I know it's been ages since I posted. As I am sitting here on Nov 30th (for Australia, this blog publishes on U.S. time) But it's been a really big month and I have a lot going on so here's a quick overview of what's been happening.
We Finally finished Chicken Alcatraz. Now I can plant in our back yard again and our hens have a large enough fully enclosed space to move around and be chickens without being the garden destroying units they have been up until now. The chicken coop and run is made from 99% recycled materials resulting in very few dollars spent and is predator proof as well as chicken proof- if there is even a six inch gap at the top where the shade cloth connects to the wire our Australorp hens will find it and be out in just minutes. It works well! At the moment there is a long cage in there right now, one of our hens has a baby chicken and this is the best way I could find to keep it safe.
Then there's the fact that Edison; now five and a half, has finished up his year of pre-homeschool and we are currently evaluating where to from here. I would prefer to be a purely home schooling family while MC would like to work out an arrangement with a school so that Edison can "socialize more" because MC is concerned that he won't be able to cope in the "real world" and cope with people in the work place later in life if he's not used to interacting with peers. This will likely be an ongoing discussion through the summer and left til the absolute last minute until we can come to an agreeable arrangement on levels of exposure for a child who has already had bad experiences with main stream education. The good news? Edison is academically on track and loves art, music, animals, gym and maths. He tolerates letter learning but isn't as keen as he used to be on it.
MC is as always hard at work. I really have to admire that. He works a lot and I don't always know what it is he's up to but he's always at it. Right now he's pretty invested in finding the best arrangement for Edison, we're on opposite sides but I'm sure we can meet in the middle.
Kicky is now three years and eight months old. He's pretty full on and is speaking a lot more than he used to. His current passion is trying to get to our baby rabbits and mine is preventing him from loving them too hard. He's also coming into his own with his participation in Milo Cricket. They aren't supposed to start until they are five years old but the older kids love letting him join in and are very good with him.
As for myself I have finished up studying and am currently writing a book for parents on self care. Which is amazing and scary all at once and is taking up a great deal of time as I want to do the best possible job I can with it. I expect it to be a series and to not take too long to read, I'm going for simplicity and comprehension rather than intricate detail and I refuse to tell parents how to do their job rather provide all the information and they can just decide for themselves. This is likely to drive a few of my more purist friends absolutely crazy but it isn't about spreading a specific dogma or even about my own choices as a parent, rather helping absolutely any couple come back to a good place regarding self care and from that enabling them to care for their children however they choose to do it.
Local recent events have been that there was an enormous fire at Pinery, which is not all that far from us. Just 20km or so. more than 85, 700 hectares were burnt to nothing and it's actually still burning as I write this though the fire is contained. Two local people died in the blaze along with around 500 sows and their piglets in a piggery and 50, 000 chickens in a chicken farm and countless other livestock such as sheep and cattle. Horses too. Over 90 homes have been lost.
When Edison heard that there were children near him that had lost literally everything he was down right concerned. He took two garbage bags into his room and found some of his nicest toys to give to the children. He didn't skimp either. A whole play set and many stuffed animals and cars and trains went into those bags. All clean and in good working order. He also threw in a couple pairs of shoes that he hadn't been using. And then I had to immediately find somewhere that was taking in donations for the fire victims so he could give them his gift. He seemed satisfied when he left and since then we've talked about how lucky we all are to still be here with all our belongings intact.
We're hoping that the winds will cease so that the hot spots in the fire zone can cool off and stop flaring up unexpectedly.
So that's what's been going on. Til next time.
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