This weekend it was time to refresh the vegetable plots a little and the children all helped out as usual.
Clearing weeds, turning soil and planting out new crops of beans, peas and tomatoes.
All tucked into well earned kanom and iced drinks when finished.
Good work yet again kids:)
With all the children having a long weekend, with no school last Friday it was time for a big tidy time in the garden. During work periods over the three days all the children mucked in to harvest what was left of the ‘Kanaa’; clear the first vegetable garden area we did; thin out new tomato plants;turn the compost bins and turn over soil ready for planting our next ‘crops’.
Great work everyone.
After checking the vegetable plots we decided that this weekends work time should include some general maintenance in clearing unwanted weeds and further spacing of new shoots.
Gu and Tai also planted out two new plots with Watermelon seeds.
We have already been feasting on Kanaa for the last week and a half with much more still to harvest as it grows and the tomatos are also going well. Our best crop so far has been the bottle gourds featured in the last garden post, which continue to emerge big enough to be cut every couple of days.
Mum continues to show her best Grandmotherly qualities, both playing and taking care of the children.
This week the children have been enjoying Origami and Hamma Bead craft activities that Mum brought with her from England.
This weekend she has also taught them all how to knit. This has proved to be very popular with all the children who have spent the last two days knitting wrist bands of both bracelet and sweat band style, in-between sniffling and coughing from the cold bug we are all suffering right now.
Mum also showed her life long work ethic, helping the children with this weekends hour long work session in the garden.
Mum was ill with similar in the UK before her visit and appears to have stronger anti-bodies having so far avoiding the problem.
So thats another Xmas gone and as promised Mary and her daughter Jemsai returned to Stratton House on Christmas Eve. Being a Buddhist household we did not make a big thing about Xmas, but I did go as far as filling some homemade sacks with snackfood, fruit, and some small gifts for the children to find outside their rooms in the morning.
Mary and Jemsai also kindly donated some art materials for the use of all the children.
We also skipped work detail for the day and allowed the children to relax watching some cartoon dvds in the afternoon.
In the evening we all went along to the village Church where May 1 was part of the Xmas show performing some excellent dance routines with her classmates. You can see the videos below. Apologies for the poor quality, must remember to use the camcorder next time.
Mary genorously sponsored a trip out to Huay Tung Tao on Boxing Day and we enjoyed lunch at one of the lakeside restaurants and some of the children even braved the cold season chilly waters.
Jemsai got some very good shots on my camera , which you can see below.
On the way home we called at Kamtieng Garden Market where we purchased some much needed garden tools, seeds and a little more turf, once again thanks to Mary.
The turf was laid as soon as we got home with everyone pitching into help.
Mary Gray and her daughter Jemsai, friends of our Australian Faa Gamma Team fund raiser Heather , are in Chiang Mai right now and paid us a welcome visit yesterday.
They stayed for dinner and met all the kids and before they left we agreed to a Xmas visit when they will hopefully be staying with us here in Stratton House for a few days.
15 year old Jemsai is studying child care back in Australia and is keen to use her visit to gain experience.
They also very generously donated 1000 baht to enable us to purchase turf for our ongoing garden improvements.
Big thanks to you both for your help , the turf has already been laid:)
We look forward to seeing you again at Xmas.
It really is great to see our labours start to add some real shape and order to the garden now. Taking advantage of the cooler weather we have been setting to major ground clearance and setting up of many vegetable plots.
With our improvement budget depleted it looked like we might be on hold for a while, but thanks to a generous donation from our friend Ally we were able to get another truck load of top soil to continue work.
The kids have made me so proud yet again with all their efforts.
I don’t like to single kids out but special mention again to Gu for effort over and above what is asked. He has now been made ‘Boss’ of the garden and given the responsibility of logging what goes in each plot and sorting out a rota for care and upkeep of the different areas.
We still need approximately 3 loads of soil to complete all works. The truckload comes at 850 baht.
We are hoping that we may reduce this need next week as we have major water and sewage works going on and may be able to use soil excavated for this operation.
We are also still hoping for someone to find it in their heart to sponsor the purchase of around 1000 bahts worth of turf to lay on areas already prepared.
With the expansion of our growing project comes a future need for much compost to help the vegetables grow to their best potential. What with leaf fall, grass and weed cuttings and 10+ people eating everyday then we should have more than enough material to produce our own compost.
Having checked around for innovative ideas on this subject I hit across an idea I’d like to try here at Stratton House.
It involves getting a large water butt (1); cutting holes in each side and placing an ‘axel’ (2) through the water butt; lifting the water butt and placing the axel ends on bearers (3).
Removing the top(4) to add your waste plus a little water to help with the decomposing.
Being on an axel makes it easy for the regular turning that good composting needs, (not forgetting to replace the top before turning)
Also, if you add a tap to the bottom of the butt then you can periodically drain of the compost liquid and use that on the garden as well.
I am hoping to use a plastic water butt and use bamboo for the axel and bearers.
And believe this can be done for approximately 4000 baht.
This plan awaits a sponsor:)
Busy, busy, busy. We are still working hard here at Stratton House to increase efficiency and cut costs. One major way we can do this is to grow our own vegetables.
To this end we have been working hard on expanding our growing project. Every late afternoon this week the children have helped out with this expansion which is going very well.
However we desperately need help with funding the next expansion.
The plots you see featured in the photos cost around 2000 baht to produce, including all the bamboo and soil.
Can you help us expand further with a similar sized area?
We are also hoping to create dry leveled pathways in between the plots, using gravel, which comes at 1800 baht for a large lorry load.
At present we are not sure how far that will take us but would have a better idea if we can get that first load.
If you feel that you may be able to help fund these expansions , please contact us.
A healthy diet for our children is very important to us. If we can supply this using our own organically grown produce then more funds can be redirected towards continued development of our activities and services to help these and many more children.
Thank You for your consideration.
Another excellent day here at Stratton House. The Mural works carried on yesterday , some of it into the early evening as Tai seemed unable to stop working on his masterpiece, while the others played on the new lawn or sat meditating infront of my Buddha painting.
And today was a mix of continued work on the Murals, cheerful play, including great fun with some plastercine; given by our friends Li Li and Ally , who popped in for a visit; and some more serious garden work on yet more vegetable plots.
Its been a good weekend for some ‘family discussion’ and getting the kids to understand why we ask them to work. It is important to us that the children here understand the ways of life, including needing to work for what you want out of life. This weekend they asked me why I asked them to clear weeds ready for the growing plots. They pointed out how much quicker I am able to work. So I explained that I would do them no favours by doing everything for them. The plots are to grow food for us all to eat and they need to learn that this all takes effort. The work also, hopefully, brings the rising self esteem from being able to say ‘we did this’.
Today we had a delivery of a truck load of soil which now waits to be distributed to the new plots. For now it is a bit of a playground, which brought forward another disucussion about learning to think ‘safety’. One of the kids called me to proudly declare that they had dug a great tunnel in the soil pile. Past horror stories about children playing in unsupervised building sites flashed through my mind.
So using a plastic bottle as a demonstration ‘child’, I got all the kids gathered round and showed them what could happen if a playful child decided to enter the tunnel, unaware of how fragile the soil was.
Some of them had been keen to run up the pile jumping and dancing at the top and running down the sides. Great fun, but none had thought to put away the wheelbarrow and shovels that sat close to the pile.
“Is it safe?” I asked.
“Yessss!!!” came the reply.
So being careful to keep good hold of him, I demonstrated the likely trajectory of Jack happening to trip and fall down the far side of the pile, and how his head would likely collide with the edge of the wheelbarrow.
After putting all the garden tools away properly, the children played carefully for a while longer, in safety.
