When Life Gives You Lemons

you're supposed to make lemonade or something  In my opinion these platitudes are more harmful than good. All we can do when things are a mess  - and  it doesn't matter if it's health problems or a personal tragedy - is to try to survive and I find part of survival is finding small moments of joy where you can.

With that cheery beginning in mind here are a few of my moments of joy lately.

Mr Three has been spending more time with us lately - it's the last year before he goes to kindergarten and he starts to have a busy social life. We're having great fun playing silly games. This is a magical age when pretending is the way to go so when he tells me we scurry through the house pursued by crocodiles and tigers - oh and biting plants just for good measure - to the safety of the boat (my bed). then we creep back to the family room before we're under attack again and have to seek safety on my chair. This is all very bemusing to Pisces who is intomore into tangible toys.

While I've been sitting here I've been being distracted by the afternoon procession of birds at the birdbath. I made sure that the birdbath is clearly visible through my study window so I can watch them when I should be working. A few minutes ago there was a flock of New Holland honey eaters - around ten of them were splashing in and out of the water before flying off.  Now there's a red wattle bird trying to manage an uninterrupted drink and the resident willy wagtail isn't putting up with that. He's about half the size of the wattle bird but it's given in and decided he's too annoying and flown off. Mr Willy Wagtail is now spending his time alternatively bathing and strutting on the side of the birdbath. I've seen him take on a bird as big as a raven and drive it off. Foolhardy? Well, he usually gains his objective so I guess not.

I invested in some raised garden beds at the beginning of summer. It's been getting harder for me to get down to garden these days and theses Vegepods are at waist height so much easier to maintain. I'm now harvesting chard, basil, and capsicums regularly from the pods. While the pods are a very good thing the area doesn't compare with the vegetable garden I used to have so I have a few  plans in the ground - cucumbers and various herbs mainly but when I fractured my wrist gardening was out of the questions. It was a very long three months of healing and rehab my but arm is functional again and I I'm - at last  - able to get out into the garden.

The abundance of capsicums and basil means I have the additional pleasure of converting some of my harvest to meals for  the future. This means we have portions of home made pesto and vegetable stew in the freezer. The cucumbers are coming in, too, and I look forward to enjoying them for months to come. 

I didn't get a chance to put in things like pumpkins or squash at the beginning og summer - for obvious reasons - but more in hope than anything else I threw a handful of butternut squash seeds into what is usually a flower bed outside the back door and they have emerged and and are growing very fast. Butternut squash are known as pumpkins here for some reason and keep very well so I'm hoping for  at least some to carry us over the winter. Besides butternut plants are attractive enough to fill the space before the self seeded winter flowers come up - and they have spectacular large, golden yellow flowers so that's an additional bonus.

Miss Nearly Seven and her Dad called in last weekend. I hadn't seen her for a few weeks - you have a very busy social life once you're in school - and she's had a growth spurt. She's all long limbs and missing teeth while her big cousin Miss Eleven is now not much shorter than me. Given I'm a shorty I suspect they'll all tower over me eventually.

I've been making time for writing in among everything else that takes up my t me. I'm still working my way through some short stories. I have no idea where they are all going to end up  - if anywhere - but I've now finished to first draft a bunch of of them and I'm thoroughly enjoying writing them. 

I got a text from Virgo earlier in the week. Miss Nearly Seven and Mr Three wanted to come over after school and wanted Virgo to leave. I suspected plans were afoot and I was right. After a few games there were requests for  Poppy Biscuits which are just BBQ Shapes but thse little cracker biscuits are very popular among the younger set. Then a few minutes later there were whispers in my ear. Could they please have ice cream? This is something have at home but there's something special about ours apparently. Since I don't want them to not want their dinner they each get a small - and I do mean small - scoop of whatever I have in the freezer. What's hilarious about this is that they would be given exactly the same thing if Virgo was here but apparently it's much more exciting if they think it's a secret.

One last note - Pisces has been out and topped up the birdbath and a flock of little brown birds - which after searching through my trusty field guide I've managed to identify as weebills - fluttered in as soon as he moved away. They didn't get long before the willy wagtail shooed them off and proceeded to have a very thorough bath himself. No sooner had he left the little birds were back noisily skimming through the water then fluffing out their damp belly feathers on the fence before they go back again.