Dragon poo, nasturtiums and why we need both…

Yesterday my daughter and I spent most of the day in our small suburban garden, planting, pruning, weeding and watering. For young children, everyday tasks such as these can be a bit tedious which is why I try to mix a little magic in with the mundane whenever I’m outside with my kids. In doing so, I’ve found that they are far more likely to engage with nature and are then happy to help out with boring garden tasks. With some forward-planning (and a trip to my local nursery), our back garden was turned into a haven for fairies, a hideout for gnomes and the stomping ground of a large but, thankfully, benevolent dragon.

Whilst watering we found a beautiful fairy pond in a nasturtium leaf and picked some of the flowers to add to our salad for lunch. We also harvested some delicious fresh chillies from a plant sown into our garden a month ago. It is now laden with chillies of every colour and has by its very beauty encouraged my daughter to explore spicier flavours.

Not far from this plant we unearthed a cheeky looking Gnome who seemed quite content to hang out amongst some Violets. Gnomes are funny creatures. You either love ‘em or hate ‘em, but let me give you the tip, when a child discovers one by chance and you hear the resultant squeal of glee and witness the huge smiles radiating from a 6 year old; I guarantee that you’ll tolerate even the most kitsch Gnome face smiling up from the greenery.

When mowing the lawn we found a hole that had obviously been scraped out by a very large creature. We suspected a dragon and our theory was confirmed when not much further along we located some dragon poo (small white pebbles) neatly piled up under a lavender bush. This dragon was obviously trying hard to cover his tracks, but no such luck when you have an eager dragon-hunter hot on your heels.

Probably the highlight of the day was discovering some precious fairy glitter left on my daughter’s tomato plant. We have collected this and will add it to our found collection of nature’s treasures, unless of course, the fairies come asking for it.

The cost of providing the ’set’ for this outdoor magic was minimal – a bag of white pebbles, one ceramic gnome, one chilli plant, a willingness to dig a hole in my lawn, a pot of gold glitter glue and a cardboard box. The upside is I now have a willing helper who is keen to weed the garden with me when she gets home from school later today.

The outdoors is where imagination and discovery collide in the most spectacular fashion. Mother Nature’s secrets are just begging to be discovered and what’s more, she is a brilliant, patient teacher and your child a willing student. Everything outdoors is pure magic. Encourage your child to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, the magic in the mundane and the enchantment in the everyday and the word boring will vanish from your vocabulary…….

Honesty (gulp) the best policy?

I have been tagged by the delightful and ever surprising Ms Almeras of Grass Stain Guru fame for the Honest Scrap Award. Thank you Bethe for nominating me and for being prepared to learn more about just how eclectic and vaguely inconsistent I really am…

So it works like this. I have to share 10 really honest things about myself that you wouldn’t normally glean from reading my blog, following me on Twitter or interacting with me in any other social media format. And I have to tag 7 other bloggers to participate. I do wish I could tag more people….

Like Bethe, I believe this is a fun way of deepening relationships with the people I admire and respect, rather than yet another inane social media questionnaire or dorky cyber game.

So here are my ten in no particular order.

1. I have learnt (via a hairy abseiling experience) that when I am afraid, my language becomes very blue.

2. I am in awe of Jean Luc Picard of Star Trek – Next Generation. Come to think of it, most older, craggy, bald men make me quiver.

3. My love of green jalapeno peppers, porridge with brown sugar and strawberries, fresh roasted beetroot, sambal oelek, lombok, haloumi, ocean trout, green papaya, Herbert Adam’s jam donuts, Osso Buco, mashed potato, salt & vinegar chips, Vietnamese mint, Thai basil, quality rump steak, Bufalo mozzarella, Tasmanian scallops and Daim bars knows no bounds. Thankfully, I don’t yet eat them at one sitting.

4. Whenever I go fishing, I always catch one. Always.

5. I would pack up my family in a flash for the chance to live, work and #playoutdoors in Scotland. Especially if it meant frontage on the River Tay.

6. I believe in faeries and dragons. Really, I absolutely do. This is why I’d like to live in Scotland. I am certain they have an abundance of both.

7. I adore everything about being outside but I loathe camping. I hope that my #playoutdoors friends will continue to talk to me after this admission.

8. I am VERY afraid of moths, especially furry ones but, (see point 1), I am yet to swear at one.

9. I hate make up, shoes, bras and having my hair ‘done’. And yet I can be incredibly girly.

10. I write in ink and always will. And I’m currently having a love-in with 2B pencils.

So there you have it. Now I must away to make some porridge and consider swearing at a moth. All in a day’s work really…

You’ve been tagged: I pass the baton onto 7 fabulous people.

1. The delightful @iconic88
2. The beautifully creative @littlehumbugs
3. The smart and ever-informed @Amalari
4. The humorous @KidQuestTV
5. The prolific @frombecca
6. The passionate @tandrusiak
7. The enigmatic @kcarruthers

Let kids climb trees!

I love this picture. I took it at our farm over the weekend. I crept up on my son who was relaxing in the tree (an ornamental cherry by the way), before he resumed a game of ’skip’ with our dog. I love the mix of nature, relaxation and child.

The power of “people variety” in a child’s life …

My girlfriend recently rang to ask if my husband would be prepared to take on an informal mentoring role for her teenage son. She is a single working mother and her son has limited access to positive male role models. This led me to thinking about how important it is to provide children with access to a rich tapestry of characters, personalities and divergent views whenever we can.

Last week my daughter’s Godfather came for dinner. He lives approximately 300kms from us, so we see him only sporadically but when we do, my daughter fairly wriggles out of her skin with excitement. She leaps on him like a wild woman and covers him in wet 6yr old kisses. I find this interesting because to my mind, they are so very different. He is a 58yr old farmer. His own children have left home so he no longer has ready access to a 6yr old squealing girl (and is probably somewhat relieved by this). He is loud, can be gruff and his language is blue, very blue. He always looks grizzled, with large ‘farmer’ hands – the kind that made Solvol a household word. But my daughter just adores him. She constantly circles about the dinner table and every now and then will sneak up and give him a gentle squeeze or a little kiss on his stubbly chin – expecting nothing in return. She delights in tut-tutting when his language gets animated and enjoys listening to his realistic tales of life on a working farm (think killing snakes, being crushed by a cow, having to shoot your own working dog, rolling your quad bike and having to walk 3kms home with a broken foot to name a few). Their life experiences could not be more different. What they do share in common, however, is a love of life, a rich imagination and a fierce loyalty to friends and family.

Then there’s (my soon to be 90 year old) friend. She has known both my children since birth. She is one of the most intelligent, articulate women I know but sadly she is now nearly completely deaf and quite blind. She still lives alone in a house she has owned for over 50 years. It has had only minor renovations during that time. It is full of “old-fashioned” things such as a wireless, dainty tea cups, lace doilies, funny figurines and magazines and books from the ’30s. She is incredibly thrifty, for example she can get 3 cups of tea out of one tea bag (ugh). Her cooking is reminiscent of the 1950s as is her taste in music and fashion. She took up Latin lessons a few years ago. I love her to bits and so do my children. They love her wrinkly skin, her love of animals, her Tuna Bake, helping her make a cake ‘the old-fashioned way’, her ‘funny views’ and even her determination to give them some kind of religious faith. They have learnt to speak slowly and clearly when with her, looking her in the eye and smiling. They have learnt about patience and interacting positively with older people. They revel in listening to stories of their neighbourhood from times gone by such as how she travelled around Sydney prior to construction of the Harbour Bridge and the introduction of high-speed catamarans. She teaches them things I could never hope to impart.

I don’t want my children to have a ’same, same, ching, ching’ approach to life, filling it with people of similar backgrounds and beliefs. I want them to learn to independently seek out rich cultural experiences whenever they can, hunt for differing opinions and learn, with maturity and grace to accept that life is jam-packed with diversity and it is precisely this diversity that will enrich their lives. In fact, I see it as part of my job description as a mother, to provide them with access to unusual people, places and situations until they are old enough to do it for themselves.

Maybe this is why I like social media platforms like Twitter so much. There are MANY people I follow whose views are completely at odds with mine. However, I still value our relationship and what they are able to teach me. You’ve got to love that!

How to mix Gumnuts with Cinnamon

Some months of the year evoke more memories than others don’t they? When I was a child I used to love sitting at the kitchen table with my mother making clove pomanders in December. My little fingers had to work hard to push the spiky cloves into an orange but the resultant decorations were well worth it. Mum was a firm believer that they also kept silverfish at bay, but I’m not so sure. No matter its application, the rich scent of that little circle wafting from the table smelt, well, “happy” to me. To this day, I always think of my beautiful mother when I see a jar of cloves, let alone smell them. And together with cinnamon, nutmeg (or mace) it evokes memories of good times, home as haven and the tingling feeling that Christmas is not far away…

Many pot potpourris have the same effect on me. Considered a bit old fashioned by some, my kids and I still love making the occasional batch, because it is dead easy to do and there are no particular rules as to how one goes about it.

Given I am always looking for a way to mix the outdoors with the indoors, I devised an Australian twist on a Christmas potpourri using Gumnuts as one of the main ingredients:

GUMNUT POTPOURRI

You will need to head outdoors and find a good selection of dried gumnuts, (or other interesting seed pods), a handful of orange leaves (and if possible orange flowers) and then head back inside and find:

 1 firm orange
 1-2 teaspoons or Orris Root powder
 a few cinnamon quills
 a teaspoon of ground nutmeg
 a handful of cloves
 drops of orange blossom oil
 drops of cinnamon oil

Method:

 Dry the orange leaves and flowers on a cake rack in a light airy spot for a week or so until crisp to the touch.
 Slice the orange into thin rings around ½ cm in width. Rub with some orris root powder. Place on a cake tray in a cool oven (around 120 degrees Celsius) until the orange has dried and become crisp without burning. Remove and cool completely.
 In a decorative bowl of your child’s choice, combine the cinnamon quills, cloves, gumnuts and dried orange leaves, flowers and segments. Now gently transfer the mixture into a large paper bag and add the orris root powder. Hold the bag closed and gently toss the ingredients so the orris root is distributed evenly. You really should store this away for a month or so, but we’ve never had the patience for that.
 Empty the contents of the paper bag back into your bowl and sprinkle with a few drops of each of the essential oils. Every month or so, you might need to add a few more drops of oil.

And Aunty Shirl would be who exactly? Kid’s family/Christmas tree

My 6 year old asked me this question today. It was impossible for her to conceptulise my answer of “Great Aunt”. I then remembered a craft activity that we undertook last year and how, over the festive season, it’s likely that I will be asked this question several times.

Like me, it’s possible that you will spend more time (over the next month) with family than at any other time of the year. This includes family members that we only see once a year, sometimes extending to distant relatives from overseas. Explaining to my kids “who fits where” in their family tree can be tricky, so I devised a visual family tree that is easy to make and is more easily understood by young ones than its written counterpart.

With your children, collect some larger leafless branches that look like mini trees (we used a dried-out giant seed head from a Bangalow Palm). Using some coloured string or ribbon, help your children tie their favourite photos or pictures of their family to the branches (photocopy them if you don’t want to use the originals). Start with Grandpa and Grandma and work your way down the tree. Don’t forget the family pets! Use a bucket of sand to hold the tree in place. And hey presto – your family is revealed in all its glory hanging from a cute tree.

Alternatively, if you don’t have ready access to dried branches or twigs, draw the outline of a tree onto some art card, collect some leaves, write the names of each family member onto individual leaves and glue them onto the paper tree…

If you celebrate Christmas you can do the same but replace family photos with home made ornaments or found objects such as pretty shells, conkers, gum nuts, buttons, pretty berries or so on.

These activities are cheap, green and kids just LOVE them.

What I’m giving the kids this Christmas? Nothing…

In Australia, for many december means celebrating Christmas, hot days, gifts, reconnection and relaxation, family, more hot days and approximately 9 weeks of holidays. We’re a month into summer and the heat can be oppressive. If you’re lucky and have access to a pool, beach or outback dam, the summer break invariably means much time spent cooling off in the water, perfecting the ultimate ‘bomb’ or dive, hunting for sea creatures in the sparkling depths of rockpools and seaweed forests or catching yabbies using nothing other than a bit of string and some pongy meat.

If you observe the religious or festive traditions of Christmas, however, it can be frustrating to watch the mainly European and North American media representation of ‘what’ Christmas is. Reindeer, snow (and the associated activities the white stuff brings), hot baked dinners, holly and mistletoe, mulled wine and egg nog all abound, to name just a few. I’ve only had the opportunity to celebrate one such december where the temperature dipped below freezing. That was in Scotland many years ago and it was brilliant. I’m determined that one day I will give my children the same opportunity. Meantime, here in Sydney, the Christmas “markers” in our mainstream media just seem plain silly.

So I thought I’d share what the summer break means to me and my family. Firstly, school has finished for the year. This means several things. No homework for up to 9 weeks (a personal favourite of mine); endless stretches of warm days, sea breezes and late nights attempting to avoid dive-bombing, manic and hungry mosquitoes, whilst watching reruns of ridiculous, yet highly entertaining B-grade movies.

It’s spending most of the day in our bathers eating mangoes, lychees, rambutans, strawberries and raspberries and then washing the sticky juice off arms and legs whilst running under the sprinkler (regardless of age). The rules are relaxed on who sleeps where and at what time one goes to bed. I often wake in the gentle, quiet hours of early morning to find my babies sleeping on the couch or verandah with our puppies – it’s a delightful amorphous mass of arms, paws, the occasional snort, whiskers, twitches and general loveliness.

It’s getting up early before the day becomes too warm to walk the puppies but forgetting to change out of your PJ bottoms. And then the flooding sense of relief as you meet other people on the harbour track who’ve done exactly the same thing. It’s the daily opportunity to head to the beach, and later that evening curl up in bed with the salt still scratching your skin; waking the next morning with a severe case of salt-encrusted bed-head. (This is another favourite of mine as I’m CERTAIN it has to be good for you).

There’s a BBQ to be had every other day, entertaining friends who casually drop in clutching a fine bottle of chilled wine whilst shaking the sand from their shoes. There’s fresh seafood to eat, books to read, summer quizzes to ponder in a newspaper that offers little else at this time of the year.

It’s watching with delight as my children take the “shortcut” and scale the backyard fence to go play with their mates. Summer break means that beach cricket will be played, Lilos will be burst, Aloe vera will be applied to “Coppertone” bums and bathroom scales will be pushed under the vanity until January 1st.

And whilst my family doesn’t observe any particular religion, this time of year will inevitably find us lying under a Moreton Bay Fig in Sydney’s iconic Botanic Gardens listening to Christmas Carols whilst flying foxes screech overhead.

What I like best of all though? Sydney’s summer break affords me the perfect opportunity to remind my children of how to do “nothing” and actually enjoy it. Without the distraction of school or work, the likelihood of over-structured time or play is reduced tenfold. With no formal learning, no rushing here or there, we find ample opportunity to unplug, reconnect with each other and spend way too much time outside in the sun enjoying all that playing outdoors has to offer. I am convinced that this is the best Christmas gift I can give my children.

To all, a happy festive break. Whatever it means to you and however you celebrate, I hope it brings much joy wherever on our beautiful planet you might be.

We’re going on a leaf hunt ….

I’m a little obsessed with leaves. Always have been. Their sheer diversity dazzles me. There are water-lily leaves large enough to hold the weight of a small child. Another plant with leaves so large that its common name is Elephant Ears. Others are tiny and delicate, some thick and fleshy, some are beautifully heart-shaped and still others don’t look like leaves at all.
Mother Nature provides literally thousands of leaf shapes, types and sizes in a dazzling array of colours throughout the year. It’s not just autumn when the beauty of leaves is evident.

So with a cry of “we’re going on a leaf hunt”, set off on an exploration with your child – you’ll be amazed at how many you come across even if you get no further than the back garden.

During one of our forays, my kids and I came up with a funky little activity that can be done year round. I love it for its simplicity, the gentle messages it imparts about nature, but best of all that your children can lead the activity pretty much in its entirety.

BABY LEAF BIRDS

You will need:
 a collection of small leaves, sticks, bark, small dried berries or currants
 a selection of feathers (bought or found)
 a few blocks of Oasis or a roll of tin foil
 PVA or craft glue
 some white or neutral-coloured tissue paper
 flexible thin bits of wire such as plastic coated or thick fuse wire or pipe cleaners
 gold or silver glitter spray (optional)

Method:

 Take a walk around your neighbourhood and collect a variety of objects to make a body, eyes and a beak (such as small spring leaves, sticks, bark and berries or feathers)
 When home, sit outside and carve the oasis or scrunch tin foil into the shape of a bird. (The oasis is easy to carve so young children can do this using a blunt knife).
 Once you and your child are happy with the general shape, use the glue to cover the body with a few layers of tissue paper (torn into small, manageable pieces).
 Wait for the tissue paper and glue to dry, then glue on the baby leaves. Have them all face the same way so they begin to resemble feathers.
 Use real feathers to make the wings. Attach the beak and eyes.
 Finally, twist two bits of wrie or pipe cleaners until they resemble bird’s feet. It’s fun for your child to twist, untwist and twist again.
 When they’re happy with the feet, insert them into the oasis or foil and arrange them so the bird can stand.
 Lightly spray with the glitter for a sparkling version.

Thanks to Katrina Crook for supplying some of the photos. Her website is on my blogroll. Her beautiful work appears throughout our book, Small Fry Outdoors: inspiration for being outdoors with kids (as does this activity!). If you’re interested, click here: http//smallfryfun.com

Have to head outdoors now! Until next time… xx

Who’s afraid of the great outdoors…?

The great outdoors …. sometimes the thought of allowing your child to run free whether it’s in a suburban back garden, small courtyard, farm, park, beach or vacant lot can be a daunting prospect.  There are so many variables; so many places of potential injury.  Every stick, insect, flower can appear to be lurking, waiting to stab, sting or poison.  And sometimes, it will simply not appeal to either of you or finding time in the day may seem impossible.

However, it is a place of wonder for children and a vital tool in helping them make sense of themselves and their environment.  By providing unstructured outdoor time, we assist them to develop confidence, a sense of spirit, independence, resilience and creativity.

My children and I live in a country that  is home to some of the most poisonous creatures in the world.  And whilst I adore Australia, I do intensely dislike the deadly creature thing.  Quite frankly the thought of all those vile critters lurking nearby makes me incredibly resentful and fearful for my young children and pets.

Take our farm for example.  It is an average agricultural holding on the southern tablelands, approximately 300k south-west of Sydney (180k as the crow flies).  When we visit, I am ALWAYS aware of the number of creatures that could potentially kill, injure or maim my children.  Brown and king brown snakes, black snakes, redback spiders, the occasional funnel-web spider, cocktail scorpions, wasps, earwigs, bees, bull ants – you name it – we’ve got ‘em all. However, as a child, I didn’t give them a second thought.  I ran barefoot everywhere (and still do).  I fell off horses after they shied from snakes and simply jumped back on and kept going (three times with a broken arm).  I learnt to ask my mother to shake out boots before putting them on.  If something bit me, I scratched the bite and forgot about it.  Being scared of critters was simply not on my radar.

I realise that I have my mother to thank for this.  She taught me to be aware but not fearful.  ”Always look down when you walk through the bush.  Stop if you see something and back slowly away.  They are more frightened of you than you are of them”, and so on.  Now, as a mother to two young children (and despite my tendency to over-protection), I am determined to make sure that they have a similar carefree childhood. So, instead of dwelling on what might be, I still follow the advice of my beautiful, wise mother.  My children are aware, but not fearful.  They have understood since they were tiny about the concept of responsible risk.  Joyfully, they have learnt to co-exist with “the nasties” (as they call them) and just get on with free fall play outdoors.  

I delight in watching them spin a heavy dose of imagination into their time outside.  After all, outdoors is a place where a child’s  imagination can truly roam free.  There are wild things hiding; it’s home to fairies, pixies and the occasional troll.  There is no room for fear in this imagined world.  It’s a place of high adventure, where they can get down and dirty with bug catcher and magnifying glass in hand.  They can become conquering explorers, artists, amateur botanists, pirates, fairies or Robin Hood all in the blink of an eye.  And what’s more, all the required costumes can be found in-situ.

So, with spring (and autumn) upon us, I encourage you to celebrate outdoors with your children whenever you can.  Splash through puddles, pick some blossoms or colourful leaves, help find fairies, lie under a tree and daydream, hunt for weeds and other garden pests, plant a sunflower, ride a tandem bike, visit a Botanic Garden or just do nothing together.  Whatever outdoors means to you and your child, you can find something together that will delight you both without having to give a second thought to “the nasties”.

Until next time….

a veggie-led backyard revolution…

There’s a quiet revolution going on in the suburban backyards of Australia.  Rather than sitting back and admiring our perfectly manicured “outside rooms”, gazing lovingly at our mondo grass, perfectly coiffed hedges of murraya, buxus or newly acquired rows of trendy agaves, we are choosing to head outside armed with buckets of kitchen scraps, water collected from baths & showers whilst we attempt to figure out where we should build a chicken coop, locate the veggie patch, compost heap and herb garden.

Suffering a slow death (and not for lack of water) is the passive, over-structured garden.  Instead we are rediscovering how much fun it is to actually interact

with Mother Nature and the vital lessons she has to impart to us and our children about nourishing ourselves and our environment.  Despite our hectic lives, we are taking time to get down and dirty, and, somewhat surprisingly, we are finding that we love it.

So what’s behind this shift in the suburban landscape?  I’d suggest a few things.

Everyday we are bombarded with messages on climate change and the potential impact it will have on our lives.  No longer an obscure issue, we (collectively) now have a nascent understanding of some of the associated issues and their ability to directly affect what we do and how we do it.  It unsettles us.  Gone are the days when we could drop a coin into a bucket held by a man dressed in a koala suit and feel that we were doing our bit for the environment.  “Think global, act local” is once again foremost in our minds, so it comforts us on many levels to get out into our backyards, plant trees, attempt to grow our own veggies and provide a safe, happy and productive environment for our family.

The economy is doing nothing to provide peace of mind.  Food, fuel, water, medicines and shelter are all more expensive.  And with the global economy continuing to flat line, the ability to provide the basics for ourselves at reduced cost is very appealing and for many of us, more necessary.

Subconsciously, global terrorism may also be impacting on our lifestyle choices.  Terrorism is no longer a remote event, occurring in a far-off country.  There is an unspoken fear in many communities that some day soon, “something” may happen closer to home.  So our home becomes haven again; we are bunkering down, cocooning and trying to figure out what we should do to protect ourselves and maintain the peaceful lifestyle Australia affords us.

This unease reminds us of the staples of life –we hanker for a return to the “good life” of our childhoods, which was, on the whole, a time spent outside whiling away the day with lots of unstructured play (and not a nintendo in sight) and very little to worry about except what mum was preparing for dinner.  We long to provide this for our own children.

Or maybe it’s none of these.  Perhaps we are simply sick to death of gardens which offer nothing but a vacant green room, with little to engage or educate our children and no place for their beautiful imaginations to take hold.

Whatever the reason, I’m thrilled with our new-found involvement, and am now longing to hear, once again, the 3.00am call of the lovelorn rooster and hoping that I will soon find a beautiful Choko vine spilling over the back fence.

This article has also appeared in a recent edition of the online newspaper, The Punch at http://www.thepunch.com.au/