time to dust off the tummy mountain emergency response system

Sometimes on tummy mountain you can see the clouds boiling up into a massive grey stack from the south west, and hear the rolling peals of thunder telling one and all that the hot weather is about to be broken with a huge storm.

I do what any person does in a time of crisis: I rush out to take the washing off the line.
The little ones rush out to sound the tummy mountain emergency response system. Their voices.

From out the front I could here the joyous yelling of small children and I wondered what they were doing. Luckily Wee Small has a voice, that one could politely say, carries. So I could here her bellowing from the fields:

             "Attention! Attention! All Butterflies!
              Get under cover now!
              There is going to be a Big Storm!
              Emergency! All Butterflies!
              Stay at home! The Rain is Coming!"

Well, we all have to do what we feel is the right thing to do when the big storms come.

Stop Press: Little Ones See the Future

Many people from all the four corners of tummy mountain have thrown their arms up in the air at the astonishing news just in today. It appears that the little ones have hitherto unexpected accurate powers of precognition, or to put it in good old fashion plain speaking English - they can see the future.

Independent observers were astounded when Wee Small announced that in March 2010 she would go "walking with sticks." Scientific analysts were amazed at Wee Tiny's ability to forecast that sometime in April 2010 she would "dance with some rabbits."

Tummy mountain officials in black suits and sunglasses have documented all the predictions in a calendar, with some artistic impressions of each future event in chronological order, to see whether the little ones' pronouncements will come to pass, or fall by the wayside like so many other flash in the pan hoaxes of the past.


Despite the cynical scepticism of the bureaucracy, on the auspicious date of November 18 journalists from Etsy reported these amazing abilities, but due to my inadequate grasp of what is happening right now (let alone the future, or indeed the past) I was unable to document with strict historical accuracy the news as it broke on the front page of Etsy. Other alternative agencies verified the broadcast as seen here thanks to Craftcult.

rescue mission

The Little One, being the eldest, is far more capable of certain tasks and applying herself than, let's say, Wee Small who tends to crush and break things, then yell at the remains. They say that sometimes little children love things too much. Oh well.

One day when The Little One went out to play she found a butterfly all fresh out of the cocoon drying it's wings in the air and all ready for it's first flight. Unfortunately the ants had found the butterfly too.

The Little One rescued the butterfly, made a nice little home for it with food and all and left it in a nice place outside to recover away from the ants. Which the butterfly did and flew away.

I said to her " You rescued that butterfly you know. The ants would have eaten it."
"Of course they would," she replied "The ants were hungry. I could see that selfish look on their faces."

It was hard to remain composed after that statement.

wee and small and pony

Not long ago the little ones told me about a farm up on the ridge where there were very small ponies.
Now we were there, the little ones and I.
And this is the wee pony

She is clearly a very small pony.
We gave her (and her mum) a carrot and continued on our way.

She is a very sweet (and a very small) pony.

wee piggy bank

Wee Small has been saving up.
She now has 11 moneys.
She is going to buy a real live pony.
Do you think she has enough?

misery on the mountain

All the little ones have the sniffles.
So have I.
Never has there been such misery.
We like to wallow in our misery.

other worlds

Sometimes when I am cooking up some soup for the wee tinies I will ask The Little One, she being the eldest and most responsible, if she could gather some ingredients from the vegetable patch. She'll stop whatever she is doing and go out and do this for me. She has always been happy to do this. And now I know why.

Last night I went with her and discovered a whole new world on tummy mountain that I was unaware of. With her little lamp in hand that bobs along leaving a pool of light glowing around her feet she is joined first by a mysterious cat - huge fat and black, that runs around and pounces on her, runs off into the darkness, returns and pounces on her again. He is playing some kind of game on his own. Who could understand the imaginings of this night predator. The Little One says hello but is barely deflected on her way to the vegetable patch.

The cat slinks off into the night, and almost immediately the happy "voot voot" noises of the bandicoots start up again. Their little shadowy bodies scurry about as they snuffle and happily dig up the front lawn looking for grubs. Voot.

When she reaches the vegetable patch The Little One says hello to all the snails that have come out to eat our vegetables. They are her little friends and she has a wee talk to them as she gathers some spinach. She helps the occasional straggler straight onto a tomato plant. It is their food first and foremost, we are just borrowing some leaves of spinach. Satisfied that everyone is happy she heads back inside.

On her way back everything that happened before happens again, just in reverse order.