the getting of wisdom, Montessori style

" well, I'll just give it a try and see how i go... you should at least give things a go you know, Maia"

these were the words B2 used on her big sister last night when B1 denounced, in her very deprecating teenage way, B2s interest in doing gymnastics as completely stupid and that she would be totally hopeless at it.

I did a mental air punch and silent "yeah, sock it to her Lil". That statement of supreme confidence in the face of such scorn, made in a very calm and measured way was a revelation. It was the circle turned in full. It made me realise just how far we had come in the last 18 months, a real expression of the 'new' but 'old' Lily.

When the girls father moved interstate to live with his girlfriend, the girls were incredibly grief stricken. To go from an almost 50/50 shared care arrangement to a 'maybe every holiday' arrangement really knocked them around. Maia just kept quiet about it, but Lily, always the diva really acted up and played it out. Her self esteem plummeted to an all time low and it culminated in running away from school many times, reaching a creschendo of police searches and finally full suspension from school for trashing her school principals office (you go girl! I had to admire her angry audacity). Now while the school understood and empathised that she was not coping with events in her personal life and was angry and hurting, they had neither the time or resources to patiently walk alongside Lily while she healed and disrupted the rest of the class in the meanwhile. This kid was doing some serious mute table standing and alternating it with low level constant humming. I have always believed in public education but watching her behaviour escalate into a mini tornado i knew that suspensions were not going to solve the situation and that left as it was, her self esteem would continue to deteriorate and her learning would suffer and that keeping her in this school was no longer an option.

So after looking around at local options and exploring homeschooling (my mum and husband both volunteered - im the breadwinner), I decided that the local Montessori primary school looked great and they agreed to enroll her after a meeting with us and her therapist. Lily had HATED her Montessori kindergarten ( all that structure is really not her essential style- she forgets whats shes looking for when she opens the fridge!) and i was a little concerned that the self directed learning which forms a core of the Montessori approach would be used by this fiery Aries as an excuse to do absoloutely nothing or at least the bare minimum. After trying on her old tricks at her new school quite a few times she soon worked out that the Montessori approach to discipline was very different to her old school and after being calmly reminded for the upteenth time about reponsibilites, choices and consequences she finally 'got it' and this year has seen a child changed. So to see a despairing grief stricken and very pessimistic child transform into a confident, can-do, considerate, interested and optimistic leader, i know that her Hills Montessori School, through sensitive guidance and persistence has had a great hand in helping her realise her full potential. Last night i felt like i finally had my girl back.

“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.”
Maria Montessori

garden of eden

yippee! feels like christmas, my order of Eden Seeds has arrived. now im not quite as organised as some of you and have them sprinting ahead in the seed equivalent of a mid winter trip to Fiji; the greenhouse (you know who you are) but im chuffed and looking forward to getting cracking with some major planting. I just need to finalise placement in the beds. Blog query: any reason why lots of bloggers use diggers more than Eden seeds? i have used both in the past and not noticed any difference in germination rates but i am wondering if there is some seedy insider knowledge that im missing and i have a fear that you're all going to shout 'loser', shes using Eden seeds!'

Ready to get going are:

Pumpkin - cinderella
Tomato- yellow pear
Tomato - purple russian
Tomato - black krim
Tomato- aunty rubys green
Beetroot - bulls blood
Parsnip - hollow crown
Sweet corn - jolly roger
Beetroot - chioggia
Lettuce - red cos
Lettuce - green mignonette
Bush bean - redland pioneer
Cucumber - marketmore
Zucchini - black
Climbing bean - purple king

im not too sure how to describe the feeling of looking at all these lovely little yellow packets of seeds but its something akin to joy and a feeling of hope and possibility and abundance. especially the tomatoes, i have a very big big thing for heirloom tomatoes. actually, i initially ordered a lot more than these but my very pragmatic husband queried my overkill with a very rational argument about available planting space and seed longevity. the girls and i were not impressed at the time at having our romantic enthusiasm and online affair with the catalogue dampened by such logic.

feelin frumpy

its now day 150 of weather that makes you just want to sit inside in front of the fire with a book, a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. Cabin fever has set in and physically im feeling like crap. I have been looking forward to getting back to running but somehow my motivation to pound the pavement has been tied to some blue sky showing itself. A few weeks ago before the weather turned decidely to winter, i had been walking in the mornings with a friend (another PhD almost-there-er) and on one occasion, after she took her turn off to home, i decided to see how the hips n boobs would go with a mild jog the rest of the way home. mmm, felt fine, boobs were a bit like jogging with a couple of medicine balls strapped to my chest and the hips felt like they were going to dislocate and slide up to my ears at any moment. But, for a first run after birthing, it felt like i could get back to it if i implemented a full lockdown on my breasts and warmed up well first.
After the initial euphoria of losing over 10kg in a day (mostly baby and associated bits) and the utterly unfathomable situation of needing to buy more clothes post pregnancy, as my pre pregnancy clothes were falling down around my feet, my descent into decidedly non-salubrious consumption of foodstuffs is needing some checking as my midrift is feeling and looking a little too much like stretchy pizza dough. So rather than give up the chocolate and puddings, im thinking increasing my expenditure is a better way to go. Something weird has also happenned to my ass since birth that im looking to reverse. Never thought id have one, but i have. i have that very weird middle aged flat ass. Im thinking flat ass may be fixable with the getting of some well run butt muscles. As for the calzone belly, either i can learn to love it, embrace it or im going to have to start doing ab work again and THAT is not dependent on the weather. @#!

small change changes lives

i recieved an update email this morning from Mwanahamisi Rashid, Pili Kago and Grace Emanuel. I loaned some money to this group of 3 Tanzanian women through the Kiva microloan organisation and who have now raised and invested enough capital to begin repaying the loan. This is what i like about Kiva, the real contact you can have with people you have never met but have helped in some small way and the fact that you can choose exactly to whom (and what kind of business) you wish to lend money. By providing what to us in rich country is the equivalent of a meal out, to the recipient of the microloan it can be the difference between subsisting and living, It can make a world of difference to their lives and their families and communities.

Its hard to write this without sounding preachy or paternalistic but i will do my best. So far with Kiva i have supported women with young families in Africa but i think my next few loans will be in Afghanistan. I think its so important to support women, as women are the key to lifting families and communities out of poverty. An educated and independent mother will pass on life skills to her children which sustain and advance community.

Here's how Kiva works.

When you visit the Kiva website you will find listings of all registered entrepreneurs and their complete business details and photographs and how much capital is needing to be raised. All listed entrepreneurs have been screened by local non profit organisations specialising in development funding. You create a Kiva account into which you deposit funds via Paypal (who provide this service to Kiva for free) for you to distribute to your selected recipients. When you find a business and a business person whom you think you would like to support you can choose to fund the entire amount of capital needed for that project or you can contribute a minimum of a $25 loan to that person or group, a microloan can be a composite of many lenders. When the group or individual has raised the capital required, the business expands or begins and when enough profit is made repayments are divided amongst all the lenders who helped to fund that business, depending upon the percentage each lender contributed and this continues until the loan is repayed in full. You can then cash in this repayment or elect for this repayment to be credited to your Kiva account for you to make another loan. All through the process you recieve email updates on the venture and its owners.

What i really like about Kiva is the grassroots nature of it. Its individuals helping individuals directly and its not for profit, so all your money goes to those who you are loaning to. And, unlike bank loans, no interest is claimed. You can elect to make a voluntary contribution to Kiva to support their fieldworkers administrate the service and can choose the form of that donation; USB, torches, pens etc. I also like that you can choose directly whom you wish to support so that you can make choices about sustainable and ethical businesses. I wish this operated everywhere.

Spiced Pear Paste

I spent quite a bit of yesterday standing at the stove stirring. I had a craving for fruit paste and blue cheese so i set about to make some pear paste as I had quite a few lemon bergamot pears. I have never before made fruit past of any sort, though i have eaten my fair share over the years. I looked in all my recipe books and on the internet and could not find one recipe that was made from pears alone or at least mainly pear. The closest i got was the ABC website which had a recipe for tomato, pear and lemon paste which sounded lovely but the main fruit were tomatoes to a ratio of 2:1. I wasnt too sure about using quince paste recipes with a straight swap of fruit weight as quince has alot more pectin than pears so the fruit/sugar ratio is more stable. So i pretty much had to wing it using the ABC recipe as a guide and i reduced the amount of sugar as there was no sloppy tomato to stabilise. Here's what i did.

Spiced pear paste

1.2 kg of pears
2 granny smith apples
1/2 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
small piece of vanilla bean
rind and juice of 2 lemons
2 cups sugar
pectin (optional)

Core and chop pears and apples and put in heavy based saucepan with the spices and lemon and simmer with the water until fruit is very mushy. Strain through seive or blend in food processor after removing spices.



Return to pot and add sugar and stir for 4 hours on a moderate heat to reduce the mixture. It should be quite thick and stay seperated when its ready. But Im impatient....and thats the recipe as it should have been....
However, i did not remove enough water from the fruit mixture and/or there was not enough pectin in the pears and apple, although the fruits were quite firm, so the end result was quite sloppy and it did not setas firmly as i was anticipating. If I had stirred for the 4 hours and not just 2 it may have been alot firmer but i started late in the day so by 11pm i was ready for bed. Now there may be a reason why there are no recipes that were easily obtained on the internet for pear paste! and next time I would add pectin to the recipe and possibly bake the pears so as to reduce reduction time. But for now my pear paste will get served in bowl and not directly on a cheese board.

The house smelt really heavenly yesterday with the sweet pear, apple and vanilla and the 'paste' tastes quite fantastic.

the Permapine decking dilemma

Folks , we have a dilemma. Now those of you who have read this blog waaay back will know that we are in the process of building a structure (fondly referred to around here as 'The Studio', although im not sure even what a 'stew-dio' really is ) in our garden which serves essentialy as the structural support of PV solar cells to power the house and all its modern sins. In the planning of this said 'stew-dio' we agreed to erect a substantial deck along its Northern facing side to enjoy more sunny space as the cafe doors fold back to allow deck and studio to become one flat floorspace. However, we never agreed as to what the decking would be made from. The time has now come to order materials to build the deck. Now here in Oz, in my experience the majority of decks are made from Permapine decking slats; a copper chrome arsenate (arsenic) treated pine which preserves the softwood making it weather resistant and repells termites. We both agreed NOT to use Permapine as we didnt want the boybean crawling around on that. Eco-pine addresses these issues somewhat as it is preserved using an organic azole co-biocide but its still a softwood and isnt as longwearing as hardwoods or composites. SHE (me) however had ideas about using another nice looking hardwood. BUT these are usually Merbau or Batu both of which are rainforest timbers. Non rainforest Merbau and Batu and other Australian hardwoods grown under the umbrealla of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody (COC) system, a system which connects responsible and equitable forest management practices, are available but its hard to find in a decking cut and is very expensive. Modwood, a composite recycled wooden decking is another alternative as is CleverDeck by Futurewood which is made from recycled plastics; recycled HDPE (old milk bottles and other post consumer plastic waste) and discarded rice husks or hulls and claims to be one of the most environmentally friendly decking options available. This is my husbands favoured choice of material. The biggest problem is, im a bit of a wood snob. Made-to-look-likes have to be designed really well and incorporate innovative building design to pull them off. Small scale building using plastic decking is not my idea of aesthetic living and i dont know how it would blend with the main house- you can see from the pic in my header that its a pretty organic building made from 100% reclaimed timbers and introducing plastic may be a tad weird. At $140 per square metre (we need 20 square metres) for Modwood composite decking and $90 psm for the Cleverdeck, the same price as rainforest hardwood like Merbau, there is no cost saving to using recycled, so you buy for the principle alone. I really like the idea of using a recycled waste material, what else are we going to do with all that plastic we have created? but Im not keen on the aesthetic. However, I may have to just bite the bullet and be an enviro-vanguard, join the trend in plastic decks, help create the new norm.

Haiku friday

soft sticky fingers
kneading on my dough like breast
eyes smile up at me