Sunday, April 5, 2020

Giving and taking


As we go through this strange pandemic with its requirement for social distancing,  it is good to find ways to contribute and to receive the contributions of others to our own lives.

This week I gave away some produce from my garden, including these gorgeous ruby red pomegranates. In harvest season we get more than we can use. Last year we made up little packets of the niblets and froze them but we still had more than we could use in a year. It felt good to be able to offer them to others.

We were given a trailer load of 'clean fill' -ie garden soil -left over from someone else's building renovation -and took it to DS's place in our trailer to help fill up one of their large raised garden beds.

We found some stables near the racecourse and got 3 free bags of Horse Poo! Gold for our compost and those new garden beds!

I watched some great videos with 'how to' information -one of them on how to make great compost. It inspired me to ask DH for some signs:




I consolidated my compost bins and have instigated the "fill one, stir one" approach which is already having good results. The one I am stirring is now nicely warm and steams when I stir it each day. Compost is such great food for gardens -it is time I got more canny about making it. I am always on the lookout for 'brown and dry" material to add to the compost -our food scraps are too soggy on their own. I hope to get a trailer load of free mulch next weekend from the local council, and add some to the garden and the compost bins, as well as take some over to DDILs garden.

Most of our children are now staying home from school, and the government has closed the playgrounds. In order to entertain children who are going for walks around our streets, many people are putting out their teddies so that the children can go on a bear hunt, or they are chalking rainbows on the footpath to encourage us all in our socially distant exercise regimes. Here is my teddy - I had to give him a rope seatbelt because he was falling off the chair in the wind! DD says it looks like I have him hostage!


We used to have a regular Friday night dinner with some friends, so we have taken it online as 'virtual drinks" and it is good to be able to catch up. I have noticed that friends and family are taking care to keep in touch via actual phone calls! This is good for us all.

We have had over the fence, in the driveway and socially distant conversations with our grandchildren -they hate it that we can't be together, and so do we. Mr DGS1 said "The person making the rules is mean!" and we all agree. However, we can see each other even if there are no hugs at the moment.

Thanks so much for dropping by and reading my little blog. I appreciate the way we are connected -please feel free to add a comment or to tell me how you find yourself giving and taking at the moment.



4 comments:

Nanna Chel said...

That is lovely that the children are having a teddy bear hunt. None here in our street that I know of but then there are a lot of elderly people in our street like us who have lived here most of their lives. Hopefully their families are looking after them as we are supposed to be housebound as we are over 70 😏 I don't even see a lot of children in our street unless school is open up the road and they pass on the way up there. My grandchildren live in the Outback of NW Qld so I rarely see them but it must be hard for those grandparents who see their grandchildren regularly to not be able to give them a hug. Hopefully this all ends soon but our Qld govt says the peak will hit in our normal flu season in August and September so I won't hold my breath.

sustainablemum said...

How I would love to be a recipient of your pomegranates! I love them but they are so expensive to buy here that I only buy them very occasionally. The colour of their skins is wonderful.

We to have a source of free horse poo, one of our neighbours keeps horses and we can go and collect from their stables whenever we need to. It has taken a little more organising this year as we make sure we keep our distance from each other! The garden is now ready for when the temperatures warm a little more and I can start sowing vegetable seeds.

We too have been keeping in contact with our friends. My daughter has video play dates on a few afternoons in the week and my son has been chatting online whilst gaming. I have been talking to friends on the phone probably as much as I see them in real life normally, it has been lovely to keep that going. I have tried video calling anyone yet although we do this regularly with our friends in the Bahamas.

Nil @ The Little House by the Lake said...

Ha ha when I saw your pomegranates I wished I had been your neighbor. 😁

TheAwakenedSoul said...

Somehow I missed your last post! Your pomegranates look fantastic. I grow a Russian variety. They are so plentiful. I will have to try your method of freezing them. I end up giving a lot away as chicken feed. Some have to be composted, too. How wonderful to have all of that manure. My neighbor and I exchange soap for goat and horse manure. It works out well for both of us...