Curly Spirals

It has started raining again here. A heavy, steady downpour overnight has eased into an intermittent soaking throughout the day. Squelching and leeches. Our little heifers, Bessie and Violet, were banished from their paddock out the front of the Dairy to make way for our neighbours cows, moving through on their way to greener pastures. Literally, not figuratively. The new compost heap needs some room for turning so I spread the remains of the last heap onto the potato bed and the freshly cleared herb bed. I think I’ll give the potato bed some horse poo before planting, little eggs of slow release goodness to decompose under a top dressing of straw.


Em planted some beans the other day amongst the broccoli and cauliflowers which will need a trellis. I spent a day or so, knowing that I would find something that would work, looking, waiting. Eventually I found an old bed in the junk heap in the gully. I love the old rusty springs, curly spirals hooked together in all directions.


Our car seat has been broken for a few days now. The other day I was driving when suddenly it felt as if I was sitting on a balloon rapidly losing air until I had sunk down into my seat, my bum too low, like a parent sitting in their child’s kindergarten seat on Parent Teacher night. Today I took the seat out to have a go at fixing it. Unlike most car repairs I figured I’d be able to sort this one out with some shade cloth and a sewing machine, so I headed over to my friend’s house. The sewing didn’t take very long but a cup of tea and a chat sometimes requires a lot of time and Noah was having fun playing with his friends.


I get such satisfaction out of making things myself, improvising solutions, fixing things – compost, trellises, car seats. Self-sufficiency that goes beyond producing food or electricity. I figure the cost of buying or fixing these things would be close to a day’s work, a day’s work that probably wouldn’t include friends, cups of tea, kids playing and learning, or watching another shower of rain washing up the valley.

“I’m grateful that we got the seat done and had a lovely day.”
(Confused? Look)