Owner: Land of Meg URL:http://landofmeg.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:20:55 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Welcome to the Land of Meg! Meg is a 34 year-old writer living in the hills outside of Melbourne, Australia. Site statistics:Click here
080808 2008-08-08 05:51:21 For two years in a row I volunteered at the Melbourne International Film Festival, where I got to see dozens and dozens of movies. Having good cinemas nearby is definitely one of the things I miss living in the country.
This year we have seen just one film from the festival - Derek, about the director Derek Jarman, a mostly great biopic.
Last night PJ and I settled in for the night on the couch
Creative Resistance 2008-08-07 04:40:41 A few nights ago, to coincide with National Homeless Person's Week, the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Circle went out armed with bags of finger knitted wool, seeds, painted banners, ribbons, cups, cameras and chocolate, to engage in some creative resistance against the rampant land speculation which is wreaking havoc in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray.
I take my hand-knitted hat off to them a Read more:Resistance
Sydney Siding 2008-08-06 23:26:47 We flew up early this morning to spend some time with PJ's family, as his grandmother died. Tomorrow is her funeral. I wasn't going to come but PJ's folks insisted, and very generously bought my ticket.
What I enjoyed most about the day was talking to everybody, not just catching up, and that it wasn't Christmas, which is the only other time we come up here.
Christmastime seems to be so Read more:Sydney
From Left to Right 2008-08-06 04:45:13 Everybody, meet our chooks. Chooks, meet everybody.
Billy (Z's), Cuba (PJ's) and Dirt (mine).
We bought them on Saturday from the local Farmer's Market.
We have watched the price of free range organic eggs creep higher and higher. Last week we paid nearly $10 a dozen, a price we can't really justify paying.
If you too want some chickens but live in the city, you could always book a chook. Read more:Right
Big Talk 2008-08-04 08:16:03 We just returned from Sydney, after a really lovely and loving trip.
PJ is very different from his family. They and I didn't automatically bond, though each time I see them, we warm to and understand each other a little bit more. This time was really great.
PJ said on the plane on the way up that he really likes funerals because they make us face death and talk about it. These last 2 days have
World Dividers 2008-08-02 05:41:32 One of the things I collect is World
Dividers. You know when people say, the world can be divided into two categories; those who do such and such and those who don't.
When people have their toilet separate from their bathroom, I think: the world is divided into two categories, those who decorate their toilets with art on the walls or flowers on the cistern or poems or postcards stuck up with Blu
While We Watched 2008-08-01 08:18:02 This is the dinner my grandmother slept through tonight.
I'm Sorry, Michael 2008-07-30 05:15:37 I'm sorry Michael
Pollan, but I am not going to read your book.
I read the first ten pages and decided that it's not for me.
I say: This is not the kind of book I need to read. We are very conscious eaters in this household and although of course I still have a lot to learn, I don't think I could endure an entire book about things I already know instinctually.
Pollan says: "Eat food. Not
Our Water Tank 2008-08-29 02:27:22 I was working in Melbourne when Dr Roberto Perez, the Cuban permaculturalist came to talk at our Town Hall. PJ went and frantically took notes of good ideas to implement on our own quarter acre. Of all his notes, I think the most simple and the most powerful statements are these:
Grow your own food. Catch your own water. Say hello to your neigbour.
No title 2008-08-28 17:13:58 PJ is about a quarter way through rebuilding an old shed and turning it into a dwelling for a friend. He was working on the roof today, so I was recruited to be the Occupational Health & Safety officer. I spent the afternoon standing on scaffolding and helping.
The morning was springlike, dreamy and still. I sat on a rug nearby.
I read
and took this photo of my hand.
Blazing Blazey 2008-08-27 08:22:46 This is the book I bought PJ for his birthday. It's written and signed by our hero, Clive Blazey, founder of The Digger's Club, where we buy the majority of our seeds.
Here is his introduction from the Digger's Winter Garden 2008 catalogue:Dear Minister
We would like to see a government supported campaign to encourage the growing of fruit and vegetables in Australian back yards. When we grow our Read more:Blazing
I'm Sorry, David 2008-08-25 06:37:13 I'm sorry David
Rakoff, but I cannot finish your book.
I adore listening to you on This American Life, but whatever charm your words have on the radio is lost when they're just in print.
On the back cover, it says this book is social satire, but for me it was too much social and not enough satire. I read the first 129 pages expecting something to happen and then realised that the sharp
Internal Anatomies 2008-08-25 06:29:13 After my dog attack fiasco, I and V kindly brought me a gift of half a dozen perfectly ripe tamarilloes. I have had tamarilloes before, but still I was struck by the beauty of their internal anatomy.
When I open things to discover their insides, I inevitably think of an article I kept from the March 2000 New Yorker about The Simpsons' writer George Meyer. From the profile, called "Taking Read more:Internal
Bread 2008-08-24 17:47:57 Yesterday in Melbourne, My sister E and her man, J-Dog spent the day at a bread making course where they made sourdough bread, pizza, calzone and scones.
Our brother-in-law B was nearby at a slow food farmers' market selling free range organic eggs and other homegrown and homemade wonders. After each baking, E and J-Dog went to share their baked booty with him.
For us today was a great day of Read more:Bread
Outsourced 2008-08-22 05:02:17 *Sigh*
It's a been a long, emotional week - dog attacks, nieces with terrible eczema and tensions with Z's mum. I am tired after a day's work and cannot bear to sit in front of my computer for another minute, even to do something I love such as updating my blog.
Maybe I could look into outsourcing my blogging, on days like this.
The Advocate Letter Project 2008-08-21 18:03:04 When I first moved up here from the city I began The AdvocateLetterProject
, as a way to get to know, and participate in my new community.
Every week I read our local paper, The Advocate, from cover to cover and I send somebody I read about a handwritten letter.
Each letter is a tap on the shoulder of another human being. A small nod of recognition.
One week I wrote a letter to a couple
Of Everyday 2008-08-21 03:44:05 I had a night in Melbourne then PJ came to meet me yesterday. I spent some great time with my family, but still it was so nice to come home last night, especially to this heart, that PJ had arranged on our bed out of socks:
Today we spent the day embracing the domestic, both inside the house and in the garden. It rained on and off. When it was on we went in, and when it was off, we went out. Our
Art Attack 2008-08-20 05:22:21 After being preoccupied with my bum all day yesterday, it felt good to be thinking outside myself today. I volunteered at the local primary school for their annual Art Attack
day, where the kids spend the whole day participating in creative activities. And where a few of us lucky parents went to help.
I'm probably not ready to blog about the day just yet, because I'm not sure how to articulate
Doggone 2008-08-19 05:48:14 I won't bore you with the details of my bum. Just that it now features the teeth marks of a dog that bit into it this morning.
Just before the school run, Z and I went out with the scraps for our chooks, where we were met by three dogs, who attacked me when I tried to shoo them away.
It was a day of tears and calls to the police and our local council. PJ came home from work to take me to the
Wabi Sabi 2008-08-18 04:48:06 I was in a rush, I can't remember why. And I whacked my elbow on the clear plastic lid of the butter compartment on the inside of the fridge door, and it fell out. A small piece of the plastic broke off and now the lid won't stay on.
I tried again to fix it today, but to no avail. Small bit of plastic; high traffic.
This here is a photo of my everyday ring. You can see where it has broken a dozen
No title 2008-08-17 05:37:21 I am sore today, from shovelling shit at a nearby horse ranch for our compost, not from dancing last night.
Up here in these wintry hills, there has to be a damn good reason to go out, even on a Saturday night. Last night we had one: TZU playing nearby. We also had: a lesson in expectation.
It was raining but we left our jackets in the car, ordered drinks and chatted with the other locals who
Kidding Around 2008-08-14 18:08:24 I am in between contracts and thinking about what projects I am going to work on next.
I wrote a story when I was in grade 5 that our class then made into a movie. (It was called Key to the Unknown Planet.) I knew then that I wanted to be a writer.
In 2000, Bruce Willis made a film called The Kid, in which he as an 8 year-old visits himself as an adult. In one scene, when the boy sees what his
To Market, to Market 2008-09-21 02:58:20 Before I departed the city and moved to these hills I would often come up and stay with my sister K and her family. My favourite thing to do on a Sunday was walk around the market that even bustles in the winter months.
When I moved up here I would ride my bike there; my basket brimming with perishables for the week on the downhill home.
When PJ and I first got together he was working weekends Read more:Market
Carbonated Capers 2008-09-20 03:01:55 After a delicious home-cooked breakfast, PJ and I set off through the bush towards a mineral water spring about 45 minutes away. It was a beautiful spring day and we wore backpacks containing a small gas stove, coffee, cups and a stove-top coffee percolator.
Something went wrong: the coffee rose to the top but it was cold. Maybe because we used carbonated water, we're not sure. We stood aroun
Bee-youtiful 2008-09-19 05:12:10 We spent the morning at Z's school with all the other parents for a working bee. The kids were excited it was the last day of term and that their parents were in their grounds.
We worked that ground. We dug, we found rocks at one end and lined them up in a row at the other. We mulched and composted and planted and swept and raked and pruned. Then we sat around with the kids and had a BBQ lunch.
Fighting For It 2008-09-17 05:47:59 This morning on my walk I listened to a podcast interview with Emmanuel Jal, who at aged 8 was a child soldier carrying an AK-47 rifle in the Sudan People's Liberation Army. (He was later adopted by a British aid worker and is now a rising international music star.)
The interviewer said that by 18, the usual age for conscription, people can determine right from wrong, but at aged 8, you haven' Read more:Fighting
The Blog Baton 2008-09-16 03:54:44 I am a huge proponent of small business not corporatised business in the same way I am all for local and regional autonomy, because the dissemination of power means more diversity and more choice for more people.
Which is one of the reasons I love living in the country: the decentralisation of sovereignty, and why I love being a part of the blogosphere: the decentralisation of information.
L Read more:Baton
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