The last couple of weeks brought together the worst weather we've ever experienced in Cape Town and my mom-in-law and brother-in-law's visit. Even at its worst, winter in Cape Town brings spring almost before it's done telling you how bad it is. Our two blueberry bushes are already budding, the strawberry plants are starting to bear strawberries, and my deciduous bonsai are already getting their spring leaves. With that comes hope!
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| Noah and Uncle James check out a penguin (right corner) |
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| Eug: When you see mommy, just say "OWWEEE OWWEEE" ok? |
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| Winter is full of butternut squash soup, sweet potatoes and ginger |
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| I'm trying to teach Eli to ride on my back so I can do a little more during the day. He's not convinced yet. |
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| Noah has gotten really into helping to make sourdough bread. The sourdough in winter is wonderful, and the sourdough starter just seems to be getting better and better with age. |
Eug's family is here about a week and a half more, and we're going to show them Hout Bay and Camps Bay for a few days. We blend in even less than before, as a clearly multicultural family with tiny noisy children, which has given me opportunities for conversations I wouldn't have been able to have otherwise: I now know the owner of the local Korean restaurant. After chatting to the owner of the nearby hippy-crunchy cafe/bakery, I'm hoping to gradually take on vermicomposting their coffee grounds and fruit pulp. I'd love to scale up vermicomposting in the small space we have, and have the castings available for people in the neighborhood. If you're in Cape Town and are interested in starting to vermicompost, let me know!
Eug and I are going to try out the
examen with our family for the next month or so. We're using the practice as explained in the book
"Sleeping with Bread", which involves reflecting the parts of the day that gave the most life or drained the most life. If you'd like to hear more, let me know!
And, for your weekend reading:
- I recently came across the blog of a South African Homesteader, and I'm so excited to find someone in Cape Town to learn from. If you're in Cape Town figuring out preserving, cooking from scratch, and so on in the Cape Town setting, check out her blog!
- Pallets are freely available in various parts of Cape Town, and given that's it's quite hard to get free anything here, I got excited when I saw this pallet table. Over the next few months, I hope to show you pictures of what we're doing with pallets and tires.
- Lastly, I really enjoyed this post over at the squibix blog, so you should head over there and read about anarchist parenting (which may not actually be a thing, but I couldn't figure out how to explain the post otherwise). Anyway, check it out.
2 comments:
Hey, thanks for the shout out! Anarchist parenting is, it turns out, a "thing" (I googled it) so I now must distance myself as much as possible ;)
Indeed, you probably don't want to be an anarchist parent (I'm imagining all kinds of things now). It was a really lovely post, despite my not being able to quite capture it.
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