Author: Veronica

I sat in my backyard today and let the sun soak into my bones. I felt warm for the first time in weeks*. It was only about 16C (60F), but it was warmer than anything we have had for weeks.

I watched Nathan rake all the crap up into a pile and remove it from the yard.

[This is the yard right before we moved in. This is probably the cleanest part of it. We have done bits and pieces, but today we did a big clean]

So today, Nathan raked up the last of the broken glass and toys (in one half. We only had the energy to tackle half today). Amy played in a recycling bin full of water while I watched and Nathan worked.

And then, we introduced her to the joys that are wheelbarrow rides.

She had a ball. She spent the rest of the afternoon asking to ‘get in please?’.

We plan to use the cleared area of the backyard as a vegetable garden, so after it was rid of glass and crap, we covered it in a foot of spoiled hay.

Why YES! I did manage to wheedle a ginormous bale of spoiled hay** off of our farmer neighbour. He brought it over in his tractor because giving it to us was better than watching it rot on the ground.

It was huge. (I am such a bad blogger, but there are no photos of this).

So by the end of the day, I had a huge dose of exhaustion, a toddler who was covered in water, mud and straw, hay rash and a big sense of achievement.

One shower later and most of that was put to rights.

And damn do I feel good about having half the backyard completed. We had decided that for Amy’s birthday and Xmas, the best gift we could give her was a backyard that was completely safe to play in.

We are getting there.

And I promise, I will take photos of it all eventually.

* I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome [on top of pregnancy, fun!]. One of my symptoms is an inability to get warm properly. I have terrible circulation and I am always cold. Somehow though, sitting in the sunshine is different. I feel warm in the sunshine. Probably why Winter makes me so miserable.

** Spoiled hay or straw has generally been rained on, or has gotten wet in some way. Most animals will refuse to eat it due to small amounts of mould in the hay. Absolutely fantastic for gardens and mulch.

An ideal night would be:

– Having someone else make me roast lamb with gravy. Then that someone doing all the dishes afterwards, dressing Amy for bed, placing her in bed and not hearing anything from her until 9am the next morning.

– It would include a house that was warm, someone to bring me tea and toast so I didn’t have to move (or maybe hot chocolate) and a foot massage.

– TV shows that weren’t shit.

– A warm bed when I chose to dive into it and a restful 9 hours sleep before I had to arise in the morning.

It would NOT include:

– Amy throwing her dinner all over the highchair table, sitting in it, fingerpainting with it and then refusing to get clean. (It was pumpkin soup)

– Amy refusing to go to bed, despite her bed being being warmed with a heat pack. Screaming for 30 mins while she protested the indignity of a gate that she couldn’t move and then throwing her cup full of milk away numerous times before finally falling asleep.

– Weather so cold that they were thinking of closing our road (we made it home, but it is snowing).

– A toilet that is outside in the -3C weather when I am pregnant and needing to pee 3 times an hour.

– A dog that barked over nothing and woke the toddler. A dog who is on her VERY VERY last chance before I start putting her in the shed overnight so she can’t crap on the floor.

– A toddler who then needing resettling eleventy hundred freaking times before falling back asleep and honestly, I am not holding my breath yet.

– Writers block.