys into Danielle's room (particularly the chunky toy animals that she loves) and re-sorted their bookcases. Simon and Nathan spent a while cleaning the deck, outdoor furniture and kids playhouse after the stormy weather and the masses of sandpit sand that that was everywhere and stuck to everything.

Last night I was sorting out sewing materials when, due to a power blackout in our area, I had Simon's headlamp on to see what I was doing.


Fortunately, the fireplace was still able to provide boiling water for a cup of hot chocolate.

Today the chickens finally had a whole day out to scratch and run around.

So it was a successful weekend where I decluttered a lot, tossed a little, recycled some and donated some more.

Don't know about the kids...

...but today is the kind of day that I love to think back on. I sometimes wonder what things the kids will have memories of when they are adults and hope that these sorts of days make it into them.

Today was a family day and full of...

- Blue sky, sun and just a gentle breeze

- Me digging up the next vege patch while Simon cut up more of the firewood for next winter and the kids pottered around keeping the chickens out of the vege patches and playing in a pile of sand

- Taking a break and deciding on an impromptu picnic lunch in our garden which we haven't done before (well not down in amongst the vege's anyway); so out came the picnic mat, plates of fresh food, mugs of water and sitting under the pear tree in the shade watching the chickens and hoping we'd see them laying their eggs (no such luck, think they knew they were being watched even from a bit of a distance)

- Collecting the eggs later on with Danielle and just sitting down on the grass and chatting about them for a good 10 minutes while picking buttercups and putting them in our hair

- A bike ride down to the beach

Roll on more sunny days...

The BBQ's have begun!

Yep, it's that time of year. The clocks have changed, we're onto daylight savings time and things are finally warming up.

It's been a bit of a social weekend. We've had a couple of bbq's, plenty of laughs and fun and wine and beer with friends, the children entertaining themselves and late nights into bed.

Not a lot of gardening going on, and I swear those potato plants keep growing significantly higher everytime I go down to the garden and require more soil to be piled up around them!

I went to a local Sustainability Expo this afternoon with Nathan and ran into many people we knew - what a community, love it!

Rain, rain, go away...

Well, we've had weeks of fairly persistent rain. We've had the odd half day's respite, but it's been pretty relentless. I have hope though. This afternoon the clouds parted and the sun came out and it was warm. Not much of a breeze though to shift that humidity and moisture that seems to have permeated into the house and everything within it.

At least I managed to get one load of washing dry that's been on the drying rack for a few days, switched clothes off the nappy drying rack so I could put out my nappies which were getting down to the last one. I used up the last tonight and fortunately there will be dry ones for the morning.

It's the spring weather that makes me long for a clothes dryer.

I don't have problems in winter trying to dry clothes with having the woodburner to toast them all off in front of overnight (not to mention that over winter we didn't have nearly as much rain as what we have in the last few weeks!). But with it not being cold enough in the evenings to light a fire now, yet having wet days for days on end it really does make for a bit of juggling of things.

All this rain has also escalated a Roof Problem that I kept hoping would go away. We have a leak in one of our lounge skylights that leaks periodically (depending on the wind direction I think). So we've also bit the bullet and decided to have the entire roof replaced since it's starting to get rust holes all over the show and it won't be long before there are leaks elsewhere. Since we have fully committed to staying in this home for the long term it will definitely be a worthwhile investment. No more waking in the middle of the night to a downpour sending Simon out to put a bucket under the drips when I should be snuggling down and enjoying the sound of the rain on the roof.

Spring Surprises

Out wandering in the garden this afternoon, we spotted HEAPS of plums developing. Tiny still at only about 1cm diameter, but there are masses. Last summer the amount of fruit we got was a bit of a disappointment (suspect it is a tree that fruits every two years) - but that's ok, I don't think I would have had great plans for bottling and storing it all anyway. This year, I will definitely make plans for what I can do. Mmmmmmm.


The apple tree also has some lovely blossoms on it. Unfortunately I wasn't on to it and didn't protect it against codlin moth which seems to attack it every year. But hopefully we'll be able to cut around what is ok and do something useful with it anyway. They are old fashioned apples (not sure what variety) and I'd say the tree dates back to when the house was built about 50yrs ago. The tree is looking quite decrepit and not too good - but the wonderfully tasty fruit it bears makes it difficult to chop it back and risk it carking it completely.

First day of Spring!

Well it was a really mild winter and we got through only buying one cord of firewood and had a little bit of extra wood left over from last winter to tide us through. I'm sure there were evenings where a nice hot fire would have made the room temperature a little more pleasant, but really - if I'm sitting on the couch reading or at the computer, a rug over my lap will suffice (what a nana)!

Nathan spent a lot of winter asking when spring would be here (we have a gardening game that he went through a phase of playing which follows the seasons) - well my boy, here it is!

The sound of silence...

(I am such a cliche user...)

This morning the kids and myself jumped in the car for an appointment a 1/2hr away. We hadn't left our town for ages (months!) so Nathan was just buzzing about all the things he saw - I had my ear yabbered off for 15mins solid (the trains, the forest, the oil tanker in front of us and it's ladder going up the back, the hill we went up, who lived in the direction we were driving, the South Island we could see over yonder, the ferry (and not fairy lol), our local island out in the sea - seriously, nothing new that we don't see everyday anyway!) and then it reduced to just intermittent discussion. But boy, was I worn out with the questions and *my* constant talking in response. I love that his little brain is so active, inquisitive, curious and intelligent and I'm constantly in awe at the speed that he's wanting to take it all in. Danielle my quieter child can sit quietly an entire trip (although, nothing to brag about since she has now been diagnosed with two glue ears hence the appointment).

So, after lunch and while Danielle was napping, we went down to the garden for a look at the seedlings. I picked up the fork and started to dig around below the trellised area and thought it might be a good spot for my beans that were still on my windowsill and absolutely bursting out of their seed mix.

The silence was just beautiful as I dug and dug - the only sounds I could hear were birds chirping and the chickens foraging and scratching - the day was *the* most beautiful winters day (if you could even call it that, it truely was spring-like) with no wind and gorgeous sun on my back, a chill in the air but not cold. There was even a moment in time when there were no neighbourhood dogs barking (ours included) and no aeroplanes flying overhead since we are on the flightpath for the local airport. The surrounding silence seemed to have a flow on effect for Nathan too. He wasn't talking, he was just busy climbing his tree, crushing clods of soil, picking buds off a branch that was sitting on the compost pile and just hanging out in companionable silence.

Bliss!

(And just coz I am trying to torture myself, the overnight low tonight is meant to be 7 degrees, however, I just popped out in Simon's car to get takeaways and his thermometer read 5 degrees).