Business as usual

Thanks to everyone who inquired about Hanno's health. He's fine now, his eye has healed well and apart from eye drops every two hours during the day for the next three weeks, it's business as usual. I was really pleased that it rained while he was out of action with his eye. Had it not been so wet, I know I would have had Buckley's chance of keeping him out of the backyard. When the eye healed and the rained stopped, he was raring to go. We'd been discussing changes to the backyard to better contain the chickens and that has evolved into an extra vegetable garden and so now it's full steam ahead. I'll write a post about the changes in the backyard later in the week.

We went to the Landcare Conference at the Brisbane Exhibition Centre on Saturday. What a day! There were a lot of very interesting speakers and I met up with a few friends I hadn't seen for a while. Along with us, we had our good friend Beverly Hand, who also gave a very interesting talk on Cultural awareness for engaging Indigenous people. I sat in on Beverly's talk, and she on mine, and I was treated not only to her courageously spirited talk but also to some photos of her family. I also sat in on a talk by Dr Graeme Sait who spoke about healthy soil, the narrow focus of NPK fertilising, soil minerals, microbes and compost. I feel the reason I went to that conference was to meet Graeme. We spoke briefly after my talk which he listened to, and he told me how interested he was in what I was talking about. I was really impressed by this man's knowledge and understanding - even in the short time I was there listening to him. He reminded me of the links between soil health and human health and convinced me I needed to know more about him and his topic. Yesterday I downloaded a copy of his book when I signed up for his newsletter and I've started reading it. It's very interesting and has reminded me that we've got some Biodynamic preparation 500 here and this week, we'll be applying it. When we finish that, I want to try some of Graeme's Life Force fertilisers. If you have time to check out his site, read the article about Blueberries.  What a treasure. He and his wife live here on the Sunshine Coast so I hope I have the good fortune to meet with him again.

Today I'm returning to the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre as volunteer coordinator, with help from Beverly who will come in on Fridays. Ali, who has been our paid coordinator since I left to write my book, left last week. She'll be doing her Masters at the local university and I wish her well. It will take up more of my time that I expected to give right now but the Centre is close to my heart and I can't walk away until it's on firm ground again.

And here at home, I'm still working away quietly with Hanno on those things that keep us fed, clothed and happy. The garden is starting to produce quite nicely, the chooks are laying well, I'm still knitting up a storm for various babies we'll meet for the first time later in the year, and I've just made a new batch of soap and laundry liquid that will keep us going for a few months. Tomorrow, we'll happily welcome home Sunny and Jamie after a six week holiday in Korea. I've missed them so much. They're coming up to see us as soon as they get off the plane. Yay!

Ernie and I are still working on our Blogging Workshop materials and have one booking so far for those in Brisbane. If you're a new blogger and are hoping to attend a workshop, please tell me where you are so we can look into venues in that area. I think the workshops will start next month.

So with all the changes life continues to throw our way, it's still business as usual. I hope you enjoyed your weekend and have an interesting week planned. After my short break, I'm really pleased to be back here with you.