Nature Journaling

 

Golden Orb-weaving spider

Nephila plumipes

(female) 

The small red spider to the left is the male.

Sunrise 6:29 am

Sunset 5:16 pm

28 July 2018

Saturday

9 - 25' C

Springwood Conservation Park

I took a nature walk on my own today while the children were tucked up at home with coughs and runny noses. It was a nice change to be able to set my own pace, be quiet and listen to the birds and sit still and look for wildlife. I walked off the path and found a big rock to walk on. I heard a rustle in the leaf litter and spotted a goanna eating beneath a tree. I'm not sure what it was eating, but it seemed large, like it was choking. It rubbed its face on the bark of the tree and eventually licked its lips, had a sniff around and wandered off. It was so quiet I heard bird calls I didn't recognise. 

I kept walking and saw a water dragon sunning itself, the colours of its body a brilliant camouflage against the silvery lichen on the rocks. As I walked the loop up to the lookout I snapped off a few twigs and popped them in my backpack. I found a large flat rock at the highest point and sat down and made these sketches in pencil. I walked back to the car as the shadows grew longer and added pen and watercolour at the dining room table, looking up the names of these beautiful native Australian flowers.

Boronia pinnata

Qld silver wattle / Acacia podalyriifolia

Quail play

This Mama bird has been solo parenting for the last week and a half while Dada jaunts around the French alps (aka. attends a friend's wedding and goes snowboarding). I had thought the difficulty in my inaugural two week solo parenting career with our three children would be the prospect of handling dinner, baths and bedtime by myself. Instead, adversity has been more in the form of emotional havoc, as our children endeavour to learn coping strategies to face their fears, frustrations and longings for their father. The actual day to day has been entirely manageable, but peacefully responding to their emotional outbursts has been altogether a different test, and one that I was not expecting.

New family members of the quail kind have been a welcome distraction. These six gorgeous girls have joined our six hens and made feathery nests in our hearts in no time. I had thought quails to be quite plain birds, but upon closer inspection I find them to be quite delightful and intricately patterned. They were rather baffled at their boxed car ride, and less than welcoming of their wing clipping in the bathroom. But when we introduced them to their run they joyously played in the dirt, their previous aviary having a concrete floor. 

Each day they have gifted us with four attractive eggs, which has added a third business to my entrepreneurial children's portfolio, as they are already selling chicken eggs and Golden Apple water snails. Miss Five was horrified to learn that people eat such poultry, so eggs it is.

It was a toss up between quails and Muscovy ducks - as they are great homesteading ducks whose eggs are 1.5 times the size of a hens egg and they hiss rather than quack. I wonder if we have enough room....

Striving

Since we began homeschooling one of my goals has been to spend an hour a day out in 'nature' with the children. It doesn't seem too difficult a task, and yet, the days still fly by and too often we don't manage it. There will be time spent in the back yard, or at horse riding lessons, or on the jujitsu mat. But there is work, groceries, library visits, play dates, pyjama days. Actual free time in nature is more of a weekly than daily occurrence. And yet, I continue to strive for it. 

There is so much to be learnt by spending time outdoors. About oneself as much as about the world around us. We have two spots we visit often, taking mental note of the changes wrought by the seasons, the ebb and flow of the water, the appearance of wildlife.

Recently we walked around our local duck pond once more and noticed a green tree snake, the dappled light of the sun through the trees, the slender neck of an egret. I was inspired to keep striving. xx

Art, science, nature

  1. Magic light, 2. Deadheading the deck flowers, 3. Studying Van Gogh, 4 - 6. STEMbox, 7. Nature box exchange

Anything art, science or nature related is sure to pique my children's interest. And should it be a hands-on activity you best join in our jump out of the way! Lately, we have been adoring the collection of Van Gogh books at our local library and the free Van Gogh resources you can print online. We have brought Science Putty and Magnetic Putty, and they have been loved and fought over and experimented with in equal measure. Another STEMbox arrived, and the children and I were equally fascinated by the magnetic experiments. And, our Spring nature exchange box, through Nature Lovers, arrived and has been proudly brought out to show each visitor the handknit joey pouch, the beautiful photographs our wildlife carer partners have cared for, and the information printed on the reverse of each.

What a feast of learning we have all around us. And how inspiring it is to see it through the curious eyes of a child. xx