Baby Y. Baby P
Maya. Ella
16.5.2020
The sun is shining, the ground is waterlogged and everything else is gradually getting back to normal. The schools are starting back but the school we work with has decided that there will be no camps for anyone this year. The teacher who runs the Montessori section is also getting close to retiring age. He came up for lunch yesterday and we began discussing how we all transition from the present staff and arrangements into a new system. The school will start looking for another farm to take our place and to new staff to take over the program.
This year we may be having daytime visits if the virus does not come back after the winter. It will mean a lot of changes for us as we had very much focussed on setting up to meet the schools needs. I am sad but I was aware that we would be too old to keep up this level of work for much longer anyway. I will miss the kids, but I expect new people will move into our lives.
We already have one new person staying in the donga. Citybeth has moved out of her share house which became impossible during the shutdown. She initially came for a two-week respite but is now staying longer. Her big love is Irish music. Edd heard her playing with her friends last night and says they are very good. The lucky goats were able to listen into the whole performance.
The good thing is that Citybeth is happy to help with the evening animal feeds so Edd and I were able to do the long drive down to visit Al and family and meet our new grandson. Als house is transformed since our last visit. The kitchen lounge and dining area are now one big space with the ceiling raised and neutral colours on the floor and wall. (The colour scheme they inherited involved a lot of strong colours that did not compliment each other). The babies were very well behaved and seem to be developing well. It was really wet and cold, so we just talked indoors and were not tempted to a beach walk. The restaurants are all closed too but we did find some nice take away food, so no one needed to cook.
Luckily the weather was a bit better on Sunday. Stevo and several friends all came up and helped chop dead trees for firewood. We all got plenty, including Citybeth who had friends visit who knew Stevo. We had plates of goat’s cheese for starters and I made a big bowl of lentil and tomato soup. Stevo brought bread rolls, and we all had a very happy lunch together. I really enjoyed meeting new people and getting time again with old friends.
With the dryer weather today Edd is back working in the old water tank. We have now syphoned out the last of the water and he has begun work repairing cracks where tree roots have squeezed in. There is no point even trying to do work on the car port until the weather dries up a bit. Ben has a crane driver coming today to see if they can lift their tiny houses onto a truck. Even that will be a challenge, Edd could hardly get the tractor to pull the trailer load of wood out of the paddock because the wet ground was so skiddy.
