Sew sew

8am and it's a bad morning already. A bad night's sleep thanks to the new possum in the roof, gamboling in the space above our bed. (Or maybe it's a giant rat up there - oh, so much worse.) Girls up before sunrise, which in summer is awfully early. A plod with the dogs - no joy in the birds and the light, today. Al's in Hobart until tomorrow, so there's no-one to step in at 5.30 pm to take over the Inspector Gadget role play that is eating up my days and my soul. Bubbling anxiety over work. The girls at me, at me, atmeatmeatme from the moment I wake up, jostling over who stands next to me while I do a poo, eat a muffin, stare into space. All this culminating in my shrieking, shrieking at them as they fight over who gets to crawl under a particular but in no way distinguished dining chair. Shrieking 'Oh my god, would you just STOP, the two of you. Fighting before 7.30 in the morning: it's a disgrace. Stop'. Storming out (with my coffee - I wasn't so angry I forgot my coffee).

And then my rehabilitation, in the eyes of the girls and myself, as I mend a Barbie dress (Barbies, yes, another story for another day). I've never valued my sewing skills, which are limited and always end in shoddy bits and pieces. But oh, the magic in the eyes of the girls. Statistical analysis impresses them not all; my working knowledge of half a dozen computer programs is irrelevant, save that it lets me find cool stuff for them to watch on youtube. Domestically, I leave them cold: I vacuum while they watch T.V. and I only ever cook food that is disgusting, stinky and yukky. But sewing up a a shiny yellow dress with blue thread - that is the work of a domestic goddess of the most glamorous kind.

A bad morning takes a turn for the better.

Food culture

I must admit, I have a little bit of a literary crush on Michael Pollan - that wry voice, the honesty, his eyes (well, not totally literary) ... and mainly the ways he pulls everyday life apart and puts it back together again. The Omnivore's Dilemma was a staunch and intelligent book, but I've enjoyed In Defense of Food a little more. It's looser, less confronting - more of a chat than a charming lecture. Pollan's argument is that we have lost sight of food, focusing instead on its discrete elements as they are defined (and misunderstood) by scientists and nutritionists; in uncovering the mysteries of food, science has mystified our eating. Under the sway of nutritionism we rely on labels and experts, unable to trust our nose, our taste or our bellies. It's a broad brushstroke kind of an argument, and I do feel it lacks nuance and in particular doesn't adequately acknowledge key structures like class, gender, and movements like slow food and organics (which are also classed and gendered), but I think nutritionism, with its intended and unintended consequences, is one of the defining characteristics of contemporary, Western food culture. Underpinning Pollan's solutions is the reclamation of our traditional food cultures.

So I'm thinking about my own food cultures, and what Al and I are passing on to our kids. Food-wise, we don't come from sophisticated stock. The German side of my family has given me a real love for sauerkraut, wurst and obst-torte. The Irish has been lost - my grandmother was a 1950s hostess with the mostest, all devils on horseback and cream of mushroom soup. In our own childhoods, neither Al nor I knew asparagus, mushrooms or beetroot could be had fresh (aah, the tinned champignon). I have no memory of ever ingesting a vegetable as a child. And yet we've both emerged relatively bonny and eating widely and well; indeed, we both love food. I don't know how this happened to Al (he was allowed to eat as much ice cream as he wanted, for heaven's sake) but - and this will surprise my long-suffering mother, who for years has put up with our 'jokes' about her cooking - I attribute my own excellent eating habits to my parents.

Food as fuel is important, of course, but culture comes from the meanings and practices attached to what we eat and in this, my parents excelled. It's the fodder for dinner party humour now (fodder - food; geddit?) but the food rules and practices I remember gave us a sense that food was something to be shared. It wasn't mysterious and it wasn't external to our family; it was part of the common everyday. We didn't pick this up as kids, and my parents might not have deliberately created that message (Mum, Dad, comments?) but that is what I've taken from my own family's food culture, and it's what I'm now giving the girls.

I still worry about the lack of cosmopolitan fare (although not as much as I did a year ago) but here's the thing: my kids like to cook, they know that food is eaten at the table, together (albeit often sullenly, reluctantly, whiningly), and they know where food comes from and how to make it. Food's not mysterious, it's not good or bad, and it's defined by taste and colour, not lists on a packet. When I grit my teeth as the girls break the shell in with the egg when they help me make a cake, when I pull on the gumboots and step through the dusk and drizzle to grab some greens, when we sit down together at the table, when I take a moment to be truly thankful for what I have received, we are showing the girls that some of our most precious knowledge lies in the mundane.

This is what I tell myself to steel my nerves as the girls yet again sniff the smells in the kitchen and declare them to be delicious, look at the food and declare it to be delicious, and then eat two grains of rice and a pea.

Big plans

There are some parenting moments that have been a long time coming and absolutely worth the wait: the first time my girls wandered into my bedroom together to say 'good morning'; Lucy and Nell playing quietly together with their toy animals; Lucy spontaneously kissing Nell as they hung over the sofa watching Charlie and Lola. The other day I had another big one: planning a garden with my girls.

Figuring out the backyard is getting to be a priority. The privacy went when we cut down the huge trees that destabilised our foundations. The lawn went with the coming of the dogs. The plantings are pretty shabby after drought. And there's more blackberry than you might at first think. When I look out the window my heart sinks at the ugliness of it all. The girls have dubbed a section of the yard 'the tar pit' and it's well named. It's to act.

I've been avoiding the issue. I stick things into the ground so that I can eat or pick them later on but I can't visual things in 3D, or 2D for that matter, and I've got no real sense of how plants will look together, or what will thrive where. So pulling together a space the size of an average suburban yard is daunting. But Lucy is keen. She has the colours chosen: pink, yellow and blue. She's figured out the plantings: sunflowers, geraniums, and daisies. And she's designed the new beds around the cubby house. Nell agrees with it all ('What do you think, Nellie?'; 'Desth'). The absolute confidence and arrogance of a three year, so often the source of my internal screams and gritted teeth ('No Mummy, that's not a P it's a D and it says ssssss'), comes into its own in this scenario. I'm really quite excited.

And if it all looks hellish and nothing works, I'll just blame the kid.

Tickled pink

As a feminist, I don't love pink. I'm uncomfortable with its role as boundary marker between 'boy' and 'girl'. I don't like the way computers, bikes, play cars are splashed with that particular, searing shade to signify something as suitable for the girls. But as a person, I love pink. Not Cartland pink, a sad caricature of the warmth and loveliness. And not the pale pink you find on clothes for baby girls. But a deep, bright, rich pinkish pink - oh that I love.



I wear a bit of pink in subtle and small ways but I work in an industry where grey is considered quite a forward kind of a colour and so I try not to splash it about. But I am happy to stumble across pinkness: serendipity pink, like the flowers above, which sit under the gum tree outside my front gate. Or yesterday morning, sitting with the girls down a lane, in the sun, against the low pink fence of an old pink house. Above us deep pink camellias splashed against the winter blue sky. In our laps sat white boxes with raspberry framboise and a berry and custard brioche; we ate them with wooden spoons. Behind us a small bird, not pink but yellow breasted and blue winged, sang and flitted as Nell and I tried to catch glimpse. We sat in the pink of it all, for a perfect few moments. That kind of pink, I love.

Wine and roses

Back from Melbourne: work and fun. Seeing friends I've not seen for three years, meeting their kids, drinking and talking late into the night, shocked and unsurprised that distance and time can't alter the ease of our connection. And especially, tramping into Tambo's rose paddock, with hundreds of plants in straight lines, snipping armfuls of over-blown, luscious, bold and refined flowers, snipping in the drizzle for half an hour without guilt or cost and then carrying them into the elegant little farmhouse and stuffing vases to stare at, in awe of such abundance and thankful to be part of it. Roses are always best on a kitchen table, to sit by the tea and gossip.

Holidays are a time to drink from the well. I once thought this meant lovely meals in expensive restaurants and shopping in big cities; but really, it's sitting quietly in the lives of old friends, remembering their rhythms and savoring their joy.

****

Yesterday the girls and I went into the garden and picked the first jonquils, which have popped up under the apple trees. Then into the kitchen where Lu and Nell created some elegant arrangements.



And now the smell pulls me back to an oval in the Western District of Victoria in the early 1980s, bounded by thickets of these flowers, discovered by Nicole and me as we rode our bikes around the town.


****

Today Lucy smelled a rose and murmured, transported, "Aaah, it smells like salami. So lovely".

I planted a seed

Early on in our lives together Lucy and I spent a lot of time in the garden but lately I've been out there alone. Sometimes Lu will stroll out with some seeds and chuck them about yelling 'Broadcast, broadcast, I'm broadcasting the seeds' but generally gardening has been a solitary past-time, squashed in between naps and nappies, books and pretending to be an attacking Allosaurus. I've assumed that my habit of hammering the point home hard has lead to some strong anti=gardening feeling among the locals.

Today I was out watering and surveying the estate; I looked behind me and there were Lu and Nell, turning over the bricks and very efficiently stamping on the slugs. And this evening, Lu requested rhubarb for dessert. She bent down and jerked out the stalks with perfect form. Then she wandered to the apple tree and pulled off a couple to stew up as well. These are not things you teach a kid - how do you specify the twist of the wrist to loosen an apple and keep the spur, the appropriate force of the yank needed to get the rhubarb stem out at the base? This is stuff you learn without thinking. And now, thanks to the garden, Lu and Nell will never want for slightly tart desserts best served with cream. And is there any greater gift than dessert?

I take all my parenting tips from the Hollywood stars

I never thought Angelina Jolie and I had much in common, save for us both being partnered up to hotties and looking awkward when we wear high heels. But turns out, we share the greatest bond of all: we're really crap mothers.

I think women's magazines are poisonous, what with their misogyny and those dodgy clairvoyants, so I never read them, save in doctors' surgeries (when it's like anaesthetic to dull the one hour wait for my four o'clock appointment) and the chip and fizzy drink aisle of Coles, where I wander forlornly, wondering who thought getting rid of Atomic Tomato flavoured crisps was a justifiable way forward for Samboy. And here I read that grave fears are held for Ange and Brad's kids. Grave fears are held because there'll be six under six (I only ever got to two under two), the kids fight, they're jealous of each other and they're given junk food (which according to a dietician is a 'ticking time bomb') to eat. Truly, these kids are doomed, damned and betrayed by such cruelty, as their clearly disturbed behaviour (Pushing! Fighting over toys!) shows.

I have no idea if any of the reports are true (though I tend to doubt the reliability of 'sources' and 'those close to the couple') or if people believe them, and can't think it actually affects A & B in anyway to have this written about them, but it really shits me that these kinds of messages are spewed into my world for the punters' weekly dose of moral indignation.

In the last day or so Nell, Lu or both have:

* eaten marshmallows and green cordial before bed and then fallen asleep without brushing their teeth;
* watched the whole series of Walking With Dinosaurs, twice;
* Eaten paint;
* Eaten chook food (in my defense, it was organic);
* Head butted and body slammed each other; in one memorable instance, Lucy kicked Nell in the face and Nell bit her toe (just like those python crushing the elephant/ elephant falls to the ground and crushes the python scenarios);
* Competed constantly for my attention;
* Screamed loudly and annoyingly in public places;
* Always wanted what the other one had;;
* Tantrumed because there'd be no playing in the dog park mud today.

And while I don't think these reflect the very best parenting practices and kiddie attitudes, I'm okay with all this (perhaps a little worried about the paint). Because I'm a good parent and my kids are good kids.

That magazine had a lot in common with the brouhaha over the 'I hate kids' posts a month or so ago, over at feministing. The posts annoyed me but I was really pissed off by the comments, here and at other sites, that often took a 'tolerant' stand of 'I don't blame the kids, I blame the parent'. People's whining about kids behaving badly reflects a belief that a) kids spring fully formed from the head of Zeus, all clued up on social rules and self-discipline; b) have no claim to freedom of movement or freedom of association; and c) that adults conform to social, legal and moral rules (cf. any early Saturday morning outside of the Saloon on Charles Street/ any other pub anywhere).

And I'm kind of sick of people holding parents to a standard of behaviour, a clarity of judgement, a commitment to purpose, that we don't expect of the childless. I'm not talking about systematic cruelty or on-going abuse but the daily stumblings as we try our best. People are fine about their 'addiction' to chocolate, their lazy Friday take-out noodles, their bludging in front of the telly, their spending money on expensive shoes instead of rent, their failed attempts to start exercising or whatever other quirky vices we all lay claim to. And that's fine, because we are all lazy and tired and forgetful and all the other things that stop us being The Very Best We Can Possibly Be. Yes, I do have a duty to my kids' welfare that is different to the duty we as adults have to our own selves, but my kids eat a lot less junk food and watch a lot less telly than the average Australian who frowns when the girls eat a brownie and whine annoyingly amongst a self-satisfied cafe crowd.

And I think there's a kind of irony in that magazine, with that article, sitting right next to the Salt and Vinegar chips and the Fanta in Coles.

Gender bending

Today was Grammy's funeral. I walked into the room wearing my black dress - the go-anywhere black dress that we all read was a wardrobe basic in Cosmo , back in the late 80s - and Lucy looked at me and asked "Why are you being a girl today?". I thought that going out to work each morning dressed in trousers would be somewhat counter-balanced by my breasts and vagina (or at least my uterus might give me away) but no - despite our best intentions to to de-emphasise gender, girls wear dresses.

Oddly, Lu and Nell almost never wear dresses but Lu's very clear that they are girls (because they are brave, and apparently boys are 'often not so brave', poor possums). Kids' gender rules are more confusing than those in men's mags (and women's mags and just about everywhere else in society), that's for sure.

***

The girls slept through the funeral. On the way to the wake we explained Lu wouldn't be able to say good-bye to Grammy:

"But I wanted to kiss her".
"I know but now she is in heaven and so you can't".
"I want to go to heaven and kiss her".
"Well, we're going to the bowls club to eat cake instead".
"That's good too".

No use pining for things you can't have, I guess.

***

Thanks to all those who left such caring comments. It's been hard and sad but some peace is beginning to grow in my heart.

Dirty work

I didn't start gardening in pursuit of death and destruction but there's a fair bit of that at our house, organic though we are. Indeed, organic makes it more obvious. We don't lay out some pellets, hoping the undesirables will munch them and then retire to a private death. Each morning I feed the chooks and then turn over pavers and bricks, squashing the slugs that continue to congregate despite my best efforts and picking off the snails to feed to the chooks. I keep an eye out for sap suckers too, and squish them beneath my fingers. Each day starts in an orgy of innards. People talk about gardeners' connection with nature - well, mine's all over the bottom of my boots.

Even the generative tasks are messy. After lunch today I painstakingly picked the compost worms out of the old bathtub and into their new, store bought worm farm. I'm a messy digger and planter too, and when Lucy ends up watering the seedlings in, as she invariably does, I'm damp and a little cold. I rather like the idea of looking fabulous, in a big hat and tailored kit, when I'm out among the plants, but the best I hope for is no bum crack at critical moments.

Lu, who used to be a great little helper, is backing away from gardening. She doesn't really like the feel of dirt and she's scared of the snails and bugs ("they might bite me, Mummy"), she who used to be ruthless in her crushing of them. She's still keen on anything worm related, but even the strawberries, once her most anticipated garden pleasure, are out of favour because they sometimes have dirt on them. Currently, Lu is happiest lolling on the sofa watching Skippy and reading, looking for all the world like a teenager shrunk in the wash.

Nell, on the other hand, is embracing her time outside.


Dirt, muck, it's all good now that I let her wander at will. But usually, she stays pretty close to my side, figuring out how to do it all. The other day she sat beside me, turning over each brick around the bed of sweet peas and bok choy, and pressing her index finger down hard, just like I do to squish a particularly common type of small, white slug. So good to see her embracing the essence of gardening at our house.

Who would guess this is the face of a killer?

Worth waiting for

Ever since we decided to have kids, Al and I have looked forward to certain moments: gardening with the girls; Saturday morning soccer; and waking up to morning cuddles in our bed. For Al in particular, this last represents all that is most delightful about parenting.

This morning, I woke to see for the first time a small figure walking across the room, to feel a little body climb up and snuggle down with her head on my pillow, a hand stroking my face, and to hear that dear voice chatting on. Then Nell woke, and I pulled her into the bed, and watched and listened as my two daughters touched and tickled and spoke to each other, Lu taking the role of spokeswoman and reporting Nell's weather preferences: "Nellie likes rain, Mama, and she loves thunder and she LOVES the ice, she loves to crunch and munch it". This morning was one of the best of my life.

As for Al, well he missed the whole thing because he had been sent to the couch after getting home late from bowling (bowling ironically, of course) with a few beers in him, which means a high probability of snoring, which I cannot abide. He did however, win two of his games and match the top score for the South Launceston bowling league, so it may well have been worth the sacrifice of his family dream.

Seasonal eating

We have fallen into the habit of eating seasonally and locally. We're not purists - some things like tinned tomatoes and bananas are staples - but the 'extras' - the fruit and vegetables - appear in the kitchen only at certain times of the year. This pattern is partly chosen by me as I read books like Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Kingslover's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. But largely, our eating is shaped by the garden: once you've hard home grown corn, lettuce, tomatoes, peaches, almost anything really, it's hard to accept the stuff available in the shops.

I bought one of those packs of fancy lettuce the other day and what a sad and flaccid collection greeted me, nothing like the robust and handsome leaves from my own garden. And I'd never eat a peach or strawberry I didn't grow myself because they won't be perfectly ripe, warmed by the sun and beautiful



(I admit this is a romanticisation of the strawberry situation, where in reality Lucy picks off the fruit as soon as they are even slightly flushed with pink.)

A couple of days ago Lucy was talking about summer, when there would be blackberries, strawberries, peaches and raspberries. She links food to the seasons. I was so pleased. This is important to us, that both girls know where their food comes from and how to get it. I am hoping this knowledge will be familiar and comfortable to them, a taken for granted part of the way their world works. Why does this matter? I'm not so sure. It's not about making them better people - a few home grown beans and some anticipation won't do that. Something to ponder as I plant out a passionfruit this weekend.

*****

And on seasons: Norma's asparagus are up but mine are not. There's a world of envy and worry in that simple sentence. I looked over the fence to see how her garden grows and there they were: bold and upright and incredibly ugly, looking like three troll p*nises ( or is it p*nii? Or even penaux?) - green and lumpy and not at all delicious. Still, there they are and there mine are not. I have a small cold place in my heart as I see her success and the tardiness of my roots. Every unit of nurturing and love the garden creates in me is counter-balanced by competitiveness and covetousness. I am an ugly soul, deep down, to be resentful of an old lady neighbour's vegetable success!

Now off to listen to The Triffid's Born Sandy Devotional with Al, and ponder again the absolute beauty and heartbreak of Wide Open Road.

Forces of nature

When people ask, I tell them I have two girls. This is a partial truth, it oils the wheels of social interaction. I've given birth to females with all the relevant physical bits and pieces but to claim they are girls - a social category, a shaky edifice built on their biology - glosses over their distinct and idiosyncratic selves.

Heaven knows there are days we seem to live in a girl world. We separate the washing into three piles: darks, lights and pinks. The girls' room is a rosy symphony and at the end of each day we trudge around collecting dolls, babies, kittens and other soft toys. (How did this happen? We were committed to providing gender neutral colours; life was was going to be yellow and green and white. Instead, la vie en rose.) Nell, a baby herself, is happiest with her own baby Amalie, and Lu's conversation is peppered with 'so cute', 'sweet' and demands for jewellery, creams and ungents, perfumes and fairy wings. Some times, on some days, we have girls of the most girly kind.

But each of those times on each of those days is countered with not-so-girly things. Lucy claims to be a cow with chocolate milk in her udders and a koala in her belly. (Appropriate response: "That's handy".) She is aggressive and as rough as guts. She is confident in her body. She yells a lot. She cannot sit still. She loves trains and heavy machinery. These are stereotypically 'boy' characteristics. Lu's stated career aim is to grow up to be a 'lady digger [earth mover] driver' so that she can dig big holes, scoop up lambies and send up blankets to the rock a bye baby on the tree top (a nicely gender-bending aim). She's dressing the part already.



Nell's own self is just emerging as she learns to negotiate and control her body and her world. But all signs point to the same movement and noise that Lucy uses so effectively in our lives.

I think about my uncategorisable kids as I hear another mother say 'I always wanted a daughter, someone to go shopping with', and remember an article on determining the sex of babies, where parents talked about balancing out the family or wanting a daughter to go horse riding with while the five boys rode their BMX bikes. I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for wanting these things but it strikes me, looking at my Lulu and Nell, that it's a set up for disappointment. In the end we get kids, individuals who are both familiar and strange to us, who choose their paths in response to and in spite of our own preferences and expectations.

All of those 'traditionally feminine' pursuits and atittudes are productive and skilled and create beauty and joy; I'd not be disappointed if Lucy chose to sew and spin. But my kids have reminded me we're each of us made up of snips and snails and puppy dog tails and sugar and spice and all things nice (which for me would include Stone's green ginger wine, duck and greens from The Vietnamese in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, bush walking in snake free terrain, and chocolate meringues). I know this anyway - I spent years reading sociology and gender studies - but now we're living it, seeing the ways in which Nell and Lu come into the world hard-wired, and our social practices and expectations let us tinker around the edges a bit - and maybe make people feel bad for not doing and being the 'right' things - but aren't the overwhelming force I used to argue they were. On good days, child raising seems to be more about offering suggestions than forging a being in the fires of 'No'.

Seeing my girls reminds me that while we designate behaviours 'masculine' and feminine' for ease of categorisation and argument, it's hard to argue they exist in meaningful ways in young children's lives. As Lu and Nell grow older cultural expectations will become more pressing, throwing acceptable differences between boys and girls into sharp and disappointing relief, but I love that at the moment they are simply themselves with no thought of what they 'should' be. It's only in my thirties I'm able to even recognise this as a possible way of being, let alone live in that freedom; my heart hopes my two forces of nature carry that knowledge with them right through their lives.

Babes in the wood

Our town borders a large and beautiful reserve. There are sections of forest, grasslands and glades. Throughout birds call each to each and wallabies and pademelons bound about. We walk three minutes from the roads and there's no sign that the suburbs of a major regional centres lie two minutes drive away. I love this place.



Back before the girls, Al and I would take our dogs Jasper and Pete, and walk for hours. In summer we'd trip down to the river and all four of us would swim in isolation, never seeing another soul. Things are a little different now, and our times in the reserve are curtailed by naps and quiet times, play groups, the cold, the heat, meals around the table and any number of issues we never considered when it was just the two of us. When we do go, as we did yesterday, the times spent and the distance walked may be shorter than they once were but our enjoyment of the place has increased ten-fold. Even on hard days, our kids makes almost everything more fun.



(Air travel excepted.)

Mucking about

Three good garden ideas converged today. The first was our new wheelbarrow, the perfect wheelbarrow, exactly the type and size and weight we have been searching for for months, and bought yesterday at a garage sale for $3; we love it the more for its price.

The second was going out to the stables for more manure. I read all the gardening books that advise finding a good source of manure but it seemed such a hassle, and we could always buy it at the garden store. But one day in the Sunday classifieds we saw an ad asking people to take away the stuff and we've been going back ever since. Now we have as much as we could ever wish for - horses defecate a lot and the horsey people spend all day riding and grooming and servicing the beasts; they don't have time for gardening and have no use for the stuff so we're doing them a favour - and Lucy gets to spend time making friendly overtures to the horses. This lot went on the raspberry canes, a fig tree, a grape vine, the asparagus bed, and on top of an imperfectly dug in green manure crop in preparation for asian greens as soon as the weather is a little friendlier. The rest has been piled at the back to settle down before we spread it around the fruit trees which are currently ringed with jonquils and daffs.

The third and best idea was my using the baby backpack around the garden. Nell's a difficult baby to garden with. She wants to be held all the time and she needs to be on the move. So while Lucy and I find it easy to bumble about together, Nell is often left back in the house with Al. I'm aware that she's left out but as Head Gardener have found it difficult to involve her while actually doing some work. Today she loved being up the back, and I found it was easy enough to dig and spread the muck with her riding shotgun. Plus, unlike Lucy who's independent and does her own thing, Nell is a captive audience for my singing and philosophising. We foresee many more hours of garden fun for all the family.

The good feelings have been slightly diluted by Al cutting his hand on the saw; he's now at the hospital getting jabbed and stitched, my poor love. I hope he's back soon with all his fingers still attached - he's no good to me otherwise.

Up in the air

In a comment some time ago Nutmeg mentioned the permaculture appropriate idea of tossing seeds in the air and letting them fall where they will. It's a lovely image of abundance and faith. But to throw those seeds high is a challenge, demanding we give up even the image of control - the straight rows, the segregation, borders and easy categorisation. Of course control is a lie, as I'm reminded any time I step out the back and notice anew just how disinterested bugs, weeds and slugs are in my attempts to subdue the earth.

Lucy has no trouble letting the winds and/or fates take the seeds where they will - a seed isn't sown unless its broadcast with enthusiasm. And so I have been undertaking a post hoc experiment. In one bed I planted my beloved broad beans in straightish rows. Exhibit A:

In another bed, I accepted the Lucy sown beans that have popped up among the lupins and peas of the green manure, next to some failing purple sprouting broccoli that were planted too late in the year and then ravaged by slugs. Exhibit B:


Both lots are doing just fine, thank you. But Beans B are taller, thicker and generally seem a little more robust. Happily for me, the purple sprouting broccoli now stands tall and proud, and I might yet get to it eat with Welsh rarebit (as per the advice of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - author, chef and inhabitant of my perfect life as a Devon smallholder). It's not science, sure, but my suspicion is that letting the seeds fall is a good option for me in my garden. They've done better than those I planted after so much careful planning; they arrived because the conditions were so right; they were not protected or subsidized by me zealous care of any tenderness. And importantly in a plot on poor soil and riddled with unwelcome species, they've helped others, even those I had farewelled.

The logic's not watertight, I know, but the possibilities of letting go are exciting. I'm trying to control my garden so much less, and work with what it is rather than what I expect it to be.

There's another reason for this new approach, and it comes back to the girls (all my gardening comes back to my girls). I choose my battles carefully and avoid saying 'no' unless I'm willing to follow through no matter what the toddler tantrum fallout may be. Saying 'no' in the garden rarely works. I turn my back and duck my head too often to see what Lu is up to, and more importantly, a garden isn't a place where 'no' sounds good to me. I want my daughters to feel confident in their surrounds, to be self-sufficient and free to explore and to act. I want them to feel they are partners, or at least a participants in how we live our lives. Our garden is a place and a process where we can encourage Lu and Nell to do and be those things. But to live this I have to give the place over to their imaginations and plans, rather than imposing my own expectations about where the beans should go and if it's a good idea to plant wheat in with the spinach.
I'm looking forward to seeing what this collaboration brings.