A Day at the Farm

I'm terribly behind in my blogging responsibilities, I know, and I do apologize. We had a busy weekend with friends and family, which included my little niece sleeping in our office - thus, no computer. Thus, no Sunday night blog post. This I shall quickly remedy.

A couple of weeks ago we took Isaac up to Nan Gailyn's farm to see the 4-day old calves.
As you can see, he was dead keen.

You might remember our visit last year to Staglands in the Akatarawas, where upon seeing a couple of lambs Isaac - then not even two years old - said, in all seriousness:

"Lamb...Food...Dinner."

Yip. Macabre as it may seem, I felt like I must have doing something right that my boy recognised that food doesn't come from a shop, but from the real world.

On the drive up to the farm the other day, he saw cows out the window of the car, and had this to say on the matter:

"That's a cow."

"That's beef."

"That's dinner."

With apologies to any vegetarians reading (No, I'm not getting into that discussion here), I consider this continued success. He also knows that milk and cheese come from cows, that chickens give us eggs, and that we also eat chickens.

No sugar coating here.

Unless you're talking about the alpacas:
I'm not sure what he sees in these surly, smelly beasts of burden, but Isaac just loves getting to see alpacas, and even pat their ears. Maybe it's because we don't eat alpaca - we just wear their wool.

That's all for now. I've got a mountain of writing work and audio editing that I need to get up to date with, so I'll be back soon with more foody goodness.

Take care everyone.

48hrs = Dog Own Fail

It seems that we are just not meant to own more than one animal. Finn is the last surviving cat from a litter of seven. We gave three away, one ran away and two more got killed on the road. Our attempts to keep goldfish tended to end with small masses of dead fishy matter floating near the top of the tank, despite all our best efforts.We tried several times to bring in new cats to keep Finn company, but she invariably drove them out, turning the house into a mini warzone until we found new homes for the new cats instead.

So why did we think we would have any luck owning a dog?

We have never owned a dog before. Dessert Chef had dogs when she was young, but they were Nan & Obi's, so while the kids played with them, they didn't actually train them and do all the hard work of looking after them. What we weren't prepared for was just how very different a dog is to keep from a cat, and we got a taste of what we were in for very quickly.

As a writer, I much prefer the idea of dogs than I do of cats. There's something about being just a few steps evolved from wolves, something raw and dangerous and unbridled about dogs that lends them a poetic power that cats don't have. Where cats are aloof and condescending, dogs are immediate, rugged, and only ever moments from action. Strangely, even though this is how I imagine dogs, I never considered any of this when we decided to adopt Lucy. I had an idealised picture in my mind of a loyal servant trotting along behind us, chasing sticks and curling up by the fire in the winter. So much I didn't know.

We thought Lucy was a calm, quiet, relaxed dog, but when she came to us, she was as tightly wound as a spring, timid, and nervous as all hell.

A dog is a hunter, looking for every opportunity it can to move up the ranks of its pack by showing it is the dominant animal. Lucy decided straight away that in her new pack Dessert Chef was the boss; that she came second; that she would tolerate but not obey me; and that Isaac was by a long way the bottom of the food chain. Had we known more about dogs from the outset, we probably wouldn't have chosen a dog as big as Lucy. Lucy was as tall as Isaac and 5kg heavier. She first batted him with a paw, scratching his face, and later on that day she snapped her teeth right in his face.

This scared us, and rightly so. Lucy was warning Isaac that she was dominant to him, and it would take a whole lot of training before we could teach her otherwise. In the meantime, it would only take a second for Lucy's snap to turn into a bite, and that was an outcome that we were not at all prepared to risk.

I took Lucy to work with me yesterday, and after consultation with the SPCA, we decided to return her to them. There were other families who had been eager to have her as a pet, so she would be found a new home. It was a tough choice, but it was also the only choice.

So for 48 hours we were dog-owners, and then we were not. She'll have a good home, Isaac won't be at risk of being set upon by a dog who just wants to be the boss because she's bigger, Dessert Chef is no longer stressing about keeping dog and toddler apart, and Finn is back sleeping on my knee again.

Goodbye Lucy. Welcome back status quo.

A Dad responds to Lyn Craig

It's taken me a while to get this post up because I wanted to be able to supply the audio that I'm responding to, rather than blathering on in the hope that a reader or two might happen to have heard the same interview on Radio New Zealand last Wednesday. I've now got the audio on my computer but have to figure out how to upload the file to Blogger. Any advice?

Meanwhile, the interview can be listened to here, until they take it down.

Lyn Craig, Social Researcher with University of NSW Social Policy Research Centre: Interview with Noelle McCarthy, Radio New Zealand, Wednesday 22 October 2008, 2.10pm (approx 17 minutes)

Having listened to it again, I realise that it was not quite as insulting as it first seemed when I heard it in broken snippets at work the other day, but there are still several statements that Craig bases her research on with which I strongly disagree. And since I have a soapbox, I intend to declaim from it.

The headline grabber is that: "Australian Fathers spend 6-7 minutes a day with their Kids." OK, I'm not Australian, and the research doesn't cover New Zealand, and Craig is not even trying to present a picture of a regressive chauvinistic male population who leave the childcare to the Mums of the world. But what I protest is that a Dad who spends time "reading, talking and playing" with his kids, in her opinion, is not spending time caring for his children. Craig defines "childcare" as sole care and the work of cooking, tidying, changing nappies, bathing, dressing, picking up and dropping off from school etc.

What's a guy supposed to do? Get home and send the wife down the pub until after bedtime, in order to qualify as "caring for" his children?

Men also get no credit for spending time together with the family on the weekend, according to Lyn Craig. Oh, this is all good and well for the family, she says, but it's not childcare as long as the father isn't doing it on his own.

Give us a break!

At the risk of sounding like a backward male, I get up at 6am to go to work and get home around 4.45pm. I know that during that time Dessert Chef has the hard work of getting Isaac up, dressed, fed, entertained, fed again, entertained, changed, fed again, into bed, up, dressed, fed again, entertained, watered, etc etc etc until 4.45 when I get home. I know that this is hard work, that it is sole care, and that it is a completely different dynamic to working together as a family on the weekend or in the evenings.

However...

From the time I get home until Isaac goes to bed, he's my responsibility. I entertain him, we play, I cook the family dinner (with everybody's help, usually), I give Isaac his bath while Dessert Chef does the dishes, I get him into his pyjamas and we read books for anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour, before I give him some pudding, brush his teeth, give him a bottle, and get him into bed. This is usually about three hours, but according to Lyn Craig, the only time that I would be able to count as "caring" for my son would be the 20 minutes of giving him a bath and getting him dressed. Sure enough, according to Craig, this gives me three times the effort that the average Australian Dad can lay claim to, but for three hours work I feel a bit cheated.

As a family, I know that we are very, very lucky. We can afford to have Mum at home looking after our son, and I have negotiated hours that allow me to have quality time at home in the evenings and weekends to do my bit towards being a Dad and raising my boy. (Sidebar - I put aside a career in a highly lucrative but terribly demanding part of my industry to be able to work those family-friendly hours. We may be a little worse off financially for it, but I have never regretted making that choice.)

Those three hours are what I look forward to all day at work, and so does Dessert Chef, because she knows that when I get home she gets to relax. That's what teamwork is all about. I take offence at the idea that my contribution is nothing more than a hobby.

I'm sure Lyn Craig didn't set out to engage in a campaign of reverse sexism, or to deride the efforts and advances made by progressive members of both genders over the past fifty years. It's not what she has witnessed and reported on that I take issue with. It's how she chooses to define what parenting is. I get the feeling that in her estimation dual-income households where both parents share the duties of child-rearing in combination with outside childcare would be an ideal.

We eschew this concept, for two reasons. For one, the decision to strive for two incomes, however necessary it may be, is all part of the problem that we are facing today with the global economic collapse. There is a line between staying out of poverty and simply being greedy. We choose to place our family above all else and keep our heads above water, rather than pursue the almighty dollar with our every energy. It's tough at times, but it's worthwhile. Secondly, what is the point of working and paying someone else to raise your children if you can possibly afford not to? I know that I'm likely to draw a string of invective about this, because it's one of those hot issues that everyone has a deeply held opinion about, but our feelings are pretty straightforward: the best people who can raise our children are us.

I'd love to hear what others out there think, and how people in circumstances different to ours cope.

We must be doing something right

I hear a lot of parents (and other non-parental adults) lamenting that their children seem to have no idea where their food actually comes from. Mostly the answer to the question "where do we get milk from?" is not "a cow" but "the shop".

Last weekend we went to Staglands with Aunty L, Uncle B and their kids. Being spring, the place was alive with chicks, ducklings, goslings, kids and lambs.
When Isaac got to this pen, and we told him that this was a lamb, this was his reaction:

"Lamb?"
"Food?"
"Dinner?"

I guess he must know at least that much, then.

A Fence is Born

Holes were dug. Posts were erected. Concrete was mixed and poured. Rails were nailed. Gates were whacked together. There was much rain, and plenty of mud. Palings went up, and the driveway disappeared. A gate was hung. Latches were attached and holes drilled for latches to latch into. Gate was swung, and grins were had. There was more rain, and more mud.

It's amazing what an almost 2-year old with a spade can achieve.
And big Thanks to Obi, who really did all the work, under Isaac's close supervision.

Things that Fatherhood has Taught Me

1. Anything which looks like something that you know the word for can legitimately be called by the name of the thing you know;
2. If it looks like a bug, its a bug;
3. If it says MEOW, its a Fluff;
4. If it has four legs and isn't a Fluff, it says WOOF;
5. Unless its a cow, in which case it says Moo;
6. Or sometimes WOOF;
7. Lions and Tigers say ROAR, but leopards don't. Silly Daddy.
8. Being overtired does not mean that the 18-month-old will go to sleep any more easily;
9. Being outside is much more fun than being inside, unless the Fluff is inside, then being inside is much cooler;
10. If there's water, then that's the best place to be;
11. If there's also mud, that's even better;
12. Helping Daddy with Cooking means grabbing any utensil you can lay your hands on and taking it to the couch, or the bathroom, or the bedroom, and then forgetting about it;
13. If it looks like a sausage, it probably is. Best try eating it to check;
14. Chairs are not for sitting, they are for climbing, as are couches and tables and beds and benches and clothesracks and anything else that can be reached, either from the floor or wherever a stool can be pushed to;
15. "One More" can be applied to any situation any number of times to allow a given activity to continue indefinitely, or until Mummy or Daddy enforces the "Last One" instruction - usually two or three times;

And finally, as a Dad I've learned that when you have to walk at the same pace as the 18-month-old, and you have to stop and inspect all the marvels of the world as closely as he does - things like flowers, and drains, and puddles, and pinecones - you'll find that there's more all around you to see than you've realised in the years since you used to walk that slow and look at the world with such awe and fascination. So no matter how old you feel, sometimes it can be worthwhile to take the time to see things like an almost-two-year old again.

Busy Saturday

Market Update
We swung by the Tawa Market at 9am, only to see that it didn't start until 10.30am, so off to the Hutt we went. It was crisp and cold by the river, and we got a grand haul of fruit and veges and other stuff.
We spent about $33.00, but that included a a banana loaf for $3.00. We ate the banana loaf at Aunty L's but here's an idea of what $30.00 will get you:


Pumpkin Patch
I have to ask myself: does the person write the blog, or does the blog write the person? If I had not written earlier in the week that I was going to get out and plant the pumpkins today, would I have got out and seen the mission I actually had in store and turned around and gone back inside? Or, knowing that I had determined that I was going to do something, and that there were witnesses to this declaration, did I feel that I could not back out of the work involved for fear of looking like a copout? So I bent to the task and spent and hour and a half clearing weeds before I could spend the required 10 minutes to actually dig a few holes, spade out some compost and plant the pumpkin seeds. I decided in this process that it had been terribly wise of me to leave this job for almost 2 years, as it had given the vege patch we had planted and lost to weeds time to lie fallow, and for the grasses to bond lots of nitrogen into the soil making it good fertile planting ground. That suited me fine. I also dug up quite a few large nails, which suggests that there is plenty of iron in the ground, which is also good. It would all be coming up roses, if it was a rose garden. Don't mention the rose garden right now, though. I think the weeds are winning there too.

So the end result is that the pumpkins got planted, which is really quite miraculous, and probably only because I had told my blog that I would. Now it's holding me to ransom. I would say that tomorrow I'm going to go out and put down some more seeds, this time carrot, beetroot and silverbeet, but I'm afraid it might rain and I'd still have to do it.

On the upside, I also discovered three potato plants, a lemon balm, and what appears to be a shoot resembling a Bay Tree. I can't imagine how on earth a Bay Seed made its way into my vege/weed patch, but if it turns out to be then that's all good. I was going to post a photo of my efforts, but you've probably all seen a patch of dirt before. Now, if I'd thought to do a before and after photo, that would've been good.

The smell of roast pork and veges is filling the house. More on that tomorrow...

Behold!

Here it is! With a picture just to show off, one dinner course of Chicken Pasta Alfredo. Just boil up a pot of pasta and mix up the Alfredo sauce on the stove:

Melt 2 T Butter. Add 1 Cup of cream and gently stir for 5 mins or so. Heat well without boiling. Whisk in 3/4 Cup of Cheddar Cheese and about 1/4 Cup of stronger cheese, like Parmesan or Emmental until melted. Add pepper and parsley to taste.














A good friend pointed out tonight that if this is the quest for a model of financially prudent food purchasing, then the fact that butter, cream and cheese are three of the most expensive foods in the supermarket right now might actually make this a luxury dish. I guess I consider that since we've made two dinners and two lunches out of one chicken, that the money we've saved by buying less meat leaves a little extra to go into making the leftovers go down that much more pleasantly.

Nyum.

And here's Isaac, helping with the grinder photoshoot. Very helpful!

Why Canaries are Yellow

Midnight last night we were awoken by the crying of a rather unhappy baby. I'd been asleep for about an hour and trying to find the necessary awakeness to deal with the situation was a challenge. As C and I stumbled through the process of settling Isaac, giving him some Pamol for his teeth and putting a bottle into him, I realised that I was somewhere between being awake, and being dreaming but not asleep. Every time I closed my eyes I was back in that odd experiential place where the dream was the most real thing in my perception.

And that was when it all became clear: Canaries and corn are the same colour because they're made of each other, tomatoes grow best on red bricks, and just about everything in the world is actually built of lego. Amazing how the mysteries of the world become clear in the middle of the night when you're dreaming but not asleep.