The Importance of Home Days

We're pretty busy people. Busy by choice and busy because we're chasing up all the things we're so passionate about. Mostly we're busy because we're hunting for fungi this time of year and wandering though the bush any chance we can get. I suppose that makes us not so much busy as at play. But we take our play seriously.

The stereotypical image of the isolated, unsocialised homeschooler is not a reality we've ever witnessed.  Where we live, there's so much on offer in the home educating community, and in the natural world around us, we actually have to put our collective foot down to grab some space amongst it all.

The balance of our adventuring days, and classes and outings and co-op days, is our home days. These are the days where we go very slow. Our in-breath. This is our daydreaming space. This is the space where we get stuff done and each explore what it is we each love to do. These are pyjama days, where the questions flow before breakfast ends. These are the days when the owlets delve into their preferred mediums for relaxation, learning and play.

Usually you'll find Big Owlet making art.

Little Owlet will, at some point, be working with her favourite wooden spoon.

And Tiny Owlet will be stacking blocks, or putting them all in a line up the hallway.

I'll be floating around all of them,  helping keep them in orbit, if they need me. I'll be reading with one or all of them. Or working alongside them on my own projects. Sometimes I'll be cooking vast quantities of food to keep them fed and our evenings easier. Lately I've been looking at the piles of surplus stuff in our lives. Things that have seemed to accumulate mysteriously. Home days are a beautiful opportunity to assess those. They're a wonderful opportunity to get out in the garden too, and observe, explore, work and play. There will be screens watched and played on, arguments resolved, friends chatted with, pets played with, chooks cuddled, berries foraged, spills wiped up, washing done… and by the end of the day, the house will probably be trashed before Owletpapa arrives home. A family effort will set it (almost) right before dinner and we'll catch our breath before setting about doing it all again. These are the days that slip by quietly, full of beauty and challenge; everything and nothing much at all.

Home days are a moment to pause and gather ourselves up for the next adventure. But they're also an opportunity to just be ourselves, in our own little nest, without the distractions of commuting and routine driven by external forces. They're an opportunity to grow and learn as individuals and also to work together, in a collective effort, to do what needs doing. And there is so much that needs learning and growing and doing! To us, home education and even permaculture are about anything but being at home all the time. But gosh we'd be lost without our home days!

Do you manage home days often?
Maybe you're travelling and call them something else?
Or maybe you don't spend much time home at all and you like it that way! 
Are home days important to you? 

~ Owletmama. xx

The Garden Share Collective :: April

We're in a bit of a transition period in the garden right now. Starting to get on top of the most pressing jobs that were neglected in the very busy Spring-Summer we had, and planning and tucking the garden in for Winter. We're finally getting around to reassessing our permaculture plans (we have one each - ha!) and creating an ultimate plan which we've been implementing slowly anyhow, nutting it out as we go. I thought it might be a good idea to join in with The Garden Share Collective this month... just to check in with where things are at.

Planting

It's brassica time in our veggie spiral. The broccoli, kale and cabbage are growing well and I'm about to plant another successional so we'll have plenty for the winter. We've dotted the brassica bed with radish and beetroot and the odd nasturtium. We're planting garlic in the food forest and one corner of the spiral once the sunflowers have finished. The sunflowers! For years we've battled with soil that wouldn't support them, but here they are at last - a definite sign that we're doing things right. We're building up beds, redefining our spiral and spending time observing. So much has changed in our garden and it continues to evolve. I could go on for days, but we might save some more observations for another day.

 

Harvesting

It's starting to slow now, but this is such a lush and abundant time all the same. We're harvesting loads of apples and rhubarb, still the odd raspberry, strawberry and mulberry and all the myrtus berries were gobbled earlier in the week. Pumpkins and spaghetti squash and corn which grew, despite their late start and neglect. We're picking loads of herbs and a few eggs, despite half our flock moulting right now. Tragically, the possums gobbled every last walnut. Next year we'll be more prepared! 

Planning

We have paths to mulch, re-mulch and maintain, a comfrey plant to divide and plant out, more garlic to plant and green manure to get started. We're planning some special herb and food towers for our chook orchard to make our happy girls even happier, and thinking it's time for a hot compost heap. We're picking the best spot for our bees who will be arriving in the Spring! We're creating a space in a warm, sunny spot indoors for some winter growing. I'm plotting and planning which herbs and bush foods to add to our collection, thinking about hazelnuts and olives, and some more berries… We pretty much just need more plants right now. And pallets. We have big plans for wooden pallets. 

How does your garden grow? What are you planting, harvesting and planting? 

~ Owletmama. xx

"The Garden Share Collective is a group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills. Creating a monthly community to navigate through any garden troubles and to rival in the success of a good harvest we will nurture any beginner gardener to flourish. Each month we set ourselves a few tasks to complete by the next month, this gives us a little push to getting closer to picking and harvesting. The long-term goal of the Garden Share Collective is to get more and more people gardening and growing clean food organically and sustainably." 

A call for more live music for small ears

Recorded music is a staple of modern life. It emanates from stereo speakers and headphones everywhere, and worms into our ears from almost every supermarket and shop front. At the best of times, we might sit quietly with some quality headphones listening to our favourite album. It can feel great. However, I reckon that the experience of hearing recorded music can pale in comparison to witnessing a good live music performance. The physical jostling of the audience, the vibrations of the bass notes in your body, the smells of the auditorium, the marvelling at the on-stage talent, the fashions and shapes of the crowd, the sense of unity/community that can be felt being part of an audience. Surely these can all be learning experiences, for better or worse. So why is live music performance often an adults-only thing? Fear of exposure to 'adult' activities - sex, drugs n' rock n' roll and all that? Maybe, but I don't think it has to be that way anymore. 

If you're reading this, chances are you are an adult, and as an adult you've had what I would call the grand privilege of seeing music performed live on stage. Alas, if you're reading this and you're younger than about thirteen, chances are your live music experiences have been pretty few and far between, and constrained to a very narrow range of music genres (e.g. the straight-up pop of the Wiggles or Peppa Pig live on stage, most likely!). Why is that?

The palette of musical styles and sounds that humans have concocted is enormously rich and constantly diversifying. Given that live music performance can add all kinds of sensory dimensions to musical experience, which no set of headphones can substitute, it seems a shame that children generally do not experience more of what live music can offer. 

Children tend to miss out on exposure to a broad range of musical styles and performers, and instead are spoon-fed 'Children's Music', which I reckon it a redundant concept. I find it interesting to presume that children don't appreciate "adult" music. Certainly, the perceptions by children hearing new music is inevitably different to those of most adults. It is more likely to be devoid of the subjective influence of cultural context and bias. I mean that children are less likely to know about the bands-infighting, the possible drug-addled history of the lead singer, the pre-occupation that many have with the private lives of band members. Many great music artists have a troubled history; demons that have inspired and shaped their musical output. But for children seeing the live performance of these musicians, it's all about the feelings evoked by the music in its own right - baggage free.  

A few weeks ago we took the Owlets on a camping trip to a family-friendly music festival in northern Tasmania called Panama. This festival is set in lush forest, is family-friendly and hosts a diverse range cool, "adult" music. Some of the artists in the line-up had been heard by our kids previously through home stereo speakers, but they'd not batted an eyelid to them then! Mostly these were going to be new sounds to their ears. 

On the first afternoon, we took a stroll around the festival site. There was music being played over loud-speakers, but it was mostly being ignored by the owlets. Background noise, distant, inconsequential in their subconscious mind. Then, as the sun was sinking low, a motley group of 20-something's slung on their instruments and started the first live set of the festival. Well this got the kids' attention. Little Owlet exclaimed "I feel it in here!", pointing to her chest. Something had been triggered. Progressive indie-rock being thoroughly enjoyed? What was this madness?

On the next day we witnessed a bunch of musical acts, setting up a rug by the main stage. Now this would be a highly risky manoeuvre in most "adults-only" festivals, especially a few metres from the stage, but here the crowd was limited to 1000 people so it was relatively cruisey. Tiny made a new friend and they danced together and played nearby. As the music passed through jazz, folk, rock and funk, the owlets commented on the instruments and the audience and the way the music made them feel. Big Owlet even danced amongst the loose throng in front of the stage, feeling independent and free, but safe, knowing we could still see her from nearby. It was pretty special. In the evening I took Big and Little owlet to see Bombino, an awesomely cool rock-funk band from Niger. We found a front row spot against the rail by the stage. "I like the bass player, he looks very relaxed." said Little. Towards the end of the set, Little was falling asleep against the back of the main speakers, so we headed back to camp, enjoying the end of Bombino from the comfort of sleeping bags.

On the last day of Panama, we made the most of all the musical offerings, in between naps in the tent. The previous night had been restless as a result of a DJ played retro beats until the small hours. Big Owlet had heard strange "path pah pah pah pah" noises and moaning from our neighbours tent - we had to explain that that's not how everyone sounds when they are intimate with each other!

The highlights for the owlets were the rock-styles of Sharon Van Etten and Courtney Barnett - great, strong women, and great role models for the owlets, showing that it's not all Katy Perry and Beyonce pop (not that they make bad music necessarily, but just that their music is overtly sexualised). "I'm getting their albums dad". I was beaming with pride. 

The festival ended with a speakeasy performance by troubadour Ben Salter on a little outdoor stage on the other side of the festival site to the main stage. Big Owlet and I watched some of his set, drinking home-made lemonade. Then we moved over to the centre of a big grassy oval adjacent to the stage and lay on our backs and watched low moonlit clouds fly over as the acoustic sounds washed over us too. Big owlet was reflective and felt changed from the festival, from "getting" the live music buzz and experiencing the positive community vibes built around the common appreciation for good music. Not "children's music", just "music". I wish there were more opportunities for children to be exposed to diverse live music, and hopefully festivals like Panama are an indication that music does not have to be an adults-only affair.

Do you agree that children deserve more live music experiences, outside the genre of "children's music"? Let us know in the comments! 

~ Owletpapa.

Finding Balance

Something I've often given thought to, over the years of home educating and running a small business, is balance. Over the years, others have asked me about it too. How do we do it? How do we find balance? Or rather, will we ever find balance? Is it even a thing? How do we manage to cram our lives so full of all the things we want so much to do?

The conclusion I've arrived at is no. Balance, in this particular life we're living, is and will most likely never be a thing. Not in the way we imagine.

In a household of five creative and passionate individuals, following our passions means we completely immerse ourselves in them from time to time. And while we're following those passions, things get left by the wayside. Perhaps it isn't balance we really need to look for, so much as how to be ok with the chaos, or how to work with it.

For us, finding balance has been more about finding support. It's also been about finding space to wander more and work a little less. It's meant waking up and taking a day off to go exploring, rather than work. It's meant cancelling plans to spend the day in the garden. It's meant knuckling down to get the job done sometimes. It's meant making plans and throwing them out the window in an effort to do what feels best and right and fun. Finding balance has been about looking out for each other and making sure we each have time to indulge our passions.




Practically, Huz's shift from his full-time day job, to working four days per week, has meant an extra day for me to work. It's shifted the balance of things in our home in a much more equitable way. It also gives him time with the owlets, usually in nature, allowing him to get out and do what he loves best. On Fridays he always wakes with a grin. It's meant an extra day to play and spend time getting work done in the garden too - one of my favourite things to do. It's a much happier balance, but one that takes some tweaking as we learn to cover the financial gap that one day leaves us. Growing food and working more on our own business helps with that.

Owlets getting older helps a little too. I'm finding stolen snippets of time are getting longer and longer, so now, with a little focus, I can get to more of the stuff that needs doing. So with that, I'm attempting to return to blogging more regularly. In line with this fluid, messy life, where lines are blurred and one thing feeds and flows into the next, this blog will be where we document and perhaps attempt to bring some sort of order from it all. It has always been a space to reflect, document and define our dreams, these past eight years (yes, eight! Can you believe it?), but now it's time for a new Owlet chapter.

So Huz, Owletpapa, will be joining me to document the journey from here, as it becomes our blog. I'm looking forward to the words he'll share and the world of Owlets and the Spiral Garden and all it is and will be, with his insight. And in time, from the owlets' perspective too. We hope you'll join us for the adventure - it's bound to be messy and beautiful and all kinds of fun!

~ Owletmama. xo


PS. These photos were taken at the end of last year, on a day where we decided to take a day off from wrapping orders and ramble around the bush for a bit. We visited Waterworks reserve and Mt Wellington. Two gorgeous spots, just 20 minutes from our home, in Hobart. Much to my astonishment, the world didn't end and all the parcels arrived on time, despite skipping a day. 

Humans

Unsurprisingly, things have been very busy at ours these past few months. As much as I try not to be busy always, I'm most definitely one of those people who finds it difficult to just stop. Even when I stop, I'm doing something. It's something I'm working on and it always surprises me how much the act of stopping can help change direction and set everything right again.

A few weeks ago, the Owlets and I were in town, running a few errands, on a mission to find bathers and a few other things. It was warm and busy - post Christmas sales and still school holidays… There were people about. The Owlets were excited to be out amongst it. They'd brought their pocket money and they were after some stuff. Not sure what yet. Just something. Days like this seldom go well.

I brought along snacks and water, hoping desperately to stave off multiple cafe visits. It seems just stepping outside our front door accrues a $50 minimum fee in food and transport, so I was keen to keep cafe stops to a minimum. This didn't go down well with the cosmopolitan owlet cafe set. There was mutiny afoot. Things got ugly.

Big Owlet's at an age now where she can see a little humanity in situations like this. She's starting to see cracks and that I make mistakes and feel overwhelm and all sorts of things too. She's a wise owlet, that one. An old soul… But even Big Owlet was seeing where this day was heading. She was in the middle of delivering one of her own rants on consumerism, while simultaneously eyeing off some sort of plastic toy in a gaming shop, while Tiny was crying that we didn't stay a full half hour with Peppa Pig in the ABC shop and Little Owlet wanted a sweetie… Ugh.

I felt exhausted and angry and overwhelmed and like having a shouty-cry about it all too. I make sure the Owlets see that I'm not superwoman - well not all the time. So I told them. I let them see how I felt and that I understood how they felt too. I threw my hands up in the air and exclaimed "I need a hug! Lets go and sit down over there and have a hug".

And so three owlets and I melted into a hug puddle in the middle of Hobart on a hot Tuesday afternoon. There was giggling and owlets saying "Oh Mum!" and cuddling and we all breathed for a bit. Time slowed down and we all felt much better. Then the crowds parted and Huz came along to find four smiling faces, rescued from what might have been one of those days, had we not chosen to stop.

Have you had one of those days lately? 
How did you get through it? 
Do your let your owlets see you being human sometimes? 
Do you find time to stop? Or are you a bit like me, always doing more than one thing? 

Happy Tuesday, lovely ones. I hope you find time to stop and have a cuddle this week. xo

That time we tried school...

A few weeks ago, Little Owlet hit that stage… The one where an Owlet gets curious about what most other kids her age are up to. We've been here before, but all the same it surprised us. All the cartoons and kids shows she watches online begin talking about how awesome school is, to prepare the back to school crew, and an Owlet who is Little Owlets's age wonders what it means to fit in.

She began by asking Huz and I what it was like to go to school. And then she said she'd like to know what it feels like. She wanted to try it. Just for a day. So we asked her what it was she wanted to find out about… and together, we hatched a plan. Little Owlet has a rather vivid imagination, so pretending our home was a school was an easy compromise.

We ordered a uniform in her colour of choice, knee-hi socks and black shoes to match. We worked out all the things an Owlet her age might learn in a schoolish kind of setting. And then we tweaked it a bit. We picked out a day, marked in the calendar, and woke up to a whole new schoolish world that day.



Lunches and backpacks at the ready, three Owlets assembled at our dining table at 9am one Monday to attend Mrs Carter's School for Particularly Wise Owlets. We structured our day around the school bell (thanks iPhone), and set to work with me as the teacher, my students eager to learn. Hands were raised when questions needed answering, a toilet pass was given when the toilet was needed. Recess and lunch were taken outside and playing with friends had to wait until the bell. Although, apparently, I wasn't as strict as they'd have like,  and it was a fairly simplistic representation of a school situation, I'd say they were fairly convinced.

The Owlets found the day interesting and hilarious, boring and exhausting. As did I. We didn't work at their usual pace and it was odd for them to have to persist with some things and give others up before they were finished. We covered maths, LOTE (French and Japanese all at once!), music, geography, english and art… and I'm fairly sure we approached them in more uschooly ways than we first intended, but old habits are heard to break!



By the end of the day, we had a story to share with Huz and Little Owlet had determined that school was no longer something she was curious about. She did still like the uniform though… with a few minor alterations - daisy leggings for climbing trees, long sleeves for keeping the sun off and bare feet for feeling comfortable and free. And so we began with our year accordingly.

Happy new school year to our pals getting back to it and happy rambly days to our unschooly-type friends. Here's to finding what works, trying new things and learning together. xo

Nourish

These past few months, I've been living in some sort of busy little hive world of my own creation. Spiral Garden clocked its busiest Christmas period ever, not pausing for breath until Christmas Eve. Full time work whilst home with three unschooled children is less than ideal. Each morning would begin with a leap out of bed and a sprint to the finish line. Of course, we also decided to write and present an e-course this summer. So I added another part-time job to my days. It's been hectic.

There have not been nearly enough moments to pause. Too many days waving my owlets and Huz goodbye as they wandered off on adventures without me. Mind you there was the odd adventure I couldn't resist… And no time to record it.

I've been looking through old photos and blog posts for the e-course material and feeling jealous of those free people through the screen. The ones with the three small owlets and the nice nest and all the fun times in the Tasmanian countryside. I want to live like those people! Haha!

It's been brilliant to have efforts pay off. The Seedlings permaculture e-course seems to be going along swimmingly. Spiral Garden continues to hum along at a far more relaxed pace, helping to fund Christmas and birthdays and the odd pile of mulch for the garden. But in amongst it all there were too many take away meals, too many catch-ups with friends missed, too many weeds left to grow and veggies left un-harvested… Too many moments to connect with my owlets and Huz, missed. There was overwhelm.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel just now, and it looks wonderful. A reawakening of sorts. Phew! It's going to be ok.




Each year, I'm in the habit of choosing a word that encompasses what I'm hoping to bring to my year. A couple of years ago, I chose abundance and wound up doing a Permaculture Design Certificate which helped deliver abundance in spades. Last year I chose balance, and well… That didn't work out so well. Ha! Balance seemed out of my hands as things steamrolled along.

This year, I've chosen nourish. It's a lovely word that reminds me to pause, to eat what feels good, to move my body in ways that feel good. To spend time doing things that nourish me. Like gardening and creating things and being useful with my hands.




This morning we spent time at Exxopolis at MOFO. As I suspected, the colour worked it's magic on me beautifully. A little colour therapy and time locating a nourishing colour. Blue felt calming. Green was a rainforest and yellow was hot and uncomfortable.  Huz felt anxious, no matter the colour. Tiny wanted to keep moving. I sat in a red, womb-like pod for almost ten minutes before we left, and floated out. A great reminder that what nourishes each of us is so different. A reminder to seek what nourishes me.

It was also a great reminder to come back here and post about our adventures. To have them and record them so I can remember that feeling a little longer. Remember the fun we've had. That family with the owlets, through the screen. I'd like to be them again.

Hello blog. Happy new year. Let's begin, shall we? xx