Two minute gardening

I dumped a bag of horse manure on my little square garden bed today. It's the only thing I've done since it was "dug" (see here). I won't start the planting till spring, so this should give the horse poop time to do its thing. I plan to shovel on a bit of mulch sooner or later and that's it for now! Back to the textbooks.

Back to Uni

Yes, it's time to start the final semester at last! I am doing one external subject via James Cook University (rehab and palliative care) and the other is my internship. So my on campus time is limited to five workshops (four hours each). For clinical, I am doing four weeks in operating theatre and four weeks in oncology (both full time and working any shift). Job applications for graduate nurse positions open today. It's going to be a big semester and to start it off on the right note, I will have to tackle my desk. I took this photo 5 minutes ago... with the intention of clearing that mess and dealing with all the hidden disasters by the end of today. Yipee!

Update at 9:30am. My desk and my intray now look like this:

Update at 2:30pm. My cat and intray now look like this:

Hermione is sulking because she got kicked out of the intray just before photo was taken.

Moon Landing

Here you can see Christopher watching / listening to the live stream of the moon landing from 40 years ago. On the wall you see his Buzz Aldrin poster surrounded by the Apollo mission patches. Underneath is his hero, Steve Austin. The entire mission can be found here, but it takes a while to load. We have the audio running on three computers at the moment, each of which is easily more powerful than the computers used throughout the Apollo space program.

Cute birthday song

This one put a huge smile on my face :)

responsibility

Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials trilogy, talks here about the responsibilities of storytellers. I found it inspiring in a more general sense - and therefore worth sharing:

... I do know that there is a joy in responsibility, in the knowledge that what we're doing on earth, while we live, is being done to the best of our ability, and in the light of everything we know about what is good and true. If we do it well, we might be able to bring our work to the condition of that mysterious music described by Caliban, the sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not; and there's something to be said for doing that. Maybe that's all we can say.

© Philip Pullman

The whole essay can be found here.
The Caliban reference is from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

One Magic Square

I don't have a lot of time for gardening nowadays, although my herbs seem to have survived the neglect I've showered on them quite successfully. However, I was seduced by the shape (square) and colour of a book called "One Magic Square" by Lolo Houbein, who also just happens to be of Dutch origin. Her gardening experience, however, is all rooted in Australia. So I caved and bought it, gloated over it for a couple of days, and finally - being unable to resist the lure of a neatly numbered set of instructions - wended my way outdoors. Now, in the past, I've raised vegetables on a fairly lavish scale (with due credit to Garry who faithfully created the structures that my grand designs required). Our garden in Long St was a lush jungle that produced two metre tall corn stalks, healthy chooks and delicious eggs, and a variety of fruit and veg.


Since moving to the coast, I've not had much time for a project of this scale. The soil here is not black volcanic, it's sand over clay. However, the sight of some fat worms has given me hope - and after all, it's all about building the soil, isn't it? So, I dutifully set out to obey the instructions given on page one: "To start growing your own food without delay, put down this book, go out in the garden and select a spot in the sun". Okay, that part is easy enough. Double check the site with Garry to make sure he's not planning to put anything else there... site selected.. check.

Next, "Dig over one square metre with a garden fork and remove all the weeds by hand". Not being a keen digger or weeder, I am glad my chosen spot is already weed-free and well mulched. I pat myself on the back and mark out the square metre with Catherine's able assistance. Calmly ignoring the demise of our tape measure, we spread out newspaper in our chosen spot and I shovel on some nicely composted soil (including worms). Ahhhh, lovely! At this point, Garry comes over and asks why we have moved the chosen site several metres away from the agreed spot.

Tiny hiccough in the plan - the Time Capsule we created some years ago is buried somewhere around here, although Garry isn't entirely sure where. Arrrggghhh! We try to drag the newspaper and its heavy load across to the original spot. The paper breaks apart. We try to shove a board underneath but this only rips the paper up even more. Time to lean on the shovel and regroup. Catherine hurries inside and makes a new paper square. I shovel everything across and eventually we stand back to admire the end result. Not much to see there.... but with the eternal optimism of gardeners of all ages, I add the little word "yet!"

Museum & WoB

Day two of our Queensland jaunt brought us back from Straddie to Brisbane. Rather than rushing back up the coast we headed over to Southbank. First we wandered through the Queensland Museum and an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci's machines. This was followed by a ride on the Wheel of Brisbane and dinner. Back home quite late, but at least the traffic was not too bad.

Christopher at the Queensland Museum

The Wheel of Brisbane

North Stradbroke Island (2009)

Last week we took the kids to revisit North Straddie and not much has changed, apart from the kids themselves and the fact that there are now two ferry companies :) I found myself singing Wiggles songs in the car, but Christopher quickly put a stop to that. We stayed at Amity Point, but drove to Point Lookout and past Pippi Palace for old times' sake. Here are a few photos of the recent visit:

North Stradbroke Island (2000)

Nine years ago, we were lucky enough to spend two months living on North Stradbroke Island in a beautiful home called "Pippi Palace". The kids were four and two years old - driving on the island is forever linked to Hi 5 and Wiggles music. I spent the mornings doing therapy with Christopher, but the afternoons were free time. We joined the local playgroup and library, and had boxes of fresh fruit and veg delivered to our door each week. Family and friends came and went. It was an idyllic time and one that has provided many happy memories. Catherine as a two-year-old was a funny little character, who liked getting into all sorts of small spaces. At four, Christopher was working hard to communicate with us - he remembers that I made him crawl to biscuits during this holiday as part of his ongoing therapy.


Photo #1: Catherine in a large planter pot.

Photo #2: Pippi Palace had marvellous views of the ocean.

Photo #3: As mentioned, we had a number of visitors. Here we see Granny and Uncle Brad on the beach with Catherine.

Photo #4: Tamara and Christopher walking along the beach.

Photo #5: Garry feeding a friendly kookaburra on the deck of the house.

'the losers in every competition'?

Christopher chasing pigeons in his walker

People with handicaps, so limited physically and/or intellectually, are often more gifted than others when it comes to the things of the heart and to relationships. In a mysterious way they can lead us to the home of our hearts. Their handicaps are counterbalanced by a special openness and trust in others. Certain social conventions mean nothing to them. They live closer to what really matters.

In our competitive societies, which put so much emphasis on power and strength, they have great difficulty in finding their place; they are losers in every competition. But in their thirst and their gift for friendship and communication, the so-called 'weaker' people in society can touch and transform the strong, if the strong are only prepared to listen to them.

In our fragmented societies, people with disabilities have a very special part to play in the healing of hearts, and in destroying the barriers which separate people from one another and prevent them from living humanly.

From the introduction to "Our Journey Home" by Jean Vanier.